Completing a 45-day period of distributing flood relief around the country, Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday told a Kompong Speu audience that local authorities will be punished if they keep food away from hungry people.
“I have heard that some people who got rice in Phnom Penh before are now returning to Phnom Penh for more aid,” Hun Sen said in a speech broadcast on Apsara radio. “In so doing, it makes the donors seem like they are hostages to the beggars. I do not understand this.
“The real innocents were not able to come to Phnom Penh to ask for aid.
“Some want to use this situation as a game to cause trouble,” he said. “If anyone dies from starvation in the villages, the provincial governor, deputy governor and district governor will be punished.”
The prime minister also asked those who oppose him not to ridicule his loss of one eye.
“Please do not scold me and call me a blind man,” he said. “I very much suffer when I hear those curses. I have one blind eye. The Thai king has one blind eye, the same as me. My eye was blinded in a war to liberate the nation.”
