Hun Sen vs Abhisit Vejjajiva

Hun Sen rips Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva a new one.

If Abhisit is so sure of himself, then he should call an election. What are you afraid of? Is it that you are afraid you will no longer be the PM? Are you afraid that Puea Thai party will win the election?

I am Prime Minister of Cambodia who has received two-thirds of the vote in the Cambodian parliament. How many does Than Abhisit have? You’ve stolen somebody else’s chair to seat yourself in. You claim other people’s property as your own. How can we respect that?

[...]

Referring to the accusation that Cambodia does not respect the Thai court, I don’t see any value in the Thai justice system worthy of respect.

In the past, Khieu Samphan or Noun Chea [of the Khmer Rouge] were allowed to live [given refuge] in Thailand before they were arrested upon entering Cambodia. Thailand had signed a pact not to support the Khmer Rouge.

Thailand did more than violate international law. It had signed a peace pact. And it violated many things. Thai people should consider this. If Thailand does not respect international law, how can you expect us to respect Thai law?

Read the whole thing. There’s lots more.

POSTSCRIPT: The Nation has a slightly different transcript of this interview.

Hun Sen: Everyday people

A helmet is required. A properly fastened helmet, not so much.

Twenty is too many, says PM

Prime Minister Hun Sen speaks out about the number of defendants the ECCC should try.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen warned Tuesday that putting more Khmer Rouge cadres on trial for crimes committed during Pol Pot’s 1975-79 reign of terror could plunge the country back into civil war.

“I would prefer to see this tribunal fail instead of seeing war return to my country,” Hun Sen, himself a former Khmer Rouge commander, said a day after the joint U.N.-Cambodian court resumed its trial of Pol Pot’s chief torturer.

[...]

“If as many as 20 Khmer Rouge are indicted to stand trial and war returns to Cambodia, who will be responsible for that?,” he told the audience.

20? Why 20? That’s leaving it rather broad isn’t it? Nobody is talking about trying 20 suspects. Five are already in the dock, plus there’s talk about arresting perhaps another six. That makes 11. Well short of 20.

If you were just taking a wild shot at reading the tea leaves, it seems that Hun Sen is holding out the option for further arrests.

POSTSCRIPT: Yes. The headline on the story does say “Cambodia PM rejects wider Khmer Rouge trials.” But the actual story doesn’t quite make that case. Going on the actual quotes, Hun Sen doesn’t explicitly rule out more prosecutions. He just says that 20 is too many. No?

KRT lawyers after Hun Sen

Request will likely be met with displeasure.

LAWYERS for the former Khmer Rouge chief ideologist Nuon Chea have requested judges at the Khmer Rouge tribunal interview Prime Minister Hun Sen and King Father Norodom Sihanouk as part of investigations into their client’s role in the 1975-79 regime.

In a court document dated Tuesday and obtained by the Post Saturday, lawyers argued that the prime minister, along with National Assembly President Heng Samrin and Cambodian People’s Party President Chea Sim should be under investigation in the case “given their former ranks within DK”.

“The above-named individuals are likely in possession of documents and information relevant to the pending judicial investigation,” it said.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has stated publicly that any attempt to subpoena King Father Norodom Sihanouk would earn the immediate dismissal of the ECCC. How the prime minister will react to requests that he take the stand remains to be seen. It’s unlikely to be positive. Far from trying to ascertain the truth, the request to interview Hun Sen and other government officials appears specifically designed to put the U.N. and the Cambodian government on an irreversible collision course. Once again the elephants are fighting.

The way of The Strongman

Without warning, Prime Minister Hun Sen demanded Tuesday that authorities shut down Cambo Six. On Wednesday police moved in and by Thursday morning the nation’s largest bookmaker, with offices in every major city, was effectively shuttered.

Say what you want about the evils of gambling, but the Prime Minister should not be able to shut private businesses at his whimsy. By creating  uncertainty, such moves do immeasurable damage to the country’s business environment and reinforce beliefs that Cambodia is an outlaw nation.

And rather obviously, there is no rule of law. If the PM wants you closed, you will be closed. That you are a legally licensed business with rights for which your company paid millions, no matter.

That said, the unwritten story line so far in all this is that the local partner of Cambo Six is Okhna Kith Meng, whose offices at Mobitel were inexplicably surrounded by police two weeks ago. There are little doubts the two events are unrelated. Somebody, it seems, may no longer be on the ascendancy.

