After firing a broad salvo last week at unnamed NGOs for denouncing the jailing of radio station owner Mam Sonando, the Council of Ministers took special aim at Amnesty International on Tuesday, accusing the organization’s local representative of “demonizing” the government.
Mr. Sonando, 72, was convicted of leading a rural insurrection against the government by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in October and handed a 20-year jail term in a decision widely condemned as baseless, politically motivated and intended to stifle the voice of a popular government critic.
Along with scores of other human rights groups—not to mention U.S. President Barack Obama—Amnesty’s Cambodia researcher Rupert Abbott has repeatedly called for the independent radio station owner’s unconditional release.
In a statement, Council of Ministers adviser and former ambassador to Cuba, Eng Yeng, accused Mr. Abbott of doing nothing short of asking the government to break its own laws.
“It is astounding that the ‘crusader’ of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, who used to teach us about the need for strengthening democracy and the rule of law, has now committed himself to breaching it to the extent of undermining even the basic practices of a democratic government,” Mr. Yeng wrote.
Though he commended the work of Amnesty International and other like-minded groups, Mr. Yeng accused Mr. Abbott of personally overstepping his organization’s praiseworthy principles.
“Unfortunately and with our deep regrets,” Mr. Yeng wrote, “instead of helping and assisting Cambodia in this field, Mr. Abbott’s individual voluntaristic action has gone too far against the core of the rule of law which is his own organization’s mission.”
Reacting to the letter, Mr. Abbott stuck by his call for Mr. Sonando’s release. “Amnesty International welcomes a respectful exchange of views on human rights and freedom of expression in Cambodia. Our organization considers Mam Sonando a prisoner of conscience and, along with others, will continue to call for his immediate and unconditional release,” he said.
Mr. Yeng’s rebuke was not the government’s first shot at critics of Mr. Sonando’s conviction.
On Friday, the vice president of the Council of Minister’s Press and Quick Reaction Unit, Tith Sothea, also accused NGOs of trampling on the country’s Constitution by calling for Mr. Sonando’s release.
Mr. Sothea also claimed that the government may have averted mass bloodshed by having raided the alleged rebel village in Kratie province’s Broma village in May, quashing the so-called rebellion early on.
However, human rights groups have accused the government of using the claims of rebellion as an excuse to evict hundreds of families from the village that were locked in a land dispute with a Vietnamese-owned rubber plantation.
The only victim of the military raid on village was a 14-year-old girl shot dead by government security forces in a killing that authorities have refused to investigate.
