tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/hun-sen-42762/articlesHun Sen – The Conversation2024-02-29T02:27:39Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2247262024-02-29T02:27:39Z2024-02-29T02:27:39ZCambodia’s new leader may sound like a reformer in Australia next week, but little has changed back home<p>When Cambodia’s new prime minister, Hun Manet, visits Melbourne next week for the <a href="https://aseanaustralia.pmc.gov.au/">ASEAN Australia Summit</a>, he may seem a welcome change from his long-serving authoritarian father Hun Sen. But hopes for a democratic and human rights renaissance in this genocide-ravaged and long-misgoverned country remain sadly misplaced.</p>
<p>Hun Sen, who had ruled Cambodia for 38 years, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/21/world/asia/cambodia-hun-manet-prime-minister.html">transferred</a> power to his son, the 45-year-old Hun Manet, last August.</p>
<p>In Australia next week, the soft-spoken, Western-educated and technocratically savvy Hun Manet will likely present himself as the face of a modern, developing Cambodia, talking the talk of economic reform and more effective governance. However, his father’s talk back home is jail for his critics. And his father continues to call the shots that matter.</p>
<p>Hun Sen, still only 71, remains president of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and is in practical control of what effectively remains a one-party state. And he is, for good measure, the de facto constitutional head of state, as well. </p>
<p>As the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/senate-president-election-hun-sen-manet-c8613f0cc226f938f3e09b28e65a565e">expected</a> new president of the Senate, he will act for King Norodom Sihamoni when he is out of the country – as the king often has been, not least when <a href="https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/king-again-beijing-contested-party-laws-signing">controversial legislation has been signed</a> into force.</p>
<p>The governing CPP has successfully used broad defamation laws to prosecute government critics in the courts. Last year, an opposition leader, Son Chhay, a dual Cambodian-Australian citizen, was <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/charged-fined-and-frozen-out-the-australian-man-taking-on-asian-strongman-hun-sen-20230215-p5ckuh.html">ordered</a> to pay $US1 million (A$1.5 million) in damages for saying the CPP bought and stole votes. Jail awaits if he cannot pay.</p>
<p>Commenting on this case, the deputy head of one of the country’s leading NGOs, Soeng Sengkaruna, whose long record of defending human rights was detailed in co-author Gordon Conochie’s book <a href="https://atigerrules.com/">A Tiger Rules the Mountain – Cambodia’s Pursuit of Democracy</a>, said the CPP <a href="https://cambojanews.com/cambodia-daily-corrects-report-amid-legal-case-against-soeng-senkaruna/">should stop</a> using the courts to silence the opposition. </p>
<p>This led the party to sue him this month, too, <a href="https://cambojanews.com/former-pm-hun-sen-threatens-adhocs-soeng-senkaruna-with-lawsuit-following-comments-in-media-report/">seeking</a> US$500,000 (A$770,000) in damages. Knowing the prospect of the courts defying the CCP’s wishes, he and his family have now fled the country.</p>
<h2>Power concentrated in one family</h2>
<p>With Hun Sen doing the heavy lifting in controlling the political environment, Hun Manet has been able to concentrate on managing government departments and delivering public services, keeping one step away from allegations of human rights abuses. This has encouraged some <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Cambodia-s-Hun-Manet-given-wary-welcome-by-West-despite-rights-record">media and diplomats</a> to dream <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9YPe3gO2iY">he will grant liberal freedoms</a> when given the opportunity.</p>
<p>But there is no reason to believe a few years studying in America and Britain will lead Hun Manet to discard the authoritarian and paternalistic culture in which he has been immersed for most of his life. </p>
<p>This is a political culture, much influenced by Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore, where family trumps the individual, economic rights trump political rights, liberal freedoms need to be constrained lest they brew discord and disorder, and wise rulers should not be held back by the separation of powers.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/cambodian-strongman-hun-sen-wins-another-landslide-election-will-succession-to-his-son-be-just-as-smooth-209967">Cambodian strongman Hun Sen wins another 'landslide' election. Will succession to his son be just as smooth?</a>
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<p>However, a great many Cambodians, including reportedly <a href="https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national-politics/sar-kheng-rejects-allegations-cpp-division">some in the CPP itself</a>, have not been persuaded that family values justify so many powerful roles being occupied by Hun Sen and his progeny. In addition to Hun Manet now serving as prime minister: </p>
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<li><p>Lieutenant General Hun Manith (middle son) is chief of the Defence Ministry’s Intelligence Department </p></li>
<li><p>Hun Many (youngest son) is a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hun-many-manith-manet-sen-nepotism-9f70d85a2668384ab1efeb82782c3f8f">new deputy prime minister</a>, the minister for civil service and president of the CPP’s youth wing </p></li>
<li><p>daughters Hun Mana and Hun Maly <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/reports/hostile-takeover/">hold interests in a swathe of companies</a>, including Cambodia Electricity Private that sells electricity to the government, as well as television, radio and newspaper outlets</p></li>
<li><p>and Hun Mana’s husband, Dy Vichea, is <a href="https://southeastasiaglobe.com/police-chief/">deputy national police chief</a>. He is also one of many powerful party figures who hold <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-25/cambodian-pm-henchmen-splash-millions-on-melbourne-property/10355246">multi-million dollar commercial and residential assets in Australia</a>. </p></li>
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<p>Cambodia is growing economically and the cityscape is now gleaming with skyscrapers. But it <a href="https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/cambodia">ranks 158th out of 180 countries for corruption</a>. And a country where one family dominates government and commerce, and leaders are appointed because of their family connections, is at profound risk of kleptocracy.</p>
<p>Cambodia’s democratic and human rights deficit remains profound, with: </p>
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<li><p>opposition parties <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65478798">dissolved</a> or <a href="https://apnews.com/article/cambodia-opposition-party-election-hun-sen-63659ff8f2de992d84d2be748afbab8b">excluded from elections</a> and their members <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/19/cambodia-harassment-arrests-opposition-activists">threatened with arrest</a></p></li>
<li><p>mass surveillance <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20220216124054-u6xyw">strengthened</a></p></li>
<li><p>independent media outlets <a href="https://eastasiaforum.org/2023/03/28/hun-sen-closes-in-on-independent-media-in-cambodia/">shuttered</a>. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The government’s obsession with control extends to the diaspora: Cambodian-Australians joining protests in Melbourne may put their families back home <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/cambodian-australians-fear-threats-violence-when-regime-leader-visits-20240124-p5ezob.html">at risk</a> of visits by the authorities.</p>
<h2>Australia should use its leverage</h2>
<p>Australia should continue to support the economic and social development of Cambodia, but also those Cambodians who are striving for democracy and freedom of expression. Targeted sanctions against those accused of human rights violations can and should be applied.</p>
<p>Australia <a href="https://cambodia.embassy.gov.au/files/PENH/20231214-Australian-Embassy-media-release-Roundtable-on-Australia%E2%80%99s-new-Development-Partnership-Plan-English.pdf">recently consulted with 14 Cambodian ministries</a> on its new Development Partnership Plan for Cambodia – but no alternative civil society voices. We have leverage, and should use it – not just to promote economic development, but the decent governance so many Cambodians want and deserve.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/does-australia-have-the-political-will-or-leverage-to-support-change-in-cambodia-100829">Does Australia have the political will – or leverage – to support change in Cambodia?</a>
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<p>The CPP has called liberal democracy <a href="https://www.mfaic.gov.kh/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/4T2-Stability-12-February-2018.pdf">unattainably “pure and perfect”</a>. However, Cambodia’s own constitution – accepted as part of the <a href="https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/marise-payne/media-release/30th-anniversary-cambodias-peace-agreements">peace process</a> following the civil war, in which Australia played a prominent part – says this is exactly what the country should be.</p>
<p>The millions of Cambodians who vote when they can, rally for human rights and risk jail to protest abuses show that belief in true democracy is not a minority aberration. Australia should be standing with them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224726/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gareth Evans was Australia’s foreign minister (1988–1996) and played a leading role in initiating the Paris Peace Agreements that ended Cambodia’s civil war.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gordon Conochie is author of the new book, A Tiger Rules the Mountain - Cambodia's Pursuit of Democracy.</span></em></p>Hun Manet, the son of longtime authoritarian leader Hun Sen, arrives in Melbourne next week at a time of increasing crackdowns on dissent and the opposition in the country.Gareth Evans, Distinguished Honorary Professor, Australian National UniversityGordon Conochie, Adjunct Research Fellow, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2104722023-07-28T10:17:11Z2023-07-28T10:17:11ZCambodia: five decades on from the Khmer Rouge, Hun Sen proves himself the ultimate survivor with his plan to hand power to his son<p>Cambodia’s newly re-elected prime minister, Hun Sen, has confirmed he will hand over the premiership to his son, Hun Manet, in August after 38 years at the top of the country’s politics. Hun Sen, who has been at the helm of the Cambodian government since 1985, won a <a href="https://theconversation.com/cambodian-strongman-hun-sen-wins-another-landslide-election-will-succession-to-his-son-be-just-as-smooth-209967">“landslide” general election victory</a> on July 23. </p>
<p>That general election, the seventh of Cambodia’s modern era, was designed to display a transition of sorts back to a multi-party democracy after the country became a one-party state in 2018. The <a href="https://phnompenhpost.com/national-politics/ruling-cambodian-peoples-party-poised-next-five-year-term">five seats won</a> by the royalist Funcinpec party <a href="https://www.mfaic.gov.kh/posts/2023-05-27-Press-Release--Cambodia-s-commitment-to-a-multiparty-democracy-remains-steadfast---affirms-the-Foreign-Ministry-s--11-41-53">are claimed to be</a> (token) evidence of this. In reality, the power of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) is unfettered.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/cambodian-strongman-hun-sen-wins-another-landslide-election-will-succession-to-his-son-be-just-as-smooth-209967">Cambodian strongman Hun Sen wins another 'landslide' election. Will succession to his son be just as smooth?</a>
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<p>A common mantra in Hun Sen’s rhetoric is “<a href="https://www.voacambodia.com/a/hun-sen-prides-himself-on-win-win-policy-at-un-regional-meeting/4935212.html">peace and stability</a>”, something that particularly resonates with the prime minister’s contemporaries. But the reality of life in Cambodia is quite different – <a href="https://cambodia.unfpa.org/en/publications/general-population-census-kingdom-cambodia-2019">barely 10% of its population</a> were adults when Hun Sen first became prime minister. </p>
<p>For the few old enough to remember life before, it was a period of scarcely imaginable horrors – famine, civil war, and the genocidal “killing fields” regime of the Khmer Rouge.</p>
<p>Hun Sen himself <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/01/12/30-years-hun-sen/violence-repression-and-corruption-cambodia">served with the Khmer Rouge</a> in the early years of the regime, later fleeing to Vietnam. He returned to Cambodia with the Vietnamese invasion of 1978 and took the position of foreign minister – before, in 1985, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/7/22/cambodias-sham-election-might-be-hun-sens-last">becoming prime minister</a>. </p>
<p>A UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (<a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/past/untacbackgr1.html">Untac</a>) was created in 1992 to oversee the Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, with the withdrawal of all foreign forces and the first democratic elections of the modern era in 1993.</p>
<p>That election was <a href="http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/arc/2051_93.htm">actually won</a> by Funcinpec, but Hun Sen rejected the result and negotiated a role for himself as the country’s second prime minister. He consolidated his position <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2007/07/27/cambodia-july-1997-shock-and-aftermath">with a coup in 1997</a>, and his CPP party has won every subsequent election.</p>
<h2>Dealing with the opposition</h2>
<p>The biggest electoral shock <a href="http://iric.gov.kh/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Cambodian_National_Assembly_Election.pdf">came in 2013</a>, when the newly formed Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), combining the Human Rights Party and the Sam Rainsy Party, secured 44% of the votes to the CPP’s 49%. </p>
<p>Rainsy, then leader of the CNRP, and Hun Sen have a long-established political rivalry. Rainsy has <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2022/10/cambodian-court-sentences-opposition-leader-to-life-imprisonment/">innumerable convictions for offences</a> including insult, treason and electoral offences – and almost as many pardons. He remains based in France in self-imposed exile. </p>
<p>In 2013, controversy over the results evolved into a boycott of Cambodia’s elected national assembly (the lower house of the bicameral parliament). Eventually, a plan was agreed for the CNRP to share some power in committees and an accord was concluded – but it did not last long.</p>
<p>The CNRP maintained its political momentum. In local-level elections in June 2017, it again secured almost 44% of the votes cast, giving the party a realistic chance of building on this in the next rounds of elections. Political and social debate and opposition were, however, heavily restricted in the run-up to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3894454c-4681-11e7-8519-9f94ee97d996">the 2017 local and 2018 national elections</a>. </p>
<p>Political rhetoric from the CPP warned of violence and bloodshed, or even civil war, should they fail to be re-elected. A number of laws were deployed to restrict political commentary, with the CNRP and its supporters often targeted. </p>
<p>One of Cambodia’s main independent newspapers <a href="https://theconversation.com/cambodia-daily-closure-a-major-blow-for-freedom-of-information-and-expression-in-the-country-83472">closed in September 2017</a>. Its last front page carried the arrest of Kem Sokha, then leader of the CNRP, on treason charges. Various radio stations were also forced to close, and public debate was restricted and ever more regulated. Electoral law amendments restricted the role of Rainsy and curtailed political opposition.</p>
<p>In November 2017, the CPP used one of those new processes to <a href="https://theconversation.com/cambodia-heads-towards-one-party-state-and-a-democratic-crisis-85515">dissolve the CNRP</a> and redistribute all local-level seats it had won in the June 2017 local election – primarily to the CPP. </p>
