US presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s senior foreign policy adviser
has likened Prime Minister Hun Sen to Zimbabwean tyrant Robert Mugabe and the
former Sudanese president indicted for genocide, Omar Al Bashir, all while
mispronouncing the premier’s name.
During a discussion featuring
Romney adviser Rich Williamson held at the Washington-based think tank the
Brookings Institution on July 25, the aide lumped “Hun Sun” in with other “less
than pleasant guys” he had been forced to deal with.
“For better or worse, whether
it’s Hun Sun [sic] or Robert Mugabe or Omar Al Bashir, I’ve dealt with some
less than pleasant guys. And saying you are not doing good things never
surprises them, they know they’re not,” Williamson said.
Williamson made the comments,
first flagged on the popular online forum Khmer 440, during a foreign policy
discussion with Michele Flournoy, co-chair of the National Security Advisory
Committee for Obama for America.
Council of Ministers spokesman
Phay Siphan, himself a US citizen and Republican, said yesterday it would be
more constructive for Williamson to seek to strengthen relations with countries
such as Cambodia, as Barack Obama had done, than make such remarks.
“I think that is groundless [the
remark] and it would not be a wise idea to help US foreign policy,” he said.
Political analyst Lao Mong Hay
called the comment “strange” given that Cambodia at least had the basics of
democracy in terms of institutions.
“I think it’s unfair to our prime
minister,” he said.
Romney’s foreign policy has been
under scrutiny lately because of a series of gaffes made on overseas trips. The
campaign did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
The International Criminal Court
has indicted Omar Al Bashir for war crimes, crimes against humanity and three
counts of genocide allegedly committed against tribes in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Though Mugabe has widely been
accused of crimes against humanity as well, no action has been taken against
him by the ICC, which would have to secure a UN Security Council resolution to
charge the Zimbabwean President.
A dossier supporting allegations
that Hun Sen has committed crimes against humanity by forcibly displacing
segments of the population has been submitted to ICC but legal analysts say the
case has practically no chance of ever seeing the light of day.
David Boyle
Business & Investment Opportunities
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