CAMBODIA

Country Summary

The fractiousness and volatility of Cambodia’s political life was readily apparent throughout the year, as was the toll it has taken on the development of an independent press. During a mission to Cambodia and Vietnam in late September by Committee to Protect Journalists board member Peter Arnett and Asia program coordinator Vikram Parekh, the committee found a Cambodian press that for the most part was highly partisan, and vulnerable to violent reprisals for its commentaries on national politics. CPJ found other disturbing conditions, including a judiciary and police forces that afford little security to the local press. (See also special report on Vietnam, p. 183.)

Newspapers supporting the Khmer Nation Party (KNP)--unrecognized by the government and led by Sam Rainsy, a civil liberties proponent who was expelled from the National Assembly in 1995--were conspicuous targets of legal and extralegal intimidation. Thun Bun Ly, the editor of Odom K’tek Khmer (Khmer Ideal), was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen in May, on the same day that the KNP was opening its first office outside Phnom Penh. Official investigations into Bun Ly’s murder and those of three journalists killed in 1994 appear to have ground to a halt. In a meeting with Arnett and Parekh, however, First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh did promise to address the murders. He described the lack of progress in the investigations as “unacceptable” and pledged to raise the issue with the country’s Interior Ministry.

Like the editors of two other pro-KNP papers, Bun Ly had an appeal pending before the Supreme Court against a conviction for defamation and disinformation. While his murder effectively spelled an end to Bun Ly’s case, the Supreme Court upheld the convictions of his colleagues, Chan Rotana of Samleng Yuvachun Khmer (Voice of Khmer Youth) and Hen Vipheak of Serei Pheap Thmei (New Liberty News). Both were sentenced to prison, but were released a week later, after international organizations condemned the convictions and King Norodom Sihanouk granted both journalists pardons. Cambodia in 1995 had adopted a press law that superseded the disinformation and defamation statutes used to prosecute the three journalists. The new press law dispensed with criminal libel, but the courts refused to apply the new law to Rotana’s and Vipheak’s appeals.

The 1995 press law included an article that barred the publication of reports threatening to the country’s “national security” and “political stability.” The provision’s ambiguous wording has alarmed many Cambodian journalists, who fear it will be used to silence any critical commentary on the country’s internal politics, relations with neighboring countries, and war of attrition with the remaining Khmer Rouge forces. Fueling their anxieties were remarks made in February by State Secretary for Information Khieu Kanharith, in which he warned local newspapers that they faced temporary closure if they published stories deemed demoralizing to the army. In response to CPJ’s concern about the law, Information Minister Ieng Mouly told Arnett and Parekh that the government was drafting a subdecree aimed at clarifying the terms, and would present it to local and foreign journalists, as well as nongovernmental organizations, for comment.

Second Prime Minister Hun Sen continued to consolidate his position as Cambodia’s most powerful official, and most of the country’s nominally independent print and broadcast media now have a pronounced tilt in favor of his Cambodian People’s Party. But while he is emerging as an influential figure in his own right, Hun Sen’s sensitivity to the interests of the Vietnamese government, which has been his strong supporter, was startlingly evident during the year. Between December 1995 and December 1996, the Cambodian government conducted a massive crackdown on anti-Communist ethnic Vietnamese residents of Cambodia, expelling several dozen across the border to Vietnam. Among them was Ly Chandara, the publisher of a Vietnamese-language newspaper in Phnom Penh, who was jailed for seven months in Vietnam before being allowed to return to Cambodia.

For more information contact asiaweb@cpj.org