<p>While Kem Sokha was arrested in September 2017, it wasn’t until March 2023 that he was <a href="https://phnompenhpost.com/national-politics/ex-cnrp-leader-kem-sokha-gets-27-years-barred-politics">finally convicted</a> of conspiracy with a foreign power and treason, and sentenced to 27 years’ imprisonment. He is also banned from involvement in politics. Following the 2018 National Assembly elections, Cambodia became a one-party state, with the CPP winning all the seats.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cambodia-treason-trials-the-latest-in-the-countrys-slide-to-autocracy-151048">Cambodia: treason trials the latest in the country's slide to autocracy</a>
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<p>At the 2022 local elections, the CPP secured 74% of the vote. This time, the main opposition came from the Candlelight Party (drawing in part on elements of the former CNRP), which <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2022/06/cambodia-confirms-cpps-landslide-victory-in-commune-election/">achieved 22%</a>. But Candlelight was <a href="https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national-politics/candlelight-party-disqualified-july-general-election">disqualified from fielding candidates</a> in July 2023’s national election, due to apparent irregularities in its registration documentation. </p>
<p>Not taking any chances, political rhetoric from the CPP continued to highlight the dangers of voting for opposition parties, and led to Facebook (a widely used platform in Cambodia) <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66062752">considering banning Hun Sen</a> for a video threatening to beat up opposition figures.</p>
<h2>A new generation?</h2>
<p>Given all this, the general election results <a href="https://theconversation.com/cambodian-strongman-hun-sen-wins-another-landslide-election-will-succession-to-his-son-be-just-as-smooth-209967">have come as no real surprise</a>. With the prime minister handing the leadership of the country to his son, it is expected that many of Hun Sen’s cabinet will also step down and hand over to <a href="https://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/cambodia-hunsen-hutt-07242023140632.html">younger relatives</a>. </p>
<p>Hun Sen has indicated that the transfer of power is part of his <a href="https://phnompenhpost.com/national-politics/end-era-hun-sen-passes-baton-son-manet">plan for continuing peace, stability and development</a>. He will retain leadership of the CPP and remain a lawmaker, <a href="https://phnompenhpost.com/national-politics/end-era-hun-sen-passes-baton-son-manet">assuming leadership of the Senate (upper house)</a> when the incumbent retires. Many commentators expect him to continue to wield influential power over the country and its politics.</p>
<p>While a new generation of political faces may connect more with the youthful population of the country, they may struggle to reconcile the authoritarian state they inherit with the liberal multiparty democracy called for by Cambodia’s constitution.</p>
<p>The true test of stability in a democracy is, arguably, continuity during a transition of leadership and change of governing party. With Hun Sen choosing to step aside now, there are five years for Hun Manet to shape his power before the future of the CPP is tested in the next set of elections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210472/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rhona Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As he prepares to hand over power to his son after 38 years in power, veteran Cambodian leader Hun Sen, has come a long way since his early days as a Khmer Rouge fighter.Rhona Smith, Professor of International Human Rights, Newcastle Law School, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2099672023-07-24T02:12:21Z2023-07-24T02:12:21ZCambodian strongman Hun Sen wins another ‘landslide’ election. Will succession to his son be just as smooth?<p>On December 24, 2021, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, 70, chaired a meeting of the Cambodian People’s Party, which has ruled the Southeast Asian country since 1979. The meeting saw his eldest son, Hun Manet, 45, <a href="https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50994699/hun-manet-unanimously-elected-to-be-the-future-prime-minister/">unanimously selected</a> to be the future prime minister. </p>
<p>After years of speculation over the identity of the strongman’s political successor, it was both an unsurprising and uninspiring choice.</p>
<p>A similar lack of surprise and inspiration encapsulates Cambodia’s general election this past Sunday. Even by the low standards of Southeast Asia, it was one of the worst sham votes in living memory. Up against a mix of 17 emasculated, feeble and grovelling opposition parties, Hun Sen’s party quickly boasted it had won in a “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/un-pls-help-cambodia-pm-hun-sen-s-party-claims-landslide-election-win-in-unopposed-election-20230724-p5dqnl.html">landslide</a>”.</p>
<p>The entire event amounted to nothing more than a gigantic confidence trick designed to foist a political reality on repressed citizens – formulated without their consent and enforced without their approval. </p>
<p>Hun Sen’s transition of power to his son is now assured. The only question is when. The strongman said last week it could happen <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/thousands-rally-cambodias-ruling-party-election-campaign-finale-2023-07-21/">in a matters of weeks</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538879/original/file-20230724-79526-6g4pyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538879/original/file-20230724-79526-6g4pyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538879/original/file-20230724-79526-6g4pyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538879/original/file-20230724-79526-6g4pyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538879/original/file-20230724-79526-6g4pyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538879/original/file-20230724-79526-6g4pyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538879/original/file-20230724-79526-6g4pyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Hun Sen raises a ballot before voting at a polling station in Kandal province on Sunday.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Heng Sinith/AP</span></span>
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<h2>Preparing for a sham election</h2>
<p>The campaign period for this year’s election featured the usual dose of manipulation and misconduct – all of which was aimed at guaranteeing few, if any, surprises at the ballot box.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-16/cambodia-disqualifies-sole-opposition-party-ahead-of-election/102350226">In May</a>, the National Election Committee barred the leading opposition Candlelight Party from competing in the election because it had failed to provide the necessary documentation. This documentation, ironically, had been taken in a police raid years earlier.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/ahead-election-cambodia-amends-law-bar-non-voters-contesting-future-2023-06-23/">In early June</a>, the National Assembly amended the election law to bar non-voters from ever running for office, as well as penalise anyone who calls for election boycotts. For the fledgling opposition, boycotts were a new and desperate tactic aimed at discrediting the electoral process.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/30/world/asia/cambodia-hun-sen-meta-facebook.html">In late June</a>, Hun Sen also had a very public spat with Meta, Facebook’s parent company, after its oversight board recommended his account be suspended for threatening political opponents with violence. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/cambodian-government-blocks-news-sites-before-unopposed-election-/7185151.html">And last week</a>, the government blocked the websites of several news organisations, including Radio Free Asia. It was all just business as usual in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hun-Sens-Cambodia-Sebastian-Strangio/dp/0300190727">Hun Sen’s Cambodia</a>.</p>
<p>The uncomfortable truth is such elections have never been more than a means for Hun Sen to hold onto power with an ever-tightening grip, as opposed to an opportunity for his opponents to ever gain power. </p>
<p>Since the occupying Vietnamese forces <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/15/world/new-cambodian-premier-named.html">installed</a> him as leader in January 1985, the ageing strongman has slowly but methodologically bent the political system to his will. </p>
<h2>How do dictators stay in power?</h2>
<p>How has he accomplished this feat over the past 38 years? Based on my research in the field of authoritarian politics, two significant factors stand out. </p>
<p>The first thing Hun Sen did was <a href="https://www.leemorgenbesser.com/_files/ugd/ca20d0_672663d4d08646d6b7e9af89c9ef9517.pdf">personalise power</a> by following the “playbook” of other strongmen like Paul Biya in Cameroon, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Idi Amin in Uganda. Among his actions across four decades of authoritarianism: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>he acted as a gatekeeper of the process by which people are appointed to high office</p></li>
<li><p>appointed relatives to high-level posts in the party, military and government</p></li>
<li><p>took control of the state security apparatus and created his own paramilitary group outside the normal chain of military command </p></li>
<li><p>and monopolised the decision-making process within the ruling party, while also controlling who enters and exits its executive committee. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>By 2005, Hun Sen alone had discretion over personnel policy and the distribution of rewards throughout Cambodia’s political system.</p>
<p>The second thing Hun Sen did was entrench a harsher form of dictatorship in Cambodia, transforming the country in recent years into a genuine <a href="https://www.leemorgenbesser.com/_files/ugd/ca20d0_0abb970b8b59403f930d59464c23c31b.pdf">one-party state</a>. </p>
<p>In July 2015, the government rammed through a bill designed to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/jul/13/ngo-alert-cambodia-legislation-gives-government-new-powers-to-monitor-fine-or-disband">suppress</a> civil society groups. The law used arcane compliance requirements related to funding, reporting, registration and political neutrality to limit their operations.</p>
<p>Then, in August 2017, the Finance Ministry <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/cambodia-daily-newspaper-closes-over-disputed-tax-bill-n799671">went after</a> the independent English-language newspaper, The Cambodia Daily, for a decade’s worth of alleged back taxes. It was merely the start of sustained campaign aimed at ridding the country of an independent media. </p>
<p>The Supreme Court then <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42006828">dissolved</a> the Cambodia National Rescue Party, the only serious challenger to the ruling party, on the fictitious grounds it was trying to topple the government in a “colour revolution.” Hun Sen has repeatedly rolled out this allegation against anyone who disagrees with him.</p>
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<h2>How does one dictator pass the reins to another?</h2>
<p>It was against this backdrop that Hun Sen spent Sunday going through the motions of sanctioning one last sham election, at least as prime minister. </p>
<p>Having used his personal power to banish political opponents, monopolise the media landscape, disempower civil society organisations, crush mass protests and arbitrarily rescind the political rights and civil liberties of citizens, the path is now clear for Hun Manet to succeed him. So, what will happen next?</p>
<p>Leadership succession can be the Achilles heel of dictatorships. The process can sometimes encourage infighting among political elites and potentially plunge a country into chaos. The evidence suggests strongmen are more likely to give up power when they satisfy four preconditions:</p>
<p>1) <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatnews/7718896/Nursultan-Nazarbayev-Kazakh-leader-of-nation-hatches-succession-scheme.html"><strong>Immunity</strong></a>: they can ensure legal protection for any alleged crimes committed while in office.</p>
<p>2) <a href="https://www2.irrawaddy.com/article.php?art_id=20958"><strong>Security</strong></a>: they have a paramilitary force or formal position at the apex of the security apparatus.</p>
<p>3) <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/31/financier-bill-browder-says-vladimir-putin-is-worth-200-billion.html."><strong>Wealth</strong></a>: they have a stash of cash and/or a portfolio of properties to fund their retirement.</p>
<p>4) <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/feb/19/cuba"><strong>Trust</strong></a>: they appoint someone to take over who can protect their immunity, security and wealth.</p>
<p>Having so far satisfied all but the need for <a href="https://english.cambodiadaily.com/news/rainsy-claims-hun-sen-sought-immunity-law-54185/">immunity</a>, Hun Sen is now well-positioned to pass power onto his son. </p>
<p>Typically, when political succession occurs in dictatorships, the new strongman receives the benefit of the doubt from a slew of hopeful foreign states and optimistic foreign journalists. This comes from a place of exhaustion and exasperation: surely he can’t be worse? </p>
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<p>Hun Manet, who was <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2022/02/cambodia-will-hun-manet-be-more-pro-us-than-his-father/">trained</a> at the United States Military Academy at West Point and received a PhD in Economics from the University of Bristol, will be yet another beneficiary of this mindset. </p>
<p>But like the sons of other strongmen, such as Ilham Aliyev (the son former Azerbaijani leader Heydar Aliyev), Bashar al-Assad (son of Hafez al-Assad in Syria), Joseph Kabila (son of Laurent Kabila in Congo) and Kim Jong Un (son of Kim Jong Il in North Korea), Hun Manet has been groomed in the image of his father. </p>
<p>There is nothing to suggest Cambodia’s next prime minister won’t also have a sham election up his sleeve.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209967/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee Morgenbesser receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>Leadership succession can be dangerous for dictatorships, encouraging infighting among political elites and potentially plunging a country into chaos.Lee Morgenbesser, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2087082023-06-30T22:35:33Z2023-06-30T22:35:33ZCambodia PM Hun Sen will shut down opposition on election day – even if he can no longer threaten voters on Facebook<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535079/original/file-20230630-14093-3ojj3y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C25%2C5746%2C3879&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cambodian PM Hun Sen takes a selfie -- but where will he post it now? </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cambodias-prime-minister-hun-sen-takes-selfies-with-a-news-photo/1258807502?adppopup=true">Rang Xhhin Sothy/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen will no longer be able to use his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/30/world/asia/cambodia-hun-sen-meta-facebook.html">Facebook page</a> to air threats of violence against opposition supporters – but that doesn’t mean he can’t still suppress their vote as the country <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/30/world/asia/cambodia-hun-sen-meta-facebook.html">prepares for a general election</a>.</p>
<p>On June 30, 2023, the Facebook page of Hun Sen – who has ruled the country as leader of the Cambodian People’s Party for almost four decades – <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66062752">appeared to have been deleted</a>. It wasn’t immediately clear whether <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66062752">Hun Sen had removed the page</a> or Meta had taken it down. But it follows a <a href="https://www.oversightboard.com/news/656303619335474-oversight-board-overturns-meta-s-decision-in-cambodian-prime-minister-case/">recommendation by the oversight board</a> of Facebook’s parent company to “immediately suspend Hun Sen’s Facebook page and Instagram account for six months” over a video in which he calls on political opponents who allege vote-rigging to choose between the “legal system” and “a bat.” In the video posted on Facebook on Jan. 9, Hun Sen also threatens to “gather CPP people to protest and beat (opposition) up.”</p>
<p>The decision comes as a slap in the face for Hun Sen, who <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/cambodias-prime-minister-hun-sen-huge-facebook-fan-100535327">had regularly posted on Facebook</a> to his 14 million followers. But as an <a href="https://thunderbird.asu.edu/about/people/staff-faculty/sophal-ear">expert on Cambodian politics</a>, I know it will do little to affect the result of the general election scheduled for July 23, 2023. Cambodia has had Hun Sen as prime minister <a href="https://apnews.com/article/cambodia-hun-sen-hun-manet-prime-minister-0095b3362ca2d5af4f14dd77c76ef351">for 38 years</a>. And recent events have only tightened Hun Sen’s grip on power.</p>
