Hun Sen Turns Kenyan Turmoil on UN Nemesis [-Hun Sen has nothing to say to defend his personal records]

"Whatever [Ghai] said about Cambodia is his country's problem, not Cambodia's problem" - Hun Sen

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
03 January 2008

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday slammed UN human rights envoy Yash Ghai and his homeland, Kenya, which has undergone political turmoil in recent weeks.

In the latest round of verbal attacks against the UN secretary-general's rights representative to Cambodia, who has been critical of the prime minister and his government, Hun Sen said Ghai should be sent "to work in his own country." "This is the New Year message I want to send to the secretary-general: Whatever [Ghai] said about Cambodia is his country's problem, not Cambodia's problem," Hun Sen said in a public address in Phnom Penh.

In December, Ghai, who is from Kenya, reported that Cambodians could rise up against the government, which has failed to provide them with security, as more and more land is stolen from Cambodia's poor.

Ghai was shunned on his visit by government officials and met only with human rights workers and the displaced rural poor.

"Everything that happened in his country, he compares it to Cambodia. The systematic violation of human rights happens in his country," Hun Sen said. "The president [of Kenya] ordered the shootings, so the soldiers have to carry out the order. Now, the death toll is over 300. There is no rule of law in the country. Even on New Year's Day there is killing. Even people who were trying to hide in a church were killed. So, Yash Ghai, who is the UN secretary-general's special rights representative to Cambodia, tries to come to Cambodia to teach us."

Hun Sen also compared the post-election rioting to Cambodia's killing fields.

"There is killing and bloody violence there. Kenya is almost becoming a killing field," the Associated Press quoted Hun Sen saying Thursday.

Violence in Kenya: Should it be compared to the "Killing fields" or "Hun Sen's bloody coup d'etat"?

Cambodia's leader calls Kenyan violence the 'killing fields'

Thursday, January 3, 2008
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Cambodia's prime minister compared Kenya's bloody rioting to the "killing fields," continuing a scathing attack Thursday against a Kenyan-born U.N. envoy who criticized the Southeast Asian nation's human rights record.

Prime Minister Hun Sen said Cambodia's troubles were nothing compared to the situation in Kenya, where an estimated 300 people have been killed in rioting since the African nation's highly contested Dec. 27 presidential election.

"There is killing and bloody violence there. Kenya is almost becoming a killing field," Hun Sen said, using the term synonymous with the Khmer Rouge's genocidal reign of Cambodia in the 1970s which led to some 1.7 million deaths.

Hun Sen has persistently denounced Yash Ghai, the U.N. special envoy for human rights in Cambodia, since the envoy's Dec. 1-10 visit to the country.

Ghai criticized the government's alleged rights violations and called the judiciary "a perversity." He predicted that Cambodians were eventually "going to rise" against the government.

"All the points he raised in his human rights reports about Cambodia are now happening in his own country," Hun Sen said.

Hun Sen, who has had a prickly relationship with U.N. envoys, has vowed to never meet Ghai. Hun Sen shunned the Kenyan constitutional lawyer during his recent trip.