Hun Sen vs Chea Sim

VIA KI: Moneaksekar Khmer passes on the latest from the CPP rumor mill.

Previously Hun Sen wanted to have Neang Phat replace Tea Banh as Defense Minister and Kun Kim as armed forces Supreme Commander. However, if such an arrangement was made Hun Sen would have total control of the armed forces and Chea Sim would then be even more meaningless than now when he is already meaningless. Therefore, the party elders urged both sides to exchange positions between Ke Kimyan and Kun Kim, for Hun Sen wanted Kun Kim to replace Ke Kimyan as armed forces Supreme Commander while Chea Sim wanted Ke Kimyan to replace Tea Banh as Defense Minister.

As always, there’s no telling how much truth there is in the gossip. Moneaksekar Khmer is not exactly known for its evenhanded journalism. Nor should it come as any surprise that different factions in the CPP have different agendas. Still, Hun Sen consolidating power through deft political appointments is not exactly wingnut territory either.

Hun Sen already controls the Military Police through Sao Sokha and the National Police through Hok Lundy.

A Hun Sen appointment to either the Minister of Defense or RCAF Commander-in-Chief would mark a substantial consolidation over the country’s internal power structure; an appointment to both would entrench Hun Sen with unassailable power.

The wisdom of banning exports

VIA KI: The Economist has some words for Samdech Hun Sen and his ban on rice exports.

Such curbs may be politically expedient, but they are economically self-defeating. They demotivate farmers, push them into growing the wrong crops and jeopardise their future access to markets. Moreover, the restrictions on supply send prices even higher on world markets. As David King, secretary-general of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers, puts it, governments are choosing to “starve their neighbours”, rather than allowing higher prices to encourage their farmers to invest in greater production.

It gets worse, of course.

The more prices rise, the greater the incentive to hoard, which creates an upward price spiral. Across Asia, restrictions on the export of rice have helped increase its cost on world markets by about 75%. On March 26th Cambodia became the latest country to ban rice exports. Thailand, the world’s largest rice exporter, is also considering restrictions. Meanwhile, there is talk that importers, like China and Japan, are stockpiling rice to safeguard supplies.

Campaign watch

Human Rights Watch today calls a spade a spade.

Politically motivated criminal charges against at least three opposition party officials are part of a ruling party campaign to weaken political rivals prior to national elections in July 2008, Human Rights Watch said today.

The authorities last week arrested Tuot Saron, an official of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), and sought the arrest of at least two other SRP officials. Human Rights Watch fears that additional SRP officials may also be arrested imminently.

“Dubious arrests of opposition officials months ahead of an election should set alarm bells ringing,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This divide-and-conquer strategy is a well-known tactic of Prime Minister Hun Sen to subdue his opponents.”

Is anybody listening?

Cambodia bans UN human rights envoy

VIA KI: VOA has the latest on the simmering war between the Royal Government and U.N. human rights envoy Yash Ghai.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued an order banning Cambodian embassies the authority to issue visas for UN human rights envoy Yash Ghai without prior approval.

Ghai has had an increasingly cantankerous relationship with the government, especially with Prime Minister Hun Sun, following his strident criticism of Cambodia’s poor human rights record and the concentration of power in the hands of the premier.

Banning U.N. human rights officials puts Hun Sen and his government in decidedly unsavory territory. Only the most egregious abusers of human rights — countries such as Myanmar and the United States — have ever taken such action. Furthermore, barring Yash Ghai from entry does zero to address his accusations. In fact quite the opposite, such censure only gives them credence.

Hun Sen vs. The U.N., part 843

Last week Prime Minister Hun Sen threatened to boot the United Nations from Cambodian soil if it couldn’t learn to mind its manners. Keeping with the trend, today the Prime Minister chastised the U.N.’s human rights office for gratuitous spending on such unnecessary items as human rights in Cambodia.

Prime Minister Hun Sen continued a public campaign against the UN’s human rights office Monday, saying the international body should stop spending money in Cambodia.

“The UN should take all this budget to victims in areas such as Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, or other countries facing crises, rather than wasting money in Cambodia,” Hun Sen said.

[...]

“He rides in airplanes and stays at hotels; where does the money come from?” Hun Sen said. “This money is more than a salary. This money is still the UN’s money, and we are also a member of the UN that must also pay membership dues to the UN. We have a duty to appeal for saving the budget, to be spent in other areas, rather than having Yash Ghai traveling to Cambodia.”

