Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy arrives at a news conference room in Tokyo on Nov. 10. (Yoshikazu Tsuno/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

Trying to stop ‘the wind of freedom’ from reaching Cambodia

 The Editorial Board / Washington Post | 17 November 2015

[What ALL of Washington DC is waking up to as everyone there reads the Washington Post first before other newspapers, and they read the Editorial page, particularly from the Editorial Board.  "All" includes Senators, Members of the House of Representatives, President Obama and his administration...]

THE VICTORY of Aung San Suu Kyi’s movement in Burma after years of military rule and repression is already starting to unnerve autocrats nearby. Last week, Sam Rainsy, an opposition leader in Cambodia, declared that the democrats’ “resounding” victory “has created panic among the last surviving dictators in our part of the world. But the wind of freedom that is blowing through throughout the world will also reach Cambodia in the very near future.” 

This bit of rhetoric might have dissipated rapidly if it were not for the reaction of strongman Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for three decades and took to Facebook to denounce what he called an “insult” from Sam Rainsy, who leads the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party. 

Hun Sen didn’t stop there. On Friday, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sam Rainsy on a long-dormant conviction for defamation of the foreign minister, Hor Namhong, a leader of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. The arrest warrant was clearly a politically motivated counter-strike. Sam Rainsy had charged in 2008 that the minister had run a prison for the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, which the minister denied. A two-year sentence for defamation was upheld by an appeals court in 2013 but never enforced. Suddenly, the matter was urgent and required an arrest warrant. After that, on Monday, parliament revoked Sam Rainsy’s position as an elected member and stripped him of parliamentary immunity. At about the same time, the regime announced the creation of a special committee to enforce the arrest warrant — portending a showdown.

Sam Rainsy was visiting Japan and South Korea when the latest storm blew up. After years of self-imposed exile outside of Cambodia, he was granted a royal pardon in 2013 to remove the threat of a jail term on other charges that his supporters said were also politically motivated. He returned to Cambodia, and for a while a reconciliation appeared to be underway, but now it seems to have collapsed. Sam Rainsy declared after hearing about the arrest warrant, “I absolutely must go back and go to rescue our nation.” He added, “If I must die, let it be.” But then he was urged by pro-democracy groups not to return immediately and said he would come back “in the next few days.” 

This is a moment of truth for Hun Sen, who seems eager for international respect even as he crudely suppresses dissent at home. The arrest warrant for Sam Rainsy is just the latest example of Hun Sen’s use of the judicial system to persecute opponents. Nineteen civil society organizations denounced the warrant and lifting of parliamentary immunity as “a major threat to democracy and fundamental freedoms” in Cambodia. They are right. The arrest warrant should be dropped and Sam Rainsy’s seat and rights in Parliament restored. The lesson of what happened in Burma is that people do not forget when their aspirations are crushed. Hun Sen may not have liked what Sam Rainsy had to say about democracy, but the words were entirely appropriate and the speaker must not be silenced.