Editorial | Articles about Cambodia | Khmer
Phnom Penh - Amid the excitement of massive pro-democracy protests that took over the streets of Phnom Penh in late December and early January, the largest such demonstrations in the country's history, a dark side has emerged.
Alongside cries for greater government transparency and less corruption, and calls for Cambodia's strongman prime minister, Hun Sen, to step down, some street protesters have been shouting anti-Vietnamese slogans, reflecting opposition leader Sam Rainsy's longtime animus toward the Vietnamese - a conspicuous blotch on his otherwise strong human rights record.
Protests by opposition supporters and garment workers culminated on January 3, when at least four workers were shot and dozens wounded by military police along Veng Sreng Street in the capital's outskirts. Less widely reported has been the fact that demonstrators shouting racial epithets looted at least three Vietnamese-owned businesses that day nearby, and are reported to have destroyed several more. Many ethnic Vietnamese residents of the area have fled the country.
Sok Min, 27, the owner of a café near Veng Sreng Street that was destroyed by anti-Vietnamese protesters, said he lost $40,000 in the attack and sent his terrified wife and two children back to Vietnam indefinitely.
"They came to destroy everything," he said as he surveyed his damaged shop shortly after the attack. It was denuded of furniture and covered in shards of glass and empty coffee bags. "They said I am a Vietnamese and they don't like it."
'Alarming' statements
During July elections here, the liberal Cambodian National Rescue Party, led by Rainsy, made major gains against the long-entrenched government of Hun Sen, who has led the country since 1985, after climbing to power on the back of a 1979 Vietnamese invasion that ousted the genocidal Khmer Rouge.
After a 10-year occupation, Vietnamese forces withdrew from Cambodia in 1989, but Hun Sen's Cambodia People's Party still maintains a friendly relationship with this country's more powerful eastern neighbour, a historical enemy turned ambivalent ally.
Because of this history, Rainsy has long maintained fierce opposition to alleged Vietnamese encroachment into Cambodia that, some say, teeters perilously close to bigotry. Although Rainsy insists he does not condone violence against ethnic Vietnamese living here, his speeches over the course of his two-decade political career have often included harsh rhetoric against the unpopular minority, telling supporters he will make sure they are removed from Cambodia.
In 2009, he led a rally to uproot border markers he said were illegally placed in a Cambodian rice field. He was later prosecuted for racial incitement and forced to flee the country.
In a visit to Phnom Penh this week, the UN's special rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia, Surya Subedi, made a rare rebuke of the opposition. Subedi said he was gravely concerned about recent shootings of protesters and other serious rights violations by Hun Sen's government, but also about the tone of the CNRP's rhetoric and the race-based lootings along Veng Sreng Street.
"I am alarmed by the anti-Vietnamese language allegedly used in public by the opposition," he said in a statement Thursday.
'Misunderstandings'
Ou Virak, a prominent activist who heads the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, has spoken out about his fears that Rainsy is engaging in potentially dangerous race-baiting, and condemned the leader's frequent, often emotionally-charged use of the term "yuon"- a word for the Vietnamese that can be derogatory in some contexts.
In return, over the past month he has been subjected to a torrent of online abuse, and even death threats, over his comments. The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders has issued an urgent statement about Virak's situation, calling upon Rainsy to publicly speak out against the threats, which the opposition leader has not yet done.
Virak says the CNRP's focus on the Vietnamese is pure scapegoating that diverts attention from more pressing issues facing all Cambodians, such as poor infrastructure, rapid deforestation, and rampant human rights abuses by Hun Sen's government.
"They are using race politics to blind our judgment and our ability to debate the many credible issues that affect people's daily lives," he said.
When asked why he had not condemned the threats against Virak, Rainsy told Al Jazeera that he condemns all forms of violence.
He added that Subedi's criticisms were based on a "misunderstanding and misinterpretation" of Cambodian language and culture.
"The Cambodian people in general, and the Cambodian National Rescue Party, in particular, we do not view any country, any people, as hostile. But we consider that the current policies of the current government in Vietnam, their policies toward Cambodia are not very friendly, not very constructive," he clarified, citing allegations of Vietnamese encroachment along the border and Vietnamese companies granted concessions to log in forests here.
But even if Rainsy himself condemns violence, he may not be in full control of the anti-Vietnamese sentiment he has mobilised in the streets. During opposition demonstrations, cries of "yuon animals" and "yuon dogs" can often be heard from street protesters, often directed toward police and security forces.
