Cambodia has abandoned communist rule to supposedly embrace pluralism and liberal democracy for nearly twenty years. Yet it is still saddled with many communist legacies which have stunted its democratic development.
One of such legacies is the staffing of all public institutions from top to bottom, down to the village level, by members of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, which was formerly a communist party. Almost all positions of responsibility down to village chiefs are filled with political appointees. There is no clear distinction between party and state duties, and party offices, state administration headquarters and police posts at the provincial, district and commune levels are next to one another or not far away from one another, provinces being Cambodia’s biggest and communes the smallest administrative divisions.
Public-cum-party officials have pervasive control of the population and have practiced discrimination against opposition parties and the latters followers. They have imposed restrictions on the political activities of the opposition. It is not unusual that grass root officials have prevented opposition activists, including Members of Parliament, from carrying out their activities. These restrictions have been more severe at the approach of every election.
In the present Parliament where the ruling party has an overwhelming majority (90 out 123 seats), and unlike in the previous Parliament, the opposition has been denied a role in the leadership of this branch of government. The opposition has been denied the chair of any of the parliamentary committees, let alone the Public Accounts Committee whose chair, in the parliaments of other democracies, is normally an opposition member to ensure more accountability of the government to the parliament.
A small opposition party, the Human Rights Party, with three seats has been denied the right to participate in parliamentary debates altogether when, according to the standing order, no Member of Parliament can speak in the Parliament if he or she is not member of a group of at least ten members.
The ruling party has also been quick to lift the parliamentary immunity of opposition Members of Parliament. Last February it did not take its Members of Parliament long to lift the immunity of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party’s leader, Sam Rainsy, after he had challenged and refused to pay an election fine.
There has also been discrimination against followers of the opposition whom grassroots officials-cum-party officials have no difficulty in identifying. These officials are less accommodating towards them in the delivery of public services. They have left them out when distributing relief handouts in difficult times. They have also left the opposition followers’ communities out when building community projects in exchange for votes. In certain cases, they have punished them by abandoning community projects when those communities had not voted for the ruling party. Prime Minister Hun Sen abandoned a big development project he had personally sponsored in a commune when his party lost the 1998 election in that commune. He has never again set foot in that commune.
These discriminatory practices seem to have become a government policy when the prime minister of the country has openly practiced it himself. In a public statement made in Kampot province on 4 April, Prime Minister Hun Sen told villagers not to expect any help from him if they followed any opposition party. “It is my birthday, I don’t want to speak about politics, but I tell clearly the political message that if (villagers) follow an opposition party, dont come to rely on Hun Sen, I cannot help”, he said.
This policy and long-stranding practices of discrimination on the basis of political opinion, belief and activity smack of the Khmer Rouge’s division of the Cambodian population into the “base population” and the “17 April population”. The “base population” had been living in their zones in rural areas prior to their victory on 17 April 1975. It received better treatment. The “17 April population” had been living mostly in urban centres under the control of their enemies, the pro-American regime of General Lon Nol, which they forced out of those centres at gun point on the day of their victory to go to rural areas “to grow their own food”. This population was subjected to a far worse treatment by the Khmer Rouge.
The same policy and practices of discrimination are a violation of the constitutional rights of the Cambodian people. Article 31 of Cambodias Constitution says, among other things, that Cambodian citizens are “equal before the law, enjoying the same rights, freedom and fulfilling the same obligations regardless of race, color, sex, language, religious belief, political tendency, birth origin, social status, wealth or other status.”
They are also a violation of, for instance, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Art.2), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Art.2 & 26), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Art.2), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Art.2) to all of which Cambodia is a party and under which Cambodia, like any other state party, has an obligation to respect and ensure the rights recognized by respectively all these international instruments without discrimination based on any ground, including on the ground of political opinion.
Furthermore, considering that Buddhism is the state religion of Cambodia, the same policy and practices of discrimination also violate Buddhist rulership whereby rulers should rule with justice and impartiality, treating all their people equally without discrimination of any kind.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) urges the Cambodian government, all other state institutions, and all leaders and government officials of all levels, including the security forces, to end all forms of discrimination based on political opinion, tendency and activity, including discrimination against opposition parties, their members and their followers. They must treat all Cambodian people equally and impartially. In parallel, the Cambodian government should ensure that the civil service, the army, the police, education and health services are politically neutral. It should also prohibit judicial officers’ affiliation to any political party.
