Messages condemning the execution-style killing of Chea Vichea were sent from around the world on Friday, as preparations began for what is expected to be a massive funeral for the deceased union leader on Sunday.
Politicians and a prince stood shoulder-to-shoulder with hundreds of mostly female garment factory workers to pay their last respects to Chea Vichea, 40, who was shot dead on Thursday.
Sweet, acrid smoke from hundreds of incense sticks filled the air outside the headquarters of the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia, where flowers surrounded portraits of the union’s slain president.
Thousands of mourners filed past Chea Vichea’s body lying on the building’s ground floor. Their respects paid, the mourners stood outside in silent homage at a photo display taken shortly after Chea Vichea’s violent, bloody death. Many cried, but others stood in stony silence, their anger palpable.
“It’s very difficult to say it was not politically motivated, the assassination of Chea Vichea,” Funcinpec Secretary-General Prince Norodom Sirivudh said Friday after an emotional visit to the ceremony by a delegation of royalist lawmakers.
“I would like to make an appeal first to the international community…to react very quickly against this kind of culture of violence and assassination,” Prince Sirivudh said. Stating that Chea Vichea’s death would not intimidate but inspire more activists, Prince Sirivudh said, “For me, he is the father of the trade union in Cambodia.”
“You kill one Chea Vichea, but there will be hundreds of Chea Vicheas. There will be thousands and thousands and millions the day we get this kind of union of democratic forces to fight for justice,” he said.
Armed uniformed police officers kept a respectful distance from the ceremony, while undercover officers tried to blend with the crowd.
Mourners greeted opposition leader Sam Rainsy’s appearance with applause.
Speaking over a loudspeaker, Sam Rainsy urged Chea Vichea’s supporters to refrain from violence, saying the government would use the demonstration as an excuse to arrest activists.
“Please keep calm, don’t fall into the dictator’s tricks,” he said. “They killed Chea Vichea to make the workers go on strike, so they can arrest the workers and the [Alliance of Democrats’] members. If you stay calm, the dictator cannot harm us.”
Municipal Cabinet Chief Mann Chhoeun gave permission on Friday afternoon for Chea Vichea’s cremation ceremony to be held Sunday at the park in front of Wat Botum. A funeral procession is permitted to march from the union’s headquarters on Street 222 to the pagoda, Mann Chhoeun said.
Politicians and the diplomatic community are invited to attend and make speeches, Sum Sam Neang, Free Trade Union secretary-general, said Friday.
Police on Friday had made no arrests in the killing of the first union leader in recent history.
Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said an investigation is underway and no details could be released. Saying it was too early to ascribe a motive, Khieu Sopheak forcefully denied allegations made Thursday by Sam Rainsy that Chea Vichea’s killing was a state-sponsored murder.
“That’s ridiculous,” Khieu Sopheak said.
Municipal Deputy Police Chief Heng Pov said Friday that police suspect a former acquaintance of Chea Vichea was behind the slaying. “We suspect the guy who always walks with Chea Vichea and now he has split from Chea Vichea,” Heng Pov said.
Political parties and NGOs issued statements calling on the international community to not ignore the spate of extra-judicial killings.
Two election monitoring organizations and the Cambodian Youth Council stated that at least six killings have occurred on Phnom Penh’s streets, “but the authorities never take any measure against those perpetrators.”
A statement by a coalition of 38 local NGOs said “the current killings show the authorities are not able to respond to their duties. The killers always escape.”
The Cambodian Center for Human Rights called on the international community to “put pressure on the Royal Government of Cambodia to prevent any further acts of violence.”
A high-ranking official threatened Chea Vichea many times over the past five months, Men Nath, president of the Khmer Front of Students and Intellectuals, wrote in an e-mail on Friday.
“Local authorities said that the official who threatened him is related to the police of the Ministry of Interior, whom we can do nothing [to],” Men Nath wrote.
In a letter Thursday, US Senator John McCain weighed in on the murder. “Given the possible political nature of this and other killings of SRP activists, the government has a special responsibility to hold those who committed these crimes accountable,” he wrote.
US State Department Deputy spokesman Adam Ereli on Thursday emphasized the Cambodian government’s responsibility to bring the perpetrators to justice.
The International Labor Organization on Thursday lauded Chea Vichea’s work. The ILO will request information concerning the Cambodian government’s murder investigation, said an ILO statement from Geneva.
(Yun Samean, Kate Woodsome and Kevin Doyle)
