HRW: Cambodia Ruling Party Orchestrated Vote Fraud

Human Rights Watch- New York - July 31,2013

Donors Should Demand Independent Investigation of Election Irregularities

People search for their names on lists at a polling station in Phnom Penh on July 28, 2013.

(New York) – The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) appears to have been involved in electoral fraud in Cambodia’s July 28, 2013 national elections, according to residents and ruling party officials interviewed by Human Rights Watch. All allegations of election fraud and other irregularities, including bias in the election machinery, should be promptly investigated by an independent commission.

The CPP-controlled National Election Commission (NEC) released preliminary results showing that the ruling party won 68 seats and the opposition Cambodian National Reconciliation Party (CNRP) won 55. Based on the same results, the CPP won approximately 49 percent of the national vote, while the CNRP won approximately 44 percent. The opposition has claimed widespread fraud and called for the creation of an independent expert body that includes the United Nations and nongovernmental groups to examine the results and address irregularities.

“Senior ruling party officials appear to have been involved in issuing fake election documents and fraudulently registering voters in multiple provinces,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “And people from the party seem to have been turning up in places where they clearly don’t live and insisting on voting – not to mention the many other claims of fraud around the country.”

A CPP village chief, who asked for anonymity to protect his security, gave Human Rights Watch an insider’s account of how ruling party authorities in his district engaged in electoral fraud by issuing fraudulent “Identity Certificates for Elections” (ICE) before the July 28 elections. The certificates allow people whose names appear on voter registration lists to vote even though they otherwise lack proper identification documents.

The village chief, whose local CPP superiors worked under instructions from a CPP Center-Level Work Team headed by an army general and a CPP Central Committee member, told Human Rights Watch that his immediate party superiors directly oversaw the illegal issuance of certificates. He explained that a member of the general’s team gave the instructions to issue certificates in the names of villagers who were on the voter registration rolls but were known either to be dead or to have long left their original homes.

The work team member allegedly arranged for soldiers and their wives from an army division stationed in the province to be photographed for certificates. These were then issued by CPP commune and Interior Ministry officials, who allegedly conspired in the scheme to falsely certify these soldiers and their wives as local residents eligible to vote in the commune where these officials were responsible for voter registration. One media report, which is consistent with other accounts, recounted villager descriptions of army-organized voting by thousands of soldiers shipped across provincial boundaries in military vehicles to vote in parts of Siem Reap province where none of them had ever been seen before.

“Issuing hundreds of thousands of fake identity certificates was allegedly one of several key ways the ruling party organized large scale election fraud,” Adams said. “Now, a CPP village chief has confirmed that this happened in his area.”

In another case, villagers in Kandal province, adjacent to the capital, Phnom Penh, described to Human Rights Watch efforts by senior CPP officials to vote in more than one place. When confronted by local residents, the party officials threatened them with arrest and later returned and made death threats.

Numerous residents of Koki Thom commune in Kandal interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that on election day, Ngo Sovan, whose business card states that he is “minister delegate attached to the prime minister” and specifies that he is a secretary of state at the Ministry of Justice, arrived in their commune to vote. He was accompanied by other members of the party’s grassroots strengthening team assigned to the area, as well as by Heng Seksa, whose card says he is a “deputy secretary-general of the Royal Cambodian Government,” and an entourage of dozens of government officials from Phnom Penh.

The villagers protested the group’s attempt to vote there, asserting to local electoral authorities that none of the people were local residents. The local electoral authorities, whom the villagers described as linked to the ruling party, nevertheless allowed the group to cast ballots.

Ngo Sovan’s team included several national level civil servants. According to the national voter registration list compiled from official data on the National Election Committee website and examined by Human Rights Watch, Ngo Sovan was registered to vote in three places. The first (voter registration number R-1424108) is at his known residence in Phnom Penh, where he is a prominent figure and resident, according to local residents Human Rights Watch interviewed.

Ngo Sovan is also registered in the provinces of Kandal (voter registration number R-6132454) and Svay Rieng (voter registration number R-6851267). He heads ruling party election grassroots strengthening or work teams in both provinces. In Kandal, Ngo Sovan also ran as a CPP candidate for the National Assembly.

Heng Seksa, who accompanied Ngo Sovan in Kandal, was registered to vote in both Phnom Penh (voter registration number R-6354916) and Kandal (voter registration number R-6132299), according to official data from the NEC website.

Villagers told Human Rights Watch that members of the entourage threatened them with arrest during the confrontation over whether the group’s members would be allowed to vote. After polls closed, a contingent of “flying tiger” motorcycle police arrived in the area. Villagers told Human Rights Watch that the police said they were looking for “ringleaders” of the “disturbances” that had occurred when the ruling party group’s voter registration was challenged.