It warms the cockles to know that Hun Sen respects Cambodia’s duty as a U.N. signatory to “save the budget.” It would be a lot better, though, if the prime minister had the same amount of concern for Cambodia’s growing legion of dispossessed. After all, that’s why the U.N. is complaining.

Hun Sen vs. UNTAC

VIA KI: According to the great bastion of Cambodian journalism www.everyday.com.kh, Prime Minister Hun Sen recently accused the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia of bringing HIV/AIDS to the country.

During a speech given at an inauguration of a building in Battambang province, on Monday, Hun Sen said: “The most UNTAC left in the Cambodia was the AIDS disease. They spent $2 billion, but when they left, the Cambodian factions were still fighting each others,” and Cambodia had to resolve the peace issue on her own.

According to the United Nations:

UNTAC  was established to ensure implementation of the Agreements on the Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, signed in Paris on 23 October 1991.

Medicam says:

The first reported cases of HIV infection were in mid 1991 with unreported cases suggested to have begun in the late 1980s.

The World Bank says:

The first HIV positive was detected in 1991 at the National Blood Bank in Phnom Penh and the first AIDS case was diagnosed at Calmette Hospital in 1993.

USAID says:

The first case of HIV/AIDS in Cambodia was officially identified in 1991 through screening of blood donors, although HIV had been detected in Cambodian refugees in Thailand two years earlier.

Hun Sen vs. The ECCC

Just in case all the sub-decrees and official statements regarding You Bun Leng left anybody confused as to how Cambodia really works, the government issued a tersely worded statement Saturday clarifying that, in Cambodia, no one is above the law. And the law is Hun Sen.

The Cambodian government in Phnom Penh on Friday issued a statement to reject any proposal to lift the immunity from prosecution for former king Norodom Sihanouk.

“The Royal Government of Cambodia feels it must reject absolutely any idea to lift the immunity for prosecution held by His Majesty The King Father, Preah Samdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk, and to state clearly that this matter was clearly and definitively excluded at the time of the former king’s retirement,” said the statement. [...]

It is the responsibility of the co-prosecutors and co- investigating judges of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC) to decide whom to try, within the jurisdiction of the court, which limited to senior leaders of DK and those most responsible for serious crimes under Cambodian and international laws, it said.

So according to the government, the ECCC is free and independent to try anybody it wants, just so long as the government approves of whom that anybody is. Like Sihanouk’s immunity, this new interpretation of the phrase “free from political interference” must certainly come as a surprise to those serving the court.

At least with You Bun Leng, the government could pretend to claim some shred of legitimacy for its actions. It’s hard to interpret this latest move as anything but a brute display of power, lest the independent court forget to whom it owes its independence.

UPDATE: That’s totally wrong! As the Daily explains Monday morning, kings are protected from prosecution by the constitution. The court had to know this. Contrary to the assertions above, Prime Minister Hun Sen was simply re-affirming the law, not pulling the strings of a puppeteer court.

The power of diplomacy

VIA Khmer Intelligence: In the latest edition of the Phnom Penh Post, Vong Sokheng says a social faux pas led to Prince Norodom Ranariddh’s demise.

Sources say one of the reasons Hun Sen became so embittered towards Ranariddh is that in December 2005, Hun Sen and Bun Rany attended the marriage of Ranariddh’s daughter, Princess Norodom Rattana. The gala affair was held at Ranariddh’s home down Route 1 on the Mekong. In part because it rained that night, Hun Sen spent almost three hours at the wedding dinner, a courtesy deemed highly significant in Cambodian social circles.

One week later, when Hun Sen’s eldest son Manit was married, Ranariddh and his wife, Princess Marie, attended the wedding dinner at Hun Sen’s. But halfway through the event Ranariddh was telephoned by his mistress and left the dinner party abruptly, forcing his wife to leave as well to avoid public embarrassment for the couple.

Hun Sen and his wife are said to have been terribly incensed by Ranariddh’s behavior and the loss of face he caused Princess Marie.

The sackings by Hun Sen of Funcinpec officials in the executive branch began after the wedding snafu.

That sounds incredibly childish and petty — but that’s diplomacy, and wars have been started over less. No matter. Even if the story is true, and really, there’s no reason to believe that it’s not, Ranariddh’s huge social gaffe just serves as more evidence of the man’s incompetence. If not for his royal lineage, he would have been sacked years ago.

