IN CAMBODIA RACIST RHETORIC BRINGS DEATH-THREATS TO HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST: DOES IT ALSO TARNISH THE CHANCES OF POLITICAL CHANGE?

PROSPECT Journal is collaborating with East by Southeast, a new blog focusing on China and its neighbors in Southeast Asia. As part of this collaboration, PROSPECT will be intermittently publishing articles by the East by Southeast bloggers, who all live and work in the region. Our journal is excited to bring a wider range of expert analysis of Southeast Asian affairs to our readers.By Tom FawthropContributing WriterCambodia, a nation once traumatised by the ‘Killing Fields’ of the Pol Pot regime in the 1970s, has come a long way since then in rebuilding  the nation from year zero including the holding of elections, and the  creation of a multi-party system.But the recent flood of hate-mail and death-threats sent to Mr Ou Virak, the president of CCHR (The Cambodian Centre for Human Rights) in the capital Phnom Penh, points to a society still dangerously divided over ethnic and racial issues.Attacks on human rights activists in Cambodia and around the world mostly come from the agents and the guardians of the status quo – the police, army, militias, and from private security companies deployed by major corporations seeking to block workers rights.But the  death threats in this case, delivered by phone, email and Facebook to human rights leader Ou Virak did not come  from government quarters, but from the virulent opponents of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party(CPP) led by  long-serving prime minister Hun Sen.  The hate-speech was triggered by a CCHR’s letter to opposition leaders representing the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), urging them to stop using racist language against the Vietnamese, the largest foreign community in Cambodia.During one election rally long-time CNRP opposition leader Sam Rainsy told a crowd in Pray Lang Kompong Thom province:  the Yuon are taking the Khmer land to kill the Khmer people. So the Yuon [The Vietnamese] come to Cambodia to spread their relatives, to form their families and then spread out. There will be so many Yuon [Vietnamese] in Cambodia that the Khmers will be the ethnic minority. The Yuon [Vietnamese] are like thieves stealing from the Cambodian people.”The letter from the Cambodian human rights group reads:”CCHR is disappointed that the CNRP is once again using such harmful language, which can only encourage racism towards Cambodian citizens of Vietnamese origin, as well as Vietnamese people living in Cambodia.”This letter touched a raw and racist nerve among many opposition supporters who had been fired up by rabble-rousing speeches over the “Vietnamese threat“ to their nation.International human rights groups acknowledge there are genuine grievances including illegal immigration and some land-grabbing by Vietnamese companies [as well as many other foreign companies that Rainsy does not mention in the same breath].But genuine issues when suffused with racial hatred and propaganda, are even less likely to be seriously addressed.Opposition campaign speeches do not distinguish between the estimated 5% of Cambodia’s population who are ethnic Vietnamese but born in Cambodia, illegal immigrants, Vietnamese companies and the citizens of neighbouring state of Vietnam. Opposition leaders tend to lump them altogether as the collective “Yuon”, a pejorative word for all Vietnamese, and a convenient scapegoat for Cambodia’s ills.That Ou Virak should draw attention to the universal nature of human rights that covers all groups including the Vietnamese minority living in Cambodia, should not provoke such rabidly violent reactions in the eyes of international human rights organisations.Contentious history, complex Khmer-Vietnam relations, and its legacy on Cambodian human rights.Virak and the CCHR have received widespread support from abroad for their stand, but received little or no encouragement from their fellow  Cambodian human rights NGOs. Virak explained “ I think there is definitely a fear by the other NGOs that they will be attacked if they express concern regarding anti-Vietnamese rhetoric, and that they won’t be able to continue doing the work that they’re doing.”Pung Chhiv Kek, president of local rights group Licadho, commented “I don’t like to comment on the campaign against Mr Ou Virak. I’m not at all interested in this campaign against or for.”Yet back in the early 1990s Ms. Kek told this correspondent how she was bitterly disappointed that so many of her NGO staff at Licadho harboured resentment towards any application of human rights principles to cover discrimination against Vietnamese residents in Cambodia.The president of CCHR also considers some NGOs have become too aligned with the opposition. “Sadly, many of these NGOs have shown themselves to be clearly aligned with the CNRP,” and added “a lot of people are