Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07PHNOMPENH543
2007-04-12 08:40:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Embassy Phnom Penh
Cable title:  

DAS JOHN MEETS OPPOSITION POLITICAL FIGURES, IFI

Tags:  PGOV PHUM EFIN EPET CB 
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VZCZCXRO2320
RR RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM RUEHNH
DE RUEHPF #0543/01 1020840
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 120840Z APR 07
FM AMEMBASSY PHNOM PENH
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8315
INFO RUCNASE/ASEAN MEMBER COLLECTIVE
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TAGS: PGOV PHUM EFIN EPET CB
SUBJECT: DAS JOHN MEETS OPPOSITION POLITICAL FIGURES, IFI
REPRESENTATIVES


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TAGS: PGOV PHUM EFIN EPET CB
SUBJECT: DAS JOHN MEETS OPPOSITION POLITICAL FIGURES, IFI
REPRESENTATIVES



1. (SBU) Summary. Human rights leader Kem Sokha told
visiting DAS Eric John that his move into politics was in
response to lowered USAID funding to his Cambodian Center for
Human Rights (CCHR) NGO as well as continued calls from the
Cambodian people that he return to political life. Kem Sokha
said his new party would be more democratic and espouse a
strong anti-corruption platform as well as term limits for
the Prime Minister. Opposition leader Sam Rainsy told John
that Cambodia was effectively a two-party state in the
aftermath of the April 1 commune elections. Rainsy asked for
USG support in convincing the government to resolve problems
with voter registration, which Rainsy claimed kept many of
his supporters from voting. Son Chhay, a SRP MP, discussed a
request to send a delegation of Cambodian MPs to Burma; John
welcomed the proposed trip, stating Cambodia was a good model
for Burma to emulate. IFI representatives in Cambodia noted
that the RGC has made some progress in planning for future
oil/gas revenues, but more work needs to be done to ensure
the petroleum sector benefits Cambodia by reducing poverty.
End Summary.

Kem Sokha: Forced to Return to the Political Limelight
-------------- --------------


2. (SBU) Kem Sokha informed visiting EAP DAS Eric John on
April 6 that he would end his NGO position as the leader of
the CCHR organization as of May 1; afterwards, he would form
a new political party. He explained that the reduction in
funding to CCHR's activities by USAID over the last several
years had created financial difficulties. In addition,
supporters from the around the countryside had mistakenly
interpreted the funding cuts as indicative of USG unhappiness
with Kem Sokha's leadership. CCHR has been unable to secure
additional funding from other donor states, he added, despite
the submission of proposals to the European Union and others.
Fund-raising attempts abroad have yielded little additional
income for CCHR, continued Sokha, as Cambodian-Americans and
others are unwilling to fund NGO activities in Cambodia.


3. (SBU) Finally, he said that people in Cambodia are

looking for a new political party as an alternative to the
status quo, and one that will really promote democracy. DAS
John asked if, from a tactical point of view, it made sense
to create another opposition party rather than combine forces
with the SRP. Kem Sokha responded that the other political
parties are not really democratic. Initially, people thought
FUNCINPEC was a democratic alternative to the CPP but it
failed and now is nearly destroyed -- as witnessed during the
recent commune elections, said Sokha. When Sam Rainsy broke
away from FUNCINPEC, many people followed him -- but the SRP
has not proven to be a democratic party and Rainsy controls
all the internal power and decisionmaking. If the SRP comes
to power, he noted, it may simply replace the CPP and
transfer the power from one autocratic ruler to another. If
Rainsy reforms his party, acknowledged Kem Sokha, then the
need for Sokha to create another party is removed.


4. (SBU) Kem Sokha's vision of distinguishing his party
from the others is to create a truly democratic party, with
different centers of power within the party so that the party
leader is not the sole decisionmaker. The president of the
party will remain as president for two terms; all officials
will be elected by grassroots supporters. Rather than a
proportional electoral system as is in place in Cambodia, Kem
Sokha favors a majority system with term limits for the Prime
Minister. All elections in Cambodia would be direct
elections, rather than the indirect elections that favor the
party in power -- as happens with the Senate, the governors,
and the village chiefs, he noted. Kem Sokha said his party
will be future-focused, rather than constantly rehashing the
problems of Cambodia's past and laying blame on other
parties. In response to accusations that Hun Sen and the CPP
have quietly provided support to Kem Sokha to start a party
in order to split the opposition vote, Kem Sokha denied the
rumors and underscored that "Hun Sen can't buy me."


5. (SBU) In terms of joining an alliance of opposition
parties as Rainsy has called for, Kem Sokha said that he
doubts an alliance with FUNCINPEC and the Norodom Ranariddh
Party (NRP) would be of great use as the leadership of both
parties has been discredited. When asked if he could
organize in time to compete for the 2008 national elections,
Kem Sokha said that he already has 200,000 of the needed
500,000 signatures/thumbprints. He is also asking supporters
for money to finance the new party, and claims that he is
uninterested if well-known personalities defect to his party.
The key to his party's success, Kem Sokha noted, is support
from agricultural workers and the grassroots supporters who
backed his human rights NGO -- those people are the ones who

PHNOM PENH 00000543 002 OF 003


pushed him back to politics and they represent his base. Kem
Sokha is also looking to pair U.S. cities and their
Cambodian-American population with different provinces, e.g.,
the Cambodian-Americans in Lowell, Massachusetts would be
responsible for providing financial backing for his party's
activities in Kampong Cham, Philadelphia for Prey Veng,
California for Phnom Penh and Kandal, Seattle and Kampong
Speu. Kem Sokha said he estimates his party could win 30
seats in the upcoming national elections.

