A 34-year-old union leader was gunned down on February 24, 2007 as he drove home from night-shift work at a Phnom Penh factory.
A local rights-group official who investigated the case was reported by RFA’s Khmer Service as saying he believed that robbery was not the motive for the killing.
The shooting death of Hy Vuthy, a workers’ leader at a garment factory, occurred on the heels of the shooting of a Cambodian singer, also in the capital city.
[Vutha's Blog has a post about Cambodia's murders, both domestic, political and unresolved, and she follows it up with another about domestic violence. ]
The singer, Pov Panha Pich, was shot twice on February 23 by an unidentified man and his accomplice on a motorcycle while she was walking from her parked car to a school in downtown Phnom Penh. The shooting left the 23-year-old in critical condition. She is now hospitalized in neighboring Vietnam.
[Elsewhere in the Khmer blogosphere, Sopheak has a post about popstar Pov Panha Pich (Pech?), as does Wanna, who titles this post "Candle in the Wind".]
This latest killing and attempted assassination remind people that the perpetrators of other unsolved killings have never been arrested or even identified.
In October 2003, a popular Cambodian singer, Tuch Sunnich, was seriously wounded and her mother killed in a daylight gun attack in Phnom Penh. She was sent to the United States for treatment and now lives there, paralyzed. Three years on, her attackers remain at large.
In July 1999, unidentified gunmen shot the famous actress and traditional dancer Piseth Peaklica while she was shopping in a hnom Penh market. She died days later.
Other unsolved cases include the killings of radio journalist and government critic Chou Chetharith in October 2003, of union president Chea Vichea in January 2004, and of Free Trade Union of Workers leader Ros Sovannareth in May 2004.
There are also other prominent cases in which the perpetrators remain at large.
These murders and attempted killings may have had different motives, but they all have one thing in common : their real perpetrators have never been identified or arrested.
Cambodian authorities have not identified any of these attackers, except for two suspects now in jail on charges of having killed Chea Vichea. But these two have been described by local and international rights groups—and even by former King Norodom Sihanouk—as having been unjustly used by the authorities as scapegoats.
On February 2, 2007, a Sam Rainsy Party candidate for the upcoming commune elections in Cambodia’s northern province of Preah Vihear was killed. There have also been reports of scores of other opposition activists being killed throughout the country. The opposition party has said these killings were politically motivated, a claim denied by government authorities. Investigations of these cases were either fruitless or still ongoing.
All countries experience crimes, including killings. The difference is that in countries where the rule of law exists, where the police are competent, and where the judiciary is independent, the perpetrators of such crimes are, in most cases, found and brought to justice.
The fact that the Cambodian government has not solved these cases raises a question as to whether or not the country enjoys the rule of law, and whether the government is competent to ensure the security and safety of the people to whom it is accountable.
Filed under: Newsdesk, Southeast Asia, cambodia, governance, human_rights, labor | Tagged: khmer, radio_free_asia