<h2>Many parties, no opposition</h2>
<p>Voters heading to the polls will again be presented with a lack of real choice – as has been the case in the six national parliamentary ballots held since <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44966916">nominally democratic elections were restored</a> in 1993.</p>
<p>It isn’t that there won’t be many parties that voters will be able to choose among on July 23. In fact, there will be numerous parties on the ballot, along with the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. In the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/29/cambodia-hun-sen-re-elected-in-landslide-victory-after-brutal-crackdown">2018 national election</a> there were 19 parties other than the CPP.</p>
<p>The problem for democracy watchers is that the list of parties allowed to run does not include the main opposition party, the <a href="https://thediplomat.com/tag/cambodia-national-rescue-party-cnrp/">Cambodia National Rescue Party</a>. The CNRP was conveniently <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2017-12-06/cambodia-supreme-court-dissolves-main-opposition-party/">dissolved on Nov. 16, 2017</a>, by order of the Cambodian Supreme Court – which has as its head a permanent committee member of Hun Sen’s CPP.</p>
<p>Further, the Candle Light Party – the last vestige of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/cambodia-opposition-party-election-hun-sen-63659ff8f2de992d84d2be748afbab8b">real, credible opposition in Cambodia</a> – was not permitted to register for the forthcoming election for bureaucratic reasons. The missing paperwork that prevented registration is <a href="https://apnews.com/article/cambodia-election-candlelight-party-deny-registration-7436b0572eefb9b5be3fa724d3cb2fcb">believed by CLP supporters</a> to have been taken during a police raid on opposition headquarters years ago.</p>
<p>These measures build on decades in which Hun Sen and his ruling CPP have <a href="https://www.brusselstimes.com/141921/how-hun-sen-killed-democracy-in-cambodia">removed real choice</a> from Cambodian ballots. And for Hun Sen and the CPP it has been effective: In the last election, held in 2018, the CPP <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/7/30/cambodians-spoil-ballots-to-protest-poll-critics-labelled-a-sham">garnered 77% of the vote</a> and took all 123 seats in the National Assembly.</p>
<h2>Khmer Rouge commander to autocratic leader</h2>
<p>Hun Sen rose to power after being installed as deputy prime minister and foreign minister by the Vietnamese forces that <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pol-pot-overthrown">liberated Cambodia in 1979</a> from the Khmer Rouge – a murderous regime in which <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/01/12/30-years-hun-sen/violence-repression-and-corruption-cambodia">Hun Sen served as a commander</a> – and then occupied the country for a decade.</p>
<p>With his country still under Vietnamese occupation, Hun Sen became prime minister in 1985 after his predecessor, Chan Sy, died in office. Since then, he has used the power of incumbency – along with a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/09/05/un-office-says-hun-sen-forces-executed-40/20d602e8-9078-41eb-8c34-2e385e86bcc7/">large dose of brute force</a> – to remain in office. </p>
<p>Even when the CPP <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/06/11/phnom-penh-rejects-results-of-election/c43a7f1e-abcf-4ebd-b3b2-fe757f96f930/">lost the popular vote in 1993</a>, Hun Sen was able to elbow his way into a prime ministership-sharing position as “second prime minister” with equal power to the “first prime minister,” Prince <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/former-cambodian-prime-minister-prince-norodom-ranariddh-has-died-information-2021-11-28/">Norodom Ranariddh</a>, in a deal engineered by Ranariddh’s father, King Norodom Sihanouk.</p>
<p>After falling out with his co-premier, Hun Sen <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2007/07/27/cambodia-july-1997-shock-and-aftermath">orchestrated a coup in 1997</a> and replaced Norodom Ranariddh. In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00049910050007032">an election the following year</a>, Hun Sen resumed the role of sole prime minister and embarked on a campaign of repression – arranging for political enemies to be <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/01/12/30-years-hun-sen/violence-repression-and-corruption-cambodia">arrested, jailed and sometimes exiled</a>.</p>
<p>He let his guard down in 2012 by allowing opposition leaders Kem Sokha and Sam Rainsy to <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0008472/">form the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party</a>. The CNRP came within a whisker of defeating the CPP in the 2013 election – some might even argue that it did, but for who <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cambodia-election-count/cambodia-election-crisis-deepens-as-opposition-rejects-results-idUSBRE97B02I20130812">controlled the counting of the votes</a>.</p>
<p>Since then, attempts to mount opposition to the CPP have been further blunted by the fact that Cambodia’s economy and society have undergone remarkable change – allowing Hun Sen to <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/prime-minister-hun-sen-shares-message-of-economic-growth--covid-response-success-with-north-american-diaspora-301546659.html">claim credit</a> as <a href="https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501245617/cambodias-economy-resilient-despite-external-factors-says-pm-hun-sen/">a sound manager of the economy</a>. Until the COVID-19 pandemic, Cambodia’s annual gross domestic product growth averaged nearly 8% <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/cambodia/overview">from 1998 through 2019</a>. Meanwhile, gross national income based on an average individual’s purchasing power <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=KH">has also grown sixfold</a> since 1995, from US$760 to $5,080.</p>
<p>It has come at a cost though. Economic and infrastructure growth has been <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/cambodia-protests/cambodian-farmers-rise-up-over-land-grabbing-idINSGE62I07I20100319">on the back of a land grab</a> that has disadvantaged rural farmers. I heard of one farmer who described economic development as meaning “they build a road and steal my land.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two men in hard hats shake hands" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535086/original/file-20230630-37566-mwecug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535086/original/file-20230630-37566-mwecug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535086/original/file-20230630-37566-mwecug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535086/original/file-20230630-37566-mwecug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535086/original/file-20230630-37566-mwecug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535086/original/file-20230630-37566-mwecug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535086/original/file-20230630-37566-mwecug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen shakes hands with China’s ambassador to Cambodia, Wang Wentian.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cambodias-prime-minister-hun-sen-shakes-hands-with-chinas-news-photo/1258495631?adppopup=true">Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>And frequently that road has been Chinese-built with loans that the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/cambodia-seeks-more-loans-from-beijing-amid-fears-of-debt-trap-/6943062.html">Cambodian people and their progeny will have to repay</a>. </p>
<h2>From autocracy to nepotocracy?</h2>
<p>Yet, Hun Sen is unwilling to open his record to the scrutiny of voters or a free press.</p>
<p>In advance of the July 23 vote, the government has cracked down on independent media. One of the last truly independent outlets, the Voice of Democracy, was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64621595">shuttered by Hun Sen</a>. Its crime? To publish a story reporting that the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/hun-sen-s-eldest-son-emerges-as-likely-successor-in-cambodia/7118136.html">prime minister’s son and heir apparent</a> signed, on behalf of his father, an official government donation to Turkey after the earthquake. Only the prime minister is allowed to sign off on foreign aid packages, and Hun Sen said the report had damaged the government’s reputation.</p>
<p>The source had been a senior government official. Yet, Voice of Democracy was nonetheless blamed and told to apologize, which it did, but then was still shuttered.</p>
<p>While Hun Sen has been successful in controlling the media and suppressing opposition in Cambodia, he is unable to prevent international scrutiny and sanction.</p>
<p>Cambodia’s anti-democratic rule and human rights abuses have been <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20230310IPR77236/human-rights-breaches-in-iran-tunisia-and-cambodia">condemned by the European Union</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-cambodia-politics-idAFKBN1DE2LY">the White House</a> and <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/03/cambodia-un-experts-condemn-verdict-against-opposition-leader-kem-sokha">the United Nations</a>.</p>
<p>Even prior to the most recent crackdown on opposition parties and independent press, the U.S. had <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0475">placed some Cambodian generals on the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability list</a>, used to sanction “perpetrators of serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world.” The EU, for its part, <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_20_1469">cut by 20% the number of Cambodian goods eligible for zero duty imports</a> over human rights concerns – a move that will cost Cambodia an estimated 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in annual revenue.</p>
<p>But such moves have done little to nudge Cambodia toward democratic practices – and neither will Facebook’s decision to deprive him of a social media account.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208708/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sophal Ear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Social media account of Cambodia’s long-serving leader was deleted amid a spat with Facebook over videoed threats of violence against opposition supporters.Sophal Ear, Associate Professor in the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1510482020-11-27T17:53:36Z2020-11-27T17:53:36ZCambodia: treason trials the latest in the country’s slide to autocracy<p>If you are simply going on the number of political trials in Cambodia at the moment, the country would seem to be politically unstable – a hotbed of unrest. Hundreds of people are on trial for incitement, conspiracy, and violence endangering the nation. But the prime minister, Hun Sen, who has been in power since 1985, <a href="https://www.information.gov.kh/detail/361323">regularly insists</a> that his tenure has been characterised by peace, stability and development – despite <a href="https://www.khmertimeskh.com/677630/hun-sen-touts-peace-coup-attempt-thwarted/">internal</a> and <a href="https://pressocm.gov.kh/en/archives/13782">external</a> threats. He is the world’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23257699">longest-serving head of government</a>. </p>
<p>Stable or not, more than 100 people were summoned to attend Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday November 26 2020 on charges including violence endangering Cambodian institutions (Article 451 Criminal Code), conspiracy (Article 453) and incitement to commit a felony (Article 495). The cases were immediately adjourned until 2021. </p>
<p>This marks the latest event following a series of arrests over the past 18 months of people affiliated with the former <a href="https://thediplomat.com/tag/cambodia-national-rescue-party-cnrp/">Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP)</a>, raising alarm among civil society organisations including <a href="https://aseanmp.org/publications-2/">ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights</a>, <a href="https://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-resources/news/3882-csos-express-concern-over-judicial-harassment-of-former-cambodia-national-rescue-party-members">national organisations</a>, <a href="https://www.forum-asia.org/?p=32840">Forum Asia</a> and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/06/02/cambodia-over-145-opposition-members-summoned">Human Rights Watch</a>.</p>
<p>Some background is necessary to understand these events, both in terms of the current politics of Cambodia and in terms of the fractured relationship between two of the main players: the country’s prime minister, <a href="http://www.samdechhunsen.gov.kh/">Samdech Techo Hun Sen</a>, and his long-time antagonist, <a href="http://samrainsyanz.org/">Sam Rainsy</a> – interim leader of the CNRP.</p>
<h2>Current political situation</h2>
<p>Cambodia has a bicameral system, with its members of parliament elected to the National Assembly and an upper Senate comprising senators elected primarily by local councillors. Cambodia’s previous local elections in June 2017 brought victory for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) but increased gains for the CNRP. The subsequent general election in July 2018 resulted in what is effectively a one-party state, <a href="https://theconversation.com/cambodia-heads-towards-one-party-state-and-a-democratic-crisis-85515">as foreseen</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/cambodia-heads-towards-one-party-state-and-a-democratic-crisis-85515">Cambodia heads towards one-party state – and a democratic crisis</a>
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<p>Following the <a href="https://theconversation.com/one-party-to-rule-them-all-cambodias-supreme-court-rules-the-dissolution-of-opposition-party-87761">decision of the Supreme Court</a> to legally dissolve the CNRP, the CPP – led by Hun Sen – won all 125 seats in the 2018 National Assembly election and the 58 seats of the 62-member Senate that are indirectly elected.</p>
<p>Kem Sokha, former president of the CNRP, was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/02/world/asia/cambodia-kem-sokha-arrest-hun-sen.html">arrested and detained</a> in September 2017 (after the successful local elections) on charges of treason and conspiracy with foreign states, <a href="https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national-politics/ministry-slams-murphy">notably the USA</a>. His trial commenced in January 2020 and was greeted with concern by national <a href="https://www.licadho-cambodia.org/pressrelease.php?perm=445">civil society groups</a> and <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25472">UN special procedure mandate holders</a>. Proceedings were <a href="https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national-politics/sokha-trial-delay-mutually-agreed">suspended indefinitely</a> in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>He was <a href="https://vodenglish.news/kem-sokha-on-tour-goodwill-trips-or-a-way-to-do-politics/">banned from all political activity</a>, as were <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-cambodia-politics/cambodias-main-opposition-party-dissolved-by-supreme-court-idUSKBN1DG1BO">118 former senior CNRP figures</a>. “Political activities” is a term accorded <a href="https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50774284/khmers-help-khmers-pm-tells-officials-not-to-hinder-sokha-from-aiding-flood-victims/">a broad scope</a> of interpretation by the authorities in Cambodia. </p>
<p>But history is somewhat more complex – many of those summoned this week were linked to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sam-Rainsy">Sam Rainsy</a>, CNRP president, currently in self-imposed exile. Both he and Hun Sen regularly engage in verbal spats, often deploying personal, highly inflammatory rhetoric which, as UN special rapporteur, I have <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24579&LangID=E">regularly condemned</a>. To understand their fractured and fractious relationship, a little history will help.</p>
<h2>Sam Rainsy and Hun Sen</h2>
<p>Sam Rainsy has been in or on the periphery of politics in Cambodia for most of the modern period. He was first elected as a member of the royalist FUNCINPEC party at the UN-administered elections <a href="http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/arc/2051_93.htm">in 1993</a>. He served as minister of economy and finance before <a href="http://archive.ipu.org/hr-e/158/158cmbd1.htm">his expulsion</a> a year later. He then founded the Khmer Nation Party – subsequently renamed Sam Rainsy Party – and was reelected in the 1998 and 2003 general elections with his party gaining seats. </p>
