Скачать или смотреть CAMBODIA: ELECTION CAMPAIGNING DRAWS TO A CLOSE

(24 Jul 1998) Eng/Khmer/Nat

Amnesty International denounced the human rights climate in Cambodia as campaigning for parliamentary elections drew to a close on Friday.

It urged the international community to wake up to intimidation and violence against the opposition.

Candidates wound up their campaigns with the main opposition leaders still mustering up still support while Cambodian leader showed strong signs of leading at the moment.

Buddhist monks and nuns concluded a week-long march from the Cambodian countryside and entered the country's capital on Friday, calling for peaceful elections on Sunday.

The march started with 150 monks and the number has since increased to 3-thousand as local people joined in.

They carried banners saying "The more we fight, the more we lose".

Demelza Stubbings of the London-based human rights group said that political killings and threats have soared since Cambodian strongman Hun Sen ousted Prince Norodom Ranariddh as his co-premier in a coup a year ago.

She added on an international level "many people are not prepared to say what is happening here."

SOUNDBITE:(English)
"I think the rights climate in the country is poor and I think that one of the things that Amnesty international has found is depressing particularly in the last 12 months is that many people are not prepared to say what is happening here. People are talking about numbers they are not talking about individuals and that is wrong"
SUPER CAPTION: Demelza Stubbings, Amnesty International

The international community is overseeing the elections - election observers were called in by the Cambodian leader in an attempt to legitimise his rule following last July's coup.

Opposition leaders accuse Hun Sen of being behind alleged political killings during election campaigns this time round.

But he denies that allegations.

Amnesty International says it is concerned about the allegations.

SOUNDBITE:(English)
"There needs to be a little more of people being prepared to call a spade a spade. Members of the diplomatic community here seem to be extremely happy to excuse political violence and intimidation on the grounds that somebody may have a personal dispute and as I said to a diplomat earlier this year, I think it is extremely interesting that the majority of people in this country with a personal dispute who end up being killed for it also end up being senior members of the opposition."
SUPER CAPTION: Demelza Stubbings, Amnesty International

Election candidate, Sam Rainsy, a former finance minister and dissident has wide support in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.

Sam Rainsy led supporters in a convoy of trucks for a rally at a park near the National Assembly, where on March 30, 1997, grenades were hurled into a protest he was leading.

Sixteen people died.

Sam Rainsy was among more than 100 injured

He planned to close his campaign by highlighting what he calls a choice between
communist-era dictatorship and democracy.

Royalist FUNCINPEC party leader Prince Norodom Ranariddh continued his campaigning on Thursday evening by unveiling a statue of his father, King Sihanouk in Phnom Penh.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
Q-" Do you think It is a good resemblance?"
A- "(laughs)I don't know"
SUPER CAPTION: Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Election Candidate

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