The morning after the elections, some members of the group reappeared in the village along with others, including one armed man in civilian clothes, who attempted to identify and apprehend an alleged “ringleader.” Two witnesses told Human Rights Watch that members of the group threatened to kill villagers who refused to provide information on the whereabouts of the alleged ringleader, whom the group also vowed to kill and who has gone into hiding.

“The multiple voting scheme suggests the possibility of systematic election fraud by the CPP and raises serious questions about the credibility of the election,” Adams said. “Since the National Election Committee and local election commissions are under the ruling party’s control, influential governments and donors should demand independent investigations into these and other credible allegations of election related irregularities. Without this, it’s hard to see how Cambodian voters can have confidence in the legitimacy of the elections and the new government that results.”
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Cambodia Election - Feeling Cheated

The Economist - Jul 29th 2013, 10:55 by L.H. | PHNOM PENH

Voters Protest on Election Day July 28,2013

NOT long after the prime minister, Hun Sen, cast his vote at a teacher’s college on July 28th, the first signs of trouble emerged. Allegations that the electoral roll had been rigged were coming in from across Cambodia and a riot was about to erupt on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh. The counting made it plain that Hun Sen and his Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) had won, and by a generous margin. But the opposition made substantial gains—as well as claims that the CPP had cheated.

It was a dramatic conclusion to a dramatic home stretch. On July 12th the government had issued a pardon to Sam Rainsy, an opposition leader who had exiled himself from Cambodia since 2009, while criminal charges were prepared against him. He made his homecoming on July 19th, when he was met by a jubilant crowd. They may have hoped that Mr Sam Rainsy’s presence could bring their party an outright victory in the polls, but he seemed to have known better. Even then, with a week to go before the election, he was threatening to have the results condemned if the rules weren’t changed.

When July 28th came round, some voters were angered to discover that their names were not on the rolls, or that other people had already voted under their names. Other rumours flew furiously: for instance that the CPP was shipping in Vietnamese from across the border to cast ballots.

“Khmer can’t vote—yuon can,” went up the cry on social-media sites and among many who were protesting against the CPP. Yuon means Vietnamese people in Khmer, the main language of Cambodia. Many regard it as a highly derogatory term. Two police vehicles were overturned and set alight. By nightfall troops were deployed, roads blocked and Phnom Penh’s lively rumour mill had gone into overdrive. It all made a tense atmosphere tenser.

By the end of preliminary counting, the CPP acknowledged that the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) led by Mr Sam Rainsy had picked up 55 seats, an impressive improvement on the 29 seats it had already held in the 123-seat parliament. The CPP won 68 seats for itself, down from 90, and so lost the two-thirds majority which had enabled it to rewrite the constitution. Minor parties, including the once-formidable royalist Funcinpec party, were obliterated.

Mr Sam Rainsy stayed true to form. Throughout the campaign he stoked popular anti-Vietnamese sentiment, and with it a familiar fear of hegemony on the part of Cambodia’s big neighbour to the east. Mr Sam Rainsy’s critics in Cambodia say his rhetoric verged on being xenophobic. The Vietnamese embassy issued a rare statement that accused him of using racially charged rhetoric to score political points.

That is even more a shame for the fact that he probably didn’t need it. This election was decided on more practical issues. The opposition’s greatest advantage was the anger that has been mounting against the massive land concessions that are granted to Chinese and Vietnamese companies; a widening wealth disparity; and gross corruption that favours the politically connected.

These issues were made more potent by the emergence of a powerful youth vote. Demographic change has altered the political landscape; those born as Cambodia’s civil wars were ending two decades ago are just now coming of age. Being too young to remember the 1980s and ’90s themselves, they tend to be unmoved by Mr Hun Sen’s main argument: that an opposition victory could spell a return to civil conflict.

Armed with smartphones and social media, the youth went to the barricades for the CNRP. This made for an especially lively campaign, and in turn diminished the relevance of the government-friendly media. Its propaganda machine, in the end, was capable of little more than preaching to the choir.

The opposition has rejected the results formally and demanded that an independent committee be set up to investigate the irregularities and their impact on the poll. One day after the polls closed, independent election monitors said it was too early in the counting process to determine whether the vote was free and fair. The Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel) noted some worrying irregularities, including the use of ink that was supposed to be indelible—to prevent people from voting more than once—but in fact washed off easily. Comfrel also noted the disappearance of some names from the voter lists prepared by the National Election Committee, and the fact that strangers were spotted loitering about some polling booths.

Mr Sam Rainsy told a hastily arranged press conference that the opposition was not trying to bargain its way into government. “What we are interested in,” he said, “is to render justice to the Cambodian people.”