<p>In 2005, in the wake of a number of (criminal) defamation charges lodged against him, Rainsy had his parliamentary immunity revoked and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2005/02/06/cambodia-opposition-politicians-arrested-forced-flee">he fled</a>. He was tried in absentia, convicted and, following a royal pardon at the request of Hun Sen, he returned to Cambodia in 2006, standing in the 2008 general elections.</p>
<p>This pattern of exile, trial in absentia and pardon was repeated over the subsequent decade. In August 2019, he announced his intention to return to Cambodia in November that year. Aggressive rhetoric and tensions <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25260&LangID=E">ratcheted up</a>, with authorities denouncing this as a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cambodia-politics-idUSKBN1WM11V">planned coup</a>. CNRP members and affiliates were arrested and many had travel documents revoked. Sam Rainsy <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/8/cambodias-sam-rainsy-faces-hurdles-as-he-attempts-to-return-home">claimed</a> he was prevented from travelling to Asia. </p>
<p>At the same time around 70 former Cambodia National Rescue Party associates and members, considered supporters of Sam Rainsy, who had been arrested, were <a href="https://undocs.org/A/HRC/45/51">released from detention</a> and Kem Sokha was <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/11/cambodia-reprieve-for-kem-sokha-a-token-gesture-that-should-not-distract-from-human-rights-crisis/">released from house arrest</a>. Sam Rainsy remains overseas.</p>
<h2>To the future</h2>
<p>It is now two and a half years until the next scheduled general election and less than 18 months before local elections. Commentators such as <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/with-new-arrest-cambodias-permanent-crackdown-intensifies/">Sebastian Strangio</a> and <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2020/11/hun-sen-goes-for-the-legal-kill-against-rival-cnrp/">David Hutt</a> highlight the continuing crackdown on political opposition while also probing for signs of <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2020/10/strongman-hun-sen-showing-signs-of-weakness/">political weakness</a> in advance of the next elections. It’s an “all time low” for democracy, as the director of the Cambodian Centre for Human Roghts, Chak Sopheap <a href="https://southeastasiaglobe.com/cambodias-peace-and-democracy/">has noted</a>. Indeed it was <a href="https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national-politics/pm-vows-protect-hun-family">recently reported</a> that Hun had said there could be no compromise or rapprochement.</p>
<p>The trials are the latest in a long line of proceedings against opposition political actors in Cambodia. Laws on plotting, incitement and defamation are regularly invoked to arrest and detain individuals. Often, individuals are then released from detention under judicial supervision, so neither detained nor charged. Under Cambodian law, release under judicial supervision can be indefinite with charges resurrected years later, contrary to <a href="https://undocs.org/A/HRC/45/51">international human rights</a>.</p>
<p>The future for Cambodia’s constitutionally enshrined liberal multiparty democracy is not positive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rhona Smith is currently the independent UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia. This article is written in her private, academic capacity and does not necessarily reflect views of the United Nations. She declined to provide a profile picture.</span></em></p>In 35 years as leader, prime minster Hun Sen has steadily undermined democracy in Cambodia.Rhona Smith, Professor of International Human Rights, Newcastle Law School, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1259082019-11-19T14:05:15Z2019-11-19T14:05:15ZSo you want to be an autocrat? Here’s the 10-point checklist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301991/original/file-20191115-66973-yui06c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two autocrats: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, left, and Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, right, in Budapest, Hungary, Nov. 7, 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hungary-Turkey/48aaa69934e54e75bcfd17fdf9a67980/201/0">AP/Presidential Press Service</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Democracy is in trouble, despite popular uprisings and dynamic social movements in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2019/10/26/lebanon-protests-wedeman-pkg-vpx.cnn">Lebanon</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49317695">Hong Kong</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news+protest">across Europe</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/a-government-chased-from-its-capital-a-president-forced-into-exile-a-storm-of-protest-rages-in-south-america/2019/11/14/897f85ba-0651-11ea-9118-25d6bd37dfb1_story.html">Latin America</a>.</p>
<p>Scholars say countries across the globe are experiencing a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13510347.2019.1582029">rise in autocratic rule</a>, with declines in democratic ideals and practice. Autocratic rule – also known as authoritarianism – is when one leader or political party exercises complete power to govern a country and its people. </p>
<p>The year 2008 was when democracy peaked, according to a prominent democracy advocacy group, Freedom House. That’s when the world had the highest percentage ever of fully <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/Feb2019_FH_FITW_2019_Report_ForWeb-compressed.pdf">“free countries,” at 46.1%.</a> </p>
<p>That declined to 44.1% in 2018, though full or <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/levitsky/files/SL_elections.pdf">partial democracy</a> is still the <a href="https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/99/de/99dedd73-f8bc-484c-8b91-44ba601b6e6b/v-dem_democracy_report_2019.pdf">most common</a> form of governance. </p>
<p>Definitions <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-018-9268-z">of democracy vary</a>. All citizens in a democracy have the ability to vote in elections, which should be free and fair. Independent media, freedom of speech and assembly and the rule of law feature in most contemporary perceptions of democracy. </p>
<p>Democratic declines are most notable in the regions with the <a href="https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/99/de/99dedd73-f8bc-484c-8b91-44ba601b6e6b/v-dem_democracy_report_2019.pdf">world’s largest concentration of democracies</a>. That includes Europe, North America and Latin America. </p>
<p>One example: The United States in 2018 was rated a “flawed democracy,” dropping from <a href="https://www.eiu.com/topic/democracy-index">21st to 25th place</a> among 167 countries and territories.</p>
<p>In the old days, autocrats often came to or retained power through military coups and violent crackdowns. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316474594_Trends_in_Nonviolent_Resistance_and_State_Response_Is_Violence_Towards_Civilian-based_Movements_on_the_Rise?te=1&nl=the-interpreter&emc=edit_int_20191025?campaign_id=30&instance_id=13365&segment_id=18239&user_id=9f7ca6259bbbdc663bd7579b69b6a1b8&regi_id=77941339">Now</a> the shift from democracy to autocracy is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13510347.2019.1582029">slower and less obvious</a>. </p>
<p>While control over security forces remains essential in the autocratic playbook, overt strong-arm tactics aren’t. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301994/original/file-20191115-66941-i5m60k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301994/original/file-20191115-66941-i5m60k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301994/original/file-20191115-66941-i5m60k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301994/original/file-20191115-66941-i5m60k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301994/original/file-20191115-66941-i5m60k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301994/original/file-20191115-66941-i5m60k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301994/original/file-20191115-66941-i5m60k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301994/original/file-20191115-66941-i5m60k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pro-democracy protests, like this one in Hong Kong on Nov. 13, 2019, have erupted across the globe during a rise in authoritarian rule.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hong-Kong-Protests/4b2f728571aa48fa88bf5211fd6b1361/54/0">AP/Kin Cheung</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Top 10 list</h2>
<p>I spent more than 15 years with the United Nations, where I advised governments and democracy advocates on how to strengthen the rule of law, human rights and democratic governance. I’m now <a href="https://udayton.edu/directory/artssciences/hrc/inglis-shelley.php">a scholar of international law</a>. </p>
<p>I’ve learned that today’s leaders with authoritarian tendencies aren’t just interested in using brute force to rise to power. </p>
<p>They <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-reports/breaking-down-democracy-goals-strategies-and-methods-modern-authoritarians">are smarter, more resilient and can adjust</a> their methods to take account of new developments, like modern technologies and a globalized economy. </p>
<p>Here are some of the newest tactics used by would-be authoritarians: </p>
<h2>1. Extend executive power</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/607612/pdf">mainstay of today’s authoritarianism</a> is strengthening your power while simultaneously weakening government institutions, such as parliaments and judiciaries, that provide checks and balances. </p>
<p>The key is to use legal means that <a href="https://theconversation.com/autocracies-that-look-like-democracies-are-a-threat-across-the-globe-110957">ultimately give democratic legitimacy to the power grab</a>. Extreme forms of this include abolishing presidential term limits, which was done <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-term-limit-explainer.html">in China</a>; and regressive constitutional reforms to expand presidential power, like <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-election-factbox/turkeys-powerful-new-executive-presidency-idUSKBN1JI1O1">in Turkey</a>. </p>
<h2>2. Repress dissent and citizen efforts to hold government accountable</h2>
<p>Restrictions on funding and other bureaucratic limitations <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/ACT3096472019ENGLISH.PDF">silence the ability of the people to hold accountable those in power</a>. More than 50 countries have passed laws that stifle citizen groups. <a href="https://www.openglobalrights.org/undemocratic-civil-society-laws-are-appearing-in-democracies-too/">Democracies</a> have also jumped on this bandwagon. Limitations on permits for public protest, detention of protesters and <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/11/1051011">excessive use of force to break up demonstrations</a> are frequently used tools. </p>
<h2>3. Capture elite support and, when needed, demonize them too</h2>
<p>Economic growth and prosperity are critical to retaining elite or oligarchical support for autocratic leaders. Whether through state-owned businesses, media conglomerates or more sophisticated connections between governments and free-market corporations, money and politics, translated into government favors for the rich, can be a toxic mix for democracy. </p>
<p>Ironically, popular distaste with elite corruption is so high that modern autocratic populists, such as President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, have even risen to power <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-bolsonaro-factbox/factbox-far-right-brazilian-candidate-thrives-on-controversy-idUSKCN1II2T3">on anti-corruption promises</a>. </p>
<h2>4. Appeal to populism and nationalism</h2>
<p>Most would-be autocratic leaders today exploit existing tensions within complex societies in order to solidify their support. </p>
<p>In many places, fears of migrants and refugees have <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-06-24/how-brexit-campaign-used-refugees-scare-voters">fueled resurgent nationalism</a>, driving policies like U.K.’s Brexit. In India, religiously based nationalism has maintained the power of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/05/23/indias-modi-has-been-bellwether-global-populism/">Prime Minister Narendra Modi</a>. </p>
<p>Blaming external forces for a country’s problems, such as Hungarian leader <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/22/hungary-viktor-orban-george-soros">Viktor Orban’s demonization of George Soros</a>, a Hungarian-born philanthropist who supports democracy-building, is also common.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301996/original/file-20191115-66979-lvz2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301996/original/file-20191115-66979-lvz2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301996/original/file-20191115-66979-lvz2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301996/original/file-20191115-66979-lvz2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301996/original/file-20191115-66979-lvz2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301996/original/file-20191115-66979-lvz2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301996/original/file-20191115-66979-lvz2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301996/original/file-20191115-66979-lvz2a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has maintained power in part based on religious nationalism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/India-Elections/9228ba94caa4404299c3a2638ee3f4a2/164/0">AP file photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>5. Control information at home; misinform abroad</h2>
<p>While propaganda and state-owned media is not new, control of modern technology and information has become a key battleground. </p>
<p>China has developed sophisticated technologies to <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/modern-authoritarianism-origins-anatomy-outlook">censor and prevent</a> the circulation of unwanted information and to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH2gMNrUuEY">track individuals in society</a>. </p>
<p>Russia is at the vanguard of state media control at home while <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/modern-authoritarianism-press-freedom">generating misinformation abroad</a>. Many smaller countries have used <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/17/africa/internet-shutdown-zimbabwe-censorship-intl/index.html">internet blackouts</a> to block organizing and communicating by social movements. </p>
<h2>6. Cripple the opposition</h2>
<p>Damaging the opposition parties, while not completely destroying them, is now essential. Infiltrating parties, co-opting members and using pure scare tactics are some possible actions in the autocrat’s playbook. This serves the purpose of retaining a target for pseudo-political competition while also stymieing the potential for new, more democratic forces to gain traction. </p>
<h2>7. Covert election manipulation</h2>
<p>Mostly gone are the days of vote-rigging and vote-buying as a path to power. Would-be autocrats have found cleverer ways to tilt the playing field in their favor. These new tactics include hampering media access, gerrymandering, changing election and voter eligibility rules and <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/607612/pdf">placing allies on electoral commissions</a>.</p>
<h2>8. Play the emergency card</h2>
<p>Some autocratic leaders continue to use traditional strong-arm tactics, like declaring states of emergency, to enable further repression. </p>
<p>Since 2001, using the threat of terrorism or organized crime has played well for furthering autocratic rule. President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, which seems to have resulted <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/world/asia/philippines-duterte-killings-un.html">in thousands dead</a> in the Philippines, is one illustration. </p>
<p>Since an attempted coup in 2016 up until 2018, for example, Turkey was under a state of emergency which enabled President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to jail and persecute academics, government officials, media <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/07/26/632307755/turkeys-state-of-emergency-ends-while-erdogans-power-grows-and-purge-continues">and human rights advocates</a>.</p>
<h2>9. Extend your model and influence</h2>
