Hun Sen calls for anti-terrorism law, while regime opponent dies in Bangkok
On the anniversary of the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, the former prime minister, who has transferred power to his son Hun Manet, calls for new law against those who undermine the country’s stability. Meanwhile, a former MP from a disbanded opposition party was killed in a mysterious ambush in the Thai capital, a few hours after crossing the border by bus.
Phnom Penh (AsiaNews) – Yesterday, 7 January, former Prime Minister Hun Sen, once a Khmer Rouge commander, called for a new law to fight "terrorists" who undermine the country’s stability and the power of his son, Hun Manet, who succeeded him at the helm of the government in 2023.
The day marks the end of the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled the country between 1975 and 1979 through torture, mass executions, forced labour and starvation that killed two million Cambodians.
Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party chose to mark the anniversary as a “second birth" of the Khmer nation, a "day of victory" against the brutal regime led by Pol Pot; it also offered the former prime minister an opportunity to call on the government to draft and implement a new law against “any person or group who plans or conspires to create an extremist movement, cause chaos and insecurity in society, provoke conflicts with other states and attempt to overthrow the legitimate government as terrorists who must be brought to justice”.
The use of legislation and a compliant judiciary has allowed Hun Sen to rule since Pol Pot’s fall and keep it almost continuously for a decade with Vietnamese help and later through brutal repression.
Despite international condemnation, the older Hun has silenced the opposition, forcing many of its members into exile. One of them was Lim Kimya, 74, a former lawmaker with the Cambodia National Rescue Party, who was killed on Tuesday with three gunshots in the Thai capital Bangkok a few hours after crossing the border by bus with his wife and an uncle.
An arrest warrant was issued for the suspected murderer, who rode a motorcycle.
Usually, the Cambodian government tries to get ahead of its critics by noting how "extremist” opposition elements are often quick to blame Cambodian authorities when such incidents occur.
For its part, Human Rights Watch Asia has called for rapid and thorough investigation and prosecution of those responsible, noting how the Cambodian government has frequently intimidated, controlled and persecuted former members of the main opposition party dissolved on charges of treason in 2018, including those living in neighbouring Thailand.
While never hiding his views, or even his active political militancy, Lim Kimya, who was a dual French-Cambodian national, was never a leading opponent to Hun Sen or his son. Doubts therefore remain about the reasons for his assassination, which Thai authorities are called to dispel.
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16/11/2018 10:03
