December 15, 2014
In a video shared widely on social media over the weekend, Prime
Minister Hun Sen’s eldest son Hun Manet called on Cambodians living in
South Korea to avoid protests against the ruling CPP and instead be
grateful to his father’s government for re-establishing ties with the
thriving economy.
Mr. Manet, who was traveling to South Korea with his father for
the 2014 Asean-Republic of Korea Commemorative Summit, gave the speech
during a dinner with a group of Cambodian officials, workers and
students on Friday night.
He criticized the small group of Cambodian migrants who turned out to
protest against Mr. Hun Sen’s government in Seoul on December 7, saying
they should be appreciative. “If we didn’t have peace and stability,
there would be no prosperity or reconnection with Korea, because our
history with South Korea was cut before the war,” Mr. Manet said,
referring to Cambodia’s decades of civil war.
“Do you know who reconnected the relations? It was Samdech [Mr. Hun
Sen]…in 1996. Our initial relations were only with North Korea,” Mr.
Manet told the dinner party.
Mr. Manet explained that the re-establishment of ties with South
Korea had come in spite of opposition from then-First Prime Minister
Norodom Ranariddh’s royalist Funcinpec party, which at the time led the
coalition government.
“When we built this relation in 1996, there was an opposition
[element] in our government, meaning that they didn’t want to build it,”
Mr. Manet said. “But Samdech [Mr. Hun Sen] struggled to build it, until
the ties grew larger.”
“Through this growing relationship, we have negotiated for
opportunities that can bring our people to come to work and study here,”
he said. “This is a positive thing.”
About 30,000 Cambodians presently work in South Korea, placing the
country behind only Malaysia and Thailand as a destination for Cambodian
workers, according to estimates last year from the Cambodian Center for
Legal Education.
Despite Mr. Manet’s claims, the re-establishment of ties with South
Korea in May 1996, which came three years after the U.N.-run elections,
came with the public support of both Mr. Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh as
co-premiers.
Yet Prince Ranariddh’s father, King Norodom Sihanouk, was a close
friend of late North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung and a fervent opponent
of recognizing South Korea, having pledged to never let Cambodia
recognize the country.
Mr. Manet, in his dinner speech Friday, said the Cambodians who
protested in South Korea on December 7—calling for the release of more
than a dozen recently imprisoned social and political activists—did not
appreciate the CPP’s struggle to reopen ties with the country they now
work in.
“They insulted us on our weak points, some of which we acknowledge,
and on some points that are not reasonable,” he said, accusing the
migrant protesters of hypocrisy.
“They said illegal Vietnamese migrants have to be arrested and sent
back to Vietnam, but, in the meantime, some of them ask Korea not to
arrest them and send them back.”
Mr. Manet also defended the recent arrests of activists—including
CNRP official Meach Sovannara—and said Cambodian authorities had been
much more lenient than authorities in South Korea would ever have been.
“Some of the people spread information about the arrest of Meach
Sovannara and the protesters,” Mr. Manet said. “In fact, if you keep
track of this, it was more than one year that they did activities and we
didn’t do anything [in response].”
“If they tried to go and do this in Korea, without legal permission, they would be handcuffed and put in cars.”
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