July, 2018
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អនាគតអ្នកប្រជាធិបតេយ្យនៅកម្ពុជា
បទវិភាគអំពីអនាគតអ្នកប្រជាធិបតេយ្យនៅកម្ពុជានៅពេលនេះ លោកសុភ័ណផ្តោតអារម្មណ៏ខ្លាំងទៅលើភាពជាអ្នកដឹកនាំរបស់គណបក្សសង្គ្រោះជាតិមុននិងក្រោយពីត្រូវបានរំលាយ និងប្រធានត្រូវបានគេចាប់ដាក់គុក។ ជាដំណោះស្រាយ ប្រធានត្រូវបានគេចាប់ដាក់គុកនិងអនុប្រធានអវុសោគាំងខ្លួនមិនអាចកំរើកបាន អតីតប្រធានគឺលោកសម-រង្សុីគួរត្រូវបានគេជ្រើសតាំងជាប្រធានសារឡើងវិញយ៉ាងហោចណាស់ក្នុងដំណាក់កាលអន្តរកាលនេះ។
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Cambodia’s ‘dirty dozen’ have no place in Australia
Op-Ed: The Sydney Morning Herald
Cambodia’s ‘dirty dozen’ have no place in Australia
In June, Human Rights Watch released a report, Cambodia’s Dirty Dozen, profiling 12 senior generals in the military, police and gendarmerie who are responsible for serious and systematic human rights violations. They owe their senior positions in the security forces to their political and personal links with Hun Sen.
The abuses in which the 12 are implicated include violations of human rights, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed from the 1970s to the present. Most of the 12 have been implicated in the use of unnecessary, excessive, and sometimes lethal force against protests about unfree and unfair elections, land confiscations, labour abuses and low wages. Many have also been involved in non-political abuses against the ordinary population, such as land seizures, murder, torture, and arbitrary detention.
Some, like Pol Sarouen and Kun Kim, are running as Cambodian People’s Party candidates in the upcoming election.
The Australian government has invested many millions of dollars to promote democratic reform and rule of law in Cambodia over the years. Yet the corrosive effect of the politicised leadership of the Cambodian security services and impunity for human rights violations thwart these efforts.
To begin to address this problem, the Australian government should support independent investigations into these individuals and others involved in serious human rights violations in Cambodia.
And as a matter of urgency, it should place a travel ban on these officials and any others involved in human rights violations to prevent them travelling to Australia.
Australia still provides training to Cambodian security forces and it’s possible that some of these generals may come to Australia for training programs or holidays. In assessing visa applications, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection considers “relevant public interest criteria, including foreign policy interest, national security and character requirements”, which would include credible allegations of human rights abuses.
In addition to travel bans, the Australian government should go one step further and impose asset freezes against these generals and against senior members of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, which has been in power for almost 40 years through repression and massive corruption. The Autonomous Sanctions Act 2011 allows for imposing these kinds of targeted sanctions in situations of international concern, such as “the grave repression of the human rights or democratic freedoms of a population by a government”. However, the government has used these measures very rarely.
The Future of Cambodia’s Opposition
Op-Ed: Medium
Clean fingers
Choice of Cambodian Voters for this July 29, 2018 election
The GDP was founded in August 2015. A year later, its chief architect, Kem Ley, was assassinated in broad daylight in Phnom Penh on a Sunday morning.
The popular social commentator was on July 10, 2016, shot in the temple and beneath his arm from point-blank range moments after sitting down for a gas-station coffee in a Caltex in central Phnom Penh — a twice-daily ritual.
After her husband’s death, a pregnant Bou Rachana fled with her four young sons to Bangkok, where she gave birth to a fifth son. She was then last year granted a visa to move to Melbourne, Australia, where she now lives and has slowly started to speak out on social media.
Crushingly for Saing Koma and Inn, Rachana has sided with the CNRP.
