Former Funcinpec parliamentarian Kem Sokha has founded a new organization that he says will help build democracy and protect human rights in this country.
Kem Sokha said he has received funding from the US government for just under $1 million to set up the Cambodia Center for Human Rights, the former parliamentarian said. He refused to discuss the funding further and officials at the US Embassy could not be reached Sunday to confirm his account.
“I formed the center because I think that this is the time for the countryside’s people to understand their rights and their duties,” Kem Sokha said. “Poor people now are fed up with their poverty. They don’t know how to eliminate their poverty, but if they exercise their rights they can solve their poverty.”
Kem Sokha, who served as chairman of the Senate’s Human Rights Committee, was the first of a handful of Funcinpec leaders to desert the royalists last month. His decision to leave the party came days after a car accident that Kem Sokha claimed was a CPP assassination attempt. An unidentified black car reportedly side-swiped his as he pulled into his driveway.
The center also plans to set up its own radio station after next year’s national elections, which are scheduled for July.
“We will educate people through broadcasts about civil and political rights and the rule of law. We have US experts preparing the network right now,” Kem Sokha said.
The new organization will keep it simple, so that everyone can understand, Kem Sokha said.
“We are not extrapolating on legal theory; we’ll make it simple to educate people in all of the districts for the rest of the year before the elections,” he said.
The group already has slogans, Kem Sokha said. Its representatives will flock to the standard of “there is no chance if there is no risk” and “to protect human rights to protect lives,” Kem Sokha said.
In spite of Kem Sokha’s partisan past, the new center will be neutral, he said.
“My center is a non-governmental organization. Don’t confuse it with political involvement,” he said. “If I wanted to serve a political party, I wouldn’t have walked out from the party. I want to help civil society.”