4 Things You Need To Know for the National Election of the Commission of Inquiry for Cambodia, 22 July 2023
Recent findings and recommendations by the United Nations deserve special attention: Over the past six months several UN agencies and officials at the highest level have issued a series of reports and statements, finding in the clearest of terms that Hun Sen has poisoned the electoral process. He has made free, fair, and legitimate elections in Cambodia impossible, by eliminating the main political opposition party, jailing its leaders in mass criminal trials, closing down the independent media, and destroying civil society’s ability to express its views freely.
The results of Cambodia’s sham elections should not be recognized or supported by foreign governments or by the Khmer and international communities.
Strong economic sanctions, including a tourism and trade boycott, should be imposed, along with other pressures designed to force the Hun Sen government to implement the United Nations’ “Action Plan of Reform Measures” that it found to be necessary before free elections could take place.
The Khmer community needs to substantially increase and expand its own recent advocacy efforts by using every available international forum and platform to “bring truth to power” about Hun Sen’s Human Rights and Rule of Law abuses (starting with the September 23, 2023, UN Human Rights Council’s UPR review session on Cambodia). These efforts must continue until “meaningful and effective change” takes place along the lines the UN has recommended in its action plan of reform measures.
In summary, we need to face the sad reality that Hun Sen has solidified his autocratic power by eliminating any meaningful political opposition and by (in the words of the United Nations) destroying civil society’s ability to freely express its views and participate in the political process in an effective way. But the United Nations’ recent strong and clear challenges to Hun Sen’s repressive abuses, along with the Khmer community’s own recent new advocacy efforts, offer a “new hope” that international efforts promoting “meaningful and effective change” along the lines proposed by the United Nations, is possible. The upcoming September 23 initiation of the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review session on Cambodia provides the next opportunity to test the effectiveness of these new international advocacy efforts.