Cambodia: Political deadlock will ease soon, minister tells the US
Asian Correspondent | 28 Oct. 2016
CAMBODIA’S political deadlock is expected to ease soon as
opposition lawmakers have agreed to end their boycott of the Parliament
and attend its upcoming plenary session, its foreign minister said.
Foreign Minister Prak Sokonn made the the assurance Thursday
when he met with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel R. Russel.
Russel said he hopes Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian
People’s Party and the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP)
will also resume talks soon to end political tensions.
Amid deteriorating relations between the two sides last
year, Hun Sen stepped up intimidation of the opposition party in the
courts.
Rights groups said Hun Sen and other leaders of the ruling
Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), including those in the armed forces and
police, have over the last year made a series of increasingly dire
public threats against the opposition. Cambodia is due to hold its
elections in 2018.
Opposition lawmakers stopped attending parliamentary
sessions about four months ago but on Wednesday, the party said its
members will rejoin the National Assembly.
The CNRP’s agreement to attend Parliament, though, does not
appear to be done out of its own volition as on Wednesday, Hun Sen
announced plans to cut the salaries of the opposition lawmakers who did
not attend the National Assembly.
“The sanction is meant to hold lawmakers accountable before their constituents,” was quoted as saying CPP lawmaker Chheang Vun.
“It is to let people see that no one is spared from going
unpunished regardless of his parliamentary status if he abuses the
rules.”
However, the CNRP spokesman Yem Ponhearith said the move was unnecessary.
“I take it as a redundancy,” Yem said. “The current National
Assembly’s regulations are comprehensive enough for the assembly’s
Standing Committee and the general secretariat of the National Assembly
to apply.”
The CNRP has been using the boycott as its favorite
bargaining chip as it promoted their cause and pressured Hun Sen to the
negotiating table.
The opposition began its latest boycott in October last year
when CNRP leader Kem Sokha was ousted as first vice president of the
National Assembly in a CPP vote and the reported assault on two CNRP
lawmakers.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch
has called on the Cambodian government to rescind its order banning the
return of exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy following a directive
issued by Hun Sen on Oct 12.
The directive, among others, instructed airlines flying to Cambodia to refuse taking Rainsy as a passenger.
“The official exile of opposition leader Sam Rainsy is just
the latest effort by Cambodia’s ruling party to win the next national
elections – by ensuring they have no real competition,” HRW’s Asia
Director Brad Adams said in a statement.
“Cambodia’s donors and ASEAN members should urgently and
publicly call on Prime Minister Hun Sen to end his political persecution
of the opposition.”
In the directive, the government also threatened to order
any plane carrying Rainsy to return to its point of origin and said it
would arrest the leader if he arrived in the country.
“The actions against Sam Rainsy again expose Hun Sen’s
intention to return Cambodia to a de facto one-party state, with little
room for critical or opposition voices,” Adams said.
He said the government’s criminal cases against Rainsy, the
longtime leader of the CNRP, were politically motivated, forcing him to
seek exile to avoid persecution.
“The government has also carried out many arbitrary arrests
and detentions of opposition members of the National Assembly and
Senate, opposition party activists, and members of civil society groups,
including staff of the internationally respected Cambodian Human Rights
and Development Association (ADHOC).”
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