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Key points for the restoration of democracy in Cambodia
Op-Ed: Asia Time
By SAM RAINSYJANUARY 14, 2019 1:19 pm
The current government of Cambodia is illegitimate after the fake July 2018 election that led the country back to a one-party system as existed before the 1991 Paris Accords.
The illegitimacy of the election was decried by the United Nations, the European Union, the US, Japan and Australia. These institutions and countries refused to send observers to monitor a meaningless election organized after the arbitrary dissolution of the only credible opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), and the arrest of its president Kem Sokha. Not surprisingly, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party “won” 100% of the parliamentary seats up for grabs.T
Hun Sen is a usurper whose illegitimate and repressive regime is facing international sanctions as announced by the EU and the US. Just like other tyrants facing international sanctions, Hun Sen is holding the Cambodian people hostage as a way to blackmail the international community into turning a blind eye to his totalitarian drift.
Hun Sen’s propaganda is aimed at buying time and trying to confuse the international community by pretending that the situation in Cambodia has returned to normal with the alleged disintegration of the CNRP.
Hun Sen’s propaganda is aimed at buying time and trying to confuse the international community by pretending that the situation in Cambodia has returned to normal with the alleged disintegration of the CNRP
Hun Sen claims that Kem Sokha has broken away from me and, as a result, most CNRP supporters have defected to the ruling CPP or decided to join another party. Therefore, according to Hun Sen, the CNRP has become irrelevant and there is no need for the international community to push for a reinstatement of this opposition party (which Hun Sen actually fears the most).
Hun Sen’s allegation about the CNRP disintegrating has proved wrong, as evidenced by the refusal of 90% of the 5,007 CNRP elected commune officials to defect to the ruling CPP in exchange for their keeping their positions, which otherwise would be confiscated from them.
Read More …Cambodian PM warns of ‘dead’ opposition if EU withdraws preferences
Op-Ed: Reuters
“If you want the opposition alive, don’t do it and come and hold talks together,” he said.
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) – Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday threatened to retaliate against the opposition if the European Union withdraws duty-free trading access over human rights concerns.
The EU in November began a formal procedure to strip Cambodia of its Everything but Arms (EBA) status, after Hun Sen returned to power in a July general election in which his party won all of the seats after a crackdown on the opposition.
“If you want the opposition dead, just cut it,” Hun Sen said in a speech at the inauguration of a ring road around the capital, Phnom Penh, addressing the European Union and referring to Cambodia’s EBA status.
“If you want the opposition alive, don’t do it and come and hold talks together,” he said.
EBA is an initiative aimed at helping poorer countries. It can be withdrawn in the case of serious violations of human rights conventions.
The EU threatened to withdraw the trade preferences because of a crackdown on the opposition ahead of the July election, which the EU condemned as not being credible.
Hun Sen, 66, who also marked 34th year of his premiership on Monday, said that he would not forgive those who had appealed to Western countries to cut aid to press his government, and said critics should get ready to flee abroad.
“People are prepared to flee, be prepared,” Hun Sen said.
“I won’t forgive them.”
Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) and banned 118 party members in 2017 at the request of the government after accusations that the party was plotting to take power with the help of the United States.
The party and the United States rejected any such plot.
CNRP leader Kem Sokha was released from prison in September after spending more than a year in jail on treason charges but remains under house arrest in Phnom Penh.
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