The US-based leader of the Cambodian Freedom Fighters has claimed responsibility for graffiti attacks in Phnom Penh’s Chamkar Mon and Daun Penh districts in the early hours of Friday morning.
The graffiti, bearing the acronym of the CFF, was meant to celebrate the rebel movement’s eighth anniversary, which falls on Friday, Chhun Yasith wrote in an e-mail received Wednesday.
“I heard about the graffiti that appeared around Phnom Penh,” Chhun Yasith wrote. “I ordered to all CFF commanders, and agents to do it.”
Chhun Yasith said the graffiti was also in support of a decision by former King Norodom Sihanouk to lead a group to try and resolve border conflicts between Cambodia and Vietnam.
Chhun Yasith, an accountant based in Long Beach, California, also advised members of the CFF to be prepared to arrest the top leaders of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s CPP.
He also weighed in on the court proceedings underway against alleged members of his outlawed group that were arrested following a failed attack on government buildings in Phnom Penh in 2000.
“Cambodia is not a state of law,” Yasith Chhun wrote. “CFF never believe [in the] current Cambodian judicial system.”
Despite Chhun Yasith’s claims, members of the opposition have voiced suspicion that the CFF graffiti may be a ploy engineered to quash democratic opponents of the government.
Municipal Police Commissioner Heng Pov discounted the CFF leader’s claims of staging the graffiti attacks.
“I don’t know what kind of person Chhun Yasith is,” Heng Pov added.
(Additional reporting by Pin Sisovann)
