A Change of Guard

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Tuesday 11 December 2007

UN rights envoy lashes out at Cambodian government at rally








Pictures: Joseph Mussomelli (in red) US ambassador and Yash Ghai, UN envoy led human rights march in Phnom Penh.
Phnom Penh - The UN special envoy for human rights in Cambodia on Monday chastised the Cambodian government's rights record at a rally in Phnom Penh that was called to mark International Human Rights Day. Yash Ghai, accompanied by members of 15 local human rights groups, told the gathering that fear still governed Cambodia.
"Fear - fear of the state, fear of political and economic saboteurs, fear of greedy individuals and corporations, fear of the police and the courts - describes the plight of numerous communities and families in Cambodia as they do in many other parts of the world," he said in a speech.
"The lesson, therefore, is that the struggle for human rights and human dignity is unending as became so sharply and painfully obvious to me as I met the embattled communities in Dey Krahorm and the Group 78 villages," he added, referring to two communities where residents are involved in bitter land disputes and are faced with evictions.
"People threatened with eviction ... reminded me that the National Assembly sits only a few metres away from them and yet has long turned a blind eye to their suffering," the envoy said.
He urged Cambodia's people to be custodians of human rights and justice.
The government has refused to cooperate with Yash Ghai since soon after his 2005 appointment, claiming he refuses to acknowledge its progress on human rights in recent years.
Government representatives have refused to see him, and Prime Minister Hun Sen has said on state radio that he should return to his native Kenya and fix the problems there before "coming to lecture us in Cambodia."
Despite predictions in local media that the crowd at the rally might top 20,000 people, unofficial estimates by participants put figures at about 4,000, and police said 1,000 people at the most attended.
Yash Ghai was scheduled to give a press conference later Monday to end his current 10-day visit.

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