Historical legacy
Phuong Sopheak, 27, is a fervent opposition activist who joined the CNRP in June. Inspired by the possibility of change, he attends many anti-government protests, including the one along Veng Sreng Street. He says he likes the CNRP's proposals to help Cambodia develop faster, but is especially drawn to the party's stance against Vietnamese migration. He is also convinced that many top government officials are Vietnamese masquerading as Cambodians.
"They sent their people to Cambodia and installed Hun Sen as the leader, and they want to get Cambodian territory," he said
He said that many small-scale Vietnamese businessmen like Sok Min were actually spies, although they did not deserve to be the victims of violence.
"Some of those coffee shop owners are spies coming to get information from Cambodia," he said. "Of course they may claim that Cambodia is a good place for business and living, but I have seen their identity cards and they are Vietnamese police."
In adopting a harsh tone toward the Vietnamese, Rainsy and the CNRP are cannily exploiting a long and complicated history of mutual mistrust between Cambodia and Vietnam that has been punctuated by outbreaks of violence. The Mekong Delta region was Cambodian territory until it was conquered by Vietnam in the 18th century; many Cambodians remain bitter about the loss, pointedly referring to the area as "lower Cambodia."
During their rule in the late 1970s, the Khmer Rouge adopted virulently anti-Vietnamese policies. The internal purges that convulsed the regime in the years before its ouster were driven in part by paranoia over possible Vietnamese spies, while Pol Pot's bloody anti-Vietnamese pogroms along the border were the impetus for Vietnam's 1979 invasion, which drove the Khmer Rouge into Thailand.
Hun Sen still enjoys a cozy relationship with Hanoi, his longtime patron, and his closeness to Cambodia's historic enemy provides an easy target for the CNRP. On a recent visit to Vietnam, he delivered a speech in fluent Vietnamese about friendship between the two nations; a YouTube clip of the event quickly garnered hundreds of angry comments.
The government has also undoubtedly been lax in enforcing immigration laws when it comes to Vietnamese economic migrants like Sok Min, many of whom are, in turn, unswervingly loyal to the CPP.
'They lost everything'
Cheam Yeap, a senior CPP lawmaker, defended the government's policies toward Vietnam as a simple matter of expedient cooperation with a powerful neighbor.
"The CNRP paints Vietnam as an enemy and discriminates against a nation that is our neighbor," he said. "It's very dangerous, and strongly affects our national interests - Vietnamese tourists and investors will be scared and stop coming."
David Chandler, a professor emeritus at Monash University who has studied Cambodia for decades, called Rainsy's accusations against the Vietnamese "claptrap".
"[Rainsy] seldom documents his accusations," he noted. "To be sure, Vietnamese agribusinesses are causing harm in Cambodia, but so are Malaysian ones, Korean ones, Chinese ones." He said it was unlikely that small-scale shopkeepers and other economic migrants from Vietnam were harming Cambodian interests.
Ben Daravy was busy this week sweeping up the shophouse she owns along Veng Sreng Street and trying to get it in shape for another tenant. The previous renter, a Vietnamese single mother, fled on January 3 after a mob broke down the door of her coffee shop, carried away her furniture and cooking equipment, and threatened to burn down the building. The woman escaped out the back door with her daughter and never returned.
"They brought gasoline to burn down the house, and they would have burned it down, but a neighbor stopped them, telling them that the real owner of this shop is Khmer and not Vietnamese," Ms. Daravy said, her voice rising.
"The Vietnamese owner lost everything, I lost a lot, and I cannot help her at all," she said.
Source: Al Jazeera
Labels: Mass Rally, Prime Minister Hun Sen, Rally, Vietnamese, Vietnamese influence, Vietnamization of Cambodia
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By THOMAS FULLER - The New York Times
Published: January 4, 2014
After months of inaction in the face of growing public dissent to his rule, Prime Minister Hun Sen appeared to signal that he was entering a more aggressive posture toward his critics. The crackdown came after a clash on Friday between protesting garment workers and the Cambodian police that left four of the demonstrators dead. The workers have been at the forefront of growing protests against Mr. Hun Sen’s government.
Mr. Hun Sen’s party claimed victory in July elections, which the opposition and independent observers say were riddled with irregularities. Since then, the opposition has called for him to step down.
In a country with a history of violence against opposition figures, the two opposition leaders wanted for questioning, Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha, appeared to go into hiding.
“They are in a safe place,” said Mu Sochua, an opposition politician who was elected as a lawmaker in July but has boycotted Parliament along with the rest of the opposition.
