Contrary to Sam Rainsy’s claim in his 10 March 2012 Appeal for International Parliamentary Solidarity, saying that “my
only crime is my unyielding denunciation of corruption and human rights
abuses and my unwavering defense of the people who have elected me as
their representatives,” it has been an international public
knowledge, including that of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) that
Sam Rainsy was found guilty of destroying public property by the
provincial court of Svay Rieng, convicted to two years in prison and a
fine of 8 million riels (or roughly two thousand U.S. dollars), a
verdict that was upheld on 1 March 2011 by the Supreme Court, and on 15
March 2011 the National Assembly stripped Sam Rainsy of his fourth
parliamentary mandate by virtue of paragraph 3 Article 14 of the Law on
the Election of Members of the National Assembly, which stipulates that
members convicted at final instance of a crime and sentenced to
imprisonment shall forfeit their membership in the National Assembly.
It
is regrettable that Sam Rainsy kept on using a Cambodian parliamentary
title, in defiance of the rule of law with the intention to mislead the
IPU and a certain number of international parliamentarians to believe
that he is still a Cambodian parliamentarian, prompting the General
Secretariat of the Cambodian National Assembly to issue a Press
Statement on 12 March 2012 to reiterate the fact and the truth that Sam
Rainsy has lost his membership in the National Assembly since 1 March
2011. In fact, he was barred from registering to vote in the election of
the third Senate mandate in January 2012, a confirmation that Sam
Rainsy is no longer a member of the Cambodian fourth National Assembly
mandate.
His
accusation of being “persecuted by the authoritarian party and
government of Cambodia” does not verse well with his privileges of a
parliamentarian and the rights and freedom of a Cambodian citizen he had
for the past 20 years, until his conviction and his sentence to
imprisonment for breaking the law. Sam Rainsy has a very strange
understanding of the law, so mixed up that finally caused him to fall.
He seemed for so long not to be able to grasp the meaning of “No one is
above the law,” not even a parliamentarian. Parliamentarian immunity
should not have been conceived by Sam Rainsy to mean that he is above
the law.
A
wholesale accusation saying that “the strategy of Cambodia’s ruling
party is to use politically subservient judiciary to crackdown on all
government critics,” had been proven to be false, pretentious and lack
of the sense of right and wrong, and one-sided for lack of knowledge of
the Cambodian realities. It should be understood that “all government
critics,” critics of government policies, critics of government actions,
critics of personalities in government must be carefully separated and
defined properly and precisely to avoid the violations of the others’
rights as stipulated by law in Cambodia. Most parliamentarians in any
part of the world are lawyers, if desired, they would have known about
the Cambodian laws, the rule of law and how the law works in Cambodia, a
democratic system of government under the Constitution solidly and
strongly upheld by all Cambodian people.
The
best way for Sam Rainsy is to take a sabbatical leave from politics for
probably 17 years, before he can take a daring step to compare himself
with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. It is hopeful, thereafter that he would be
wiser and constructive in his approach to national politics, and he
would turn to become a builder of a stronger democratic system of
government, working side by side with Cambodian legitimate leaders. To
Sam Rainsy, best of lucks!
14 March, 2012
The Press and Quick Reaction Unit (PRU)
Office of the Council of Ministers