Combodia-Post

BANGKOK, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban Tuesday has reassured that the Thai government will not close the Thai-Cambodian border.

The Thai deputy prime minister's statement was made amid the ongoing diplomatic tension between Thailand and Cambodia.

The border will not be closed since it is concerned with the well-being of the people along the Thai-Cambodian border, Thai News Agency quoted Suthep as saying.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has emphasized a commitment made by the two countries for the benefit of the Thai-Cambodian citizens will not be revoked, Suthep said.

Suthep was referring to an agreement under which Bangkok will lend Cambodia some 41.2 million U.S. dollars to upgrade a highway in Cambodia, and other loans.

The diplomatic problem occurred after Cambodia appointed ousted former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra as an economic advisor to Cambodia's government and Prime Minister Hun Sen on Nov. 4.

A day after the appointment, the Cambodian government announced recall of its ambassador to Thailand in a move to respond to the Thai government's recall of its ambassador to Cambodia.

The UPR is not the only event in Geneva − this is a continuing process.

Land evictions, judicial reform to feature high on the agenda during the three-day hearing.

JUDICIAL reform, corruption and land rights are expected to be high on the agenda when Cambodia comes before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva for its first formal rights review this afternoon.

A UN summary report compiling the recommendations filed by 23 local and international rights organisations in April flagged concerns including continuing legal impunity and increases in the “rate and scale of land-grabbing and forced evictions” that have plagued the country since 2004.

Surya Prasad Subedi, the UN’s special human rights rapporteur to Cambodia, said the three-day Universal Periodic Review hearing would give Cambodia “an opportunity ... to engage in a comprehensive manner” on rights issues with other member states.

Subedi also said he hoped the government would take the hearing seriously, after it was criticised at a similar review at the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Geneva in May for sending just a single delegate – UN ambassador Sun Suon – to the two-day hearing.

“It is a good opportunity for the government of Cambodia to defend its human rights record before an international human rights body. The more the government appears taking the matter seriously the more the government will receive credit for its endeavours in this regard,” he said by email.

New mechanism

The quadrennial review, established with the reform of the UN’s rights body in 2006, is the main mechanism by which each UN member state is scrutinised on human rights issues.

During a three-hour session today, the Cambodian delegation is expected to answer questions from the council, the result of which will shape an outcome report to be adopted on Thursday.

Om Yentieng, senior adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen and head of the government-run Cambodian Committee of Human Rights, said on Monday that the government had sent three officials to Geneva, including its ambassador to the UN, to attend the UPR session.

“I do not expect anything from the meeting in Geneva because the situation in Cambodia is not the same as what is written in the human rights reports,” he said. “What we have seen is that Cambodia is getting more progressive from day to day.”

Thun Saray, president of the rights group Adhoc, said the review would not lead to an immediate improvement in the human rights situation, but appealed to the government to accept its recommendations and make a plan for joint NGO-government action to improve the rights situation.

“The UPR is not only the event in Geneva – this is a continuing process,” he said. “We would like to appeal to the government to take this issue seriously.”

Cambodia's war crimes tribunal has dismissed a request to investigate two of its foreign judges, including Australian Rowan Downing, for bias.

The panel of five judges at the joint UN-Cambodian tribunal was forced to investigate an allegation of bias made by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in September.

Hun Sen said he knew that some foreign judges and prosecutors were taking instruction from their governments.

Following the claim, lawyers for former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary filed a request last month to investigate Australia's Rowan Downing and the Netherlands' Katinka Lahuis.

In their decision, released on Tuesday, the judges unanimously ruled that the request to investigate their colleagues was inadmissible and unfounded.

The ruling came days after the conclusion of the trial of the first defendant, Comrade Duch, who ran the Khmer Rouge's main execution centre called S-21.

The verdict in the case will be announced early next year.

BANGKOK, Dec1 (TNA) - Following the latest verbal attack by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, the premier on Tuesday reaffirmed that his government is working for the Thai national interest, while asserting that his government has not revoked aid projects with Cambodia.

Mr Hun Sen was quoted by foreign media as saying that Cambodia will "have no happiness" as long as Mr Abhisit and Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya are still in power, and that "Abhisit is the PM who is hardest to work with."

