Sam Rainsy wants justice for Cambodians [in his interview with Radio Australia during his visit to Australia]

Radio Australia

Updated November 19, 2010

Cambodia's opposition leader and head of the eponymous Sam Rainsy party, has over the years, been subjected to threats, intimidation and even assassination attempts.

A former Cambodian Finance minister, Sam Rainsy (pictured) has been overseas for over a year. He was sentenced in absentia to ten years' jail by the Cambodian municipal court for spreading disinformation, after he accused Vietnam of encroaching on Cambodian land.

Presenter: Sen Lam
Speakers: Sam Rainsy, Cambodian Opposition Leader

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LAM: Now you're in town to meet and thank your Cambodian-Australian supporters, but also to lobby the Australian Government. What do you want from the government of Australia?

RAINSY: Yes, we would like the Australian Government to pay more attention to human rights abuses in Cambodia. Cambodia is a very unfortunate country with a totalitarian government, with the population, especially farmers suffering from land grabbing, with destruction of the environment, with the rampant government corruption making the people poorer and poorer, whereas the elite gets richer and richer.

LAM: So what exactly is it you expect the Australian Government to do?

RAINSY: To push for a more democratic government, to ensure free and fair elections that would reflect the will of the people and no distort the will of the people.

LAM: Indeed, on a recent visit to Canada, you told your supporters there that you wanted Prime Minister Hun Sen to be trialed for human rights abuses. In what way, some observers might say how are you serving your constituency or your constituents by calling for the impossible?

RAINSY: This is not impossible. In Cambodia, there is currently a trial of the former Khmer Rouge leaders, those who were responsible of the mass killing of millions of people, but as you know, the current Cambodian leaders are former Khmer Rouge. They were part of the Khmer Rouge system when Pol Pot was toppled, some of his subordinates became the current leaders of Cambodia.

LAM: Now that trial that you speak of the UN tribunal has the backing of the international community. How much support worldwide do you think will be there be for Prime Minister Hun Sen to be tried for human rights abuse?

RAINSY: It depends on the investigation. We are just pushing for an investigation to expose the truth regarding the mass killing of innocent Cambodian people. Following the collapse of the Khmer Rouge system, there was another plan to kill the Cambodian people, to send them to zones where they died of malaria, of land mine, of starvation.

LAM: Are you saying that Prime Minister Hun Sen might have been directly implicated?

RAINSY: Yes, he was at that time. The Khmer Rouge kill about two million people, but under the Hun Sen regime at least 100,000 people were also killed in similar conditions.

LAM: Still on the subject of justice. You were sentenced in absentia to ten years jail for and I am quoting here "spreading disinformation and falsifying documents". What are you doing about it? Are you planning to return to Phnom Penh to clear your name?

RAINSY: Yes, I am prepared to go back to Cambodia anytime, provided farmers who have been arrested for processing land grabbing are released and providing their land be given back to them. What I have been doing is only to defend their rights, to own land, to own their ancestral rice fields, that have been taken from them.

LAM: But how do the farmers being in detention, how does that affect your returning to Cambodia? Why is it dependent on that?

RAINSY: It is a matter of principle. They should not arrested those farmers, because they are innocent farmers who were just protesting against land grabbing and in my capacity of as a member of parliament, I was just defending them.

LAM: Sam Rainsy, some observers have made the point that your strategy is in stark contrast with Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi. When you were charged, you left Cambodia. Do you think this has in some ways damaged your credibility among ordinary Cambodians?

RAINSY: I don't think that the Cambodian people think that way. I respect the Burmese people. They are lucky to have Aung San Suu Kyi to be their leader, but in Cambodia as just an ordinary citizen we have to use all legal means to ensure that the rights of our people are respected. So one of the means is to gain, to try to gain support where the world we can get, especially in international community.

LAM: And just briefly Sam Rainsy, finally the Opposition movement in Cambodia is not very effective these days. Some people might even go as far as to say that it's half dead. How can it be revived do you think, how can you re-energise the Opposition in Cambodia?

RAINSY: The popular discontent is growing. Cambodian farmers, I have just pointed out suffer from massive land grabbing, factory workers also suffer from exploitation in sweat shops. So if we have free and fair elections, I think the result will show that the Cambodian people definitely want a democratic change in Cambodia.