sanctions on one of Hun Sen's top generals and closest confidantes for recent abuses and a two-decade-old grenade attack on the opposition should serve as a wake-up call to officials and commanders," Adams said. earlier this month imposed sanctions on Hing Bun Hieng, the chief of Hun Sen's bodyguard unit, and for the first time directly implicated the general in a 1997 grenade attack on opposition supporters. "They are not enemies of the Cambodian people." "Those people are saviors, they saved people from Khmer Rouge killing," he said. Siphan declined to comment on who he thought Adams was working on behalf of but added that efforts to paint those named in the HRW report as being Khmer Rouge were wrong. "He incites the people, Cambodian-Americans as well as American lawmakers, to work against Cambodia especially during the general election campaign," he said. Human Rights Watch was very subjective and had "harassed" the government for many years, Siphan told .īesides that, Adams played a role beyond the legitimate activities of an NGO, Siphan added. Government spokesman Phay Siphan said he believed Adams was biased against the Cambodian government and that the report was based on "fake" claims. "The importance of Cambodia's generals has become even more apparent ahead of July's elections, as they engage in crackdowns against journalists, political opponents, and anti-government protesters - and openly campaign for Hun Sen," Adams said in a media release. Hun Sen's inner circle had been at the forefront of implementing the recent oppression, said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. Dozens of opposition politicians, activists, and journalists are behind bars or in exile. #Supreme commander 2 units wont attack free#The outlawing of the CNRP comes amid a crackdown on independent media and civil society that has seen The Cambodia Daily, Radio Free Asia and local independent radio stations shut down. Its leader, Kem Sokha, is facing up to 30 years in prison for alleged treason. Hun Sen has been accused of turning Cambodia into a de facto one-party state ahead of looming July 29 elections after his only realistic rival, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, was dissolved last year over widely discredited accusations it was planning to wage a United States-backed revolution. The premier had promoted these officers "based on loyalty to him instead of the institutions they formally serve, such as the military, gendarmerie, and police." Like Hun Sen, several of the officials on the list were members of the Khmer Rouge, the ultra-communists responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s.Ī long list of crimes are alleged in the mammoth 213-page report, citing orders to "sweep" away royalist opposition officers in the 1990s, a common Khmer Rouge euphemism for execution, extrajudicial killings during the 1980s, and the gunning down of anti-government protesters in January 2014. The list includes Pol Saroeun, Supreme Commander of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, his deputy, Kun Kim, and General Neth Savoeun, supreme commander of the Cambodian national police. "Given their past record and current positions, Hun Sen can rely upon these 12 commanders and their subordinates to commit human rights abuses whenever it is considered necessary, including for their own power and economic interests," it says. "The abuses in which the 12 are implicated include violations of human rights, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed from the 1970s to the present," the June 28 report of the international rights' monitoring organisation states.
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