By NALY PILORGE
The Wall Street Journal
July 4, 2013,
Hun Sen's government has ramped up a campaign to intimidate the opposition in advance of this month's vote.
It's election season in Cambodia, a time that once
held hope and promise. Twenty years ago the world cheered as the country
held its first, United Nations-sponsored vote after decades of war.
On July 28, Cambodia will hold its fifth National Assembly vote since
that historic 1993 election. This time, the political atmosphere is one
of fear and resignation. A scripted victory for Cambodian Prime
Minister Hun Sen, Asia's longest-serving leader, is virtually assured.
Foreign governments midwifed the birth of Cambodian democracy two
decades ago. Today, they provide half the budget of a government bent on
restricting citizens' freedoms. As evidence of political and human
rights abuses continues to pile up, it is hard to fathom why Western
democracies treat the Cambodian government as a friend, or how private
investors could feel safe in such a repressive climate.
Cambodia's culture of injustice starts at the top, with a Hun Sen
government working to erase any semblance of political fair play—a
process that intensified last month as elections loomed. The government
started by kicking every member of the opposition party out of
Cambodia's National Assembly. Then Prime Minister Hun Sen threatened
that there might be civil war if his party lost the elections.
Next, the government organized massive nationwide demonstrations
against Kem Sokha, the vice-president of Cambodia's opposition
coalition. (The coalition's president, Sam Rainsy, remains in self-exile
to avoid a spurious 12-year prison sentence).
For good measure, the prime minister
also accused Mr. Sokha of adultery, pedophilia and denying Khmer Rouge
crimes. Finally, the government banned Khmer-language foreign media for
the duration of the 31-day campaign period—though it quickly backpedaled
after a wave of domestic outrage.
This year Hun Sen's campaign of political intimidation has been
coupled with a program of land title giveaways orchestrated by the prime
minister's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) using private money. The
inability of rural Cambodians to secure legal recognition for their land
holdings is a genuine problem. But it is one that must be solved by
strengthening Cambodia's courts and property laws, not by election-time
handouts.
Unsurprisingly, land conflicts have continued unabated despite Hun
Sen's latest scheme. Some of the most contentious disputes involve land
taken from poor farmers and converted into sugar plantations. Sugar is a
lucrative crop now that the European Union allows Cambodian sugar into
the continent duty free. But sugar cultivation is also connected to some
of the country's worst human rights violations, including violent
evictions, military brutality against civilians, child labor and attacks
on community activists.
Meanwhile, Cambodia's garment sector—a multibillion dollar industry
that serves many international brands—is finding new and innovative ways
of embarrassing itself.
Take the case of Chhouk Bandith. In 2012, while serving as governor
of Bavet district, Bandith opened fire on thousands of striking garment
workers, seriously injuring three women. After 12 months of legal
wrangling, he was finally convicted in absentia of "causing
unintentional injury" and received an 18-month prison sentence. He has
yet to be apprehended, however, and authorities show little interest in
doing so.
The rest of the garment industry has not inspired much confidence,
either. A February report jointly published by the Worker Rights
Consortium and Stanford University uncovered systemic abuses ranging
from union busting to prison labor. On May 16, an overloaded upper level
of a factory owned by Wing Star Shoes collapsed, killing two workers
and injuring 11 more.
The international community has met these varied assaults on
Cambodia's rule of law with little outrage, and concrete actions are
even rarer.
The U.S., to its credit, was the only major donor to criticize the
opposition purge in Cambodia's parliament, saying the move "deprives the
Cambodian people of their voice and hurts the democratic process." Yet
the U.S. continues to provide aid and training to the Cambodian
military, which has a history of rights violations and interference in
the electoral process.
The world's largest garment brands, for their part, have remained
disappointingly quiet—or say the wrong thing altogether. Puma, which is
supplied by the factory where Chhouk Bandith shot three workers, issued a
statement applauding the shamefully light verdict. It said the company
was "pleased" with the court sentence of 18 months for a crime that in
most countries would be considered attempted triple homicide. The
statement described the victims as being "incidentally shot."
The European Union has refused to investigate human rights abuses
related to sugar plantations. Any investigation, of course, might force
the EU to pull back on its treasured duty-free treatment of Cambodian
sugar, which saves money for European companies and provides a feel-good
"development" story to boot. The EU has gone so far as to publicly
praise the CPP's private land giveaways, hailing the politicization of
land titling as a step forward for human rights.
When will this charade of willful ignorance end? If the July
elections go as planned, not anytime soon. Hun Sen has said he wishes to
remain in power for at least another decade. Cambodia's international
partners should think long and hard about whether they want to come
along for the ride.
Ms. Pilorge is director of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO).
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