*EPF505 07/25/2003
Text: McConnell Urges Cambodians to Participate in Elections
(Says Cambodians should hold Hun Sen accountable) (680)

Senator Mitch McConnell (Republican of Kentucky) is urging Cambodians to take part in parliamentary elections scheduled for this weekend and pass judgment on the government and policies of Prime Minister Hun Sen.

In remarks to the Senate July 24, McConnell, the Deputy Majority Leader in the Senate, faulted Hun Sen for his "lawless rule" and said he was responsible for turning Cambodia into "the Zimbabwe of Southeast Asia."

The Kentucky Republican, who has frequently criticized the Phnom Penh regime, is the second most powerful Republican in the Senate and a forceful advocate for democracy in Southeast Asia.

McConnell urged the Cambodian people to "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," he added.

Following is the text of McConnell's remarks from the Congressional Record:

(begin text)

ELECTIONS IN CAMBODIA

Senate

July 24, 2003

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.

(end text)

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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