Hundreds of protesters urge Long Beach council to denounce visit from Cambodian leader
More than 200 protesters Tuesday descended on City Hall to
denounce the scheduled visit by a son of the Cambodian prime minister
who also was a former Khmer Rouge commander.
Hun Manet, a lieutenant general in the Cambodian military
and the eldest son of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, is planning to
attend the April 10 Cambodian New Year Parade, and his impending visit
has stirred outrage in the city’s Cambodian community, with many calling
on Long Beach leaders to step in and urge that the man they say wants
to take over a dictatorship be dis-invited.
Several
of the Long Beach council members said after more than an hour of
public comment from the Cambodian community that they would not attend
the event.
“I’m letting you know, as I sit here today . . . I will
not be a part, or participate in a parade of that matter,” Councilman
Dee Andrews said Tuesday night to applause from the audience.
Among
those protesting during the City Council meeting on Tuesday was Saley
Son, 43, of Long Beach, who said she lost both her parents, as well as
siblings, under the Khmer Rouge, a Communist regime that killed nearly 2
million people in the 1970s.
“We want freedom,” Son said. “In the United States, we are free
people. I ran out of the country because of the war. I lost my parents
because of the war.”
Long Beach is home to the largest Cambodian
population outside of the Southeast Asian nation. Thousands immigrated
here in the mid-1970s during the reign of the Khmer Rouge.
Manet
is the eldest son of Sen, the Cambodian prime minister who has been in
power for 31 years and is seen by many as a corrupt dictator, with the
organization Human Rights Watch calling the leader a man who rules by
through “politically motivated violence.”
Some in the Cambodian community say Manet is simply using the
Cambodian community here for photo opportunities to curry political
favor in the motherland.
“We are not welcoming him
to participate in our event,” Long said. “That’s our big concern, that
for him to come here, he’s trying to get more support. For Cambodians,
this (Long Beach) is their lifeline.”
The office of the Long Beach-based Consulate General of Cambodia contacted the Cambodian Coordinating Council
— which organizes the New Year Parade — to ask if Manet could march in
the parade with a group of Cambodian government representatives.
Monorom Neth, president of the council, earlier told the Press-Telegram
that Manet’s participation symbolizes the embracing of Cambodian-U.S.
relations and cultural exchange in an apolitical way, adding that Manet,
who may be joined by influential Cambodian businessman Kith Meng, would
not be walking in a military uniform.
In addition to calling on the coordinating council to dis-invite
Manet, protest groups have already contacted City Hall and the Mayor’s
Office, asking officials to denounce Manet’s scheduled visit.
Kalmine
Ly, chairman of the nonprofit Cambodian Veterans group, wrote a letter
to Mayor Robert Garcia last week, expressing fear over Cambodia Town
becoming a “Cambodian battlefield.”
Ly told the City Council on
Tuesday the Cambodian community here is frustrated, and those who
attended were coming to “you as a Mayor and a City Council, as police,
to reconsider what you can do to make our New Year’s happy, not broken.”
In a March 10 email to Veasna Roeun, vice president of the North Carolina-based Cambodia-America Alliance,
Daniel Brezenoff, deputy chief of staff for Garcia, made clear that the
mayor and City Council do not have the power to prevent Manet and Meng
from visiting the city because it is a private event.
Garcia on
Tuesday night said he supports the local Cambodian community — he will
not attend the parade, either — and called on the protesters to
demonstrate peacefully should Manet attend.
Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal said she saw the tears of many in the audience.
“None of us is going to this parade,” Lowenthal said.
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