Last weekend, the opposition staged a protest march of tens of thousands of people through the streets of Phnom Penh, an act of defiance on a scale rarely seen during Mr. Hun Sen’s more than 28 years in power. After the crackdown Saturday, the opposition announced it was canceling a march planned for Sunday.
In a statement, the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party urged its followers to remain calm “while the party seeks alternative ways” to continue its campaign against Mr. Hun Sen’s government.
Many parts of Phnom Penh were unaffected by the crackdown, including the main tourist area along the Mekong River. But elsewhere, hundreds of police officers and soldiers blocked roads, broke up crowds of bystanders and cordoned off the public square, known as Freedom Park, where the protesters had been gathering.
The dispersal of demonstrators from Freedom Park by the police and others was highly symbolic. In 2009 the government officially designated the square as a place where Cambodians could express themselves freely, roughly modeling it on Speakers’ Corner in London. The square has been the center of protests led by the opposition since the elections in July. Protesters who have camped out there since mid-December have included Buddhist monks, elderly farmers and human rights advocates.
The Cambodian Center for Human Rights, an independent advocacy organization, accused the government on Saturday of a “violent clampdown on human rights” and said protesters were chased out of the square by “thugs dressed in civilian clothes” who were armed with steel poles and other makeshift weapons, an observation corroborated by journalists who were present.
A number of protests during Hun Sen’s time in power have been broken up by shadowy groups. In 1997, a grenade attack on a protest led by Mr. Sam Rainsy left at least 16 people dead.
On Saturday, Cambodia’s Ministry of Interior issued a statement saying that the eviction of protesters “was conducted in a peaceful manner without any casualties.” Recent protests, the statement said, “led to violence, the blocking of public roads and the destruction of public and private property,” an apparent reference to the clashes between garment workers and soldiers on Friday, among other recent episodes.
The statement said all protests and public assembly were banned “until security and public order has been restored.” It also advised “all members of the national and international community to remain calm and avoid participating in any kind of illegal activity that could have negative consequences on the national interests.”
Mr. Hun Sen has been credited with stabilizing the country after the brutality of the Khmer Rouge, whose genocidal policies led to the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians. But in recent years he has accumulated highly centralized power, including a praetorian guard that appears to rival the capabilities of the country’s regular military units.
Economic growth that has brought modernity and prosperity to Phnom Penh has exposed stark inequalities in the country, where well over a third of children are malnourished. Only one-quarter of the Cambodian population has access to electricity. The streets of Phnom Penh are shared by luxury cars and families of four squeezed onto dilapidated motorcycles.
Garment workers, who number in the hundreds of thousands, have been the most aggressive in seeking higher wages. Striking workers are demanding a doubling of the monthly minimum wage to $160 from $80, an increase that the industry says will make it uncompetitive.
In the clash on Friday, garment workers confronted officers with rocks, sticks and homemade firebombs. The police fired into the crowd with assault rifles, witnesses said. In addition to the protesters killed, at least 20 people were injured.
Labels: Chaum Chao, CNRP, Mass Rally, Mu Sochua, Prime Minister Hun Sen, Sam Rainsy, Veng Sreng, Workers
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Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
02 January 2014
PHNOM PENH — At least 15 monks and five other people were injured in a violent crackdown on striking workers Thursday, after a special military unit was called in to deal with demonstrators outside a Phnom Penh factory.
The clash, between demonstrators and troops from Special Command Unit 911, took place after protesters began throwing rocks at soldiers, officials said.
The soldiers were seen carrying metal pipes, knives, AK-47 rifles, slingshots and batons, according to rights workers. The clash took place outside the Yak Jin factory, which is thought to produce for international brands GAP, Walmart and Old Navy.
The violence comes amid continued protests by workers over the minimum wage. But it also comes after ongoing anti-government demonstrations over the last two weeks and ahead of negotiations between leaders of the ruling and opposition parties to end the demonstration and political impasse.
At least 10 people, including four monks, were subsequently arrested. Rights groups said the deployment of Unit 911 was unprecedented “and signals a disturbing new tactic by authorities to quash what have been largely peaceful protests.”
Among the injured was Von Pov, head of the a union that represents the informal economy, who was beaten unconscious.
Nuth Rumduol, a lawmaker-elect for the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, who was also injured in the violence, said Unit 911 soldiers were “aggressive” in their handling of the demonstrations.
One young man, “a simple bystander,” was taken by soldiers and beaten with sticks, Nuth Rumduol said. “He was not armed and did not throw any stones,” he said. “This happened right before my eyes.”
