Cambodia opposition appeals for int'l embassies’ help

By Lauren Crothers

PHNOM PENH

Opposition party MPs pushed ahead with plans to submit open letters to a number of embassies around Phnom Penh on Monday despite a series of blockades set up on the road to their headquarters that snarled traffic in the capital for several hours.

The Cambodia National Rescue Party’s (CNRP) Deputy Director-General of Public Affairs, Kem Monovithya, had announced on social media yesterday that plans for a march through Phnom Penh would proceed “despite City hall objection”, but come nightfall the barricades had started going up.

They were erected along National Road 2 on Sunday night; a key arterial route in and out of the city, and home to the CNRP’s headquarters. By early Monday morning, the blockade choked the roads feeding into that point, causing tailbacks through parts of the southern end of the city for several kilometers (miles).

The aim of the march was to deliver letters to some of the embassies representing the countries that signed the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement, which effectively ended 20 years of bloodshed in Cambodia and paved the way for United Nations-backed elections in 1993, as well as ASEAN-member embassies.

The CNRP claims that Cambodia’s ruling party has not upheld the values of the accord.

Outside the CNRP offices, where deputy leader Kem Sokha has been holed up for weeks to avoid being hauled off to court in a prostitution case that critics say is politically motivated, supporters and monks gathered.

Beyond the three-strong sets of barricades, lawmakers Mu Sochua, Ho Vann and Long Botta abandoned plans to try and reach their office and forged ahead with delivering the letters.

“What is important is why it was delivered today, because tomorrow is the [Association of Southeast Asian Nations - ASEAN] summit in Laos,” Sochua told Anadolu Agency by phone Monday.

“We call on the ASEAN members to take up the discussion of the political situation in Cambodia and the use of power.”

According to a copy of the letter, “leaders from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party have gravely violated the will of the Cambodian people, as defined by the Constitution, as well as the fundamental principles enshrined in the Paris Peace Agreement, through the increasingly inhumane abuse of power and suppression of public and personal freedoms.”

The letter added that “manipulation” of the country’s judicial system has seen human rights defenders, opposition members and land activists penalized.

The delivery of the letters to the embassies of Australia, the U.S., the U.K., Russia, France, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia on Monday comes against a backdrop of mounting tensions in Cambodia’s political and social landscape.

CNRP leader Sam Rainsy has been in self-imposed exile since late last year in a bid to avoid imprisonment for a years-old defamation case. Sokha remains sequestered away, and the prostitution trial is scheduled to begin Friday.

Four human rights defenders and an election official are also behind bars awaiting a bribery trial for assisting the woman in that case, who is actually Sokha’s alleged mistress.

On Monday, Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak referred Anadolu Agency questions about the blockades to municipal spokesman Mean Chanyada, who could not be reached for comment.

Chanyada was quoted by The Cambodia Daily newspaper as having said on Sunday that City Hall had banned the CNRP from holding a march.