Editorial Board, article 2
In this edition of article 2 we focus on Cambodia and look at the implications of the suppression of emerging protests, and in Southeast Asia, on the nexus between practice of torture and its impact on the functioning of criminal justice systems.
The emerging protests in Cambodia in the last four years are not the customary protests we usually see on TV, hear over the radio and read in the newspapers. These protests were manifestations of the people demanding from their own government protection of their fundamental rights: to live with dignity. The protests that commenced in December 2013, until they were violently suppressed in early January 2014, were “self-generated” by the Cambodian people themselves, notably garment workers.
In this report, we look into the causes of these emerging protests and how the violent suppression, which killed four people, impacted on aspirations for protection of rights and democratization in Cambodia. One person has been disappeared, dozens were wounded and many arrested, detained and prosecuted. What is particularly bad in this instance is that some of those arrested had nothing to do with the protests at all. Several of them were actually taken from their apartments.
In our view the government and its security forces opened fire on the protestors to send a clear message: ‘We are in control; you do what we say.’ They suppressed not only the people’s demands for a wage increase, but also the emergence of a new force which was accumulating power that threatened the political stability of the regime. In fact, it is the very existence of workers and how their suffering, misery and dire conditions, were shared by other ordinary Cambodians, which poses a threat to the very stability of the regime in power and its political structure.
The question really is not only about whether or not it agrees to demands to increase the minimum wage to USD160 a month of the garment workers. In fact, it was the government’s own findings that, for a person to live decently, the current minimum wage should be increased. Their findings merely affirm what the ordinary Cambodian, notably those working in the garment sector, has known for a long time. They know it because they have lived with such poor, difficult and dire living conditions all their lives.
Although the workers were not able to achieved, for time being, an increase of the minimum wage to USD160, nevertheless, the government has been “put on notice” by its people, as explained by Prof. George Katsiaficas, in an interview in this report. His comments also explain that, from the earlier demands for a wage increase, and later the demands for political change, that “once protests start they (the issues their represent) tend to build upon each other.”
Why do the emerging protest in Cambodia need careful understanding? The protests in Cambodia are unique. They have profound meaning in the people’s imagination and aspirations for justice, human rights and democracy, keeping in mind how they suffered from the genocide of the Khmer Rouge regime. The protest was a spontaneous reaction to the Cambodian people’s collective pain, misery and dire condition, notably garment workers who suffer the most.
In another interview, Basil Fernando, former senior officer of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), noted that while it is good that now “the people are asserting their rights” there should also be a thorough and realistic assessment of the institutions of justice and the political structure of Cambodia. He notes that while the people are asserting their rights, a process whereby the government would recognize these rights “has not come yet.”
Fernando elaborates on the fundamental theoretical and ideological contradiction in the rebuilding of the country’s justice institutions in early 90s, rendering the possibility of justice to be non-existent in Cambodia. To him, the idea of Cambodia’s “constitution was based on socialism,” and the principles of liberal democracy, whereby justice and democracy is a cornerstone, exist only on paper.
Drawing from views and opinions of Fernando and Katsiaficas, article 2 wrote an analysis base on the documentation it has collected from interviews of the victims, families of the dead, local and foreign NGOs who are helping the victims, and others who are supportive of the Cambodian people’s democratic aspirations. Their stories may be found in the articles ‘Help us find justice for my son, and others’, ‘They shoot anyone on streets, in their homes‘ and How and why the 23 protestors were arrested, prosecuted, in this report.
Moreover, Danilo Reyes, editor of article 2, put together the reflections of all his interviewees on how they understand and what their thoughts are on the idea of ‘justice’ and ‘accountability’ in Cambodia. Reyes joined the team of the fact finding mission of regional labour and human rights groups, academics, to investigate the root causes of the crackdown of the protest of workers. The extract of the group’s report, titled “A week that shook Cambodia,” is also included here.
Also, in another section of this report, article 2 interviewed human rights defenders, human rights lawyers, families of victims of torture and disappeared, and a member of a government’s human rights commission, asking them about the nexus between the use of torture and how they impacts on criminal justice institutions. The interviews cover countries in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.
Article 2 would like to thank the Asia Monitor Resource Centre (AMRC) and the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO), individuals and groups, for their contribution in this report. Some of them, like witnesses to the crackdown could not be named for their own safety.
More importantly, we pay tribute and dedicate this report to the victims who were killed, suffered severe injuries, and those who are imprisoned and in an ongoing struggle to prove their innocence to win back their liberty. To their families—their fathers, mothers, siblings and their children—who know and value them more than anyone else could, we are grateful to you for letting us in, not only in your hospital rooms and in your homes in the village, but into your lives.
We hope that this report could help let other people know, and help them to understand, the reasons why your loved ones are struggling. And, for the readers to know who your loved ones were, who they are, not only to you, but also to them.
This report was prepared, edited, and layout designed by Mr. Reyes, with the kind assistance of John Stewart Sloan and Sr. Marya Zaborowski in copy-editing.