<p>Today’s autocratic rulers are not keeping to themselves. </p>
<p>Using the international stage and their growing economic prowess, countries like China are spreading their influence through funding initiatives such as the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative">Belt and Road</a> to build infrastructure across <a href="https://theconversation.com/chinas-worldwide-investment-project-is-a-push-for-more-economic-and-political-power-125190">Asia to Europe.</a> They’re hiring professional consultants <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/modern-authoritarianism-origins-anatomy-outlook">to advise and lobby foreign capitals for</a> policies that reinforce their power.</p>
<h2>10. Learn and share</h2>
<p>Characterized as “<a href="https://rsa.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21599165.2017.1307826?scroll=top&needAccess=true">autocratic learning</a>” by scholars, national authorities from Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Belarus, Syria and other places are developing and exchanging models for containing threats of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/1875984X-00901006">social movements and the so-called “color revolutions.”</a> </p>
<p>International meetings and intergovernmental clubs can provide a platform for exchange. For example, Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia has successfully rallied neighbor governments to help oppress opposition to his rule using the regional <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/world/asia/cambodia-hun-sen-mu-sochua.html">organization ASEAN</a>. Government officials in Malaysia recently blocked Cambodian opposition members from returning to their country via Malaysia.</p>
<h2>Direction unknown</h2>
<p>Some experts claim the world is at a <a href="https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/02/16/liberal-democratic-order-crisis/">“tipping point”</a> where decreasing faith in democracy will drive the dominance of autocracy globally. </p>
<p>The social movements of today inspire some hope that civil society – a key ingredient for democracy – though under pressure, is fighting the trend. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, strengthening democracy across the globe will prove impossible if even the most established democracies today fall prey to the tactics of would-be autocrats.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125908/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shelley Inglis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Today’s autocrats rarely use brute force to wrest control. A human rights and international law scholar details the modern authoritarian’s latest methods to grab and hold power.Shelley Inglis, Executive Director, University of Dayton Human Rights Center, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1060782018-11-15T01:28:41Z2018-11-15T01:28:41ZCambodians await crucial tribunal finding into 1970s brutal Khmer Rouge regime<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245469/original/file-20181114-194494-16qte34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The tribunal in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh is looking at whether some actions of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime meet the United Nations definition of genocide.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A day of judgement is fast approaching for two now-elderly central figures in the Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s. But part of the judgement due on Friday, a legal finding on genocide, also has the potential to unsettle understandings of the past in current-day Cambodia.</p>
<p>Those in the tribunal dock are Nuon Chea, 92, a man known as Brother Number Two (second in command to Pol Pot, who died in 1998) and Khieu Samphan, 87, the former head of state. The pair, the last survivors of the top Khmer Rouge leadership, are already serving <a href="https://eccc.gov.kh/en/document/court/case-00201-judgement">life jail terms</a> after being convicted of crimes against humanity at the same tribunal in 2014.</p>
<p>Khmer Rouge rule, which aimed to turn Cambodia into a back-to-basics, agrarian state, resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.7 to 2.2 million Cambodians through execution, starvation and disease.</p>
<p>The Khmer Rouge were ousted in 1979 by anti-Khmer Rouge Cambodian “Renakse” forces that were supported by Vietnam. However, their role as liberators was lost on many outside Cambodia, and the new socialist nation was ostracised by Western nations and regional groupings such as ASEAN.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245224/original/file-20181113-194503-88uos4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245224/original/file-20181113-194503-88uos4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245224/original/file-20181113-194503-88uos4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245224/original/file-20181113-194503-88uos4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245224/original/file-20181113-194503-88uos4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245224/original/file-20181113-194503-88uos4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245224/original/file-20181113-194503-88uos4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Khieu Samphan, one of two central figures in the dock over atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge regime.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nhet Sok Heng/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cambodians now await the latest findings.</p>
<p>Sovannarom, 50, works as an interpreter and taxi driver in Phnom Penh. He lost his brother during the Khmer Rouge regime and while he is in favour of the United Nations-supported Khmer Rouge Tribunal, he wishes more people other than the former senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge were being put on trial.</p>
<p>University-graduate Rotanak, 32, was born after the regime but has closely monitored the tribunal’s progress. She is confident it will satisfy many demands for justice, but worried that the expectations of victims who have participated in the current case, known as Case 002/02, may not be fully met.</p>
<p>On Friday, the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT), officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (<a href="https://www.eccc.gov.kh/en">ECCC</a>), will issue <a href="https://krtmonitor.org/2018/11/06/another-trial-a-review-of-case-002-02/">a summary of its judgement</a> in the second trial against the two former senior Khmer Rouge leaders, who stand accused of <a href="https://eccc.gov.kh/en/document/court/closing-order-indictment-case-002">genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.</a> Whether or not the specific charge of genocide is upheld, many Cambodians may be surprised or confused by this part of the judgement given the legal complexities. In short, genocide in international law is more narrowly defined than the popular understanding of the concept.</p>
<p>The current case includes charges covering acts at work sites, cooperatives and security centres, as well as internal purges and the regulation of marriage. But these are being prosecuted as crimes against humanity and war crimes, not as genocide. The only charges of genocide in the case relate to crimes against two ethnic minorities in Cambodia, <a href="https://www.phnompenhpost.com/post-plus/long-tragedy-cham-history">the Cham</a> (a Muslim minority) and ethnic Vietnamese. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245237/original/file-20181113-194488-1j3omko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245237/original/file-20181113-194488-1j3omko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245237/original/file-20181113-194488-1j3omko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245237/original/file-20181113-194488-1j3omko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245237/original/file-20181113-194488-1j3omko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245237/original/file-20181113-194488-1j3omko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245237/original/file-20181113-194488-1j3omko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 2014 photograph of Nuon Chea, a man known as Brother Number Two.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nhet Sok Heng/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Under international law, <a href="http://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.html">genocide occurs</a> where there has been a “special intent […] to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such”. For the most part, there were no national, ethnic, racial, or religious distinctions between the victims and the alleged perpetrators. Thus, the experiences of suffering of the wider Cambodian population do not formally meet the legal criteria for genocide.</p>
<p>But references to genocide appeared soon after 1979 in expert and mass media accounts of Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia. Most famously in the English-speaking world, journalist John Pilger’s articles and documentaries drew explicit parallels between the crimes of Hitler in mid-century Europe and those of Pol Pot in 1970s Cambodia: a genocide in which infamous security centre S-21 was a “Cambodian Auschwitz”. </p>
<p>Within Cambodia, one of the early priorities of the government that replaced the Khmer Rouge regime was to convene a tribunal. Only months after Phnom Penh was liberated, the People’s Revolutionary Tribunal found Khmer Rouge leaders Pol Pot and Ieng Sary (tried in absentia) guilty of genocide. Ieng Sary was also charged in the same case as Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan but <a href="https://www.eccc.gov.kh/en/chronlology/ieng-sary-dies">died in 2013</a>. The 1979 tribunal proceedings were broadcast in Cambodia, helping to entrench a popular understanding of Khmer Rouge rule as genocidal.</p>
<p>The legacy of this trial is contested. <a href="https://books.google.com.kh/books?id=gqK7IwQEJbQC&source=gbs_navlinks_s">Some authors</a> argue that it was the first attempt globally to bring the specific charge of genocide. International opinion, however, was stacked against the new Phnom Penh government. In the wake of the Vietnam War, Western nations and groupings <a href="http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/36/5">publicly opposed</a> Vietnam’s actions in Cambodia, seen as an invasion and occupation. In addition to these Cold War complexities, there are those who argue the trial <a href="http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/cambodia-1999.html">simply failed to meet due process standards</a>.</p>
<p>But there is more to the wider contestation than Cold War politics or due process concerns. John Quigley, a young American expert in international law, was invited to Cambodia to address the 1979 tribunal. <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/557757">His opinion</a> was, and remains, that genocide against the broader population did occur. </p>
<p>The problem with most legal interpretations of the Genocide Convention, he argues, is a confusion of intent and motive, the view that an actor “must proceed out of hatred for the target group”. But “a person who kills members of a group from which he is not distinguished by religion, nationality, or ethnicity, with intent to destroy at least a part of that group, would seem to commit the act of genocide as defined by the Genocide Convention”, he writes. </p>
<p>In contrast, Marcel Lemonde, in his capacity as Co-Investigating Judge at the ECCC has explained <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/aug/25/khmer-rouge-genocide-wasnt/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=September+2+2014&utm_content=September+2+2014+CID_31cf68ca3bb31f7511bc054ab8b25799&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=The%20Genocide%20That%20Wasnt">in an interview published in 2014</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>To establish that a genocide occurred, a group needs to have been identified […] and that group cannot be the quasi entirety of the population – otherwise the notion no longer makes sense.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How to judge what happened in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 thus goes to the heart of how genocide is defined and understood.</p>
<p>The finding in relation to genocide this Friday is thus likely to provoke debate and confusion. If genocide is not found, the two minority groups in question, and especially the civil parties (participating victims in the case) among them, will be bitterly disappointed. Yet, if genocide is found to have been committed against them, the exclusivity of the finding is likely to jar with <a href="http://tuolsleng.gov.kh/en/museum/">understandings</a> held by the majority ethnic Khmer population.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-scholars-journey-to-understand-the-needs-of-pol-pots-survivors-94631">A scholar's journey to understand the needs of Pol Pot's survivors</a>
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<p>The confusion is compounded by further complexity in relation to the <a href="https://www.mq.edu.au/about/about-the-university/faculties-and-departments/faculty-of-arts/departments-and-centres/macquarie-law-school/macquarie-law-journal">status of ethnic Vietnamese</a> in contemporary Cambodia. Ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia are among <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/28/magazine/cambodia-persecuted-minority-water-refuge.html">the most precarious groups in the country</a>, and have recently had <a href="https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/interior-ministry-identifies-70000-improper-citizens-mostly-ethnic-vietnamese">new state measures applied against them</a>. </p>
<p>How might a genocide ruling that foregrounds the experience of this group affect their current political status? In an increasingly xenophobic political climate, a genocide finding that appears to grant special status has the potential to be politicised with the aim of provoking hostility. </p>
<p>If genocide is not found, these groups and many other Cambodians will be left wondering why the legal reckoning does not accord with long standing popular discourse.</p>
<p>While the trials were intended to bring legal clarity into the debate about the Khmer Rouge crimes, confusion around the genocide ruling is likely to affect the ongoing legacies of this significant tribunal. </p>
<p>And after the <a href="https://www.eccc.gov.kh/en/document/court/considerations-international-co-prosecutors-appeal-closing-order-reasons">dismissal of the charges against another suspect</a>, it seems more likely this Friday’s judgement hearing will be the last of the trial chamber.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Hughes receives funding from the Australian Research Council for her ongoing fellowship research in Cambodia (Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100501).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christoph Sperfeldt and Maria Elander do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A potentially historic ruling on genocide by a tribunal in Cambodia on Friday could unsettle understandings of the past among Cambodians - and create a precedent in international law.Rachel Hughes, Senior Research Fellow, School of Geography, The University of MelbourneChristoph Sperfeldt, Research Fellow (Centre on Statelessness), The University of MelbourneMaria Elander, Lecturer, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1015112018-08-14T22:25:25Z2018-08-14T22:25:25ZHow Cambodia’s prime minister rigged an election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231781/original/file-20180813-2912-vhcme4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen weaves a traditional cotton scarf In Phnom Penh in June. He won the recent Cambodia election in a landslide after literally rigging the vote by banning the main opposition party, among other tricks. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hun Sen and the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) won a recent landslide victory in the Southeast Asian country. </p>
<p>After outlawing the main opposition party that challenged the ruling CPP, Hun Sen secured more than <a href="https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/hun-sen-easily-wins-every-province-in-cambodian-election-10572630">80 per cent of the popular vote and well over 100 of the 125 contested seats</a> in the National Assembly. Despite calls to boycott the election, voter turnout was around 82 per cent, or about 6.88 million people. </p>
<p>The response from the international community has been split. </p>
