Cambodian Americans continue to push for democratic Cambodia

By Melanie Gilbert

LOWELL — Cambodia’s general election on July 23 resulted in a landslide victory for the Cambodian People’s Party, whose candidate, Prime Minister Hun Sen, has ruled the country for nearly four decades.

“I don’t call it an election,” City Councilor Vesna Nuon said by phone on Friday. “I call it a ‘selection.’”

Nuon, who has served on the council since 2012, has been an outspoken critic of the self-styled strongman and former Khmer Rouge commander, who has steadily consolidated his power by threatening, outlawing or arresting away his popular opposition, effectively creating a one-party, one-man rule.

Threats, intimidation and fear of arrest now drive Cambodians to the polls, Nuon said. The party captured 78-80% of the total turnout, according to Associated Press reporting.

“At some point it force people to say, ‘OK, I’m with you government,’ but in private, they’re not,” Nuon said. “In private, they too want to see Cambodia free, fair and respect all the rights, but they afraid to say it.”

In 2018, the council unanimously passed Nuon’s resolution calling for free and fair elections, political freedoms and human rights in Cambodia, as well as passage of House and Senate bills imposing sanctions against individuals who undermine democracy in Cambodia.

The Cambodia Democracy and Human Rights Act failed to pass the 115th Congress, but it has been reintroduced by U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan, chair of the Congressional Cambodia Caucus, along with U.S. Sen. Ed Markey and other bipartisan and bicameral congressional leadership.

The legislation would hold the Cambodian government accountable for abuses and corruption that undermine democracy and human rights in Cambodia.

Following last Sunday’s election, Hun Sen said he will step down during his upcoming five-year term and turn power over to his 45-year-old son, Gen. Hun Manet, in August. Nuon believes Hun Manet will continue his father’s repressive and undemocratic policies.

“He’s going to follow the footsteps of his father,” Nuon said. “It’s the same party in charge.”

Hun Manet came to Lowell in 2016, but hundreds of the city’s estimated 30,000 Cambodian Americans filled City Hall to urge councilors to not officially recognize his visit. The City Council voted to “denounce” the visit, to not have officials meet with him at City Hall, and to reject a gift from the Cambodian government.

Activist, organizer and U.S. Army veteran Justin Savoung Ford agrees with Nuon’s view of the Cambodian government as an oppressive regime.

“The prime minster stole the election in Cambodia – as he’s done before – by using the Courts to dissolve his opponents’ political parties prior to the election, as well as jailing and [exiling] dissidents,”  Ford said by text on Friday. “It’s disheartening to see my family’s homeland continuous struggle for democracy and freedom. As Cambodians, we must denounce Hun Sen and his regime and as Lowellians we must denounce this regime.”

Ford announced his candidacy for the District 6 Lower Highlands seat currently held by Mayor Sokhary Chau, whom he ran against in the 2021 election.

Chau, Lowell’s first mayor of color and the first Cambodian-American mayor in the country, did not respond for comment on the results of the Cambodian election, and he has been mostly silent on Hun Sen’s election abuses, arrests of dissidents and of the regime’s human-rights violations.

The city’s Cambodian diaspora came out in force to an April City Council meeting to speak out against two motions seeking to establish possible sister-city agreements between Lowell and the Cambodian cities of Battambang and Phnom Penh, the latter of which is Hun Sen’s hometown.

The motions, which were withdrawn, were submitted by Chau and Councilor Paul Ratha Yem, who appeared to misjudge the depth of feeling against the Hun Sen government. Yem also did not respond to a request for comment on Hun Sen’s election victory.

Nuon and Ford, among many others in the Cambodian diaspora, spoke out against the motions.

Lowell is home to the second highest population of Cambodian Americans in the U.S., many of whom came to escape the killing fields of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, which murdered almost 2 million people between 1975 and 1979.

Although safe on America’s shores, Nuon said he still worries about his family back in Cambodia.

“I have family in Cambodia and I have not contacted them for months and months before the elections because simply the fact is that when you talk ill of the government, they go after your family there,” he said.

Rithy Uong made history in 1999 when he became the first Cambodian American to win a city council seat anywhere in the United States. The Lowell resident said Khmer civil society and the Cambodian diaspora have pledged a renewed commitment to fighting for democracy, human rights and meaningful change for Cambodia.

“Our Khmer community declares that the July 2023 elections are invalid and will not accept the newly formed government nor Hun Sen’s illegitimate attempt at a dynastic regime,” he wrote by text. “Hun Sen’s very calculated coercive transfer of power will not go unchallenged by the Khmer community.”

Despite Hun Sen’s relentless attacks on people in Cambodia calling for human rights and his government’s destruction of parties that support democratic institutions, Nuon remains hopeful that a free and fair Cambodia will one day prevail. He says the Cambodian-American community has already started to organize to push through the Markey-Trahan legislation.

“I don’t think Cambodian people in Cambodia are discouraged by the recent election,” Nuon said. “The heart for change is there, it’s just waiting for the right moment to happen.”