After Ban Ki-moon Said Stood Behind UN Rights Rep in Cambodia, His Leaving Draws No Reaction, like ECCC

Ban in Cambodia, Peschoux and Ban follow through on human rights not shown

By Matthew Russell Lee

Inner City Press

UNITED NATIONS, May 9 -- When UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Cambodia last October, Prime Minister Hun Sen “ordered” him to remove the head of the UN human rights office in Phnom Penh, Christophe Peschoux.

Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky about it. Nesirky called it an “internal personnel matter,” then added that Ban stands behind the office and, by implication, its staff.

Now six months later, Peschoux has been chased from the country. Human rights groups call it “worrying.” Mr. Peschoux himself has said that in Cambodia

“human rights are tolerated to the extent that they do not challenge the political, economic and financial interests of the ruling elite. That’s where the red line runs. If you cross that line, trouble starts... Of course I’m leaving because it has become impossible for me to continue to operate in this environment.”

Given this, one might have expected Ban Ki-moon to have some follow up comment, if not to have actually defended Mr. Peschoux. But when Inner City Press on May 9 asked Ban's acting deputy spokesman Farhan Haq about Peschoux's leaving Cambodia, Haq said “we do not have any comment at this stage,” nor “any reaction.”