<p>Australia, Canada, the European Union and the United States have expressed “<a href="https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/three-nations-disappointed-elections?utm_source=Phnompenh+Post+Main+List&utm_campaign=f39fa3800d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_31_04_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_690109a91f-f39fa3800d-62207109">profound disappointment</a>” with the lack of opposition participation. Regional countries and populist European leaders, on the other hand, have endorsed the result.</p>
<p>The re-election of Prime Minister Hun Sen and his CPP contributes to the <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/article/democracy-crisis-freedom-house-releases-freedom-world-2018">growing global democratic crisis</a>. The government has taken advantage of the retreat of leading democracies to use blatant repression to suppress opponents, stifle media freedom and compromise rules-based institutions. </p>
<p>With the advent of digital technology and increased social media use in Cambodia, the government has also turned to “<a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2018-01-24/how-sharp-power-threatens-soft-power">sharp power</a>” to manipulate information, target crucial democratic institutions to exert control and change public opinion.</p>
<p>What went wrong this election?</p>
<h2>Pulled out all the stops</h2>
<p>In the last competitive elections in 2013, the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) gained significant ground with 44 per cent of the popular vote, shaving the CPP’s vote share to 48 per cent. In this election, Hun Sen and the CPP were determined to pull out all the stops to prevent a replay of 2013’s humiliating results.</p>
<p>In 2016, a prominent political commentator and activist Kem Ley was assassinated. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231784/original/file-20180813-2897-2b31kc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231784/original/file-20180813-2897-2b31kc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231784/original/file-20180813-2897-2b31kc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231784/original/file-20180813-2897-2b31kc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231784/original/file-20180813-2897-2b31kc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231784/original/file-20180813-2897-2b31kc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231784/original/file-20180813-2897-2b31kc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Kem Ley is seen in this 2016 photo.</span>
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</figure>
<p>The following year, the main opposition party, the CNRP, was dissolved and banned from contesting the election. The CNRP’s leader, Kem Sokha, was arrested on trumped-up charges of “<a href="https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/nrp-leader-kem-sokha-arrested-treason-134249/">treason</a>.” This move followed weeks of tensions involving the expulsion of the National Democratic Institute from the country and <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/cambodia-considers-new-law-targeting-fake-news/a-43323565">the shuttering of 32 radio stations</a> critical of the government, including the U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia and Voice of America. </p>
<p>A key assault on independent media included the imposition of back taxes on the leading newspaper, the <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Hun-Sen-is-tempting-fate-in-Cambodia-s-election">Cambodia Daily</a>, resulting in its bankruptcy. Meantime, the Phnom Penh Post was sold to a Malaysian businessman from a public relations company that worked for the Cambodian government.</p>
<p>Journalists were also constrained by a list of arbitrary, <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/cambodia-s-controversial-press-guidelines-draw-concern/4419214.html">controversial rules</a> regarding how they cover elections. They were prohibited from having their “own ideas to make conclusions,” asking detailed questions about the election result or from “interfering” at the voting booths by talking to voters. Cambodian journalists also routinely deal with <a href="http://www.aseantoday.com/2018/05/the-collapse-of-cambodias-free-press/">phone-tapping and death threats</a>, and are forced to self-censor.</p>
<p>Other drastic measures to tilt the level playing field included opposition harassment, voter intimidation and vote-buying. While small parties were allowed to contest, the <a href="https://anfrel.org/anfrel-2018-cambodia-pre-election-assessment-report/">Asian Network for Free Elections</a> (ANFREL) reported the anti-regime parties faced harassment from government officials, creating “a noxious pre-election environment characterized by impunity, threats and intimidation.”</p>
<p>What’s more, high-ranking members of the <a href="https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/officials-dismiss-hrw-report">armed and police forces campaigned for the CPP</a> prior to the election, while others <a href="https://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/threats-07172018164210.html">threatened to take away public services</a> to residents in certain provinces unless they voted. The <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/cambodia-s-controversial-press-guidelines-draw-concern/4419214.html">government also threatened people</a> who wanted to boycott elections. Additionally, <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Hun-Sen-is-tempting-fate-in-Cambodia-s-election">vote-buying</a> was reported in which envelopes filled with 20,000 riel (approximately US$5) were handed out to voters at campaign rallies.</p>
<h2>Fake news and online censorship</h2>
<p>Aside from stifling the mainstream media, the government also cracked down on digital media to prevent the opposition from making any headway. To prevent digital technology from becoming a liberalizing or mobilizing tool, the government ramped up its surveillance of online activities. </p>
<p>In 2015, the controversial <a href="http://www.licadho-cambodia.org/pressrelease.php?perm=401">Law on Telecommunications</a> was passed to authorize the government’s eavesdropping on all telecommunications. Every phone conversation, text message, email or post on Facebook, if deemed to have violated “national security” clauses, could result in a 15-year prison sentence.</p>
<p>Weary of the spread of online “fake news” — also known as negative media coverage — staff from three government ministries were tasked to control news content, writing, audio, pictures, videos and any other media with “<a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/cambodia-to-monitor-online-news-ahead-of-july-election">the intention to cause instability</a>” prior to the July 29 election. </p>
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<span class="caption">Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen waves to supporters just before the July 29 election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Internet service providers were also required to have software and equipment to filter or block websites, accounts or social media pages that “broadcast in violation of the law.” </p>
<p>The government is now drafting “fake news” legislation similar to Malaysia’s “Anti-Fake News Act” to punish those found guilty of creating or distributing supposedly false information with up to two years imprisonment and fines of up to US$1,000.</p>
<p>Many of Cambodia’s government-approved media outlets, with their <a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/2149029/cambodias-fresh-news-it-journalism-chinese-characteristics">links to China</a>, are looking more like China’s authoritarian model, which should be cause for concern for proponents of democracy.</p>
<p>While internet penetration has increased in Cambodia, internet freedom has declined. Cambodia was <a href="https://www.idea.int/news-media/news/cambodia%E2%80%99s-looming-democratic-decline-eve-nationwide-elections-what-gives">ranked as having the worst environment</a> for clean elections and for freedom of political parties from 2000 to 2015 in Southeast Asia. Once a thriving and open media hub, Cambodia now sits at 142 in the <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/cambodia">World Press Freedom Index</a>.</p>
<h2>Divided international community</h2>
<p>The international community’s response to Cambodia’s sham election is divided. The U.S. and the EU, who provided aid to Cambodia after its first UN-administered election in 1993, cut electoral assistance and suspended funding prior to the vote. On the other hand, <a href="https://www.voacambodia.com/a/former-opposition-mp-calls-for-japan-boycott-of-general-election/4419577.html">Russia, South Korea, Japan and China</a> have remained loyal donors. </p>
<p>While Russia provided election monitors, China and Japan supplied election ballot boxes and booths. China also promised <a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2151495/chinas-pledges-more-military-aid-cambodia-prepares">US$100 million in military aid</a> to boost ties with Cambodia prior to the election.</p>
<p>Despite calls from local election watchdogs not to send observers, Cambodia’s National Election Committee (NEC) reported there were more than 50,000 observers, including some from China, Myanmar and Singapore, who participated in election monitoring. And a group of European populist and nationalist politicians from the UK Independence Party (UKIP), the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the Czech Freedom and Direct Democracy Party, the Austrian Freedom Party and other right-wing party leaders also descended on Cambodia to observe and endorse the national election.</p>
<p>The CPP’s victory does not bode well for Cambodian democracy. Given the failure of international sanctions to have any effect, it is likely Cambodia will slide further into electoral authoritarianism in the coming years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101511/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Netina Tan receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and International Development of Research Centre (IDRC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cassandra Preece receives funding from McMaster University.</span></em></p>The re-election of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen contributes to the growing global democratic crisis. Here’s why.Netina Tan, Associate Professor, McMaster UniversityCassandra Preece, Political Science, MA Student, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1008292018-08-06T19:38:22Z2018-08-06T19:38:22ZDoes Australia have the political will – or leverage – to support change in Cambodia?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230495/original/file-20180802-136673-rfkehh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, posing for photos with supporters after last month's elections.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mak Remissa/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent ABC Four Corners story “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/champagne-with-dictators/10053664">Champagne with Dictators</a>” shows Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen at a political rally telling the ABC reporter that Cambodia will welcome more <a href="http://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/publication/cambodia-agreement">refugees from Australia</a> - a direct message to Australia and a distraction from what is being called a <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/30/fake-monitors-endorse-cambodias-sham-election/">“sham” election</a> last week. </p>
<p>Appeasing the international community to ensure ongoing support and investment while ruling his country with an iron fist is one of Hun Sen’s greatest skills, developed over <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23257699">33 years in power</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-how-much-was-spent-on-the-cambodia-refugee-deal-and-how-many-were-settled-68807">FactCheck Q&A: how much was spent on the Cambodia refugee deal and how many were settled?</a>
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<p>To understand the current dynamics of Australia-Cambodia relations – and specifically why Canberra lacks the leverage to put more pressure on Hun Sen’s authoritarian government – requires an examination of recent history. </p>
<p>For starters, Hun Sen believes that a stream of past actions by Western foreign powers indemnifies him from any criticism. </p>
<h2>A relationship built on mistrust</h2>
<p>In September 1979, the UN General Assembly, under US pressure, refused to recognise Hun Sen’s Vietnamese-backed government. It <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/09/16/us-to-support-pol-pot-regime-for-un-seat/58b8b124-7dd7-448f-b4f7-80231683ec57/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c74fea797e04">voted instead to continue recognising the Khmer Rouge regime as Cambodia’s legitimate government</a>, despite <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/761936?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">evidence of genocide</a> committed under its rule from 1975-79. </p>
<p>Washington’s overriding strategic interest was the isolation of the Soviet bloc and Communist-ruled Vietnam – Cambodia and its suffering were of secondary importance. Australia supported the UN decision.</p>
<p>After the Khmer Rouge was defeated, Hun Sen rose to become Cambodia’s prime minister and de facto leader. By the time of the UN-led negotiations over the future of Cambodia in the late 1980s, there was one main goal: to bring peace to the country. The 1991 Paris Peace Agreement did result in peace, but <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/RP9596/96rp34">failed to bring democracy to Cambodia</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/one-party-to-rule-them-all-cambodias-supreme-court-rules-the-dissolution-of-opposition-party-87761">One party to rule them all: Cambodia’s Supreme Court rules the dissolution of opposition party</a>
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<p>Significant errors were made during and after the negotiations. One of them was the decision to support unconditionally a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/17/world/rival-parties-in-cambodia-agree-to-form-a-coalition-government.html">power-sharing arrangement</a> between the political arm of the Vietnamese-installed government led by Hun Sen and opposition party (Funinpec) leader Prince Ranariddh to prevent a collapse of the agreement and renewed violence. </p>
<p>This arrangement was brokered by Prince Sihanouk, the head of state, and endorsed by Australia and other negotiating parties. Fundamental differences between Hun Sen and Ranariddh made the power-sharing agreement unsustainable.</p>
<p>In the early 1990s, hundreds of NGOs emerged overnight, while foreign advisers and development agencies flooded into the country to try to rebuild Cambodia. What followed was an aid culture characterised by relationships of dependence at every level and inequality in wealth distribution. </p>
<p>An extreme dichotomy between poverty and wealth inevitably produces the powerful and the vulnerable. A consequence of this social division is the denial of democracy: with money comes power, and with power comes political influence, making it inevitable that inequality reinforces itself by undermining the political system and democratic governance. In these conditions, corruption is inevitable. </p>
<p>This explains how Hun Sen, his family and associates successfully appropriated the economy and political power. </p>
<p>The West also lost its ability to influence Hun Sen’s policies. When the US criticised his politics in 1995, <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300190724/hun-sens-cambodia">he threatened anti-American demonstrations</a> and called for US$20 billion in reparations for the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/fury-in-cambodia-as-us-asks-to-be-paid-back-hundreds-of-millions-in-war-debts-20170311-guvxyp.html">B-52 bombings of his country in the 1960s and 1970s</a>.</p>
<h2>Can Australia be influential now?</h2>
<p>In the current complex political environment, it would be too simplistic to believe that applying sanctions to Cambodia or members of Hun Sen’s entourage would encourage democratic reform. This would only serve Cambodia’s strongest ally: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/17/world/rival-parties-in-cambodia-agree-to-form-a-coalition-government.html">China</a>. </p>
<p>Sanctions could also result in instability, with the potential for further violence in a country where <a href="https://asianews.network/2018/06/21/a-survey-of-cambodian-political-parties/">the opposition is divided</a> and many young people believe the two main political parties are no longer representative of the aspirations of a new generation. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/violent-politics-and-the-disintegration-of-democracy-in-cambodia-83636">Violent politics and the disintegration of democracy in Cambodia</a>