confused between fighting repression and just fighting the CPP (the ruling party)”.Thun Saray another well-known NGO leader was quoted in the Phnom Penh Post:”I worry that if we damage one political leader, it could damage their reputation. Now it is a sensitive moment, we have to be careful.”Cambodia sandwiched between two far bigger nations: Thailand and Vietnam, has suffered a substantial loss of territory during the past 600 years as a result of periodic invasions from their neighbours and the decline of the Angkorian Empire.There is a perennial fear among some Khmer people, that Vietnam has evil designs to swallow Cambodia based on a mixture of folklore, paranoia, political agitation and a jaundiced grasp of history. The burgeoning anti-Vietnamese constituency is bolstered by their reading of Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia from 1979-1989, during a period of civil war against the Khmer Rouge, as proof of a Hanoi-orchestrated plot to colonise Cambodia.Vietnam is often depicted as the hidden power behind Hun Sen, the longest-serving prime minister in the region, who enjoys special historical links to Hanoi dating back 30 years.On the other hand millions of Cambodians share a different memory of Vietnam’s intervention in 1979 that rescued them from genocidal grip of Khmer Rouge regime and the “Killing Fields” at a time when Sam Rainsy was living comfortably as a banker in Paris. The real history of Khmer-Vietnamese relations is far more complicated than Rainsy’s racism or on the other side the complacency of Hun Sen’s government who never seriously addressed the legitimate concerns. An UN-backed special tribunal has been conducting trials in Phnom Penh since 2006 to hold the former Khmer Rouge leaders accountable for crimes against humanity and genocide.In the first democratic election in 1993 under the auspices of the UN peacekeeping mission (UNTAC), Sam Rainsy was required to delete his countless references to the“Yuon” in his prepared speech, which a Khmer-speaking UN official Tim Carney judged to be inflammatory and offensive. However in the 1998 election Mr Rainsy was criticised by UN experts for resorting to the same tactic.“Opposition leaders are inciting hatred and racism against the ethnic Vietnamese,” complained Thomas Hammarberg, the United Nations human rights envoy to Cambodia in 1998. Sam Rainsy, a former finance minister in the Cambodian coalition government in 1994 has always denied the many accusations of racism, claiming that he is only expressing “legitimate patriotic concern that has nothing to do with stoking racial nationalist sentiment.” BEYOND RACISM AND DEADLOCKSince the September 2013 election there has been a major controversy over possible election regularities and the opposition demand for a fresh election and calling for the prime minister to step down. The opposition has boycotted parliament, despite winning an impressive 55 seats with the ruling CPP gaining 68 a loss of 24 seats. At the same time unrest has intensified with a nationwide strike of garment workers who are demanding a living wage and are also backing the political opposition calling for Hun Sen’s resignation..Against this backdrop Ou Virak is deeply worried that “anti-Vietnamese sentiments are becoming more widespread as the population becomes increasingly frustrated with the political deadlock. “During protests outside of the Canadia factory on Veng Sreng road on January 3, 2014, there were many reports of Vietnamese shops being targeted, looted and completely destroyed by protestors. “These actions are being left un-condemned by the leadership of the CNRP” says Virak “, which brings up clear concerns as to what the CNRP would do if in power.A deepening vein of racism tainting the opposition’s campaign to unseat entrenched ruling elite around Hun Sen is likely to prove counter-productive in the long term. At a time when the opposition is buoyed by unprecedented popular support at the polls and getting closer to achieving power, Vietnamese-bashing is not the best way for them to convince the sceptics and the international community, that they could do a far better job than the CPP of running the country.Both Hun Sen and his nemesis opposition leader Sam Rainsy are the same old leaders that have dominated Cambodia’s political life for far too long. In the last election the role of youth voters role a generation of new voters, had unprecedented impact on the spirit of the election campaign.Cambodia’s great hope for political change, lies not in the use of playing the Vietnamese racist card and certainly not more of Hun Sen and his policies that has created a corrupt crony economy,  but in a new vision of an energised youth seeking more social justice and searching for a new leadership.Tom Fawthrop is the co-author of Getting away with Genocide? Elusive Justice and  the Khmer Rouge tribunal Pluto Books (2004).See the original post here.Image by Luc Forsyth