Phnom Penh (FN), Feb. 22 – Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia Mrs Rhona Smith and Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Mr David Kayer expressed their opinions about proposed changes in the Cambodian Constitution.

Mrs Rhona Smith is a very special rapporteur, indeed. She is well known in Cambodia by the survivors of the war (1970-1975) and the Pol Pot regime (1975-1979). Because in one of her reports, she reduced the tragedy and the suffering of the past century as mere « trouble » !
In their yesterday’s comments, the two human rights activists provided a perfect example on how a radicalistic approach of the issue of human rights discourages to comply with widely accepted principles protecting human dignity.

Cambodia is blamed because the first amendment in the Constitution is about the respect of His Majesty the King. According to those activists, on behalf of freedom of opinion and expression, it seems that one has the right to insult and to defame the symbol of the whole nation. The King is not only a human being. He embodies a millennial institution that is revered by the vast majority of the Cambodian people. But these extremists don’t care about our culture! They don’t care about our traditions! Or, may be, they want to send the signal that those in the opposition who want to abolish the Monarchy have perfectly the right to do so. We will protect our King. We will protect our Monarchy. We will fully respect and implement our Constitution that says that “The Person of the King shall be inviolable » (art 7) and that the revision of the Constitution cannot be done if affecting the constitutional monarchy regime (art. 153).

The two rapporteurs are concerned by the proposed requirement imposed to Cambodian political parties to “primarily uphold the national interest” and to refuse “interference from abroad”. They don’t like this terminology because, according to them, it is to “broad”. For everyone one – and it is the same in most of other countries all over the world – the primary duty of a political party is to protect the nation against the attempts by foreign powers to become the instrument of foreign interests. A political party and the affiliated to a political party dedicated to serve foreign interests are traitors to the nation. And the authorities have perfectly the right to stop such activities.

These two rapporteurs said that the public should be consulted about the proposed changes in the Constitution. “The current lack of public consultation is concerning” they said. But Cambodia is a representative democracy. This was the choice made in 1993. The people have representatives. The people have the right to express their opinion by talking or writing to their representatives. But the final say remains in the hands of the elected people. This is the system that works in all the country with a regime of representative democracy. Do these rapporteurs want to change the regime in Cambodia ?

The Cambodian people dedicated to a genuine democracy do not confuse the freedom of opinion and the freedom of expression with the freedom to insult, to defame, to libel, to caricature insultingly, to deny the human dignity of each individual. The people of Cambodia are proud to belong to a nation that has a long history made with wonders but also with tragedies. They know that all their misfortunes came from foreign interferences. They will not listen to irresponsible foreign individuals.

Raoul Marc JENNAR PhD
Cambodian citizen
Political scientist