Since the end of the communist regime in the early 90s, the Cambodian people have dared to make complaints and vent their grievances against injustices even though they are still very much gripped by a fear psychosis. There are several venues for such complaints and grievances; they can go directly to the police, the courts, concerned authorities, human rights and complaints committees of the government or the Parliament. Many complainants use one such venue after another, or all at the same time, depending upon the gravity of those injustices, the number of people involved and their resources.
However, due to bureaucracy, officialdom, corruption or mere lack of concern on the part of these institutions, the people rarely have their complaints addressed without giving some sort of incentive to concerned officials otherwise they have to wait for an indeterminate period of time before getting any responses what-so-ever, if those concerned officials have ever cared to provide such responses at all.
Because of such a lack of purpose, the public does not have any confidence in those institutions at all. Many people, though they still make their complaints to them, have now related their stories to the media to publicise their case with a view to getting their messages across to top leaders, especially to Prime Minister Hun Sen, known as the strongman of Cambodia, to seek their direct attention to find justice for them.
According of a newspaper report dated May 8 2008, five representatives of 150 Tumpuon indigenous families living in three adjacent villages in Lomphat district, Rattakakiri in the northeast, went to relate the story of the grabbing of their 250 hectares of communal land by the deputy governor of that district to the Reaksmei Kampuchea newspaper in Phnom Penh. These five representatives affirmed to the newspaper that all the 150 families would soon go to stage a protest in front of the Parliament and then in front of the Office of Prime Minister Hun Sen to seek his help to find justice for them.
Five days earlier, a news report on Radio Free Asia said that representatives of 776 families protested against Amy Unit 331 for grabbing of over 800 hectares of their paddy fields in Taken commune, Chhouk district, Kampot province. This radio station also reported on May 7, in a case of land grabbing in the same province, that the provincial governor named Chey Sayoun allegedly prevented owners of the affected plots of land from having any say in a meeting with those owners on April 26. Furthermore, he threatened to bulldoze away their houses and crops to clear the land for the construction of an airport to silence their protest.
The same radio station has reported numerous cases of peoples protests, especially against land grabbing, and invariably, those victims have sought direct intervention from Hun Sen to find justice for them.
The people also have other grievances to relate to the media. The Koh Santepheap newspaper dated May 5 reported that unnamed rice traders complained that they had to pay the police in Angkor Borei district, Takeo province in the south a bribe of 130000 riels (US$32.5) per truckload to transport rice from that boarder district across to Vietnam. The same newspaper also reported a complaint from a man named Nop Phirum against a deputy police chief named Heng Chantho in Ta-Kream commune, Banan district, Battambang province, after he had requested Hengs intervention to stop a gangs cruel assault on Nops younger brother-in-law. Heng was then busy with his drinks at a place at foot of a hill nearby and did not bother even to send his subordinates to stop the assault.
The above are just a few of the cases reported in the media. There are many others. They all call for responses from all concerned authorities, responses which are the constitutional duties of the government and the rights of citizens under articles 35 and 39 of the countrys Constitution. The Cambodian government must ensure that such responses are provided promptly and, in cases of alleged corruption or negligence on the part of public authorities mentioned above, conduct prompt investigations and take appropriate action to prevent their repeat in future.
