Cambodian court convicted Sam Rainsy to life sentence for allegedly agreeing to cede four Cambodia’s northeastern provinces to Vietnam’s Montagnard

 

Buth Reaksmey Kongkea  

Phnom Penh Municipal Court on October 19, 2022 sentenced former opposition leader Sam Rainsy in absentia to a life sentence and also bans him from doing politics for life for allegedly agreeing to cede four Cambodia’s northeastern provinces to Vietnam’s Montagnard if the former Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) won the 2013 election. 

Presiding Judge Sin Sovannroath stated that in this case, the accused Sam Rainsy, 72, was charged with “handing over to foreign state all or part of the national territory” under Articles 27 and 440 of the Criminal Code.

“The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has decided to sentence the accused Sam Rainsy to a life sentence,” Judge Sovannroath read the verdict yesterday.

“The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has also banned him from doing politics for a life,” he said. 

Related to the case, Judge Sovannroath said that on April 14, 2013, the accused Sam Rainsy, who was then the President of the CNRP, signed an “Agreement on Degar Indigenous Rights in Cambodia” with the Leader of the Degar Indigenous Peoples Mr.  Kok Ksor in the United States. 

He said that according to the Agreement, the accused Rainsy agreed that the future government of Cambodia led by the Cambodia National Rescue Party will deal with the Degar Indigenous People in the North-East of the country in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as adopted by the General Assembly on 12^th September 2007, in particular Article 3, Article 4, and Article 5 of the Kingdom of Cambodia.  

He noted that the substances of these articles will be reflected in Cambodia’s Constitution as follow: 

Article 3: Indigenous Peoples have the right to autonomy under the Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia. By virtue of that right they are allowed to freely pursue economic, social and cultural development.

Article 4:  Indigenous Peoples, in exercising their right to economy, have the right to make and implement decisions in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions.  

Article 5:  Indigenous People have the right to maintain and strengthen their district legal, economic, social and cultural institution, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the state under the Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia. 

Judge Sovannroath said that the agreement made between Sam Rainsy and Kok Ksor was later leaked in March 2018 and was publicly posted on Rainsy’s personal Facebook account on July 16, 2018. 

He added that after the agreement was leaked in 2018, the accused Rainsy later interviewed with the opposition radio named “Radio Free Asia”( or RFA) and  with the RFI radio, confessing that he had really signed the Agreement with the Leaded of Degar Indigenous People on April 14, 2013. 

Yung Phanith, one of Sam Rainsy’s lawyers, yesterday said that the court’s judgment was not right and unjust for his client. 

He said that for this case, although his client had signed the above agreement and also confessed it, the agreement was only a plan and it was not implemented yet because his client (Sam Rainsy) or the CNRP did not win the 2013 election as Rainsy had said or expected. 

He added that on the one hand, the four provinces have not lost to any foreign state and still belonged to Cambodia. 

 “As  a lawyer, I understood that the court’s punishment against Mr Sam Rainsy is not right and is unjust for him because the court did not have enough  proof and there is no element of offense to accuse Mr Sam Rainsy as  accused,” Phanith told Khmer Times. 

“However, until now I am not sure that Mr Sam Rainsy will appeal it to upper court or not because so far I had not met with him yet,” he said and adding that “But he has the rights to appeal go against the verdict within a month and ask the court of appeal to review his case.” 

According to a clip of a video of  Rainsy dated in June 2018, which yesterday obtained by the Khmer Times,  Rainsy said that “Those people who themselves are Degar people, they are part of the Cambodian nation. They live in Mondulkiri, Ratanakiri, Stung Treng and Kratie provinces.” 

“When we establish a new government (in 2013), we will ensure that Montagnards, the Degar people, will live as free citizens in Cambodia. Their lands, their forests, their mountains will be returned to them,” said Rainsy. 

Montagnard is a French term referring to a Vietnamese hill tribe, also known as Degar, most of whom are from Christian ethnic minority groups residing in the Vietnam Central Highlands.

 

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