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<p>Sending more refugees to Cambodia – or not - is an Australian issue. It has no relevance for the average Cambodian. What matters more is how Australia can learn from the errors of the past and support emerging social and political movements led by young Cambodians without openly confronting Hun Sen’s regime. </p>
<p>One such movement was founded by the commentator and activist, Kem Ley, who was <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-12/cambodian-activist-kem-ley-killed-leaves-powerful-legacy/7590050">assassinated</a> for what his supporters and human rights groups believe were his political views and visions of a better Cambodia.</p>
<p>Western rhetoric aimed at criticising a state or leader is often short-sighted and fails to take into consideration the complexities of the issues at stake in various states, particularly those with values not aligned to those of the West.</p>
<p>Influencing change in a country like Cambodia will require a more sophisticated approach than sanctions and direct criticisms of Hun Sen’s government. It requires the will and ability to use a different lens to ascertain the impact any decision may have on the country and its people. It requires tact and sometimes compromises, as hard as it may be.</p>
<p>Some decisions, such as <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/australia-is-weak-on-political-gangsters-says-cambodian-opposition-20180730-p4zugs.html">implementing visa bans</a> for Cambodian officials, would show Australia is prepared to impose conditions in its relationship with the Cambodian leadership.</p>
<p>But change in Cambodia will happen only from within. Foreign actors must understand the complexity of the issues at stake, as a crude generalisation of the problem can and will only make matters worse for Cambodians.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100829/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean (Jonathan) Bogais is affiliated with:
German-Southeast Asian Centre for Excellence and Good Governance (CPG), Thammasat University, Bangkok and
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington DC, US</span></em></p>Influencing change in Cambodia will require a more sophisticated approach than sanctions and direct criticisms of Hun Sen’s government.Jean Bogais, Associate Professor (Adjunct), School of Social and Political Sciences, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/855152017-10-12T14:18:41Z2017-10-12T14:18:41ZCambodia heads towards one-party state – and a democratic crisis<p>Imagine a “democratic” election with only one main party? Most countries purporting to be democracies have two or three large parties which contest elections. Power may rotate between them or be held by coalitions. There is a choice for voters, despite potential debate over the attractiveness of that choice.</p>
<p>But 24 years after Cambodia’s first modern era elections, the country is on the brink of becoming a one-party state. The <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/untac.htm">UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia</a> (UNTAC) administered elections in May 1993 when 20 parties vied for seats in parliament. The election was conducted in accordance with a new constitution and Cambodia was on its way to becoming a multiparty liberal democracy. </p>
<p>Following the horrific genocide of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10684399">Khmer Rouge regime</a> and years of civil war, the new Cambodia was founded on principles agreed in the Paris Peace Agreements on a <a href="http://www.cambodia.org/facts/?page=1991+Paris+Peace+Agreements%20">Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodian Conflict</a>. Article 1 of the <a href="http://senate.gov.kh/home/constitution/constitution_english.pdf">constitution proclaims</a>:</p>
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<p>Cambodia is a kingdom in which the king shall rule according to the constitution and the principles of liberal multiparty democracy. </p>
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<h2>A brief election history</h2>
<p>National elections have been held every five years since 1993 – in 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2013 – by which members of the National Assembly are directly elected. The Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) dominates, though ruled in a coalition from 1993-97 with the United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC), which ended in the 1997 <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/370230">“coup”</a>, and again in 2003 in a temporary coalition with FUNCINPEC. The date for the next National Assembly election has been set as July 29, 2018.</p>
<p>But the CPP, led by prime minister Hun Sen, has repeatedly made clear they are <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5a90e200-92f7-11e7-a9e6-11d2f0ebb7f0">not intending to cede power</a>. The prime minister himself warned in May 2017 that the CPP must win to ensure peace and stability and avoid the country returning to <a href="https://www.cambodiadaily.com/second/hun-sen-goes-tirade-opponents-130441">civil war</a>. </p>
<p>The threat of a return to civil war is frequently invoked as are threats against anyone contesting the local or national elections. It is clear that the mass protests which followed the 2013 elections will not be tolerated. Samdech Tea Banh, deputy prime minister and defence minister, warned in May that he would <a href="https://asiancorrespondent.com/2017/05/cambodian-deputy-pm-threatens-smash-teeth-opposition/#dGV1tJzgXHkZT2gS.97">smash the teeth of anyone protesting</a> after the commune/sangkat elections earlier this year. </p>
<p>Social affairs minister, Vong Sauth, was reported in the Phnom Penh Post newspaper as commenting in a speech on July 31 that the government would hit people with bamboo rods <a href="http://m.phnompenhpost.com/national/minister-demands-loyalty-cpp-civil-servants-warns-protesters-they-will-be-hit-bamboo">if they protested after the national election</a> – a horrific technique employed during the Khmer Rouge era. </p>
<p>Such threats and intimidation led many commentators and observers to question whether <a href="https://www.ticambodia.org/wp-content/uploads/PreliminaryStatement-.pdf">free and fair elections are possible</a>. The 32-year rule of Hun Sen has been a period of relative peace and stability, but in a multiparty democracy, opposition parties can and should challenge the government and the electorate should be offered a free vote on a choice of candidates standing for election.</p>
<h2>Rule by law, not rule of law</h2>
<p>As Cambodia moves towards rule by law, rather than governance in accordance <a href="http://cambodia.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Rhona%20Smith%20Statement%20HRC36%2027%20September%202017%20-%20FINAL.pdf">with the rule of law</a>, legislation was amended in March to preclude a political party being led by <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/cambodia-changes-political-rules-in-triumph-of-dictatorship/8287662">anyone with a criminal conviction</a> and to enable the government to unilaterally suspend the activities of, or formally initiate legal proceedings to dissolve, any political party engaging in activities which may destroy national unity, subvert the liberal multiparty democracy, or incite action leading to national disunity. </p>
<p>The amendments also prohibit political parties from accepting contributions of any kind from state or foreign institutions, NGOs and similar enterprises. A subsequent amendment in July 2017 prohibits a party from using voice messages, images, written documents or activities of a person convicted of <a href="http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/controversial-party-law-signed-though-king-declines-ink-changes">a felony or misdemeanour</a> or from “tacitly agreeing” with such a person to undertake such activities. The fate of the opposition legislative parties rests primarily with the executive – an extraordinary state of affairs for a proclaimed democracy and a clear threat to separation of powers albeit a court is the final arbiter of dissolution of any political party.</p>
<p>And the impact of these amendments is being felt. Opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) billboards were hastily painted over in July to obliterate the depiction of Sam Rainsy, former CNRP President, who left office when the March amendments <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/12/world/asia/cambodia-sam-rainsy-hun-sen.html">were being passed</a>. With current convictions, including for defamation, he can neither lead the party nor have his image, writing or activities referenced.</p>
<p>Three opposition party leaders are also in prison, charged with diverse offences under the criminal code. If/when/as convicted, they can no longer lead or even be publicly affiliated with their current party. </p>
<p>They are the founder and then president of the Khmer Power Party, Sourn Serey Ratha, convicted and sentenced to <a href="http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/kpp-head-arrested-facebook-post-criticising-deployment-troops-laos-border">five years’ imprisonment</a>; Khmer National United Party president, <a href="https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/nhek-bun-chhay-loses-government-adviser-role-131230">Nhek Bun Chhay</a>; and president of the CNRP, <a href="https://www.mfaic.gov.kh/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Ministry-of-Foreign-Affair-201704-388.pdf">Kem Sokha</a> facing charges of conspiracy with a foreign power.</p>
<p>Then, on October 6, the Cambodian Ministry of Interior, using its new powers, initiated formal legal proceedings to dissolve the CNRP. The Supreme Court issued a writ on October 9 informing the CNRP it has 20 days to <a href="http://en.freshnewsasia.com/index.php/5681-top-news-supreme-court-orders-cnrp-to-defend-dissolution-claim.html">prepare its defence</a>. </p>
<p>Dissolution is a likely outcome and so the party with the only non CPP seats in the National Assembly will cease to exist in Cambodia. CNRP seats will be redistributed in accordance with new laws being <a href="http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/cpp-rewrites-rules-again-amendments-planned-political-laws-redistribute-cnrp-seats">fast tracked through parliament</a>. Irrespective of the reallocation, any new distribution of seats will not reflect the views of voters in 2013.</p>
<h2>A crisis of confidence</h2>
<p>Confidence in the political and electoral system is tumbling. Almost 90% of registered voters participated in the <a href="https://www.necelect.org.kh/english/">June 4 commune elections</a> and voter registration is currently open for newly enfranchised young people. Yet, many have not yet registered. Registration closes in a month.</p>
<p>Without the CNRP, it is hard to argue that Cambodia is a multi-party plural liberal democracy. The only opposition party in the National Assembly is on the brink of dissolution. The leaders of the only two opposition parties to win commune posts in June are currently detained on serious criminal charges. Almost <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41518527">half the CNRP members of parliament have left the country, fearing arrest</a>.</p>
<p>It is true that Cambodian democracy has long followed a single party model insofar as there has been CPP dominance. Dissent and criticism are rarely countenanced. Since 2015, even NGOs and trade unions have been required by law to be politically neutral. The CNRP regularly boycotts the legislature, especially when controversial laws are being fast tracked or votes are required on lifting parliamentary immunity of its members. Criminal charges of incitement, defamation, and insurrection remain common against political activists. Bribery and forgery have been invoked frequently in the last years.</p>
<p>But now Cambodia is also fast running out of political opposition. The vestige of plurality has been abandoned. In the UN Human Rights Council in September 2017, when technical assistance and cooperation with Cambodia was being debated, many states raised questions as to the likelihood of a free and credible election in 2018. That is an ever more distant possibility.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85515/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rhona Smith currently serves as the independent UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia. This is a non-salaried position and the views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the UN. </span></em></p>Dark days lie ahead as democracy is dismantled.Rhona Smith, Head of School, Newcastle Law School, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/836362017-09-11T04:04:07Z2017-09-11T04:04:07ZViolent politics and the disintegration of democracy in Cambodia<p>Kem Sokha, the leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/world/asia/cambodia-kem-sokha-treason.html?mcubz=0">charged with treason</a> last week, amid allegations of conspiring with a foreign power to overthrow the government. </p>
<p>In all likelihood, the charges mean the imminent dissolution of the main opposition party, leaving the ruling party – the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) – the only real contender in next year’s general elections.</p>
<p>The charges are the latest in the rolling back of democratic processes in the nation. They also reflect a shift in global democracy. </p>
<h2>Destroying democracy</h2>
<p>The latest development follows a pattern that has included alleged <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/12/cambodia-commune-elections-not-free-or-fair">electoral intimidation</a> in the recent commune elections, media suppression, and increasing threats of violence and conflict should the <a href="http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/rights-group-diplomats-call-on-cambodia-to-stop-threats-of-violence-ahead-of-elections-05312017163725.html">opposition win</a>.</p>
<p>In the last three weeks, 17 radio providers that gave airtime to the opposition and aired programs produced by the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/">Voice of America</a> and <a href="http://www.rfa.org/english/">Radio Free Asia</a> – two Washington-based outlets that often include political critique – have had their <a href="http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/appeal-08282017174211.html">licences revoked</a>. </p>
<p>Last Monday, The Cambodia Daily, an English-language newspaper renowned for hard-hitting journalism, <a href="https://theconversation.com/cambodia-daily-closure-a-major-blow-for-freedom-of-information-and-expression-in-the-country-83472">closed after 24 years</a>, after being hit with an unaudited tax bill of US$6.3 million, with no course of appeal. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/cambodia-daily-closure-a-major-blow-for-freedom-of-information-and-expression-in-the-country-83472">Cambodia Daily closure a major blow for freedom of information and expression in the country</a>
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<p>In August, the <a href="https://www.ndi.org/">National Democratic Institute</a>’s office in Cambodia was forced to close, and its foreign staff were deported, following alleged infringement of the Law on Associations and Non-governmental Organisations (<a href="https://www.fidh.org/en/region/asia/cambodia/cambodia-the-dangers-of-lango">LANGO</a>). This law was passed earlier this year, severely restricting the rights of civil society actors across the nation. </p>
<p>These actions are largely agreed to be manoeuvres to consolidate the political power of the CPP under the increasingly autocratic rule of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who, following Sokha’s arrest, has declared he will rule for <a href="http://www.khmertimeskh.com/5081869/hun-sen-promises-10-years-power/">another ten years</a>. </p>
<h2>The violence of Hun Sen</h2>
<p><a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/53561/1/42Bennett%202015%20To%20Live%20Amongst%20the%20Dead%20PhD%20Thesis.pdf">My research</a> shows that Cambodian politics has always been a sphere of violence, but that since the 1993 UN-backed elections, it has happened under a veneer of liberal democracy. </p>
<p>According to Human Rights Watch, Hun Sen has the worst human rights record of any <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/01/12/30-years-hun-sen/violence-repression-and-corruption-cambodia">“democratic” leader</a>. </p>
<p>Although his party lost the 1993 elections, he forced a coalition, before seizing power after violent clashes in 1997. Elections since then have been plagued by accusations of fraud, corruption and voter intimidation. Hun Sen’s personal bodyguard is implicated in much public violence, including <a href="http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/cambodian-prime-minister-promotes-body-12282016133914.html">brutal beatings</a> of political opponents.</p>
