Hong Lim’s Convening Statement for the Launch Announcement Session of the Commission of Inquiry for Cambodia, 23 October 2021
Thirty years ago today, the international community came together to adopt the Paris Peace Accords, establishing the current government framework for the state of Cambodia, as part of a major agreement to establish peace and security, and end the long-standing military conflicts in the Indo-China region.
As such, the Accords represent one of the most important historical documents for Cambodia because it set out the core standards and principles that both the government of Cambodia and the international community agreed would serve as the essential framework for the operation of the Cambodian state. Among them were the core principles and standards regarding:
The operation of democratic governance in Cambodia;
Observance of internationally recognized human rights standards;
Maintenance of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cambodia, based on the total withdrawal of all Vietnamese military forces.
The Khmer community today is coming together to observe and to commemorate the adoption of this important historical agreement, and to renew our commitment to the three basic sets of principles that the Accords mandated as the bedrock foundation for the governance of Cambodia.
As the centerpiece of this observance and commemoration, we have established, and today will be announcing the launch, of a special tribunal that the Khmer community has created to make an independent, fact-finding effort to determine whether the government of Cambodia has lived up to its promise to abide by the Accords’ democracy, human rights and self-determination standards. Sadly, there have been increasingly strong indicators, including how the most recent national elections in 2018 were held, and the upcoming 2023 national elections are being planned, suggesting that the Hun Sen government has been violating the Accords’ standards on a widespread basis. That is why this fact-finding Commission has been created. To assess the Hun Sen government’s compliance with the Accord standards that they agreed to thirty years ago, and to identify in very concrete terms any remedial action that must be taken to bring the government into compliance where major abuses are identified.
Our hope is that commemorating this especially noteworthy anniversary of the Accords with the creation of this fact-finding Commission will bring international attention to the sad reality that the core human rights, democracy and self-determination standards are being grossly and consistently violated and will lay the foundation for meaningful and systemic remedies to be mandated by the international community.
Acting in a clear and forceful way to restore meaningful compliance with the core standards of the Paris Peace Accords is the only and best way to celebrate the Accords’ special thirtieth anniversary, and to guarantee that the objectives of peace and security in the region will be maintained as the Accords intended and guaranteed.
The first session of the fact-finding Commission for Cambodia that we are announcing today is a first step towards returning Cambodia to the path set out for it by the Accords thirty years ago.
It is a path paved by the adoption of the core guiding principles for democracy, human rights and territorial integrity that the government of Cambodia and the international community agreed to abide by thirty years ago. Isn’t it time for all of us to take the clear cut, dramatic action that is required to identify the substantial violations of the Accord that have been taking place, and to demand the types of meaningful, systemic changes that are required to bring the government of Cambodia into compliance? This action is long overdue.
We, the Khmer community, hereby welcomes the fact-finding Commission of Inquiry for Cambodia, and encourage the international community to participate to its upcoming proceedings. Today, to give everyone a taste of what is to come during the upcoming sessions of the Commission, and to help to explain why these Commission’s hearings are so important, we have invited a number of the victims of the massive abuses that have been taking place to testify about the violations that have occurred, and how they have affected the people of Cambodia. Over the course of the next several weeks and months, the Commission will hear further and more detailed testimonies from victims and their representatives, and from a variety of expert witnesses that have been involved in monitoring and documenting the policies and practices of the Hun Sen government that have violated the Paris Peace Accords, the Cambodian Constitution, and many universally recognized treaties and other international standards.
Please join with us in following, and participating in, and supporting this important effort to bring justice and accountability to the Khmer people and to Cambodia.