By David Shaftel
The cambodia daily

Reuters Police surround the house of Prince Norodom Sirivudh, King Sihanouk’s half brother, on Nov 21, 1995, in Phnom Penh. Prince Sirivudh was later taken to T3 prison in Phnom Penh.

Like the year before, the rate of defections from the dwindling ranks of the Khmer Rouge continued to escalate, though their guerrilla war would drag on until the last dry season offensive of 1996.

Also of note, the Ministry of Health drafted a law that would legalize abortions, though the law wasn’t signed by the National Assembly until 1997.

Vendors were confused as marijuana was confiscated in numerous Phnom Penh markets after the drug was finally criminalized. And researchers discovered, for the second time in the 1990s, a new bovine species near Cambodia’s southern border with Vietnam.

But dominating the news in the early part of 1995 was the ouster of opposition leader Sam Rainsy from Funcinpec in May and from the National Assembly a month later. Sam Rainsy, his detractors alleged at the time, had become too outspoken a critic of the Funcinpec-CPP coalition government.

Sam Rainsy was formally expelled from the Assembly after the move was deemed legally justifiable by then-first prime minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh and then-National Assembly president Chea Sim.

The prince defended the ouster of Sam Rainsy later that year in the Rasmei Kampuchea (Light of Cambodia) newspaper, saying that Sam Rainsy continued to defame the government.

Sam Rainsy officially re-entered the political fray in November when he launched his Khmer Nation Party—later renamed the Sam Rainsy Party—as an alternative to the ruling coalition government.

Looking back at his expulsion from Funcinpec and the creation of the opposition party, Sam Rainsy said that he “had a feeling it was going to be a blessing in disguise, an opportunity...to mobilize millions of people with the same ideals.”

Now, the opposition leader says, “politics are more open and the political spectrum is broader,” whereas in 1995 there were no opposition parties that weren’t somehow affiliated with the coalition government.

In July the press law, passed by parliament and signed by Chea Sim, became a subject for heated public debate.

King Norodom Sihanouk, a strong proponent of press freedoms, refused to sign the press law in September, saying in a statement that it was not stringent enough in protecting the rights of journalists.

Of concern to the King and to journalists was that the law had provisions for jail sentences and heavy fines for publishing material deemed harmful to “political stability and national security.”

It also allowed for the ministries of Interior and Information to confiscate and close newspapers without a court order. Human rights groups blasted the law for leaving the terms “national security” and “political stability” undefined.

The King said at the time that he would reserve the right to grant amnesty for journalists or publishers levied with criminal sentences.

A draft revision of the press law was made in 1997, but was never signed into law.

Oum Sarin, president of the Cambodian Association for the Protection of Journalists, is of the opinion that a press law was never appropriate.

“We are never satisfied with the press law at all. We don’t need a press law, because a law is a limit of freedom. We don’t need a law to limit freedom. It is easy to turn a law into a way to show intentions of powerful people or to intimidate,” he said.

But Oum Sarin recalls 1995 as a year in which the press corps in Cambodia “mushroomed.”

“After Untac, Cambodia just got a new press and a lot of new newspapers, at that time they got a lot of fresh air,” he said.
“Some journalists at that time had only been journalists under the Khmer Rouge or the Heng Samrin regime and they don’t know real journalism. It was very difficult to be impartial and independent.”

Today, Oum Sarin says, journalists have improved their knowledge and capacity. However, since many newspapers are subsidized by political parties, impartiality is still an issue, he said.

No press law, however, could stop three truckloads of rowdy vandals from ransacking the offices of the daily New Liberty News, causing thousands of dollars in damage. One staff member was severely beaten. Witnesses linked the attack to an unfavorable article on a government development project.

Editors of several local papers described an atmosphere of fear in the wake of the attack, three of them reporting threats of similar attacks.

Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Ranariddh participate in the opening ceremony for the 911 paratrooper base in 1995.

And in December, during a speech, then-second prime minister Hun Sen underlined the right of Cambodians to demonstrate at foreign embassies, in protest of foreign interference in Cambodia’s affairs. But during that speech, he lambasted the press, and The Cambodia Daily in particular, for inciting protesters to violence against foreign embassies. Hun Sen cited an “international media campaign” to discredit the country and said that the Daily was “illegal.”

In the wake of the speech, The Cambodia Daily’s printer said it was unwilling to print the paper, citing concerns over its legal status. The Daily was able to find another printer and the paper continued publication without interruption.

As the year drew to a close, the implication of Funcinpec Secretary-General Prince Norodom Sirivudh in a plot to assassinate Hun Sen monopolized the news media.

On Nov 21, the Assembly voted to strip the prince—who is a half brother of King Sihanouk—of his parliamentary immunity, and he was later taken to Phnom Penh’s T3 prison.

Government officials claimed at the time that the charges were based on an audio tape of the prince levying the threats and a newspaper report quoting the prince as stating his intention to assassinate the second prime minister. (Later, reports surfaced that the prince may have only been joking when he made the threatening remarks.)

Human rights groups condemned the arrest as a politically motivated ploy to eliminate a government rival.

The prince’s ordeal ended with Hun Sen accepting a solution brokered by the King that would see him exiled in France for more than three years.

He left Dec 21, and was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison in 1996. He would return in early 1999 after being amnestied by the King as part of a CPP-Funcinpec coalition deal.