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Human Rights – 1998

The human rights situation was worse in 1998. Amid the preparation for general elections, UN Officials came to Cambodia to assess the human rights situation. After visiting for four days, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, said that there were very serious issues that needed to be resolved. She suggested that the government had a responsibility to bring about an environment that would facilitate a free and fair election.¹

According to the 1999 Human Rights Watch World Report, “A pattern of violence against opposition party workers continued late into the year. Prior to Ranariddh’s return on March 3, several high-ranking FUNCINPEC officials were assassinated in Phnom Penh, including Lt. Col. Moung Sameth on March 3, Gen. Thach Kim Sang on March 4, and Lt. Col. Chea Vutha on March 28. Local activists in the countryside were also targeted, as for example in the April 26 grenade attack against Son Sann Party members in Takeo, in which two people were killed”.² The government crackdown continued after a grenade attack on Hun Sen’s residence occurred on September 7. A Human Rights Watch Report stated that, “the government banned sixty-eight opposition politicians from leaving the country and threatened that some would be arrested. While the travel ban was effectively lifted on September 24 for most opposition leaders, Son Sann Party candidate Kem Sokha, the former chairman of the National Assembly’s Human Rights Commission, continued to be barred from leaving the country. In late September he went into hiding after a court summons was issued in connection with his role in the September demonstrations” (Human Rights Watch, 1999).³

1. “U.N. official leaves Cambodia after assessing human rights problems,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, January 25, 1998.
2. “Human Rights Watch World Report 1999 — Cambodia,” Human Rights Watch 1999, accessed July 25, 2010, http://www.hrw.org/legacy/worldreport99/asia/cambodia.html.
3. Ibid.