Cambodians Deserve Better

[geovalin]

By OU VIRAK

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodian politics is in the midst of an ugly crisis. Prime Minister Hun Sen, after officially winning the 2013 election by just a narrow margin and facing months of massive anti-government protests, seemed to have regained control. Yet in recent weeks the authorities have cracked down on the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, C.N.R.P.

For a prime minister who has mastered a form of kleptocratic electoral authoritarianism during three decades in power, the resort to violence, intimidation and judicial harassment betrays Hun Sen’s great anxiety about the prospects of his party in the next general election in 2018.

On Oct. 26, two C.N.R.P. parliamentarians were pulled out of their cars outside the National Assembly and badly beaten by thugs while the police looked on. The same day a mob descended on the house of the C.N.R.P.’s deputy leader, Kem Sokha, pelting it with rocks while his wife cowered indoors. A few days later, Kem Sokha was unseated as first vice-president of the National Assembly.

On Nov. 13, an arrest warrant was issued against the C.N.R.P.’s leader, Sam Rainsy, who was traveling out of the country, in connection with a 2008 defamation case brought by the foreign minister. Sam Rainsy was soon stripped of his position as National Assembly representative, and of parliamentary immunity. Several more dubious charges have been brought against him since then; he now faces at least 17 years in prison. He has not returned to Cambodia.

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/opinion/cambodians-deserve-better.html

[F4UCorsair]

I think you're right, but any people with a thug like HS in control do.

I worked in Cambodia in 2003, and I say without equivocation, they are the nicest people I've ever come across, with the saddest past.

[Krataiboy]

Hun Sen and Rainsy - two ugly cheeks of the same arse.