Human rights groups investigating reports of military killings in Kratie province were sharply criticized by Prime Minister Hun Sen Thursday, who in his first public statement on the matter accused rights workers of protecting “bandits” operating in northeastern Cambodia.
“I wish to remind some NGOs that…a number of people in the jungle are criminal offenders who have killed people,” Hun Sen said at a meeting of provincial governors and officials. “I would appeal to some NGOs taking action under the label of human rights [not] to protect robbers.”
Rights groups allege that soldiers in the Snuol district have murdered at least six men and are questioning the whereabouts of some two dozens others they claim spent time in military custody between April and May and may now be targets of military assassination.
“There are people missing, according to relatives who have not seen them. In this country you can get very suspicious,” said a rights official Friday.
Mok Tan Kimly, RCAF’s deputy military commander in Kratie province and a member of an Interior Ministry committee investigating the case, said Friday that 15 of the missing men have been accounted for. “We found [the men] through their families and confirmed they are alive,” he said.
A report released last week by the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee—a group of 17 NGOs—maintained the men were associated with the Khmer Serey, or Free Khmer movement, and were picked up by the military for their connections to the anti-government group.
But no firm evidence exists to suggest the men were part of any organized political movement, and the government continues to claim that some of those taken from Khsim village—a settlement of former Khmer Rouge soldiers several kilometers outside of Snuol— were likely bandits.
The liberal use of the ill-defined name Khmer Serey has only led to more confusion among authorities and rights organizations.
“Bandit groups call themselves Khmer Serey to gain credibility, while the government labels bandit groups Khmer Serey only when they can’t get rid of them,” explained one military expert Friday.
The expert said RCAF officials told him they began cracking down on bandits along National route 7 six months ago. RCAF officials recently admitted to him that at least seven suspected bandits were killed in a gunfight with soldiers in Kratie province, the expert said. But the expert acknowledged that the murky circumstances surrounding the deaths, and did not know if these deaths could be linked to reported executions around Snuol.
“In the best case scenario the [alleged bandits] were killed in a firefight as RCAF says…. In the worst case scenario some were extra-judicially exterminated,” he said.
The CHRAC’s report on the Snuol incident has re-opened the debate on the existence of organized military opposition to the government, particularly in areas with large numbers of former Khmer Rouge or Funcinpec soldiers not yet reintegrated into the government after the July 1997 fighting.
Villagers and government officials interviewed in Snuol district say they heard of Khmer Serey members trying to bring new members in from the jungles of eastern Kratie province but had no personal contact with them.
Several people in Snuol reported the men held by the military were on a list of suspected Khmer Serey members intended to be re-integrated with the government and given RCAF positions.
But one former inmate interviewed Thursday said he had no idea why he was on the list of 31 names and had no clear understanding of what the Khmer Serey is. He said he only agreed to go to the military compound outside of Snuol “because we were told we would get a good salary” in RCAF.
Some rights officials and diplomatic source suggest that the local military used the Khmer Serey and the promise of money to expose suspected opponents.
Several areas on the road between Snuol and Kratie have seen fighting between soldiers and what the government describes as bandits. In August last year a military commander was killed and one rights official said the sporadic hostilities may have sparked a purge of suspected highwaymen.
“Tensions are riding high there. Maybe it’s payback time and [the military] is looking for anyone to be a scapegoat,” the official said.
Three men reportedly held in the military compound were found dead near Snuol in early May, according to rights workers, though none had seen the bodies. The bodies of two more men were found in Kompong Thom province, a rights official said Friday, though only one is thought to be on the list of missing men.
Rights officials responded to Hun Sen’s remarks by saying they are merely reacting to allegations that the men in Snuol and possibly elsewhere, regardless of whether they were criminals, were killed without the benefit of any legal procedure.
(Additional reporting by Pin Sisovann, Kevin Doyle and the Associated Press)