Australia corners Hun Sen over human rights record

On his first official state visit to Australia, Prime Minister Hun Sen, unaccustomed to answering to anyone, was forced to acknowledge Australian concerns over a recent UN report citing blatant human rights violations in Cambodia.

Senior federal Labor MP Simon Crean, whose constituency includes a sizeable Cambodian population, asked Hun Sen to account for the report’s allegations. Crean declined, however, to elaborate on the Cambodian prime minister’s response.

Mr Crean said he canvassed the issues of human rights abuses, denial of rights to opposition parties and the principles of good governance with Mr Hun Sen.

He also asked Mr Hun Sen to respond to a United Nations report last month that found human rights were being violated on a systemic scale in Cambodia.

“We essentially said ‘they’re the principles we’re concerned about’. Here’s the UN envoy’s report. What have you got to say,” Mr Crean told AAP.

But Mr Crean said he could not report Mr Hun Sen’s response because it was a private meeting.

It is, of course, impossible to know just how seriously Australia really takes this whole human rights business. But judging by the very fact that Hun Sen is in Australia on an official state visit, one has to assume not very.

Generous to a fault

Vanak Thom at Blogs by Khmer wonders what’s up with the generosity of Prime Minister Hun Sen.

I never been outside of our country. I’ve learned from reading a lot materials. I am not sure if the western countries are like Cambodia in regards to naming a bridge, school, hospitals…etc as ‘THE GIFT’ from their current leaders. For example,

Australia: Bridge is GIFT from John Howard.

France: School is a GIFT from Jacque Chirac.

USA: Hospital is a GIFT from George W Bush

Does Hun Sen actually pay for all those bridges and schools and gardens with his own money? It’s not clear, but presumably so. Because even in Cambodia, for a politician to claim as his gift to the country something paid for from the public coffers seems likely to violate some law or other.

So assuming these monuments are paid for out of Hun Sen’s pocket, the problem becomes Hun Sen doing as a private citizen what the government should clearly be doing for itself, something that is not just frowned upon in more mature democracies, but is unethical and probably illegal.

The ‘human rights’ situation

Prime Minister Hun Sen on the United Nations Human Rights Council:

“If the UN understands that it is necessary to continue to keep your human rights office here in Cambodia, please keep it, but if you want to close I will not oppose that either,” Hun Sen told the meeting.

“If you want to stay, at least Cambodia can continue to make money from your rent,” he added. …

“The most important thing is, what is your job here?” he asked. “I think you should move to Afghanistan or Baghdad, Iraq. That might be better than here, but I don’t think you will go there. There is fighting.”

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Cambodia:

Yash Ghai, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, said he was concerned that few of his or his predecessor’s recommendations had been implemented, and that human rights continued to be violated on a systemic scale. He considered that this was not because of carelessness, or lack of awareness of rights or the institutional and procedural rules to safeguard them, or that Cambodia suffered so massively during the regime of Democratic Kampuchea, or because of poverty. It was because the deliberate rejection of the concept of a State governed by the rule of law had been central to the ruling party’s hold on power.

Defaming the rich and powerful

As the Cambodia Daily reported yesterday, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday found retired King Norodom Sihanouk’s official biographer guilty of defaming Prime Minister Hun Sen and ordered the author to pay approximately $4,500 in fines and compensation.

Responding to the verdict against him by e-mail, Julio Jeldres, a Chilean-born Australian now living in Melbourne, had this to say to the People’s Daily Online.

“Even I had the money, I would not pay the fine, as to do so would be to recognize the mockery of justice, the corruption and lack of impartiality of the legal system that exists in that Southeast Asian country,” said Julio Jeldres, famous as official biographer of former Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk, in his e-mail sent from Melbourne, Australia.

“I maintain my assertion that the prime minister is a violent ruler,” said Jeldres, who was also ordered by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to pay a fine of 1,928 U.S. dollars to the government, for he was quoted as saying on the April 7 edition of the Cambodian Daily that “As you know, every time Prime Minister Hun Sen makes a threat, someone gets killed or wounded by unknown gangsters.”

Even if Jeldres’ statement technically violated the Defamation Law, which it almost certainly did, the court should have used its discretion and dropped the case. Hun Sen in February openly called for abolishing the defamation law, and the court’s ruling effectively bans Jeldres’ from entering the country. No matter how you try to explain it away, barring the Khmer Institute of Democracy’s founder from Cambodian soil looks bad, and only serves to prove the government’s critics correct.