Hun Sen said he informed Abhisit that Cambodia was cancelling an agreement under which Bangkok would make a 1.4-billion-baht (41.2-million-dollar) loan to upgrade a highway from the Thai border, and would review other Thai loans.

Acting Thai government spokesman Panitan Wattanyakorn disclosed that Mr Hun Sen has asked the Thai government about the cancellation of the 1.4-billion-baht (US$41.2 million) loan to upgrade a highway from the Thai border and Prime Minister Abhisit already reaffirmed that his Cabinet has not revoked the joint project. An official letter regarding the issue will be sent to Cambodia Tuesday.

Mr Abhisit however said regarding Hun Sen's remark that he has no need to clarify the matter with his Cambodian counterpart as his working approaches concern the benefit of the Thai people, while maintaining amicable relationships with Cambodia and will avoid any adverse impact on Cambodia.

"Despite Thailand is being accused, I am still solving the problem based on national interest," Mr Abhisit said, "It is a pity that Phnom Penh has received incorrect information such as hearsay about border closures or aid projects cancellation which is totally groundless."

"The Cambodians should be informed that any cancellation of the aid projects is unilaterally made by their leader, not the Thai government," Mr Abhisit said.

When asked how the problem will end, as the Cambodian leader is still "playing politics" abroad, Mr Abhisit told reporters that Thailand will not play with Cambodia, but will take care of relations and trades to allow cooperation to proceed.

"If Mr Hun Sen refuses to receive any aid or cooperation from Thailand, the decision is made by him, no matter by whom he is being advised," the Thai prime minister said.

The diplomatic row between Thailand and Cambodia flared up after Phnom Penh appointed fugitive ousted Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra as its economic adviser and refused to extradite him as requested by the Thai government.

The ambassadors of the two countries were recalled, and a Thai engineer was detained in a Cambodian prison on charges of espionage after he was discovered releasing Mr Thaksin's flight schedule.

Supporters of opposition leader Sam Rainsy wave placards during a demonstration against the “deterioration of democracy in Cambodia” on Parliament Hill in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, on Monday. Hundreds gathered to protest against the Cambodian government’s alleged mistreatment of opposition politicians. (Photo by: Photo Supplied)
SUPPORTERS of embattled opposition leader Sam Rainsy gathered in North American capitals this weekend to protest what they called the deteriorating state of democracy in Cambodia.

Organised as a response to the National Assembly’s decision last month to strip Sam Rainsy of his parliamentary immunity, nearly 200 people protested on Parliament Hill in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, while a smaller group demonstrated in front of the Cambodian embassy in Washington on Saturday, organisers said.

Pretty Ma, secretary general of the Sam Rainsy Party North America, said opposition politicians in the Kingdom face “mistreatment and harassment”.

“The way immunity can be easily revoked from the people’s representatives is something almost unheard of here in the West,” he wrote in an email. “It’s overdone, truly abusive and ridiculous.”

The protesters urged Canada and the US to deny entry visas to “any corrupted official, including any human rights violators”.

Sam Rainsy, who is currently in Europe, was stripped of his immunity last month after an October incident in which he uprooted six wooden posts in Svay Rieng province along the border with Vietnam.

Villagers had claimed the Vietnamese were encroaching on their land.

The Vietnamese government, however, reacted with outrage, and the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the act “perverse”.

PHNOM PENH - CAMBODIA'S UN-backed war crimes court has rejected a request by lawyers for a former Khmer Rouge leader to examine two judges at the tribunal for bias, said documents released on Tuesday.

Lawyers for former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary last month demanded a public hearing on the independence of Dutch judge Katinka Lahuis and Australian judge Rowan Downing, citing a speech by Cambodian premier Hun Sen.

However the court's pre-trial chamber on Monday ruled the submission was 'inadmissible, as well as being devoid of merit and unsupported by evidence'.

'A charge of partiality must be supported by a factual basis. The mere fact that a judge has been subjected to press criticism does not require the judge's disqualification,' the chamber's decision said.

The request cited a speech Prime Minister Hun Sen made in September, which came in response to the two judges' support for investigations of five additional Khmer Rouge suspects.

'I know that some foreign judges and prosecutors have received orders from their governments to create problems here,' Mr Hun Sen said in the speech.