Two days after the GDP selected Saing Koma as it candidate for prime minister in the July 29 election, Rachana took to Facebook to post a selfie showing a raised forefinger — symbolically unblemished by the ink used to stain fingers to prevent people voting twice — to declare her stance.
The image of the raised finger, which has become an increasingly popular gesture for pro-boycott voices in the face of government threats (named the “Clean Finger” campaign), was widely shared by Cambodians.
Then in an interview with Radio Free Asia a week later, she said she believed her husband too would have boycotted the vote.
“We are citizens, we have Cambodian blood, and we are the masters of our nation and owners of our ballots,” she said in the interview. “We have the right to decide [who to vote for] according to the desire of our hearts,” she said.
It was a victory for the CNRP, not least because Rachana and her sons attracted intense pity from Cambodians across the political aisle. But it was also a symbolic victory because Kem Ley’s shadow still looms over Cambodia as a memory of a time when things finally seemed to be improving.
Unusually for a Cambodian in the political spotlight, he had strived to keep up an reputation of independence between the government and opposition, believing that Cambodia would forever be kept under the thumb of foreign powers if no one stood up to unite its leaders in common cause.
For many who had tired of watching Hun Sen and Sam Rainsy bickering for the past two decades, he was a breath of fresh air. Only a lowly adviser in the Health Ministry shortly before the 2013 election, he quickly built a large following with his readiness to criticize the CPP and CNRP in equal measure.
Differences in the CPP
Kem Ley’s message had seemed to be seeping through to both parties.
On the back of Kem Ley’s advice, the CNRP’s Sokha announced that tycoons who had grown rich under the CPP would not fear reprisals or seizures of their wealth if the CNRP came to power but had to be open to reform.
The interior minister has long been Hun Sen’s main rival for power in the CPP, after inheriting a vast patronage network centered on his ministry and in Battambang province in the west from his brother-in-law — the CPP’s late founding president Chea Sim, who died in 2015.
According to Brad Adams, who was a U.N. official in Phnom Penh in the 1990s and is now deputy head of Human Rights Watch for Asia, Kheng and his allies even refused to join in Hun Sen’s ouster of his Funcinpec coalition partner, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, in the 1997 factional fighting.
His arrest would cause chaos, he said, and police must prevent chaos. It appeared to be a major opening in the spirit of promoting reconciliation between the parties promoted by Kem Ley, but the reprieve was short lived.
The next day, the Air Force’s Chinese-built helicopters and Navy speedboats circled the CNRP’s riverside headquarters, where the opposition leader had been in hiding from Hun Sen’s threats for months. In front of the building, balaclava-clad soldiers from Hun Sen’s elite personal bodyguard unit clasping AK-47s repeatedly drove past to hammer home the message.
Threats and corruption: Behind the scenes of Cambodia’s election crackdown
Threats and corruption: Behind the scenes of Cambodia’s election crackdown
Cambodia ranks as one of the world’s most corrupt countries – but after an extensive forensic investigation, Al Jazeera found that corruption stretches far beyond the country’s borders, all the way to Australia.
In 2016, the anti-corruption NGO, Global Witness, released a ground-breaking report exposing the widespread business interests of long-standing Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, his family and their cronies.
Hun Sen’s family was shown to have links to more than 100 companies across all sectors of the economy including tourism, agriculture, mining, electricity and the media as well as affiliations with top international brands.
The family’s combined wealth is estimated to be anywhere from $500m to $1bn.
Kem Ley, a popular Cambodian social commentator and fearless critic of the Hun Sen government’s corruption and nepotism, went on radio calling for a full investigation into the family’s business interests.
Two days later, he was shot in broad daylight in a Phnom Penh cafe.
Human beings are like animal, without law and moral, are worse than animals – Thomas Hobbs
![Vibol Kong, Cambodia's director general of taxation [Al Jazeera]](http://www.sophanseng.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Vibol-Kong.jpg)
Vibol Kong, Cambodia’s director general of taxation [Al Jazeera]