Introductory Statement for the Special Session of the Commission of Inquiry for Cambodia, 4 March 2022
There are two important reasons why the Commission of Inquiry for Cambodia decided to convene this Special Session today.
First, is to highlight the fact that the United Nations’ Human Rights Committee is conducting an official review session on human rights in Cambodia on this same date. We recognize that major human rights abuses cannot be stopped by the action of just one international agency or group acting alone. A unified and coordinated international effort is required to put an end to the tyranny of dictatorship and repression. We wanted to highlight that reality, and lay the groundwork for a more coordinated international effort to deal with repression in Cambodia, by linking the efforts of our Commission with those of the UN Human Rights Committee in a very direct way. As part of that effort, the Commission of Inquiry has submitted to the UN Human Rights Committee an official statement, summarizing some of the key findings and recommendations that we have considered to date. Major elements of that Statement will be read later in this session by Commissioner Paul Hoffman, along with a review of five recent developments in Cambodia that suggest that the campaign of repression being carried out by the Hun Sen government has become progressively worse, with an escalating pattern of impunity and disregard for democratic principles, and for internationally accepted rule of law standards.
Second, on January 27, 2022, the world celebrated Holocaust Memorial Day, to commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Death Camp, and the end of the Third Reich’s Holocaust extermination of over 6 million people. This deserves special attention from this Commission because we need to remember not just Auschwitz and the Holocaust, but also the sad reality that 2.2 million Khmer people similarly suffered from genocide at the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, and that the Hun Sen government may have contributed to those atrocities. A number of its officials were high-level members of the Khmer Rouge regime. As important, Hun Sen himself, at a private meeting with the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in October of 2010, demanded the premature closing down of operations of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, presumably to prevent the Tribunal from investigating his colleagues’ involvement in these international crimes.
The Commission of Inquiry for Cambodia is convening this Special Session today with both of these realities in mind.
We urge the UN Human Rights Committee, and all other available international forums, to give special and urgent attention to the major democracy, human rights and rule of law violations taking place in Cambodia today, and especially to the most recent examples of these abuses that we are highlighting in our present Statement. Our Commission of Inquiry will be doing the same, by convening a full session and hearing on Cambodia’s rule of law violations this coming June. We hope that these coordinated actions, designed to bring concerted international attention to the severity of the Hun Sen government’s abuses, will help to create the groundswell of attention and support that will force effective and systemic change to take place in a way that has not been possible in the past.
The Commission of Inquiry for Cambodia began its work, and convened its opening session, on October 23, 2021, a date chosen to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of the Paris Peace Accords, which set out standards for democracy and human rights that the international community established as critical elements for the operation of the newly created Cambodian government. The Commission was created to investigate and bring attention to the extensive and long-standing campaign of human rights and democracy abuses that the Hun Sen government has been engaging in as a way of remaining in power for over 37 years, and how it is in direct violation of the Paris Peace Accords, and other international treaties and standards that the Accords embodied.
That campaign of repression culminated in the lead-up to the 2018 national elections, and in the months and years that followed, with a determined effort to eliminate any form of meaningful political opposition, and any public or media actions indicating criticism of the Hun Sen regime and its policies and practices. As reviewed in the opening session of the Commission of Inquiry, the main political party was declared illegal and forced to cease its activities. Opposition political leaders were jailed, subjected to politically motivated criminal prosecutions, forced into exile, or otherwise silenced. Independent media outlet were closed or taken over by the government. Civil society groups and their members were harassed, threatened or subjected to court proceedings that forced them to severely restrict their activities, and to go into hiding. Some of the best known critics were killed or brutally beaten like Kem Ley and Chea Vichea, | and more recently youth activist Sin Khon, and members of Parliament Kong Sophea and Nhay Chamroeun.
Increasingly, the Hun Sen government has taken these harshly repressive actions with impunity and without fear of punishment, because the international community, with a few notable exceptions, has not responded clearly and decisively to demand remedial action. One of the key points that was made at the opening session of the Commission of Inquiry was that meaningful and effective progress towards convincing the Hun Sen government to end its abuses, and observe internationally accepted human rights, democracy, and rule of law standards, was not likely to take place unless and until the international community mobilized the full spectrum of available international forums and pressure points as part of the reform effort. That is why the Commission of Inquiry came into being. To serve as a focal point for stimulating a more complete and coordinated international effort to bring attention to the problem, and to encourage more effective remedial action and accountability.
Today’s United Nations official compliance review session on Cambodia will bring a number of high-level Hun Sen government officials before the Human Rights Committee, where they will be called to account, and forced to answer pointed questions about their abuses.
In preparation for this review, the Human Rights Committee issued what they call a “List of Issues,” that spells out the specific violations of human rights standards that the government of Cambodia will be required to address, including those listed above that were identified at the opening session of our Commission of Inquiry, and in the formal Statement to the Human Rights Committee that you will hear delivered in a few moments as a core element of this Special Session.
These are important first steps in the process of seeking and obtaining meaningful accountability from the Hun Sen government. But that is only the beginning of the process. The goal of the Commission of Inquiry for Cambodia is to use our hearings throughout the course of 2022, along with the UN Human Rights Committee’s compliance review session today, as a springboard for activating and inspiring a wide range of additional international remedies and mechanisms to give greater attention to the violations by the Hun Sen government, and to collectively demand effective and systemic remedies. Only by mobilizing a full range of available international forums, pressure points and enforcement mechanisms, can we expect meaningful change to take place. So today, with this Special Session, and with the UN Human Rights Committee’s review session, we signal a new and more powerful effort to return internationally accepted human rights, democracy and rule of law standards to Cambodia, and to the Khmer people.
Join with us in this effort by following and supporting the fact-finding efforts of the Commission of Inquiry, and by demanding attention to the Hun Sen government’s repressive policies and actions by all the relevant international forums, agencies and pressure points responsible for monitoring compliance with international human rights and democracy standards worldwide.
Starting us off in this process, and to open this Special Session of the Commission of Inquiry, please welcome Commissioner Louisa Coan Greve, and Commissioner Paul Hoffman, who will read the Statement of the Commission of Inquiry to the UN Human Rights Committee, and explain how it will serve as a starting point for mobilizing a broad international effort to bring Cambodia back into compliance with international human rights and democracy standards.