Strongman Hun Sen’s last bid to control Cambodia’s vocal civil society

By Alexandra Demetrianova

Earlier this month the Cambodian government passed a law which could seriously undermine freedom of civil society in the country. The Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations (LANGO) imposes new rules such as mandatory registration of all national and international organizations and the filing annual reports to the government about the activities and finances of all civil society associations. The controversial legislation was passed by all 68 parliamentarians from PM Hun Sen’s party, while opposition boycotted the vote.

Civil society associations have been heavily protesting against LANGO, which tightens government control over civil society per se. Critics and voices from the protests in front of parliament in Phnom Penh last week suggest that Cambodian government has waged an all-out war on the third sector. As president of Cambodian Center for Human Rights Virak Ou said: “Ultimately, the fear is that the law may be used as a legislative weapon to stifle grassroots democracy and freedom of expression and association in Cambodia, in violation of the Constitution and the principle of the rule of law.”

To an outsider the law may seem as an attempt to register and monitor civil society organizations in a country with one of the highest concentrations of NGOs in the world, but the new law brings some glaring benefits for Prime Minister Hun Sen. In recent years, the pro-democratic forces in Cambodia have been extremely vocal and critical of Mr. Hun Sen’s governance. In this context, control of government over legal existence of civil society associations and NGOs through mandatory registration will give more power to the state apparatus, which is largely loyal to PM Hun Sen. Under LANGO, the government will also have a mandate to monitor activities of NGOs, fine them or take legal action and even disband them if they “…jeopardize peace, stability and public order or harm the national security, national unity, culture, and traditions of Cambodian society.”

So if a civil society organization voices criticism against government segment of Cambodian society or causes “conflict” with the authorities deemed as “unrest”, it can be effectively shut down and members prosecuted.

The Cambodian Human Rights Association considers the new law a blow to democracy: “It is deeply deplorable that the government of Cambodia has decided to pursue a rushed adoption process of a deeply undemocratic law and has ignored the local and global call for a participatory drafting process.” Cambodian civil society was clearly left out of negotiations in a manner of “about us, without us”.

The land of NGOs and violence against civil society

Despite economic growth in recent years, Cambodia remains one of the poorest and most aid dependent countries in the world. The violent history of war and a genocidal regime, as well as the involvement of Vietnam in Cambodian politics, resulted in Cambodia having a fairly stable government – ruled by Mr. Hun Sen and his Cambodian People’s Party for more than 30 years. However, their human rights and democratic records are questionable by international standards, with a long list of abuses and violations. Nevertheless or precisely because of that, around 5,000 NGOs and civil society associations are active in the country. The third sector covers development, education, healthcare and many other people-oriented fields, where government doesn’t seem to have financial and development capacities. Human rights associations and environmental preservation community organizations have also been rising up in recent years. Mostly these are critical of government practices and development projects, which often grab land from villagers and destroy environment through illegal logging or dam building.

The new law placing government control over the non-governmental sector is only adding to the problems civil society representatives in Cambodia already face daily in their work, such as government unresponsiveness, legal hurdles and bureaucracy and of course corruption, elitism and the rule of the rich and powerful. But it doesn’t stop there and physical safety of civil society activists, journalists and opposition supporters is a serious issue in the Kingdom. As the LANGO law was passed, Cambodia commemorated the seven-year anniversary of Khim Sambo’s killing, which was according to many politically motivated. The 47-year-old opposition journalist had been working for Moneakseka Khmer newspaper and had been associated with opposition leader Sam Rainsy. Frequently writing about corruption and critical of PM Hun Sen, Khim Sambo was assassinated by unidentified gunmen in Phnom Penh in July 2008. The murder came just shortly before parliamentary elections.