Politics at the World Bank

The scandal involving charges of corruption in World Bank-funded development projects has been a debacle from the very beginning. Responsibility for that falls squarely on the World Bank, which seems to have deliberately mishandled the process every step of the way.

Now comes the admission that the allegations may be suspect. World Bank Executive Director Joong-Kyung Choi met with Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday. According to The Cambodia Daily, Hun Sen’s spokesman had this to say about the meeting.

“Mr Joong-Kyung Choi told Samdech Prime Minister [that] what had happened previously between Cambodia and the World Bank made both sides suffer,” Eang Sophallet said. “And Mr Joong’s personal point of view was he thought that [World Bank Department of Institutional Integrity] investigation could not be regarded as 100-percent true. And he does not clearly know how much that the report reflected the truth,” he said.

The odds that the World Bank has fabricated the charges seems extremely small. After all, this is Cambodia. That the World Bank would act as arrogant and politically inflammatory as possible while playing fast and loose with the facts, however, sounds entirely credible. And that’s what Mr Joong seems to be saying.

Robbing the bank

The Cambodia Daily reports in its weekend edition that the World Bank has, in fact, given the government fairly detailed evidence of the Bank's allegations of corruption.

Although the government claims the World Bank has not given enough evidence to support its allegations of corruption in seven bank-funded projects, documents obtained on Thursday show that the bank has named some companies and detailed the corrupt schemes that allegedly occurred.

Of course it did. But it did not do so straight away, and there's something unusual about that. The Bank spent a year researching the projects, yet it went public with the allegations, apparently, before it was prepared to show its evidence to the government.

A simple act of arrogance, or a calculated slap?

At the time it looked like both. Unsurprisingly, the government reacted with righteous indignation and accused the Bank of pandering to the media. Then came calls of flimsy evidence and impure motives.

The Bank has yet to disclosed how much money it expects refunded, but the figure is insignificant. Either the government gets in line, or it doesn't. The government can stay on the gravy train by repaying the World Bank what it asks and in the future devise new and better ways to hide the sugar. Or it can walk away.

There are rumours that Hun Sen is contemplating default, which may not be as crazy as it sounds. World Bank policies are notorious for sacrificing long-term growth for short-term stability. The country could do worse than try and stand up on its own.

The question then becomes, could the World Bank quit Cambodia. If Hun Sen calls the Bank to account, it may have to. That would be virtually unprecedented, and it’s not at all clear how the Bank or the larger donor community would react. Few, if any, would have given the possibility much thought.

For the likelihood of Hun Sen forgoing easy World Bank funds is practically nil. The smart money is always with the sugar.

Can he get a witness

As reported by AP yesterday, Prime Minister Hun Sen again demanded evidence of corruption from the World Bank. Without evidence, the prime minister said, the government could not pay the World Bank back.

The World Bank has said previously that it has given all the evidence it plans on giving.

But more intriguing was this:

Hun Sen prodded the bank to reveal its sources.

"What are they afraid of? If anonymous information can be taken as credible, where is justice in the world?" Hun Sen said.

Today's lead story in The Cambodia Daily makes it a bit clearer:

If the Bank does not disclose the names of the witnesses, it will be hard to forsee how the government can repay the money that the Bank has requested, [Hun Sen] said.

Hun Sen is now asking the World Bank to name its sources, too.

On the surface, of course, this is all just political kabuki. By making impossible demands, Hun Sen not only plays up to his reputation as the strongman, but postpones the day of reckoning.

But there's a little more to it.

By asking the Bank to name names — publicly, on television — the prime minister sends a message to others who might think about helping World Bank investigators.

Remember, the World Bank is currently investigating at least four other projects, possibly more. Those investigations are certain to reveal more misallocations of World Bank money. Not only does that means more millions for the government to pay back, but even worse, it almost certainly means more suspensions of World Bank projects.

Remember too that the World Bank is under new management, and should the new lords come to the realization that the Bank's policy in Cambodia is fatally flawed, that could have catastophic effects on the choo-choo.

Hun Sen reaches out to corrupt officials

World Bank Scandal II has caught the attention of Prime Minister Hun Sen. He sounds upset.

Cambodia's prime minister Hun Sen has threatened to cut the throats of officials found guilty of corruption amid a growing scandal over World Bank funds.

[ ... ]

"If something is found to be wrong, I will cut your throat," Hun Sen told officials seated behind him at the ceremony.

UPDATE : The Friday Cambodia Daily tranlates the quote as thus:

"If it is you involved it it, Suy Sem, I will cut off your head"