The harshest political crackdown in years is under way here [Phnom Penh] in what some analysts are calling the final stage in Prime Minister Hun Sen’s drive to consolidate unchallenged power.
Over the past year, he has choked off the last effective political opposition while continuing to marginalize the monarchy, manipulate the courts and intimidate labor unions and other civic groups. In December, the leader of the only significant opposition party, Sam Rainsy, who had already fled the country, was sentenced in absentia to 18 months in prison for criminal defamation.
Now, with a series of arrests and lawsuits on defamation and related charges, Mr. Hun Sen is for the first time directly attacking the human rights groups that, by default, serve as a de facto democratic opposition.
“Cambodia right now is at a crossroads: It must decide whether it’s going to be a real democracy or whether it’s going to move inexorably toward a one-party state,” said the American ambassador, Joseph Mussomeli.
The special United Nations envoy for human rights in Cambodia, Yash Ghai, said only strong action from the countries that support Cambodia’s economy could stop the slide.
“It has all the hallmarks of the beginning of a totalitarian regime,” he said.
Hun Sen’s response to criticism also has the hallmarks of a dictator-in-the-making:
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen defended his use of criminal defamation lawsuits against government critics on Wednesday, saying he was merely responding to being called a dictator unjustly.
“I am a victim,” Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who has ruled the Southeast Asian nation for two decades, said in response to widespread international criticism of the arrest of three prominent human rights activists.
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