As US President Barack Obama began the first public remarks ever made on
Cambodian soil by a sitting US head of
state – during a trip in which he aimed to raise the issue of freedom of speech
– the media, including his own following press corps, were swiftly escorted
out.
An earlier bilateral meeting
between Obama and Prime Minister Hun Sen had been characterised as “tense” by
US Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes. As promised, Obama had raised
the sticky issues with Hun Sen that Cambodian opposition parties, rights groups
and US lawmakers had been urging him to discuss.
“In particular,” said Rhodes, “I
would say the need for them to move toward elections that are fair and free,
the need for an independent election commission associated with those
elections, the need to allow for the release of political prisoners and for
opposition parties to be able to operate.”
In the subsequent meeting, after
Hun Sen delivered his opening remarks, Obama spoke for no more than 10 seconds
before the last of the reporters had been herded out.
This practice has been standard
fare during Cambodia’s most recent turn hosting ASEAN meets as chair of the
10-member bloc, but the fact that even Obama’s own press pool were shown the
door appeared to come as something of a surprise to the Americans.
Sean McIntosh, spokesman for the
US Embassy in Phnom Penh, said afterward when asked who was responsible for
kicking out the press: “If you want answers, speak to the organisers of ASEAN.
“You’ve got to talk to the
[Cambodian] Ministry of Foreign Affairs; we had nothing to do with that. You’ve
got to talk to the organisers of ASEAN, because our media wasn’t even allowed
to hear the president speak,” he said.
At a briefing on the later ASEAN-US
Leaders Meeting, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Secretary of State Kao Kim Hourn
said the press had only been allowed in for the premier’s opening perfunctory
statement.
“And, of course, [the] Prime
Minister did not finish his opening remarks yet when the press were asked to
leave the room,” he said.
As for the reportedly tense tone
of the pair’s bilateral meeting, he directed reporters to an earlier briefing
specifically on that topic delivered by one of Hun Sen’s personal advisers,
Council of Ministers Secretary of State Prak Sakhon.
Sakhon delivered his entire
briefing in Khmer and refused to field a question from a Western reporter. He
asked her if she had not heard what he had been talking about for the prior 30
minutes, then clarified that his English was “not good enough”.
Sakhon first summarised Obama’s
comments during the bilateral talks, listing warm greetings the president had
made to Hun Sen, condolences he had expressed over the death of King Father
Norodom Sihanouk and his note that there was an “important step moving towards
democratic reform in Cambodia, both economic and political reform”.
He then summed up Hun Sen’s side
of the meeting. Sakhon said the prime minister had told Obama he was satisfied
with the president’s frank speaking, but that there had been an exaggerated
campaign to create the perception that the human-rights situation in Cambodia
was even worse than in Myanmar.
Hun Sen also reiterated a request
for forgiveness of most of the country’s debt to the US, which Reuters reports
is more than $370 million. Cambodia last year offered to repay 30 per cent of
the debt, calling this a compromise over money it says was used by a
pro-American government in the 1970s to repress its own people.
“The premier stressed that there
are no political prisoners in Cambodia, but politicians who had abused the law
must stand trial,” Sakhon said.
Those remarks came after he
recounted how Hun Sen had clarified that the radio station of outspoken
government critic Mam Sonando, Beehive Radio, had not been shut down and that
Sonando, an individual who had broken the law, was dealt with by the courts and
still had a chance to appeal.
Sonando was sentenced to 20 years
in jail for masterminding a so-called secessionist plot – charges that have
widely been dismissed by foreign governments and rights groups as politically
motivated nonsense.
Shortly before the ASEAN Summit,
a dozen high-ranking US lawmakers sent Obama a highly provocative letter that
accused Hun Sen of having connections to an illegal logging firm connected to
that case and urged him to bring up that and other rights issues during his
visit.
In May, a large security force
stormed Pro Ma village in Kratie, the site of the alleged secessionist
movement, and opened fire on villagers –
who have argued they were simply innocent victims of a land grab – with
automatic weapons, killing a 14-year-old girl.
David Boyle and Vong Sokheng
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