Written by William T. Dowell
The Essential Edge (Geneva, Switzerland)
GENEVA--Mu Sochua, one of the more impressive speakers at "Courage to Lead," a gathering of more than 40 women involved in human rights last week, is not a woman to be taken lightly. After spending the last twenty years fighting against both human trafficking and general corruption in Cambodia, the deputy in Cambodia's leading opposition party has embroiled herself in a head-on clash with the country's perennial prime minister, Hun Sen. The spat now seems likely to land her in jail. At a superficial glance, the furor seems slightly silly. It began last spring when Mu Sochua protested against a Cambodian army officer using official government vehicles at public expense to campaign for Hun Sen's political party. A scuffle ensued and Mu Sochua's blouse accidentally ripped open. Hun Senwho likes to go by the rather ungainly honorific, "Samdach Akkak Moha Sena Padey Dekjo," referred to the incident in a speech, vulgarly dismissing Mu Sochua as a hustler, who liked to expose herself and had a propensity for grabbing at men. If the Samdach expected Mu Sochua to roll over, he was wrong. Mu Sochua promptly sued him for defamation in a Phnom Penh municipal court, demanding 500 Cambodian riels, or roughly 12 cents in damages along with an apology. Instead of apologizing, Hun Sen, promptly countersued and taunted Mu Sochua to appeal to the World Court if she thought it would do any good.
Not surprisingly Mu Sochua's case was thrown out of Phnom Penh's municipal court, while Hun Sen's countersuit stuck. Mu Sochua's parliamentary immunity was stripped away. An appeals court confirmed a lower court's verdict against her for libel, and the case is now headed for the Cambodia's Supreme Court, which Mu Sochua also expects to rule in favor of the "Samdach." The penalty for losing the suit is a fine of roughly $4,100, but Mu Sochua refuses to pay it, and insists that she will go to jail for six months instead.
It may all seem like much ado about not very much, but Mu Sochua insists that there is a lot more at stake. Hun Sen, who was propelled into his current position after Vietnam ousted Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in 1979, has held onto power ever since by making sure that his party hand picks Cambodia's 13,000 village chiefs. "This nation has to be built on the rule of law and not just one man," says Mu Sochua. "These people are afraid of democracy. The way they maintain control is by not allowing the people to elect their village chiefs. The Cambodian people live in fear of the village chiefs. At the same time the country has opened itself up to a market economy, which brings in a lot of money that is not managed well, which is why there is so much corruption."
Hun Sen, who at 57, shows no signs of planning on early retirement, has plenty of reason for wanting to take on Mu Sochua's party. In November, he had, Sam Rainsy, who leads the opposition, stripped of parliamentary immunity for the second time this year: the reason, Sam Rainsy had removed several posts marking out the border with Vietnam. Rainsy contends that the Vietnamese, who were responsible for Hun Sen's rise to power in Cambodia, have been engaged in a land grab for themselves based on questionable treaty arrangements.
Mu Sochua insists that her spat focuses on Hun Sen's vulgar use of language and the corruption of Cambodia's legal system. "What is at stake," she says, "is democracy. The space for democracy is narrowed by the power of the ruling party, and mainly by the power of Hun Sen, who has his hands in every institution, including the parliament and the courts. He didn't just insult me as a woman. He insulted the parliament as an institution. I am actually taking the justice system itself to court."
The story gets a bit more complicated since Mu Sochua received a 2005 leadership award from Vital Voices Global Parntership, a Washington DC-based foundation which grew out of the US government sponsored Vital Voices for Democracy Initiative, co-founded by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Madeleine Albright in 1997.
"This is also a challenge for the international community," Mu Sochua says. "They invest $1 billion a year in Cambodia, but they never fulfilled their responsibilities by making it a condition that the government fulfills its obligations towards the human rights of its own people." Hillary Clinton delivered a brief address via satellite at the end of the Geneva meeting, but it was not clear what her take as Secretary of State would be on Mu Sochua's case.
Even more potentially troublesome for Hun Sen is the fact that Mu Sochua, who earned a Bachelor of Arts in psychology at San Francisco State, and a masters in Social Work at UC Berkely, is married to an American who runs a major project on decentralization for the United Nations in Cambodia. "My husband is completely separate from my political life," she explains. Her three children now live abroad, but both her husband and children are emotionally supportive. "I told my family that I am going to jail. Please don't talk me out of it. It has come to that point" Mom is going to jail," she says. "It gives me peace in heart." Whether it gives Hun Sen or his supporters peace of mind is another matter. More information on Mu Sochua is available at her website: http://musochua.org
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The 3-day conference, "Courage to Lead," was organized at the International Labor Organization last week by Allida Black, the director and editor of George Washington University's Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, and it was supported by Vital Voices Global Partnership, which works to promote the status of women and to encourage women to become leaders worldwide. The partnership grew out of the US government's Vital Voices Democracy Initiative, which was launched in 1997 by Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright.
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project seeks to carry on with the tradition of Mrs. Roosevelt, who was one of the early proponents of the idea that everyone should have access to basic human rights. Allida Black, who is something of a fireball herself, continues to carry the flame.
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project is on line at: http://gwu.edu/~erpapers/
Vital Voices is online at: http://vitalvoices.org.
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