Chap Sophoan, commander of Unit 911, said he ordered the crackdown.
“Do we have to stand idle and get attacked, or what?” he told VOA Khmer. “My soldiers obediently followed my orders. Who is responsible, when we say, ‘Don’t throw stones at us,’ but they still do?”
Rights workers say the crackdown was excessive and unwarranted.
The group Licadho and the Community Legal Education Center issued a joint statement condemning the attacks and arrests of demonstrators.
“We are gravely concerned for the safety of those still held, especially in light of recent threats to leaders of unions and informal associations,” Naly Pilorge, Licadho’s director, said in a statement. “Some of those held are believed to have been severely beaten as they were arrested. Monks and workers from nearby factories were also beaten by military police during the earlier clashes.”
Both groups called on authorities to ensure the safety of those in detention, provide medical attention to those who are injured, and to release anyone not charged with a clear criminal offense.
“We urge all those currently involved in protests and labor disputes and the authorities to abide by the law, exercise restraint and remain peaceful,” Moeun Told, head of the Community Legal Education Center’s labor program, said. “There must be an end to violence, arrest and discrimination of those seeking to exercise their rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining.”
Labels: CNRP, Election 2013, Mass Rally, Prime Minister Hun Sen, Workers
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Robert Carmichael - Voice of America
December 29, 2013
PHNOM PENH — In Cambodia Sunday, tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of the capital calling on Prime Minister Hun Sen to quit. The public outpouring of sentiment in recent months against the long-time leader is unprecedented, and has brought together opposition party supporters and many of Cambodia’s 400,000-strong garment workers.
Before leading the huge march through the streets of Phnom Penh, opposition leader Sam Rainsy told the crowd at Freedom Park in the city center that this is a historic day and that the will of the Cambodian people will prevail.
Rainsy said all Cambodians believe Hun Sen’s government is illegal, adding that the prime minister would hear their voice. He said everyone wants to see a change in leadership, and he called for fresh elections.
The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which Sam Rainsy leads, stunned the ruling party in July when it came close to winning the general election. The opposition has since claimed the election was stolen.
It initially sought an independent investigation into the ballot.
But Prime Minister Hun Sen - who has been in power for nearly three decades - rejected that, and talks between the two sides quickly stagnated.
The 55 opposition MPs-elect have refused to take up their seats in the 123-seat National Assembly. They want Hun Sen to quit and a second election held next year. Hun Sen has rejected both of those demands, too.
So for the past two weeks, the opposition has staged daily rallies and marches in Phnom Penh, drawing between a few thousand supporters and - on Sunday a week ago - as many as an estimated 40,000.
The march this Sunday saw even more people turn out. Counting crowds is a notoriously tricky task, but this march was clearly much larger than last week’s. Once again, the refrain was that Hun Sen must go.
Expressing such sentiments publicly in Cambodia even a year ago would have been unthinkable, and is indicative of how far the country’s political landscape has shifted.
The opposition has been boosted by wide segments of society: from civil servants fed up with low wages, to ordinary citizens tired of corruption, Buddhist monks speaking out against the senior clergy’s coziness to the ruling party, and garment workers, angry at the government’s announcement on Tuesday to raise the minimum wage from $80 a month to just $95.
Garment workers say that is not enough - with prices in the markets rising fast, as are rents. Many are forced to work overtime simply to make ends meet.
Touch is one of the protestors demanding that the minimum wage rises to $160. The 35-year-old Touch has worked for a decade in a factory that makes jeans for Levi-Strauss. She and her husband are able to send home a small monthly sum to her parents in the village who look after their two children.
She says there are two reasons she came Sunday. One is to have the minimum wage increased to $160. The other is for Hun Sen to step down.
Cambodia’s garment industry is the country’s key foreign exchange earner - worth more than $5 billion this year, mostly in exports to the U.S. and the European Union. The sector is also Cambodia’s biggest formal employer, with 400,000 workers.
But wages have not kept pace with inflation, and over the years the industry has been hit by hundreds of strikes. Last year saw more than half a million days lost to strike action; this year will likely see one million days lost, by far the worst in its two-decade-long history.
So it was little surprise that the announcement of the $15 raise saw tens of thousands of garment workers walk out. In response the trade body that represents the factory owners advised its 470 or so members to close, citing the risk of violence. Many have done so.
Although unions affiliated to the ruling party did back the pay rise, independent unions and those linked to the opposition rejected it. On Friday, leaders of the last two groups met senior officials at the Ministry of Labor to discuss new wages terms, while 2,000 workers blocked the road outside. They failed to reach a deal and are scheduled to meet again Monday.
