WASHINGTON (AFP) - Lawmakers called Tuesday for the United
States to cut off aid to Cambodia unless veteran strongman Hun Sen
allows free elections on July 28.
Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia
for 28 years and vowed to stay in power for another decade, has been
accused of muzzling dissent to eliminate any chance of losing.
The
main opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, lives in exile and faces prison if
he returns as planned. Cambodia briefly banned foreign-produced radio
broadcasts ahead of the election.
Representative Steve Chabot, who
heads the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on East Asia, said he had
no doubt Hun Sen would win a fresh term as prime minister "through the
incitement of political violence, corruption and nepotism."
Chabot
praised the decision of US President Barack Obama and other Western
governments not to send observers to "legitimize" the election.
"But
declaring the election 'not free or fair' is not enough," Chabot, a
member of the rival Republican Party, said at a congressional hearing.
"US
policy toward Cambodia needs to change and the Obama administration
needs to take a much tougher approach to Asia's longest-ruling
dictator," Chabot said.
Chabot said he was introducing legislation to cut assistance to Cambodia if the election is not fair.
Two
prominent Senate Republicans, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham,
introduced a similar bill saying that a Cambodian government formed
through "illegitimate elections" would be ineligible for "direct" US
aid.
The proposal also called for the United States to reduce
development assistance and to use its influence to encourage
international institutions to do likewise.
Obama has made
Southeast Asia a top priority but has kept a distance from Hun Sen.
During a visit to Cambodia in November to attend an East Asia Summit,
Obama pressed Hun Sen on human rights and democracy in a meeting that
the White House described as tense.
The administration has
nonetheless requested $73 million for Cambodia in the next fiscal year,
almost the same as in previous years.
Cambodia could also stand to
gain under a $50 million initiative, launched by former secretary of
state Hillary Clinton, to support health, women's rights and the
environment in the Lower Mekong region.
The amount is tiny
compared with billions of dollars in investment in infrastructure and
other areas promised by China, which has increasingly found an ally in
Hun Sen.
John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director of Human Rights
Watch, told the hearing that the United States nonetheless had clout. He
said that the ruling Cambodian People's Party has released campaign
material that shows Hun Sen next to Obama during last year's summit.
Sifton
said that the United States should cut ties to the Cambodian military
and speak out "loudly" after the election to make clear "that one-man
and one-party rule are not acceptable in the 21st century."
More
than 85 percent of US aid to Cambodia goes to development or health,
including fighting AIDS, malaria and other diseases in a country that
suffered some of the 20th century's worst horrors under the Khmer Rouge
regime.
The United States routes much of its aid through non-governmental organizations, a policy required by Congress until 2007.
Rainsy,
who lives in exile in France, told AFP during a May visit to Washington
that the United States should consider economic sanctions if Hun Sen
goes ahead with "a boxing match in which he boxes alone."
Rainsy
said that the United States should focus on Cambodia after the wave of
democratic reforms in Myanmar, where Obama has suspended most sanctions
to reward changes.
Eni Faleomavaega, the top Democrat on the House
subcommittee on East Asia whose views are sometimes contrarian, lashed
out at attempts to curb aid.
Charging that US policy contributed to
the rise of the Khmer Rouge, Faleomavaega called instead for greater US
investment as well as debt relief for "a country that we failed so
miserably."
1 comment:
Please cut the aid. We pay the tax to the US government. We should give the aid to a democratic country, not a communist country like Cambodia.
Who care Cambodians died or poor if They don't even know what to do right or wrong? What is the best for their country?
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