<p>But these current moves are happening in increasingly public spaces. Their intensification appears to be aimed at preventing a replay of the shock results of the 2013 general elections, when the ruling party lost 22 seats to the CNRP, giving the ruling party its lowest share of seats since 1998.</p>
<h2>2013: the beginning of the end</h2>
<p>I was in Cambodia for the 2013 elections doing research for <a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/53561/1/42Bennett%202015%20To%20Live%20Amongst%20the%20Dead%20PhD%20Thesis.pdf">my PhD</a> on the legacy of the Khmer Rouge regime. My work involved examining contemporary Cambodian politics. </p>
<p>The success of the opposition took many of us by surprise. Despite the allegations of fraud and corruption, the result seemed promising for its indication of free voting – there was hope that it marked a positive move for democracy. But among threats of civil conflict and unrest, the result also provoked tension. </p>
<p>Protests occurred in the capital, and several people were shot. Rumours started to circulate that Hun Sen had mobilised the army and that the deputy prime minister, Sok An, was planning a coup. Fear and tension bubbled below the surface for many of the people I was working with. </p>
<p>Hun Sen has repeatedly threatened civil war should he lose the elections. His threats are grounded in the all-too-well-remembered violent history of the Khmer Rouge, when up to 1.7 million people were killed. </p>
<p>In 2011, following the Arab Spring, Hun Sen threatened to kill anyone <a href="http://www.rfa.org/english/news/special/hunsen/home.html">resisting his rule</a>. Earlier <a href="https://www.cambodiadaily.com/second/hun-sen-goes-tirade-opponents-130441/">this year</a> he said:</p>
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<p>To ensure the lives of millions of people, we are willing to eliminate 100 or 200 people. </p>
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<p>Some in Cambodia fear he will be true to his word. It seems unlikely that Hun Sen will let the 2018 election result get as close as it did in 2013. After all, he has never shunned the threat of violence as a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/01/13/cambodia-30-years-hun-sen-violence-repression">means of control</a>.</p>
<p>Hun Sen also has the support of Tep Vong, supreme patriarch of the Cambodian Buddhist sect of Mohanikay. He has previously condoned controlling the freedom of the <a href="http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/great-supreme-patriarch">people</a>, thereby ensuring spiritual legitimacy as well as political impunity for Hun Sen’s actions.</p>
<h2>Global shifts in despotism, crumbling democracies</h2>
<p>The moves towards media control and suppression of the opposition parallel turns across the globe. They reflect the rolling back of democracy and a rise of autocratic leaders in so-called democratic countries. </p>
<p>In April this year, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/turkeys-constitutional-referendum-experts-express-fear-for-a-divided-country-76289">referendum in Turkey</a> voted for constitutional reforms that give President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan single-handed rule with the right to pass new laws and dissolve parliament at will.</p>
<p>This legislation followed the failed coup in 2016. In the subsequent crackdown thousands of journalists, academics and lawmakers were jailed, and at least 156 media outlets forced to close. Turkey now has more journalists in prison than any other nation.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/turkeys-constitutional-referendum-experts-express-fear-for-a-divided-country-76289">Turkey's constitutional referendum: experts express fear for a divided country</a>
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<p>Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has admitted murder, threatened killings of drug dealers (and likened himself to Hitler in the process) and said he would pass political <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36251094">impunity laws to protect himself</a>. More than 7,000 people have reportedly been killed in the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/03/02/license-kill/philippine-police-killings-dutertes-war-drugs">last year</a>.</p>
<p>In Poland, the ruling party passed legislation restricting the freedom of the press and giving itself increasing control of the courts. Only the prime minister’s signature is needed for action. </p>
<p>According to US think tank <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/">Freedom House</a>, 2016 was:</p>
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<p>… characterised by an erosion of democratic institutions and a rise of autocratic practices across the globe. </p>
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<h2>Political violence, open suppression</h2>
<p>Violence in politics is not new. The control of the people in Cambodia is not new. What is new is the increasing confidence of leaders, such as Hun Sen, to flex their political muscles openly and violently with complete confidence in their political impunity. </p>
<p>Cambodia is often heralded as a nation with an exciting future due to high levels of investment and development support. But the success of its peace and democracy is openly crumbling. </p>
<p>The CPP needs a powerful opposition to prevent complete disintegration of democracy and human rights. It’s making sure that is not possible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83636/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Bennett received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council for her PhD research. </span></em></p>The treason charges against Cambodia’s opposition leader Kem Sokha are another step towards autocracy in the kingdom of wonder.Caroline Bennett, Lecturer in Cultural Anthropology, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/834722017-09-05T10:35:03Z2017-09-05T10:35:03ZCambodia Daily closure a major blow for freedom of information and expression in the country<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184675/original/file-20170905-28059-1hjcmvx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The end of an era.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The independent <a href="http://www.cambodiadaily.com">Cambodia Daily</a> newspaper has <a href="https://www.cambodiadaily.com/topstory/cambodia-daily-announces-immediate-closure-amid-threats-134283/">closed down</a>, marking the end of an era. It’s final headline spelled out the problem facing the country: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/04/cambodia-daily-shuts-with-dictatorship-parting-shot-at-prime-minister-hun-sen">“Descent Into Outright Dictatorship.”</a></p>
<p>Cambodia Daily was launched in 1993 by American journalist Bernard Krisher as the modern state of Cambodia emerged following the tumultuous period of civil war, genocide and occupation. The new Cambodia had a constitution based on democracy and respect for human rights and boasted a free press and a vibrant civil society. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"904399936145334272"}"></div></p>
<p>But a quarter of a century after the <a href="https://www.usip.org/events/cambodias-paris-peace-accords-25-years-later">1991 Paris peace accords</a> outlined a blueprint for a modern, stable and peaceful state in Cambodia, freedom of expression there is in grave danger. Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index now ranks Cambodia <a href="https://rsf.org/en/ranking/2017">132nd out of 180 states</a> – no easy place to be a journalist.</p>
<p>The Cambodia Daily was one of three English language newspapers in daily circulation in the country, along with the Phnom Penh Post and the newer Khmer Times. But on August 4 this year, the paper was served with a tax reassessment indicating tax arrears of 25,756,015,695 riels (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/04/cambodia-daily-shuts-with-dictatorship-parting-shot-at-prime-minister-hun-sen">roughly US$6.3m</a>). The sum was declared due within 30 days and allegedly comprises tax owed and interest due on it. </p>
<p>The Cambodia Daily <a href="https://www.cambodiadaily.com/cambodia-daily-close-24-years/">accepts</a> that “there may be a legitimate dispute between the tax department and the owners of the Daily over when tax became collectable and in what amount”. But there have been no government explanations over the calculations or discussions on options for resolving the matter. The paper’s licence has not been renewed – and it has now ceased operations.</p>
<p>More worryingly, over the last two weeks, several other media outlets have also closed down. These closures are related to licensing regulations and various registration requirements. Radio is a vital source of news and information for many in the country. <a href="http://www.rfa.org/khmer/">Radio Free Asia</a> and <a href="https://www.voacambodia.com">Voice of America</a>, for example, have been particularly affected by restricted access to broadcasting time.</p>
<h2>Curbing freedom of expression</h2>
<p>The Association of Southeast Asian National Parliamentarians for Human Rights <a href="http://aseanmp.org/2017/08/31/asean-parliamentarians-alarmed-by-cambodia-crackdown/">criticised</a> what it called “a clear intent by the ruling party to curb freedom of expression ahead of the national elections” in July 2018.</p>
<p>And it’s not just the media that is under fire. All non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Cambodia are required to file accounts with the minister of interior this month. This is a requirement under the controversial new Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organisations (LANGO). </p>
<p>LANGO requires all NGOs to register and comply with national laws – many NGOs have recently been targeted for non-payment of taxes or tax arrears. Commentators have <a href="https://www.fidh.org/en/region/asia/cambodia/cambodia-the-dangers-of-lango">raised the alarm</a> at this law, which they say can be used to constrain modern Cambodia’s hitherto vibrant civil society. On August 23, for exmaple, the <a href="https://www.ndi.org/asia/cambodia">National Democratic Institute</a> was shut due to alleged LANGO infringements.</p>
<p>These events are set against a backdrop of elections. Cambodia’s local elections on June 4 passed relatively peacefully on the day, despite many observers <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/12/cambodia-commune-elections-not-free-or-fair">voicing concerns</a> over the atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the lead-up to them. </p>
<p>National Assembly elections, however, are scheduled for July 29, 2018 – and these will decide the composition of parliament and the next government. The last such elections (in 2013) were followed by a period of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/16/cambodia-election-protests-phnom-penh">political unrest</a>. </p>
<p>The current government is headed by Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen who has held that position since 1985, making him one of the world’s longest ruling leaders. His period in power has seen rapid economic growth and development as the country was rebuilt – indeed Cambodia now has achieved <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/cambodia">lower middle income status</a>. But the government has exercised tight control and attracted substantial criticism from <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/01/12/30-years-hun-sen/violence-repression-and-corruption-cambodia">states, commentators and NGOs alike</a>.</p>
<p>Before the local elections, a number of legal reforms were made affecting the composition and actions of political parties, restricting free discussions on political matters and requiring NGOs and trade unions to be politically neutral.</p>
<p>Such laws are interpreted very strictly. Journalists, foreign governments, individuals and NGOs questioning the government’s actions are frequently deemed anti-government and pro-opposition. The leader of the main opposition party, Kem Sokha, was was this week <a href="https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/nrp-leader-kem-sokha-arrested-treason-134249/">arrested for treason</a> on September 3. The offence of conspiracy with a foreign power allegedly relates to comments made in 2013 in Melbourne, Australia, and the foreign power is <a href="http://pressocm.gov.kh/archives/11882">alleged to be the US</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184679/original/file-20170905-28032-exz9lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184679/original/file-20170905-28032-exz9lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184679/original/file-20170905-28032-exz9lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184679/original/file-20170905-28032-exz9lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184679/original/file-20170905-28032-exz9lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184679/original/file-20170905-28032-exz9lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184679/original/file-20170905-28032-exz9lh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The prime minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/kuala-lumpur-malaysia-02-june-2016-589042187?src=RLHdZvTHydqVSQKqvRHtUg-1-4">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>New laws are increasingly being used in Cambodia to restrict freedom of expression and political dissent. Charges of insurrection, bribery, defamation, forgery and incitement have all been used recently. Long periods of pre-trial detention are common and detainees may or may not ever be brought to trial. For example, in June, four employees of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC), were released <a href="https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/reeling-from-detention-adhoc-5-stay-defiant-132052/">after 427 days in pre-trial detention</a>. Their detention was deemed arbitrary <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Detention/Opinions/Session77/A-HRC-WGAD-2016-45_en.pdf">by UN experts</a> but charges levied could still be reactivated against these human rights defenders.</p>
<p>Last year, a student was <a href="https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/student-jailed-over-facebook-post-on-color-revolution-92344/">jailed for incitement</a> following comments made on Facebook calling for a revolution. And following the murder of prominent political activist Kem Ley in 2016, several people were charged with offences such as defamation, including <a href="http://aseanmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/APHR_Cambodia-MPs-Report_Thak-Lany-Timeline.pdf">Senator Thak Lany</a>. At present, some 20 politicians and activists with links to the main opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), are being detained and over 30 more have been charged with a range of offences and await trial.</p>
<h2>Campaign of disinformation</h2>
<p>The Cambodian government’s take on the general situation was perhaps best expressed in a <a href="https://www.mfaic.gov.kh/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Ministry-of-Foreign-Affair-201704-388.pdf">paper</a> published in April by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. The government elaborated on its view that it has been the subject of a campaign of disinformation over the years, highlighting the UN and the US as particular offenders.</p>
<p>But there is no doubt that freedom of expression in Cambodia is under threat. Criticising government policy is not a reason to prosecute, rather it is part of the normal democratic process in the run up to national elections. Balanced and informed monitoring of human rights in a country is a normal part of international society, including countries commenting on the situation in other states – for example, through the UN Human Rights Council. The UN Human Rights Council begins its 36th session this month and the situation in Cambodia <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session36/Pages/36RegularSession.aspx">will be discussed</a>.</p>
<p>Expressing political opinions should not be a crime, not least during a period elections in a democratic society. Closing newspapers and radio stations and restricting the work of NGOs should be a last resort even when such outlets allegedly breach national law. Sadly, this is no longer the case in modern Cambodia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83472/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rhona Smith currently serves as the independent UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia. This is a non-salaried position and the views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the UN.</span></em></p>The closure of The Cambodia Daily is the latest chapter in a long and increasingly worrying tale.Rhona Smith, Head of School, Newcastle Law School, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.