Touch reckons a deal is at some point inevitable - but pledges that until one is concluded, she and her fellow workers will stay on strike.
She says she expects the government will find a solution for the workers, but doesn't know how long that will take.
The opposition continues to reap political capital from the dispute over the minimum wage. Earlier this past week, Sam Rainsy told workers they should stay on strike until they get $160 a month.
Labels: CNRP, Mass Rally, Prime Minister Hun Sen, Sam Rainsy, Workers
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By THOMAS FULLER - The New York Times
Published: December 29, 2013
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Tens of thousands of antigovernment demonstrators marched through Phnom Penh on Sunday in one of the biggest acts of defiance against the nearly three decades of rule by Cambodia’s authoritarian prime minister, Hun Sen.
The procession, which was peaceful and stretched for several miles through a commercial district of Phnom Penh, the capital, brought together protesters with a diverse list of grievances: Buddhist monks, garment workers, farmers and supporters of the main opposition party.
They were united in their calls for Mr. Hun Sen to step down, their chants — “Hun Sen! Get Out!” — echoing down the broad avenue where they marched.
In July, Mr. Hun Sen’s party claimed victory in disputed elections that the opposition and many independent monitoring organizations said were deeply flawed. Mr. Hun Sen formed a government despite the growing protests by the opposition, which has boycotted Parliament and is calling for new elections.
Cambodia’s political stalemate and protest movement have been somewhat overshadowed by the turmoil in nearby Thailand, where antigovernment demonstrators are rallying to block elections and install a “people’s council” to govern the country during what they describe as a hiatus from democracy.
But some analysts in Cambodia describe the past few months here as a watershed for Cambodian society, which for years has been dominated by the highly personalized rule of Mr. Hun Sen, whose party has tight control over major institutions in the country, including the army, the police, the judiciary and much of the news media.
Protesters blocking traffic and marching through downtown Phnom Penh remain a jarring sight after years during which the main message from the government has been that people should be grateful for the unity and development that Mr. Hun Sen brought to Cambodia after many years of war.
“It seems like a turning point in the history of civil society,” said Yeng Virak, the executive director of the Community Legal Education Center, a Cambodian human rights organization. “People feel more free to join protests and to identify themselves as part of the opposition.”
The continued vigor of the protest movement five months after the elections appears to be a reflection of the deep pool of resentment in the country toward Mr. Hun Sen.
One woman who took part in the march on Sunday, Meng Phang, 59, shouted to onlookers, including stone-face police officers, that “Hun Sen and his family are getting richer but everyone else is getting poorer.”
Ms. Meng Phang’s participation also represented another crucial factor of the protests: the sustained financing of the movement. Ms. Meng Phang said she had donated about $1,000 to the protest movement from money she had saved while working in a factory in Japan.
Kem Sokha, one of the protest leaders, singled out contributions “from our people abroad” in a speech to protesters on Sunday evening. There are large Cambodian populations in Australia, France and the United States, among other countries.
The grievances among protesters on Sunday were varied. Sok Heng, a middle-aged carpenter, lamented the lack of justice in the country and mentioned the case of his brother-in-law, who was killed by a thief. The police asked for a bribe before agreeing to arrest the suspect, he said.
Touch Vandeth, 24, was one of thousands of garment workers on strike, demanding a doubling of the minimum wage to $160 a month, a sharp increase that would put wages well above those of Cambodia’s regional economic competitors, including Myanmar, Bangladesh and Vietnam. Ms. Touch Vandeth, who assembles Adidas footwear at a factory on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, said she had been unable to save much money on her current salary, $80 plus overtime.
Chay Soheaktra, one of the many Buddhist monks taking part in the demonstration, said he was angry that Mr. Hun Sen’s government had given a forestry concession to a Vietnamese company. Anti-Vietnamese rhetoric has been a mainstay of the protest leaders, who portray Mr. Hun Sen as a puppet of Vietnam. (Mr. Hun Sen is Cambodian but came to power with the aid of an invading Vietnamese Army that pushed the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979.)
The Buddhist hierarchy is closely aligned with Mr. Hun Sen, but younger monks have joined the protests — sometimes in defiance of their elders — and are particularly angry at the theft of precious Buddhist relics this month from a Buddhist shrine. Monks question how a national treasure was so poorly guarded — especially when hundreds of security officers guard the residences of Mr. Hun Sen and other top officials.
