In response to the plummeting democratic institutions in the country, the United States and the European Union condemned the Cambodian People’s Party government and called the moves against the opposition and against civil society a serious threat to democracy.
The Australian and Japanese governments have also raised concerns. Japanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs Kazuyuki Nakane ‘expressed concern over the dissolution of the opposition party, which received support from many Cambodian citizens at the previous election’. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop agreed that the development has serious implications for democracy in Cambodia: ‘As a friend of Cambodia, Australia urges the Cambodian government to allow all its citizens to exercise their democratic rights, particularly ahead of the 2018 national election’, she said in a statement.
US legislators and the EU Parliament have called for sanctions on Cambodia, including asset freezes for high-ranking Cambodian officials. Worse for Cambodia would be the removal of preferential tax-free and quota-free access to US and EU markets for Cambodian-made textile and footwear products under the European Union’s ‘Everything But Arms’ scheme and the United States’ Generalized System of Preferences.
The United States has already imposed visa sanctions on high-ranking Cambodian government officials. The US Department of State announced on 6 December 2017 that it ‘will restrict entry into the United States of those individuals involved in undermining democracy in Cambodia’. The EU Parliament adopted a resolution on 13 December calling for ‘a list of individuals responsible for the dissolution of the opposition and other serious human rights violations in Cambodia with a view to imposing possible visa restrictions and asset freezes on them’.
The United States has promised more concrete measures to force the Cambodian government to reverse steps that ‘backtracked on democracy’, and has called upon Cambodia to have a free and fair election in 2018. Without the meaningful and full participation of the main opposition party, the legitimacy of the government created after the election will be in question. The United States, the European Union, and US allies will likely not recognise the election results.
These harsh measures on Cambodia could be regarded as double standards, as similar cases in the region that were proportionally addressed. The unpopular military coup in Thailand in 2014 illustrated a serious decline in democracy, but Thailand has not faced any sanctions from the West. There are no sanctions to date for serious human rights violations in Myanmar relating to the Rohingya crisis nor are there any on the Philippines over the extra-judicial killing of thousands under Duterte’s war on drugs.
In the face of this international pressure, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has encouraged the United States and the European Union to impose sanctions. Speaking to national athletes on 15 December, Hun Sen said, ‘I encourage the European Union and United States to freeze the wealth of Cambodian leaders abroad’. He added that he has no money abroad so any sanctions would not harm him.
Meanwhile former head of the Cambodia National Rescue Party Sam Rainsy has accelerated his political campaign to gain support from the Cambodian diaspora and the international community. He recently called upon the Cambodian armed forces to disrespect orders from their commanders or Hun Sen to use violence against the people. The government regards his campaign as inciting national disorder and instability.
Cambodian democracy remains young and vulnerable to power conflicts. Although Cambodian society has largely embraced democratic values, the country’s democratic institutions have not been proportionally strengthened — power politics remain at the core of the political playbook. Deep political distrust between opposing political camps has further backtracked democratic development in the country, and there is currently no strong neutral force in place to promote political negotiation and reconciliation.
The international sanctions that the United States and the European Union may impose are unlikely to create favourable conditions for political dialogue while China lends its full support to Hun Sen’s regime. A people’s revolution is highly unlikely given most Cambodians are not interested in regime change through revolution. Cambodia’s political outlook is bleak unless there emerges an effective force or mechanism to encourage or force conflicting parties into dialogue.
Visiting Fellow to Associate Fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishank Institute.
This article is part of an EAF special feature series on 2017 in review and the year ahead.
The international community doesn’t like sanctions, and tends to apply them only when forced to do so, by which time it is usually already too late. If sanctions are to work, they need to be considered when the first signs of undermining of democracy are clear. In the case of Cambodia, the relevant milestone was the CPP coup of 1997, followed by an election held in 1998 in a most deficient political environment (on which, see John M. Sanderson and Michael Maley, “Elections and Liberal Democracy in Cambodia”, Australian Journal of International Affairs, vol. 52, no. 3, 1998, pp 241-253). But at that time, the international players, far from applying pressure, almost fell over themselves in their rush to proclaim the elections free and fair (or, as Stephen Solarz notoriously put it, “a miracle on the Mekong”). Now the price is being paid. Hun Sen, like Robert Mugabe, was prepared to maintain a patina of democracy so long as his rule wasn’t threatened, but it was inevitable that he would come down hard on the opposition when they started to gather strength. A lot of these issues were addressed at a seminar in Canberra almost 20 years ago: see http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22committees%2Fcommjnt%2Fe0000254.sgm%2F0002%22
“Although Cambodian society has largely embraced democratic values…”
How did the writer come to this, utterly nonsensical in my opinion, conclusion?
Cambodia’s population, except for parts of the tiny urban middle and upper class, have no understanding of ‘democratic values’, they probably couldn’t even define the meaning of ‘democracy’ – or one of the many definitions that are around.
Obedience and loyalty are the main values in Cambodia, not power-sharing or checks & balances, as is easily visible in nearly all decisions that involve (political) power.
Cambodia has only been a democracy in name only and this isn’t recent. Every political party has been eliminated through the abuses of the ruling party (like making adultery illegal). This isn’t going to change as corruptions start at the top and runs all the way down to the village chiefs. They have been threatened for decades by World Bank, IMF and others to improve but the money just keeps coming. The real influence anyway in this part of the world is China.