Former Australian foreign minister G Evans calls for Cambodian leaders to B investigated sanctionned

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A former Australian foreign minister has called on the international community to "name, shame, investigate and sanction" Cambodia's political leaders.

Gareth Evans was foreign minister under the Labor government from 1988 to 1996 and is now on the board of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

In a piece titled Cambodia's Violent Peace published on his website, Professor Evans says Cambodian citizens have been "deliberately targeted by their country's security forces".

"The recent killings repeat a pattern of political violence that recurred all too often at crucial moments in Cambodia's history," Mr Evans writes.

"Cambodia's record on democracy and human rights since the (1991) Paris Peace Agreements has not been a good one."

Mr Evans cites several cases, including the shooting deaths of five garment workers in January, last year's deadly violence used against demonstrators protesting the 2013 election result, the 1997 grenade attack on an opposition rally led by opposition politician Sam Rainsy and Prime Minister Hun Sen's bloody coup in the same year.

Mr Evans says "since then, while preserving a democratic facade, Hun Sen has ruled, for all practical purposes, as an autocrat... For far too long, Hun Sen and his colleagues have been getting away with violence, human-rights abuses, corruption, and media and electoral manipulation without serious internal or external challenge."

Gareth Evans was Australia's foreign minister at the time of the UN peacekeeping operation in Cambodia and national elections in the early 1990s. He says not enough is being done internationally to put pressure on the Hun Sen government to be called to account.

"Australia's statements have been typical... "concerned" about "recent disproportionate violence against protesters" but "welcome the Government’s stated commitment to undertake electoral reforms.

"Australia’s new foreign minister, Julie Bishop, has talked, as foreign ministers often do, of the need to avoid unproductive 'megaphone diplomacy' and to 'engage, not enrage' her counterparts.

"But, it seems that no robust critique was delivered when she met privately with Hun Sen in Phnom Penh on February 22 – even though Australia's high standing in Cambodia (not least owing to its historical role in the peace process) means that its voice certainly would have been listened to.

"I know Hun Sen and worked well with him in the past. I have resisted strong public criticism until now, because I thought there was hope for both him and his government.

"But their behaviour has now moved beyond the civilised pale. It is time for Cambodia's political leaders to be named, shamed, investigated, and sanctioned by the international community."

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has responded to Mr Evans, saying she raised human rights in her meetings with Cambodian leaders during her visit to Phnom Penh in February.

"I note Mr Evans has chosen to make these criticisms in the week following my visit to Cambodia, yet remained silent when Labor's Bob Carr visited Cambodia. I will not play politics with what is a serious issue," Ms Bishop told the ABC.

"I raised human rights in each of my meetings with the prime minister, deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Cambodia."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-02/an-cambodia-gareth-evans/5293386