Ou Virak, the president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, an independent advocacy organization in Phnom Penh, said the theft of the relics might be among the biggest problems for Mr. Hun Sen. In a country where superstition plays an important role, the theft could be taken as a supernatural sign.
Mr. Hun Sen is unpopular with a broad portion of the Cambodian electorate, Mr. Ou Virak said. But many people, especially business leaders, are not convinced that the opposition is ready to govern the country. He cited the opposition’s embrace of the doubling of the minimum wage, claiming that the country could lose tens of thousands of jobs to neighboring countries.
“The majority of the people want change,” Mr. Ou Virak said. “But they don’t know what that change would look like.”
Labels: CNRP, Election 2013, Mass Rally, Prime Minister Hun Sen
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In the largest demonstration since the disputed July elections, hundreds of thousands of Cambodia's opposition party supporters marched through the streets of the capital Phnom Penh on Sunday calling for Prime Minister Hun to step down and to announce new polls.
"This is a historic day," Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) President Sam Rainsy declared, estimating that about 500,000 people participated in the march seeking the ouster of the longtime premier following July 28 elections marred by fraud and other allegations.
"The demonstrators demand Hun Sen step down," he said, shouting, "Hun Sen please step down." The crowd echoed his demand.
"[T]here were about 500,000 protesters who occupied a length of 5 kilometers [about 3 miles] of the long, wide and straight Monivong Boulevard in Phnom Penh," Sam Rainsy said on his Facebook page, posting photos of the mass gathering.
"The head of the CNRP procession already reached the corner with Mao Tse Tung Boulevard when its tail was still at Democracy Square [Freedom Park]. Given the people density of the crowd as seen on these photos [about 100 persons per meter] the number of protesters could easily reach 500,000," he said.
The CNRP, which has boycotted parliament saying it was robbed of victory due to poll fraud, launched daily mass protests a week ago to force a re-election after its calls for an independent election probe into irregularities were dismissed by the government.
It has vowed to keep up daily protests for three months or until there is a fresh vote.
But Hun Sen on Friday rejected the call for his resignation and fresh elections, saying there is no provision in the country's constitution that allows for a re-election.
“They ask me to resign, but what have I done wrong?” Hun Sen said. “I obtained my position by means of the constitution and I will only leave it by means of the constitution,” he said.
Hun Sen, who has been premier for the last 28 years, said that according to article 78 of the constitution, the National Assembly shall not be dissolved before the end of its five-year term, except when the government is twice deposed within a period of 12 months.
'People's strength'
Sam Rainsy insists that the party is determined to get to the bottom of the election irregularities, saying the people had been denied of their choice of government.
"CNRP's strength comes from the people's strength. Nobody can win over the people's strength," he said.
After the July polls, the government-appointed National Election Committee (NEC), which oversees the country’s polls, declared Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) the winner with 68 seats in parliament to the CNRP’s 55, but the CNRP claimed it won at least 63.
The NEC and the CCP have both said that all claims of poll irregularities have been investigated and rejected, making an independent probe sought by the opposition as unnecessary.
Talks between the two parties to break the political stalemate have stalled after their latest meeting last month yielded little progress, with the CPP calling on elected CNRP lawmakers to end their boycott and resolve any complaints from within parliament.
The CNRP last week threatened to block key highways leading into the capital Phnom Penh and seize state buildings if the government continues to ignore opposition demands.
Hun Sen had said the CNRP’s plan could harm the country’s “national security” and warned of government action.
“The government is tolerant of peaceful demonstrations but will not allow any illegal activities that provoke social instability,” he said on Friday.
Protesters fed up
Some of the demonstrators who participated in the march Sunday from their base at Freedom Park to the city center said in speeches that they were fed up with various issues affecting the country, citing social injustice, corruption, unemployment and land grabs.
One protester, speaking from the top of a CNRP vehicle, told the crowd that she joined the demonstration because she could not find a job after graduation and after her father invested heavily on her education.
"I would like to ask Hun Sen to resign [so that] Sam Rainsy and [deputy CNRP president] Kem Sokha can help the students, regardless of whether they are poor or rich," she said.
Another protester said she wants Sam Rainsy to be the new prime minister.
The CNRP has deployed thousands of supporters to help maintain security during the protest marches and at Freedom Park, where many of them have camped out.
The heightened security came after several vehicles dumped garbage transported from elsewhere at the park in an apparent attempt to blame the party for the piles of trash accumulated in the area.
Reported by RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai
Labels: CNRP, hun sen, Mass Rally
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