Meanwhile Mr Hun Sen, who over 28 years has established himself as the longest-serving elected leader in South-East Asia, was staying tight-lipped. He has been handed a stark choice: Reform the CPP, or dig in his heels. Any real reform would have to include laying down a clear path for succession. If he insists on maintaining the status quo then civil unrest is almost certain, whatever may be said about future elections.

(Picture credit: AFP)
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Refugee laws ignored: report

Source: Phnom Penh Post July 1,2013

Cambodian government officials have done little to enforce laws meant to protect the rights of Kampuchea Krom refugees, a recent report compiled for the UN says.

The five-page report, written by the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), will be submitted to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights ahead of its 2014 periodic review of Cambodia and Vietnam.

“In the areas of civil and political rights enough mechanisms are in place to adequately guarantee the rights of minorities, however, the implementation thereof is severely lacking,” the report says. “It takes political will from the Cambodian government.”

Despite the Cambodian government’s official stance that those who live in Kampuchea Krom – an area of southern Vietnam that was once part of the Khmer empire – are considered Cambodian nationals, they face discrimination and difficulties when trying to claim refugee status or obtaining identity cards in Cambodia, the report states. When applying for ID cards, applicants must show proof their parents are of Khmer ancestry, proof of their occupation and a permanent address – documentation people fleeing discrimination in Vietnam rarely possess.

“They didn’t have the rights that other Cambodian citizens have,” said Denise Coghlan, Cambodia country manager for Jesuit Refugee Services, an Australian Catholic NGO that focuses on refugee rights. The exact legal status for Khmer Krom remains fuzzy, she said.

The Cambodian constitution guarantees religious freedom in the Kingdom, but the UNPO report notes Khmer Krom Buddhist monks suffer systematic harassment and persecution in Vietnam and Cambodia. Khmer Kampuchea Krom have been detained, tortured and had their freedoms of speech and assembly trampled upon, the report notes.

About 200 people gathered in Phnom Penh last week to demand the release of two Khmer Krom monks Liv Ny and Thach Thoeun, both 30, who were arrested by Vietnamese authorities on charges they associated with pro-Khmer Krom organisations abroad.

UNPO’s report mentioned that although protections guaranteed by the constitution are often ignored by authorities, their existence is a step in the right direction.

“Despite widespread violations of human rights inflicted upon members of the Khmer Krom and Degar [montagnard] minorities, the government of Cambodia should be commended for incorporating key human rights . . . in their national constitution,” the report notes.

In order to improve its human rights standing for minorities, Cambodia should simplify the process in which Khmer Krom refugees can apply for ID cards, commit to investigating allegations of abuses by law enforcement among other steps toward inclusiveness.

The Cambodian government’s Human Rights adviser, Om Yentieng, declined to comment yesterday.
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Smith Human Rights Bill on Vietnam Passed by Foreign Affairs Committee

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) News Release

June 28, 2013 (Menafn - Congressional Documents and Publications/ContentWorks via COMTEX) --Washington, Jun 27 - Legislation on human rights issues in Vietnam was passed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04) author of the legislation, the Vietnam Human Rights Act of 2013.

The bill was approved in a unanimous voice vote of the full Committee.

Smith's Vietnam bill, H.R. 1897, would institute measures to improve human rights in Vietnam by prohibiting any increase in non-humanitarian assistance to the Government of Vietnam above Fiscal Year 2012 levels unless the government makes substantial progress in establishing a democracy and promoting human rights. The bill aims for improvement in freedom of religion (and releasing all religious prisoners), rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association, the release of all political prisoners, independent journalists, and labor activists, and to end any government complicity in human trafficking.

"Brazen human rights violations by the hands of the Vietnamese Government continue against its own people," Smith said, noting an April 11 congressional hearing that detailed widespread abuses, as well as government officials' involvement in trafficking Vietnamese women to Russia, Jordan and other locations. "The powerful testimony before Congress showed widespread religious, political and ethnic human rights abuse, and that Vietnamese Government officials are complicit in human trafficking. Vietnam, in fact, continues to be among the worst violators of religious freedom in the world," Smith said, noting the rights and freedoms of Buddhists, Catholics, Protestants and other faiths are routinely trampled upon by the government.

Go to: http://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=328489 for information about the April hearing, or go to: http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/subcommittee-hearing-highlighting-vietnamese-government-human-rights-violations-advance-us to view Smith's opening remarks at the hearing or witnesses' testimony. Smith's bill was subsequently passed by the House global human rights panel, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, which Smith chairs, on May 15.

Read this original document at: http://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=340844

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