[A former Khmer Rouge leader who later helped overthrow Pol Pot, Hun Sen got a shock in national elections in 2013, when the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party did surprisingly well. It was buoyed by support from young voters who had not experienced the brutal genocide of the Khmer Rouge era and therefore did not feel a special gratitude to Hun Sen for leading them out of that awful period.]
By
Anna Fifield
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Cambodia's
Prime Minister Hun Sen and his wife Bun Rany dance on stage during
an
opening ceremony for the Khmer New Year at the Angkor complex in Siem
Reap
province. (TANG CHHIN SOTHY/AFP/Getty Images)
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PHNOM
PENH — The United States has been busy in Cambodia
these past few months, if Hun Sen’s government is to be believed. Between
trying to overthrow the government and secretly backing the now-dissolved
opposition party, it has been supporting journalists who report “fake news” and
spy for Washington.
Oh, and the CIA has assassinated a prominent
political analyst. (Never mind that the analyst was actually a critic of the
government and should therefore have been on the CIA’s side, if the conspiracy
theories are to be consistent.)
As Hun Sen, who has been Cambodia’s prime
minister for the past 33 years, takes steps to ensure he’s returned to office
in a July 29 election, he has been looking for an external threat to rally
support against. And he found the perfect bad guy in the United States.
“The U.S. has become the boogeyman here,”
says Naly Pilorge, head of the Phnom Penh-based human rights organization
Licadho.
A former Khmer Rouge leader who later helped
overthrow Pol Pot, Hun Sen got a shock in national elections in 2013, when the
main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party did surprisingly well. It was
buoyed by support from young voters who had not experienced the brutal genocide
of the Khmer Rouge era and therefore did not feel a special gratitude to Hun
Sen for leading them out of that awful period.
During local elections in June last year,
opposition parties won 44 percent of the vote despite concerted efforts to
suppress them. That was too close for the government’s comfort, Western
diplomats in Phnom Penh say.
Since then, Hun Sen’s efforts to suppress
opposition and criticism have intensified – and much of it has a strong
anti-American streak.
The CNRP’s leader, Kem Sokha, was arrested on
charges of treason last September, accused of conspiring with the United States
to overthrow Hun Sen’s government. He has been held in a remote prison on the
border with Vietnam and will remain there until after the July 29 vote.
Shortly after he was arrested, the party was
formally dissolved for plotting a “coup,” essentially wiping out the prime minister’s
competition.
“That body is dead and was taken to be
cremated and buried. We don’t know where the bones are, so there will be no
resurrection,” Hun Sen said during a speech to students May 1.
The outside criticism has been pointed.
Rhona Smith, the United Nations’ special
rapporteur for Cambodia, said last week that the election could not be
“genuine” if the main opposition party was barred from taking part.
There is no sign, though, that the
authorities will have a change of heart.
The United States and the European Union
earlier this year cut off funding to the National Election Committee, which is
supposed to be an independent election supervisor but is widely considered to
be doing Hun Sen’s bidding.
Both China and Russia, by contrast, have
offered to send election monitors instead, as well as ballot boxes and voting
booths.
The United States in March joined 44 other
countries in a joint call through the U.N. Human Rights Council for the
Cambodian authorities to ensure that the election will be free and fair,
starting by reinstating the CNRP and releasing Kem Sokha.
“The international community has not
exhausted all the options yet,” said Monovithya Kem, a CNRP spokeswoman and the
daughter of the party’s jailed leader. She is in exile in Washington, and the
Hun Sen government has accused her and her sister of being CIA agents.
“We have not seen democratic countries
working together having a unified message and a unified response to this
Cambodian crisis,” she said.
More international pressure could have a big
impact, said Lao Mong Hay, one of Cambodia’s leading public intellectuals,
especially if sanctions were imposed on Cambodia’s leaders.
“Without any pressure from the outside or
within the country, Cambodia is becoming a dictatorship,” he said. “There is no
democracy or human rights or rule of law.”
While banning his rivals, Hun Sen’s government
has been cracking down on independent media.
The local branches of Radio Free Asia and
Voice of America – both independent broadcasters that receive funds from the
U.S. government – were shut down last year. Two RFA reporters were arrested on
suspicion of continuing to contribute stories to the Washington-based media
outlet, accused of espionage.
“It’s revenge,” one of the reporters, Oun
Chinn, said during a recent court
hearing. If convicted, he and Yeang Sothearin could be imprisoned for up to 15
years.
Local radio stations that carry RFA and VOA
broadcasts have had their licenses revoked.
“I think they are trying to stifle criticism
and expression by anyone campaigning against them,” said Nop Vy, executive
director of the Cambodian Center for Independent Media. “The government wants
to close the mouths of these people so they can’t criticize the government
before the election.”
The independent Cambodia Daily, an
influential English-language newspaper, was shut down in September, ostensibly
for tax breaches.
“They decided to steal the election and they
needed to take out the opposition and the independent media,” said Doug Steele,
general manager of the Cambodia Daily. “We were basically the witnesses to what
was happening.”
Then,
over the weekend, the last remaining English-language paper, the Phnom Penh
Post, was sold to a Malaysian investor and executive at a public relations firm
that had previously done work for Hun Sen’s government.
Shortly after the paper reported on those
links, the editor in chief, Kay Kimsong, was fired, multiple journalists wrote
on Twitter. The chief executive and at least four reporters, all foreigners,
resigned in protest.
In contrast to other strongmen in the region
such as Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and Prayuth Chan-o-cha of Thailand,
Hun Sen has not been invited to President Trump’s White House – and in return
he has been attacking the United States while demonstrating his allegiance to
China.
The prime minister has told immigration authorities
to root out American spies, suggested the Peace Corps pull out and forced the
nongovernmental National Democratic Institute to shut down.
He called William Heidt, the Khmer-speaking
U.S. ambassador, a “liar” and accused the United States of being behind the
2016 assassination of prominent political analyst Kem Ley.
But this anti-American sentiment is not a
reaction to Trump, Western observers in Phnom Penh say, as it dates back to
before the U.S. election.
China has in the meantime been stepping up
its role here.
The Chinese military held joint exercises in central Cambodia, with
Beijing reportedly donating the tanks and armored personnel carriers that it
brought here.
Beijing also helped establish Fresh News, a
media outlet that publishes articles favorable to Hun Sen’s government and that
recently put out a 700-page book of anti-American sentiment.
Hun Sen has stated that he plans to be in
power for another decade, and that, according to Pilorge of Licadho, means that
the repression will only intensify in the months ahead.
“Right now, the international community still
has leverage over the country,” she said. But “it’s only going to get worse
because after the election, there will be no constraints on them at all.”
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