Rainsy: Cambodia Now a Two-Party State
--------------


6. (SBU) A buoyant Sam Rainsy, leader of the opposition
party named after him, greeted Eric John by informing him
that his party managed to double its number of votes and win
25% of the overall vote in April 1, 2007 commune elections.
He claimed that this was despite close to two million likely
SRP voters being disenfranchised. He urged USG to press the
RGC to correct voting problems before next year's
parliamentary elections. Rainsy suggested that many of the
problems could be corrected if the registration process was
extended and simplified, and the CPP-aligned village chiefs
were taken out of the process. Rainsy also expressed his
desire to unite the opposition to defeat the ruling CPP. The
Ambassador asked if Rainsy had consulted Kem Sokha recently
about his new party. Rainsy answered that he did not believe
that Sokha's new party would be successful in the short-run
because it lacked a nationwide network. Tioulong Saumura, a
SRP MP and wife of Rainsy, asked the Ambassador to mediate
between Rainsy and Kem Sokha. The Ambassador demurred and
suggested talking to Sokha directly was the best and fastest
way to resolve their differences.


7. (SBU) Turning to Burma, Son Chhay, a senior SRP MP,
informed the DAS that the National Assembly has been asked to
send a delegation of MPs to Burma. The DAS stated that Burma
was one issue the USG, SRP and the ruling CPP appeared to
agree; he said that Burma can look to Cambodia as a model for
change and Cambodia was probably its closest model in ASEAN.
John noted that though Cambodia's development has been filled
with bumps, which the SRP knew about, its overall trajectory
was positive and Burma could learn from it.

IFIs and an Update on Donor Support for Oil/Gas Sector
-------------- --------------


8. (SBU) At a lunch with International Financial
Institution (IFI) representatives to discuss Cambodia's
petroleum potential, conversation centered initially on
estimates of the reserves. Asian Development Bank (ADB)
Deputy Purnima Rajapakse described the evolution of estimates
in 2004 from 400 million barrels of oil in Chevron's Block A
up to 700-800 million barrels. More recently, there have
been attempts to lower the estimates to reduce expectations,
he said. World Bank Country Manager Nisha Agrawal commented
that some important decisions on managing oil revenue have
been made, such as determining that the revenue should flow
through the national budget, but that lack of reliable
estimates hampered the government's ability to deal with
other issues, such as whether the taxation issue should be a
part of the petroleum law or the tax law. This lack also
gave the RGC an excuse to delay on issues; e.g., signing onto
the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)
agreement. John Nelmes, IMF Resrep, catalogued the many
issues regarding management and oversight of the expected oil
revenue that require resolution.


9. (SBU) In response to DAS John's question on whether
Cambodia is likely to handle the oil revenue responsibly,
opinions varied. Agrawal said that signs so far were not
promising. The prospect of oil would allow Cambodia to
borrow against future revenue, while China was pouring in aid
money with "no strings attached," but in reality gaining
access to Cambodian's natural resources. Nelmes of the IMF
and ADB's Rajapakse agreed that Cambodia probably would not
be as bad as Nigeria, nor would it be Norway. The Cambodian
leadership would fund some beneficial projects to meet public
demands for tangible proof that the RGC was using the money
responsibly, and therefore the government would not be able
to siphon off all of the revenue. Nelmes commented that PM
Hun Sen wants Cambodia to be taken seriously and would not
want to see its reputation ruined by complete mishandling of
the money. Douglas Gardner, Resrep of UNDP, observed that
whether it proved to be a blessing or a curse, oil and gas
would change Cambodia fundamentally. It was the job of the
international community to work to make it as much of a
blessing as possible.


PHNOM PENH 00000543 003 OF 003


Comment
--------------


10. (SBU) Kem Sokha held a farewell party at CCHR
headquarters on April 10, and told members of the diplomatic
community that he had met earlier in the day for several
hours with the SRP. Rainsy is keen to create a united front
against the ruling CPP in 2008, although the media reported
that the SRP leader publicly allowed that he could also
envision working with the CPP. Rainsy and Ranariddh's
supporters from FUNCINPEC have often said that it would be
unwise to publicly launch a united opposition to the CPP too
early in the run up to the 2008 elections for fear that it
would give the CPP more time to create divisions. Rainsy's
call for a united front suggests that he needed to seize on
his undisputed second place position in the commune polls to
solidify his claim to the opposition leadership mantle in the
face of Kem Sokha's announcement that the NGO leader would
return to politics. Kem Sokha and Sam Rainsy have been
eyeing one another warily since early 2006, when Kem Sokha
was released from prison and began contemplating a return to
politics, and Rainsy returned to Cambodia after the PM
requested that the King pardon the opposition leader.
Overcoming their differences (and respective egos) and
working collaboratively against the CPP is unlikely but it is
clear that a strong and united opposition would force the CPP
to look more carefully at their reform agenda to prevent the
opposition from using corruption, land grabbing, and impunity
to the opposition's advantage in 2008. End Comment.
MUSSOMELI