Cambodian military leader not invited to Cambodia Town Culture Festival

Cambodian military leader not invited to Cambodia Town Culture Festival

Members of the Long Beach Cambodian community speak out at Tuesday’s Long Beach City Council meeting. (Photo by Stephen Carr / Press-Telegram)

By Josh Dulaney, Long Beach Press Telegram

Posted: 03/23/16

Organizers for the upcoming Cambodia Town Culture Festival announced this week they did not extend an invitation to a high-ranking Cambodian military leader whose impending visit to Long Beach triggered a protest at City Hall.

Pasin Chanou, chairman of Cambodia Town, Inc., which co-sponsors the festival, said the April 10 event is separate from the Cambodian New Year Parade, which falls on the same day and in which Cambodian Lt. Gen. Hun Manet is scheduled to participate.

“I want to be clear that he’s not going to be there,” Chanou said. “We don’t want to have any disruptions or protests at the Culture Festival.”

More than 200 protesters Tuesday urged Mayor Robert Garcia and the City Council to denounce the visit by Manet, who is the eldest son of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.

Sen is a former commander in the Khmer Rouge, a Communist regime that killed nearly 2 million people in the 1970s.

According to the group Human Rights Watch, Sen became the world’s youngest foreign minister at age 26 after Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1979 and forced the Khmer Rouge from power. Vietnam appointed Sen prime minister of Cambodia after the then-prime minister died in office.

“Instead of devoting his time as prime minister to equitably improving the health, education, and standard of living of the Cambodian people, Hun Sen has been linked to a wide range of serious human rights violations: extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, summary trials, censorship, bans on assembly and association, and a national network of spies and informers intended to frighten and intimidate the public into submission,” Human Rights Watch says of Sen.

Long Beach is home to the largest Cambodian population outside of the Southeast Asian nation, growing as thousands immigrated here in the mid-1970s during the reign of the Khmer Rouge.

The Cambodian Coordinating Council says it was contacted by the office of the Long Beach-based Consulate General of Cambodia, which asked if Manet could be in the Cambodian New Year Parade. Monorom Neth, president of the council, has said Manet’s visit would mark the embracing of Cambodian-U.S. relations and cultural exchange in an apolitical way.

Neth did not return requests for comment Wednesday.

As word of the invitation spread, Cambodians in Long Beach threatened protest at the parade, saying Manet is representing his father, aims to be next in line as ruler in Cambodia and is only using the Cambodian community here for photo opportunities to score political points back home.

Garcia has said he won’t be at the parade because he is scheduled to attend a countywide citizenship event at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center.

Cambodian groups in Long Beach have asked Garcia to put pressure on parade organizers to dis-invite Manet. Garcia has not announced any such effort on his part, but said Wednesday he and other city officials will meet with parade organizers in the coming days to discuss the controversy, adding that he hopes the community can come together.

“Unfortunately this issue has really divided the Cambodian community,” Garcia said.

Dee Andrews, councilman for the 6th District, told protesters at the council meeting Tuesday that he would not attend the parade. The announcement was followed by Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal saying neither she nor any other members of the council would be attending.

Andrews was not available for comment Wednesday, but an aide in his office confirmed he is planning to attend the annual Cambodia Town Culture Festival, which takes place at MacArthur Park.

The invitation of Manet isn’t the first such gesture to stir controversy over the Cambodian New Year Parade.

Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An was invited to participate in 2008, prompting protests to stop his visit. Protesters gathered more than 1,100 signatures to have An’s invitation rescinded, and the Cambodian official eventually backed out of the parade. However, city service costs for the parade that year spiked 60 percent from $25,000 to $40,000, including one bill of more than $20,000 just for police and park rangers.

Chanou, the Cambodia Town, Inc. chairman, said he wanted to dispel rumors that Manet would also take part in this year’s Cambodia Town Culture Festival.

“I heard some concerns, and I had to convince my Board of Directors that he’s not going to be there,” Chanou said. “We want to tell as many people as we can that he’s not going to be there.”

Staff writer Greg Yee contributed to this story.