Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday said he would resist foreign interference following international criticism of the arrest of his main rival for treason and a widening crackdown on his critics.
The US and the EU condemned the detention of opposition leader Kem Sokha, who is accused of plotting with US support, and steps against the media that forced the independent Cambodia Daily to shutter yesterday.
“We can’t allow any group to destroy the peace we hold in our hands by being the puppets of foreigners,” Hun Sen said at the opening of a new mosque in Kompong Cham Province.
Photo: AFP
“We cannot allow foreigners to use Khmers to kill Khmers anymore,” he said, referring to the Khmer Rouge genocide that destroyed Cambodia in the 1970s.
Hun Sen, 65, is a former Khmer Rouge soldier who switched sides before it was driven out.
Opposition politicians, rights groups and independent media have come under growing pressure in the run-up to an election next year in which Hun Sen could face the greatest electoral challenge of more than three decades in power.
Hun Sen has increasingly ignored criticism from Western donors whose budget support is no longer as critical as during the early years of his rule, when Cambodia was little more than a failed state.
Sokha was arrested in a raid on his home early on Sunday.
As of yesterday, he had still not been allowed to see his lawyer, his daughter, Monovithya Kem, said on Twitter.
“We don’t know his condition, whether he’s safe,” she said.
The EU called for his immediate release based on his parliamentary immunity as an elected lawmaker.
“Along with recent actions by the authorities against NGOs [non-governmental organizations] and some media organizations, this arrest suggests a further effort to restrict the democratic space in Cambodia,” the EU said in a statement.
Hun Sen has steadily increased his rhetoric against the US, ending joint military exercises, expelling a US pro-democracy group and on Sunday accusing Washington of conspiring with Kem Sokha.
The Cambodia Daily newspaper said it had been forced to close after being given one month to pay a crippling US$6.3 million in back taxes.
Its final headline, on the arrest of Kem Sokha, was “Descent Into Outright Dictatorship.”
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