US Lawmakers to Hold Hearing on Cambodia រដ្ឋសភាអាមេរិកាំងបើកការស៊ើបសួរអំពីស្ថានភាពនយោបាយក្នុងប្រទេសនម្ពុជា

By Zsombor Peter 

The Cambodia Daily

July 9, 2013

With Cambodia only weeks away from parliamentary elections, U.S. lawmakers will meet in Washington today to hear about the political and social risks facing the country amid mounting international criticism of Prime Minis­ter Hun Sen’s decades-long rule.

The hearing comes on the heels of a new country report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service raising major doubts about how fair the July 28 poll will be and a Senate resolution calling for a cut to the $76 million in an­nual U.S. aid to Cambodia if those doubts prove true.

The ominously titled hearing, Cambodia’s looming political and social crisis, will be held by the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. The National Democratic Institute (NDI), Human Rights Watch (HRW), local rights group Licadho and Phnom Penh-based investment firm SRP In­ternational Group are all set to testify.

HRW has been among Mr. Hun Sen’s fiercest perennial critics, accusing his government of everything from assassinating its opponents to running shadowy gangs and remaining well above the law.

Phil Robertson, its deputy director for Asia, said HRW would tell the subcommittee that the coming vote is shaping up to be little better than elections past.

“Our latest assessment, and that of other independent observers, is that the same structural problems related to the election commission, courts, media and use of state resources pervade the electoral process,” he said. “The only good news to report is that the CPP has engaged in much less violence.”

Licadho also stays busy by regularly pointing out the government’s many alleged human rights abuses—from overcrowding in prisons to shooting and arresting activists—and says the abuses have only picked up in recent years.

Naly Pilorge, Licadho’s director, said the subcommittee’s invitation to today’s hearing mentioned a focus on the coming election and that she expected another resolution to follow before voting day.

Licadho would focus its testimony on election problems, corruption and land grabbing, she added, explaining that while Licadho would not be calling for a complete cut in U.S. aid to Cambodia, it would suggest some.

“We will ask the U.S. government to review its bilateral cooperation with the Cambodian government, particularly military related in view of the land grabbing the military is involved in,” she said.

The use of soldiers to protect the concessions of private firms accused of stealing land from local farmers or clearing their communal forests is well documented. Still, the U.S. gave Cambodia about $6 million in military aid in 2011, according to the U.S. Embassy.

The NDI country team declined Monday to discuss its plans for the hearing. But in March, after a thorough audit of the latest voter list, the group said the voter registry was even worse than the one the government prepared for the last national elections in 2008.

NDI said 1 in 9 voters were unfairly removed from the last list, and 1 in 10 people on the list did not even appear to exist. The National Election Committee, which drew up the list, rejected the audit and said NDI had used flawed methods.

The subcommittee is also scheduled to hear from Daniel Mitchell, the managing director of the SRP International Group, a local investment firm and consultancy. Mr. Mitchell also used to run Grandis Timber, a local timber firm, and serves on the American Cambodian Business Council.

The U.S. previously cut off non-humanitarian aid to Cambodia after Mr. Hun Sen overthrew his co-prime minister when military units loyal to each squared off on Phnom Penh’s streets in 1997, but restarted aid a few years later.

Though ties have improved since, diplomatic relations are once again growing rocky in the lead-up to the election.

In the past few months alone, the U.S. State Department has rebuked the government for the absence from Cambodia of opposition leader Sam Rainsy—currently abroad avoiding convictions widely considered politically motivated—as well as for expelling all opposition members from Parliament. The U.S. also condemned a ban—since withdrawn—on all radio broadcasts of foreign programming over the entire month leading up the vote.

In their June 7 resolution, senators Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio called for the end to all direct aid to Cambodia, and a gradual drawdown in other development aid, if the State Department deems the coming election “not credible and competitive.”

Phay Siphan, spokesman for the Council of Ministers, said Cam­bodia still maintained a good rapport with the U.S. State Depart­ment and attributed the Senate resolution and today’s hearing to some ill-informed lawmakers.

“I think they don’t know exactly what’s going on in Cambodia,” he said. “If you compare to our neighbors, I think Cambodia is in a very good position in terms of human rights and development of its people.”

“Cambodians chose their own leaders and their own political parties,” he said. “This election shall be to improve and sanction the choice of the people, not the foreigners and their politicians.”