Cambodia's Hun Sen cracks down on dissent amid challenge to his rule

The Age (Australia) | January 05, 2014

 

A security guard chases away Buddhist monks from a camp occupied by anti-government demonstrators in Phnom Penh. Photo: Reuters

Cambodia’s strongman prime minister Hun Sen has implemented a brutal crackdown on dissent in a move aimed at quashing one of the most serious challenges to his three-decade long rule.

Opposition leaders, fearing more bloodshed after the killing of four people during a garment worker’s demonstration on Friday, called off a major protest rally planned for Sunday.

Cambodian authorities have banned protests and street marches in Phnom Penh after unidentified men in plainclothes wielding steel bars, metal pipes, batons, sticks and axes forcibly cleared hundreds of demonstrators from their rally base in the capital on Saturday.

Monks and women were among those chased and beaten, witnesses said.

Until Friday’s shootings Cambodian authorities had shown restraint in handling protests while Mr Hun Sen remained firmly in control of the police and military.

A former cadre of the murderous Khmer Rouge who defected to Vietnam before becoming Asia’s youngest leader 28 years ago, Mr Hun has shown in the past he is capable of instigating violence, as in a 1997 putsch that overthrew his then senior coalition partner Prince Norodom Ranariddh.