The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on
Foreign Affairs called on Prime Minister Hun Sen to stand down during an
event attended by CNRP Vice President Kem Sokha in California on
Saturday night.
Speaking at a CNRP fundraising event, Ed Royce, a Republican
congressman in a district that covers part of the Cambodian-American
community in Long Beach, rebuked Mr. Hun Sen for corruption and
electoral fraud.
“As chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the United States
Congress, we say: Enough to the stealing of elections, enough to the
stealing of land and enough to the corruption,” he says in a video of
the event uploaded to Mr. Sokha’s Facebook page Sunday.
“We say enough to Hun Sen. Hun Sen must go. We want fair elections in Cambodia.”
Mr. Royce said that 40 percent of Cambodia’s land has now been taken
through land grabs, and added that with the claims of fraud in the July
28 national election, “it is time for the international community to say
‘Enough: This is not fair.’”
Photographs posted to Facebook alongside the video by Mr. Sokha show the deputy opposition leader standing with Mr. Royce’s staff under CNRP-branded banners reading: “Welcome to Cambodia Town, Long Beach, California, USA, U.S. Congressman Ed Royce. You are our hope.”
After Mr. Royce’s speech, Mr. Sokha offered his thanks for the U.S. representative’s support.
“I am excited to see the U.S. representative claiming a precise
stance that he wants to see Cambodia have real democracy as U.S.
citizens have,” he says in the clip.
“I have personally been financially supported by the American
government to extend democracy for more than five years,” Mr. Sokha
adds. “Today the results of the assistance from American citizens have
helped Cambodians to stand up.”
Mr. Sokha, who was first elected to the National Assembly for the
Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party in 1993 and later served as a
Funcinpec senator, used a $450,000 grant from the International
Republican Institute in November 2002 to found the Cambodian Center for
Human Rights.
CNRP permanent committee member Kem Monovithya—who is also Mr.
Sokha’s eldest daughter—confirmed that the event at Long Beach was part
of a fundraising trip to the U.S. in the lead-up to two CNRP mass
demonstrations in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh this month.
Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan, himself a U.S. citizen,
said Mr. Royce’s comments were to be expected from a congressman elected
to a constituency that has many pro-opposition Cambodian-Americans.
“The U.S. has a number of politicians, especially in the House, who
head committees, and they just shout out to gain popularity by framing
Cambodia as Communist,” he said, adding that U.S.-Cambodian relations
remain strong.
“The executive branch in the U.S. is very close to Cambodia. We cooperate together. It’s going very well.”
6 comments:
I wish if these words : "Hun Sen must go" should be come out from President Obama, that would be carried 8oo lbs gariella's weight in the room.
Rep. Roy'words may carry a baby monkey's pound of weight.
he can not do anything to Khmer government in PHN
it was his rights to express his freedom.
Can Khmer's congressman asked Obama to step down as well ??
Pres. Obama will surely step down in January 21th, 2017 exactly at 12:00 noon. I can tell you to the date and hour of his leaving the US Presidency.
When PM. Hun Sen is going to step down at age 74? or 90?
as elected & voted by the peoples, he can stays as long as he can..
as he always robbed the votes from the peoples, he can stays as long as he can
Post a Comment