A more recent case of environmental activist Chut Wutty also speaks for the vulnerable position civil society has in Cambodia. In 2012 as he was returning with two journalists from a visit to a protected area that had suffered large forest destruction and illegal rosewood smuggling, Chut Wutty was shot dead by military police. According to the original police report, he was armed and there were shots fired. Later it became clear, that the activist had been unarmed. The reason: there was an argument over a memory card from one of the journalists’ cameras containing photographs from the deforested area. Cambodian Center for Human Rights called the incident a “cold blooded murder”. Mr. Wutty’s wife later revealed that there had previously been a conflict between her husband and military police in the area. “I think there were third persons involved with my husband’s killing. They prepared a plot to kill him because his work was affecting their interests,” said Sam Chanthy about the reason behind death of her husband. Chut Wutty was one of the last remaining activists speaking out against destruction and exploitation of Cambodia’s natural resources.

Cambodia’s labor rights movement is experiencing similar hardship, especially in the garment industry, which employs some 600,000 underpaid and exploited worker, 90 percent of whom are women. In 2004 a prominent leader of Free Trade Union Chea Vichea was assassinated in Phnom Penh by an unidentified gunman on motorcycle. He was a vocal advocate of higher minimum wage in Cambodia. Last year five people were shot dead by military police during strikes of garment workers. In none of the mentioned cases was there anyone punished or brought to justice.

The age of Sam Rainsy and social media

But much has been changing in Cambodia since the 2013 elections, when opposition Cambodia’s National Rescue Party almost won the vote, and staged months of protests against the result, which once again reinstalled PM Hun Sen into power. The opposition movement has been very vocal and gathering massive support mainly in provincial Cambodia. CNRP is led by pro-democratic politician Sam Rainsy, who himself survived assassination attempts, a lengthy court sentence and even went into exile. He claims these were politically motivated persecutions which await anyone who is critical to Hun Sen regime. And therefore Sam Rainsy became a symbol of one-party repression and the fight against the authoritarianism in Cambodia, drawing millions of people to demand change.

Thanks to the increasingly vocal civil society and booming social media activism of recent years, it seems that some of the cases of crackdowns on civil society have been ending with more positive results. Let’s take the 10 activists who had been detained and charged while peacefully protesting land-grabbing in the Boeung Kak lake area in Phnom Penh. A large scale development project to turn the lake into a touristic and economically vibrant area didn’t include interests of the original residents. The 4,000 mostly poor families had been evicted them from their homes. After strong social media pressure and campaigns by Cambodian and international human rights organizations, Boeung Kak lake activists have recently been released from prison on royal pardon. This was a result of negotiations between opposition leader Sam Rainsy and PM Hun Sen. While the case is a success, the detained activists remain political prisoners, as they’ve never been acquitted, but rather ‘pardoned’ for their ‘crimes’. And so the impunity of government towards civil society in Cambodia continues.

Timing is everything

The latest pardon of Boeung Kak lake community activists came shortly before the controversial LANGO was passed – in April this year. Cambodian government has clearly made a compromise with opposition and civil society on the Boeung Kak lake case due to domestic protests and international pressure. The World Bank, which provided funding for the project, put loans to the program on hold due to the conflict with local residents in the Boeung Kak lake area and land-grabbing without proper compensation. To lose World Bank or any donor because of civil society unrest is a serious issue in any aid-dependent country. Foreign money runs most of the development projects in Cambodia.

But the World Bank loan suspension was in 2011 and Boeung Kak lake activists continued to protest, clash with police and were thrown to jail for another four years. Media attention and human rights organizations’ campaigns haven’t done much good to reputation of PM Hun Sen’s government at home or abroad. So ‘pardoning’ people, who protested against violation of their land rights seemed like the politically correct thing to do on both sides. Cambodia’s government didn’t lose face, because it never backed down from its position. The activists were freed, but not necessarily acquitted. And shortly after, a new way of curtailing public dissent and civil society criticism was introduced – the LANGO. Now, control over critical voices in Cambodian society has been put at the very beginning of their existence – the civil society organizations. Effectively this is a yet another win-win for Cambodian government, who can now legally prevent civil society from having a legitimate place in the country.

source: http://asiancorrespondent.com/134228/strongman-hun-sens-last-bid-to-control-cambodias-vocal-civil-society/