Strongman Blasts Shadow Government, Ream Report Denounced, More Relics Returned
Good morning, Cambodia. It's Friday, July 5, and this is your Weekly Dispatch.
SPIN CYCLE: The government scrambled to deny a report on Chinese military operations on the coast and refute human trafficking allegations from the U.S. What’s left of the local press played the same tune.
HUSHED UP: The sentencing of Mother Nature activists and the campaign to discredit and prosecute CENTRAL, the workers’ rights watchdog, suggest evidence of a state-led campaign to stifle public dissent.
WILL CALL: Hun Manet named the Tourism Minister to lead a new plan to revive the Kingdom’s struggling tourism industry. Numbers remain below pre-Covid levels, with Angkor Wat ticket sales still down 40%.
THE LEDE
Mean Green
Ten young Mother Nature activists were sentenced to prison on charges of insulting the king and Hun Sen, and plotting to overthrow the government. The prosecution was based on an internal Zoom call in 2021.
Welcome to another woeful day in Cambodia's judicial system and more misplaced vigilance. As a pressure group, Mother Nature isn't flawless: its media stunts have at times blunted the impact of its campaigns, which have linked top officials to environmental pillage and plunder.
Even so, this punishment appears to exceed any crime. Human Rights Watch called it "an appalling message to Cambodia’s youth."
That message is clear: Don’t speak out, don’t trust the courts, and don't anger the CPP.
Fake News
Slam everything — and slam it hard. That appears to be the motto of the government’s newly reformed public relations shop, which wasted no time clapping back at a new wave of bad press.
Within hours of publication, senior Cambodian officials blasted a Wall Street Journal investigation into Chinese warships at Ream Naval Base and refuted damning human-trafficking allegations made by the U.S. State Department.
Hostility toward the media has soared under Hun Manet, and the harassment of journalists has reached new lows as the government works to muzzle critics. All the while, government friendly outlets pretend the situation is fine and whitewash the misconduct of the Kingdom’s worst corporate citizens.
Dark Arts
The Strongman has found a new bogeyman.
In a firebrand speech recalling his younger days, Hun Sen took aim at an unnamed extremist group working to form a government-in-exile — a movement, he warned, that could plunge the Kingdom into another dark period of war and genocide.
The senate president vowed zero-tolerance toward anyone with ties to the faction. The Candlelight and Khmer Will parties quickly denounced the plot, while the CNRP, citing Hun Sen’s threatening language, urged Meta to ban him.
The Strongman, for the first time in recent memory, is without an obvious political foe. The “GiE,” as he’s coined it, looks tailor-made — and likely signals a new clampdown on critics.
TALKING POINTS
Hard Ball
Government proxies in the labor movement, including the National Labour Confederation and pro-CPP unions, called on the Interior Ministry for the speedy investigation and prosecution of CENTRAL, the worker advocacy group that's been targeted for lambasting conditions in the garment sector.
Delayed Reactions
Hun Manet appointed the minister of tourism to lead the Kingdom’s new Tourism Marketing and Promotion Board. Ticket sales to Angkor Wat remain dismal. The country earned less than $24 million during the first half of 2024, down more than 40% from a 2018 peak.
Stage Presence
Cambodia signed on to a Beijing-backed proposal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. The Kingdom’s support came at Kyiv’s request, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, even as the two warring nations have yet to publicly respond to the plan.
Growth Factor
Cambodia announced a long-awaited rebasing of the national accounts, making 2014 the new base year for calculating economic measures like GDP. The recalculation boosts the Kingdom’s annual economic output by about 35%, to $42 million. Countries typically rebase every few years, and the new marker is already well out of date. The real economic picture, experts say, is likely much better, even if the benefits are not spread evenly.
Capital Grains
The Kingdom's crucial rice crop is down 50% from where it should be this time of year, damaged by high heat and late rain. In Prey Veng province, half the harvest has been decimated by an invasion of whiteflies. Cambodia is the world's eighth-largest rice producer, exporting $900 million in 2022.
Stone Free
The Met returned 14 Angkorian-era statues looted during the country’s civil war, a repatriation the Ministry of Culture called a “historic homecoming of national treasures.” Hundreds of Khmer antiquities remain in museums around the world, and authorities have vowed to bring them home.
Last Act
Kong Nay, the legendary chapei dang veng player dubbed the “Ray Charles of Cambodia,” died in his hometown of Kampot after a long illness. He was 80. Born in 1944, Kong Nay was among the first generation of artists granted “Living Heritage Status” in 2012.
BACKPAGES: From The Cambodia Daily Vault
Police Official Retracts Comments on Torture
July 5, 2004
A top Cambodian police official reversed his position and denounced torture in a letter Friday to the UN special representative for human rights after twice defending the use of strong-armed interrogation tactics last week.
Gang Rape Spreads to Provinces
July 1, 2004
The gang rape phenomenon appears to have spread from Phnom Penh into the provinces, according to a study to be released Friday.
UN Report Attacks Rise in Drug Trafficking
June 29, 2004
Domestic abuse of methamphetamine and the trafficking of heroin through Cambodia increased significantly in 2003, and the trend could put the country on the verge of catastrophe, according to a new report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime obtained Monday.
Photos: Mother Nature, X. Kong Nay, Fresh News.
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