PHNOM PENH, 10 January 2006 — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is widening a crackdown on government critics in a bid to head off a groundswell of opposition ahead of general elections in 2008. Since October, nearly a dozen criminal cases have been brought against a wide array of critics, from rights workers to journalists and union leaders, mostly for defaming the government over its border pact with Vietnam.
Most recently Kem Sokha, director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, was arrested and charged with defamation, along with his deputy Pa Nguon Teang and another rights activist. They were detained over a banner displayed by the center to mark International Human Rights Day in December that accused the government of selling land to Vietnam. Border feuds tap into an often virulent anti-Vietnamese sentiment in Cambodia, fueled by resentment of Vietnam’s expansionism over the centuries, and the border agreement sparked widespread anger. Hun Sen warned that anyone who accused him of giving land to Hanoi would face charges.
“If there is a single issue with which you can get people emotionally involved, it is border relations with Vietnam,” said a former diplomat to Cambodia who declined to be named. “(The government) was not going to make it easy for any opposition to this, but it was unfairly tough when it came to the border issue.” In a separate case, opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who fled to France in early 2005, was sentenced in absentia in December to 18 months in prison for defaming the premier and the national assembly president. “No one, even within the government, will seriously argue that the courts are independent,” Brad Adams, Asian director for Human Rights Watch, told AFP. “The recent defamation trial of Sam Rainsy makes it clear that when Hun Sen wants a verdict, he will get the one he wants.” The United States and United Nations have denounced the moves, which observers say threaten to undo any of the progress made since a UN-sponsored 1993 general election meant to put Cambodia on a democratic path.
The Sam Rainsy party, with heavy international backing, has made steady gains in the two national elections since, and observers say it could overrun Hun Sen’s coalition partner, the royalist FUNCINPEC party, in two years. Fearing being forced into a coalition with Sam Rainsy, his fiercest political rival, Hun Sen has set about dismantling the opposition party, driving several of its leaders into exile while beating those left behind into submission with threats and lawsuits. “We are concerned that this may be part of a broader plan to quash the opposition,” US Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli told reporters following Kem Sokha’s arrest Dec. 31. “The prospects for a credible and free election in 2008 are being impaired,” he said. “They’ve scared the hell out of the opposition and it becomes more difficult to take these trappings of democracy as the real thing.” Basil Fernando, of the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), also argued that the lawsuits showed the ruling party feared losing control over a deeply resentful population that has been repeatedly let down by the government.
