[The United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, Rhona Smith, warned last month that the dissolution of the opposition would be a dangerous move toward one-party rule, saying it “would affect Cambodians’ voice and choice at all levels of government.”]
By Julia Wallace
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There was heavy security outside the Supreme
Court in Phnom Penh, Cambodia,
on Thursday as the court dissolved the main
opposition party, effectively ending
the country’s post-Khmer Rouge experiment with
pluralistic democracy.
Credit Tang Chhin Sothy/Agence France-Presse —
Getty Images
|
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia —
Cambodia’s highest court on Thursday dissolved the main opposition party,
eliminating the most popular and viable challenger to the country’s
authoritarian leader before elections next year.
Human
rights groups and the United Nations said the decision to shutter the Cambodia
National Rescue Party, or C.N.R.P., would render the country essentially a
one-party state, ending its post-Khmer Rouge experiment with pluralistic
democracy.
The
ruling followed a lawsuit filed last month by the government against the
opposition, asserting that it was involved in a United States-backed plot to
overthrow the Cambodian People’s Party and its powerful leader, Prime Minister
Hun Sen.
In
announcing the ruling, Dith Munty, the chief judge of the Supreme Court, said,
“It is a serious crime, so the party will be dissolved according to Article 38
of the Law on Political Parties.” The judge is also a high-ranking member of
the governing party and a close associate of Mr. Hun Sen.
There is
no right to appeal.
The
decision, which will see scores of opposition officials barred from politics
and their party stripped of its parliamentary seats, was the culmination of a
crackdown in which the opposition leader was jailed, media outlets closed and
activists harassed, with a particular focus on groups linked to the United
States.
The
International Commission of Jurists, a nongovernmental rights group, said the
hearing and Judge Dith Munty’s role in it made “a mockery of justice.”
“The
Supreme Court is irreparably interfering with the rights of potentially
millions of Cambodians to freely choose their political representatives and
vote for them in the upcoming elections,” said Kingsley Abbott, the group’s
senior legal adviser in Southeast Asia.
The
United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, Rhona Smith,
warned last month that the dissolution of the opposition would be a dangerous
move toward one-party rule, saying it “would affect Cambodians’ voice and
choice at all levels of government.”
The
opposition has insisted that the charges of sedition are spurious, and that its
activities have been aimed only at winning national elections and forming a
legitimate government. It did not send a lawyer to Thursday’s hearing, saying
that there was no use contesting what appeared to be a foregone conclusion.
Mr. Hun
Sen has spent the past month publicly boasting about the opposition party’s
imminent elimination. In an address last week, he set odds of 1 to 100 that the
C.N.R.P. would be dissolved, and urged Cambodians to place cash bets at noodle
shops.
The push
to eliminate the opposition has also coincided with a turn away from the West,
which had long kept the Cambodian government in check with aid that carried
conditions for democratization.
Nonetheless,
Mr. Hun Sen has expressed a personal affinity for President Trump that seems to
transcend his antipathy for the United States. On Monday, at a summit in Manila
for Southeast Asian leaders, the two posed for a photograph — Mr. Trump giving
a big thumbs up — and Mr. Hun Sen gave a gushing speech in which he said, “I
don’t know if you are like me, or I am like you.”
Mr. Hun
Sen also praised what he called Mr. Trump’s lack of interest in human rights
and interventionism, and suggested that the State Department and the United
States Embassy in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, were not appropriately
implementing the Trump “policy line.”
The
Cambodia National Rescue Party, formed in 2012, has garnered widespread
popularity with a blend of rights-oriented liberalism, economic populism and
anti-Vietnamese nationalism. It has been welcomed by many simply as a fresh
choice in a country that has been led by Mr. Hun Sen’s party in some form since
1979.
In
general elections in 2013 and in local elections this past June, the C.N.R.P.
nearly matched the popular vote tally of the governing party, which had
maintained tight control over local political networks, the military and the
judiciary. Significantly, the opposition party took control of a third of local
administrative bodies across Cambodia in the elections in June.
A little
more than a month after that vote, Mr. Hun Sen began one of his harshest
crackdowns in years.
Forty-four
of the opposition party’s lawmakers have fled the country since early
September. Of the 11 remaining, two are in prison, including the party’s
leader, Kem Sokha, charged with treason and accused of spearheading a plot.
Hundreds
of local officials have been targeted by the crackdown, in which Mr. Hun Sen
pressed them to join his party or face serious consequences. Some have reported
being detained until they agreed.
In
August, the National Democratic Institute, an American nonprofit group, was
expelled from Cambodia, and Radio Free Asia, run by the United States
government, was shut down for alleged tax offenses.
Late
Tuesday, two of Radio Free Asia’s former employees in Phnom Penh were arrested,
accused of continuing to work covertly for the broadcaster. They are to appear
Friday in court to face charges of “supplying a foreign state with information
prejudicial to national defense,” which carries a prison term of up to 15
years, police officials said.
As proof
of the supposed plot, the government and its lawyers cited videos and pictures
of opposition party activists demonstrating and meeting “foreigners,” including
State Department officials and Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and John McCain of
Arizona.
However,
the government’s main evidence appeared to be a video clip of Mr. Kem Sokha
from 2013 telling a crowd of supporters that he had received advice and support
from the United States. He has been jailed since September over the footage.
In an
effort to prove the United States had backed a revolution, the government’s
lawyers also quoted a speech last year by Mr. Trump, then president-elect, in
which he said, “We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know
nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with.”
“This
clearly shows the U.S. had a policy to topple the government of other
countries,” the lawyers told the Supreme Court.
The mood
in Phnom Penh was tense in the days leading up to the decision, with the
government mobilizing hundreds of police officers and army personnel and
banning political protest. Barricades blocked major roads leading to the
Supreme Court in the city center.
On
Wednesday night, armed government forces raided several offices of
nongovernmental organizations, checking for hidden protesters.
In a
speech delivered on Thursday while the Supreme Court was still in session, Mr.
Hun Sen announced that he planned to continue leading the country for at least
another decade — despite the fact that elections are scheduled for next July.
“We are
Cambodia,” he said. “We don’t give the opportunity to foreign countries to
interfere with our internal affairs.”
Sun
Narin contributed reporting.
