By The Vancouver Sun
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For 16 years, Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen has worked to dismantle the
democratic institutions established by the United Nations in 1993 and to
restore the untrammeled power he enjoyed as Vietnam's proxy leader in the 1980s.
Now, it seems, success is within his grasp.
But his dogged determination to root out even the most insignificant and
unthreatening pockets of opposition has led to the publication of three
critical reports in the past few days.
At least nine journalists, opposition members of parliament, lawyers and
government critics have had politically motivated charges of defamation or the
dissemination of disinformation lodged against them in the past few months.
This could be said to be a less drastic fate than has befallen Hun Sen's
political opponents in the past. Many have been murdered by unidentified gunmen.
A statement a few days ago from the office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia warned the use of the courts to
silence opposition or critical voices "is a serious threat to democratic
development which may undermine the efforts of the last 16 years to rebuild a
tolerant and pluralistic environment in Cambodia."
In another report, Brad Adams of New York-based Human Rights Watch said:
"Through violence, threats and money politics, Hun Sen already controls almost
every aspect of Cambodia's politics. Yet his efforts to silence dissent seem
endless. Why does he seem to wake up every day looking for enemies to
persecute? Will this ever end?"
And the Cambodian Center for Human Rights said in its report, "The actions of
the government in the past few months indicate that it is directly and
systematically trying to dissolve the main opposition party [the Sam Rainsy
Party] by filing unfounded criminal lawsuits against its leaders or forcing its
members and supporters to join [Hun Sen's] Cambodian People's Party."
It is a situation full of bleak ironies. Not least of these is that Hun Sen is
squeezing the last bit of life out of Cambodia's democratic institutions as,
after years of tortuous negotiations, the trials are proceeding of some of the
surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime, which murdered about 1.7 million
Cambodians in the 1970s.
It was the Vietnamese-led ouster of the Khmer Rouge in 1979 that brought Hun
Sen to power.
When he failed to win United Nations-imposed elections in 1993, Hun Sen
threatened civil war until he was brought into a coalition with the royalist
party government of Prince Norodom Ranariddh.
Hun Sen dissolved that coalition in 1997 by launching a bloody coup, and since
then his CPP has won overwhelming majorities in 2003 and 2008 elections.
But these victories do not appear to be complete enough for Hun Sen, whose
party now has 90 seats in the 123-seat parliament.
Having disposed of the royalists, Hun Sen has mounted a sustained attack on the
main opposition party, named for its leader, Sam Rainsy, which has 26 seats.
Rainsy himself fled into exile in 2005 after accusing Hun Sen of being behind
the murder of four Sam Rainsy Party members the previous year. He has returned
to Cambodia, but was accused of defamation earlier this year.
Meanwhile, two of Rainsy's members of the National Assembly have had their
parliamentary immunity lifted so they can face charges of criminal defamation.
On July 7, the lawyer representing the two Sam Rainsy Party members resigned
and defected to the ruling CPP after being sued for defamation by Hun Sen and
threatened with disbarment. The parliamentarians have so far been unable to
find a new lawyer brave enough to represent them.
In late June, the owner of an opposition newspaper Machas Srok was sentenced to
one year in prison on charges of disinformation after publishing articles about
government corruption.
The owner of another newspaper, Moneaksekar Khmer, on July 10 closed the paper
rather than face criminal prosecution for criticizing government officials.
In an interview with Radio Australia earlier this month, Sam Rainsy Party
member of parliament Son Chhay said: "I think we will quiet down for a while.
We are not going to raise the issue of corruption. We are not going to speak
about land-grabbing. We are not going to talk about the corrupt court system."
[email protected]
Read Dispatches, Jonathan Manthorpe's blog, at vancouversun.com/blogs
© (c) CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=6788b777-276e-4fce-87b5-09155eaa644f#
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