[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Page 19372]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         ELECTIONS IN CAMBODIA

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, Cambodians will go to the polls this 
weekend for the third round of parliamentary elections since the 1991 
Paris Peace Accords.
  Elections half way around the world in a country best known for the 
killing fields of the 1970s would ordinarily warrant little attention 
by Washington or other foreign capitals. However, in the post-September 
11 world such political exercises have heightened importance to America 
and the free world.
  Cambodia today is a lawless country, with the thin veneer of 
democracy bestowed by U.N.-sponsored elections in 1993 all but worn 
away by political turmoil and crises. Under the repressive rule of 
Prime Minister Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian People's Party, CPP, 
human rights abuses are committed with impunity, developments stymied 
by corruption and incompetence, and a palpable climate of fear persists 
throughout a country side controlled by CPP authorities.
  Under Prime Minister Hun Sen's lawless rule, Cambodia has become the 
Zimbabwe of Southeast Asia.
  Many in the diplomatic community continue to wrongly believe that the 
CPP offers Cambodia stability. This thinking is nonsensical.
  A CPP coup d'etat in July 1997 destroyed the coalition government 
cobbled together after the 1993 polls. Grenade attacks against 
opposition parties in 1995 and 1997 were a clear attempt by CPP to 
silence its rivals through violence and intimidation. And anti-Thai 
riots earlier this year were fueled by the reckless comments of the 
Prime Minister, who failed to protect Thai diplomatic property and 
personnel from government-paid thugs, the Pagoda Boys.
  More worrisome to the international community should be the arrest of 
suspect regional terrorists in Cambodia. Lax border controls and 
official corruption have allowed terrorists a free reign in the country 
since the early 1990s. Cambodia is a haven for criminal triads--and 
fertile ground for extremists. While the Cambodian government has 
arrested some suspected terrorists, the absence of democracy and the 
rule of law in Cambodia only guarantees that terrorism will be a 
perpetual problem for that country, an and the entire region.
  The Cambodian people must not miss the opportunity to use the 
upcoming polls to hold Hun Sen and the CPP accountable for the failure 
of leadership. While CPP has done everything it can to subvert the 
outcome of the elections even before the first ballots are cast, 
Cambodians must vote their conscience. They hold the key to breaking 
the cycle of violence and poverty that has gripped Cambodia for the 
past several decades.
  I recognize that this may not be easy for many Cambodians. Anyone 
older than 28 years old lived through the nightmare of the Pol Pot 
regime and the Vietnamese invasion and occupation. Politics got people 
killed then--and it still does today. But unlike the past, today the 
fate of Cambodia is in the hands of the people and in the ballots they 
will cast on July 27.
  Cambodians must hold those in power accountable for their actions. 
They should know that America is watching and willing to help them 
rebuild a nation committed to democracy and the rule of law.

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