Obama Should Make Ending 20 Years of Impunity Central Goal of Upcoming Visit
(New
York) November 13, 2012 – Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s violent
and authoritarian rule over more than two decades has resulted in
countless killings and other serious abuses that have gone unpunished,
Human Rights Watch said in a new report today. President Barack Obama
should use his November trip to Cambodia, the first ever by a United
States president, to publicly demand systematic reforms and an end to
impunity for abusive officials.
The 68-page report, “
‘Tell Them That I Want to Kill Them’: Two Decades of Impunity in Hun Sen’s Cambodia,”
documents key cases of unsolved killings of political activists,
journalists, opposition politicians, and others by Cambodian security
forces since the 1991 Paris Agreements, which were signed by 18
countries, including the five permanent United Nations Security Council
members. The Paris Agreements and the subsequent United Nations (UN)
peacekeeping mission were supposed to usher in a new era of democracy,
human rights, and accountability in Cambodia. More than 300 people have
been killed in politically motivated attacks since then, yet not one
case has resulted in a credible investigation and conviction.
The
involvement of senior Cambodian government officials and military,
police, gendarmerie, and intelligence personnel in serious abuses since
the Paris Agreements has been repeatedly documented by the UN, the US
State Department, domestic and international human rights organizations,
and the media. Human Rights Watch identifies many of these officials
and their current positions.
“Instead of prosecuting officials
responsible for killings and other serious abuses, Prime Minister Hun
Sen has promoted and rewarded them,” said Brad Adams, Asia director and
co-author of the report. “The message to Cambodians is that even
well-known killers are above the law if they have protection from the
country’s political and military leaders. Donor governments, instead of
pressing for accountability, have adopted a business-as-usual approach.”
“Tell Them That I Want to Kill Them,” is based on hundreds of
interviews over many years with current and former government officials,
members of the armed forces, the police, the judiciary, parliament and
other state institutions, and representatives of political parties,
labor unions, the media, and human rights organizations. It is also
based on information from UN documents, reports of UN special
representatives and rapporteurs and the Cambodia Office of the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, reports by Human Rights Watch and other
international and local nongovernmental human rights organizations, and
media accounts.
The report’s title is a quote from Hing Bun
Heang, then deputy chief of Hun Sen’s bodyguard unit, in response to a
journalist’s question about his alleged role in the killing of at least
16 people in a coordinated grenade attack on opposition leader Sam
Rainsy in March 1997. The UN and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) implicated the bodyguard unit in the attack and identified Hing
Bun Heang as being in operational control. Hing Bun Heang was later
promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and is now deputy
commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces.
Often
the perpetrators of killings are not only known, but have been promoted.
This was the case with members of the brutal “A-team” death squads
during the 1992-93 UN peacekeeping mission and security officials who
carried out a campaign of killings of opposition members after Hun Sen’s
1997 coup. More recent killings, including that of labor leader Chea
Vichea, opposition politician Om Radsady, and environmental activist
Chut Wutty, remain unsolved. Even in cases where there was no apparent
political motivation, abuses almost never result in successful criminal
prosecutions and commensurate prison terms if the perpetrator is in the
military or police, or is politically connected.
Human Rights
Watch’s report details a number of cases of extrajudicial killings and
other abuses that have not been genuinely investigated or prosecuted by
the authorities:
* The killing of dozens of opposition politicians and activists during the UN peacekeeping period in 1992-93;
* The murder of opposition newspaper editor Thun Bun Ly on the streets of Phnom Penh in May 1996;
*
The campaign of extrajudicial executions of almost 100
royalist-affiliated officials after Hun Sen’s July 1997 coup, including
Deputy Interior Minister Ho Sok in the Ministry of Interior compound;
* The 1999 acid attack that disfigured 16-year-old Tat Marina by the wife of Svay Sitha, a senior government official;
*
The 2003 execution-style killing of Om Radsady, a well-respected
opposition member of parliament, in a crowded Phnom Penh restaurant;
* The 2004 killing of popular labor leader Chea Vichea;
* The 2008 killing of investigative journalist Khim Sambo and his son while the two exercised in a public park; and
* The 2012 killing of environmental activist Chut Wutty in Koh Kong province.
“The
list of political killings over the past 20 years is bone-chilling,”
Adams said. “While there is a public uproar after each case, officials
do nothing and there are no consequences for the perpetrators or the
government that protects them.”
To address Cambodia’s scourge of impunity, Human Rights Watch urges the government to:
*
Create a professional and independent police service whose leadership
is appointed by an independent police commission, which also has the
power to audit the police, investigate complaints, and dismiss officers
who violate a professional code of conduct;
* Create a professional
and independent judiciary and prosecution service. Judges and
prosecutors should be appointed by an independent judicial commission,
which also has the power to investigate complaints and discipline judges
and prosecutors who violate a professional code of conduct;
* Ban
senior police officials, judges, and prosecutors holding official or
unofficial positions of leadership in political parties; and to
*
Respond in a professional and impartial manner to allegations of human
rights abuses by victims and their families, human rights organizations
and other civil society groups, the UN human rights office and other UN
agencies, the media, and others who bring concerns to the government’s
attention.
“Recommendations to find justice for victims will not
be implemented without sustained and coordinated pressure from powerful
governments working alongside the many brave Cambodians who document
abuses,” Adams said. “Many governments talk about the ‘culture of
impunity’ in Cambodia, but they should also address their own culture of
indifference.”
Cambodia’s past two decades have been a story of
missed opportunities. Year after year, donors have proposed – and the
Cambodian government has agreed to – significant reforms, such as
measures to promote the professionalization of the police and
independence of prosecutors and judges. Yet the justice system remains a
deeply and unwaveringly politicized institution, whose top officials
are political appointees with primary allegiance to the prime minister
and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. Foreign governments, the UN,
and donors have not taken the time to learn about past abuses and
abusers, and have not put sustained and coordinated pressure on senior
officials and government institutions responsible for serious human
rights violations.
“The lack of accountability in Cambodia needs
to be addressed head-on, not ignored or downplayed, as so many foreign
governments and donors have done over the past 20 years,” Adams said.
“Without memory, justice is impossible. Governments and donors should
stop talking in generalities about rights and start confronting senior
government and ruling party officials about the failure of justice.”
While
the United States has been one of the most outspoken critics of the
Cambodian government’s human rights record in recent years, its actions
toward officials implicated in serious abuses often undercut its words.
In March 2006, the FBI awarded a medal to the then-Cambodian chief of
national police, Hok Lundy, for his support of the US global campaign
against terrorism. Hok Lundy, who died in a helicopter crash in 2008,
was a notorious human rights abuser and perhaps the most feared person
in Cambodia. The medal from the US was used as a major propaganda tool
by the Cambodian government, while human rights activists called into
question the true intentions of the US.
In September 2009,
then-US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates hosted a meeting at the
Pentagon in Washington with Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh. Tea
Banh has presided over the Cambodian military for the past two decades,
during which it has committed widespread abuses with impunity.
Unsurprisingly, Tea Banh was greeted as a hero by the ruling
party-controlled media upon his return from the United States.
“Hun
Sen has been in power for 27 years and says he wants to rule for
another 30, yet victims of abuses cannot wait that long for justice,”
Adams said. “On his historic first visit to Cambodia, President Obama is
uniquely placed to publicly demand that Hun Sen make genuine reforms so
the Cambodian people can enjoy the same rights and freedoms that
Americans take for granted.”
Human Rights Watch Press release
