Sokha ‘fake human rights activist’, testifies ex-staffer

 

 Buth Reaksmey Kongkea

Dr Chhim Phalvorun, Cambodia People’s Party (CPP) spokesman and former staffer of Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR), a non-governmental organisation run by Kem Sokha, former president of court-dissolved Cambodian National Rescued Party (CNRP), testified against the latter at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on October 12, 2022. 

Judges’ Council of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday questioned 57-year-old Phalvorun, a witness in the case, about Sokha’s activities and the establishment of CCHR in 2002 in connection with trial of Sokha over his alleged conspiracy with foreign agents to overthrow the Cambodian government between 1993 and 2017. 

In yesterday's hearing, Phalavorun, who is now the director of the Institute for Civil Education and also the government’s Minister Delegate, labelled Kem Sokha as ‘a fake human rights activist hungry for power and foreign agent who was running a fake NGO’. 

He told the court that his association with the CCHR started in 2002 when he was appointed as the chief of education and training department on a 13-month contract.

“During my association with the CCHR and Mr Kem Sokha, I had noted that the CCHR has been functioning as a foreign agent. The NGO received $800,000 in aid from the International Republic Institute (IRI) even before it was established,” Phalvorum told the court.

“The CCHR led by Mr Kem Sokha is not a “real” non-government organisation that respects human rights in accordance with the human rights principle,” he said. 

However, he said that he was only a ‘fly’ at the organisation and he was not allowed to know about the source of funds provided to the CCHR or even expenditures of his own department and other activities of the group. 

He said that besides that he had been discriminated against by Kem Sokha and his close aides who considered him as “spy and agent of CPP” and all the staffers at the CCHR were banned from involving or talking to him. Eventually, Sokha expelled him from the CCHR even before his contract expired. 

“The CCHR indeed was a political arm that was meant to act against the government as well as stepping stone for Kem Sokha to gain power. Sokha is a corrupt politician and is not a human rights activist,” he said.

He also alleged there is severe human rights violation and nepotism at the CCHR and he fills many major positions with his family members and supporters.

 “His daughter (Kem Monovithya) is not scared of anyone at the CCHR at that time. She walks in and out freely maybe because her father was the boss of the organisation,” he said.

He added that he was fired following an argument with Sokha and his close aides over forging his signature on the CCHR’s final expenditures. 

When the deputy prosecutor Chhay Hong asked him about Sokha’s speech addressing the former CNRP’s supporters in Austria’s Melbourne on November 11, 2013, that he had followed US orders to plot to overthrow the government by following the formula of Yugoslavia and Serbia, Phalvorun said that “it was not strange” because Sokha had been saying that since he was the president of the CCHR in 2002.

Phalvorun also testified that he had seen Sokha several times with foreign experts from the IRI and USAID at his office. And he used to travel to the United States at least twice in a year.

He also said that whenever other political party members attended his public forum, Sokha used to stay away and order his people to replace him at the meeting.

One of Sokha’s defence lawyers, Meng Sophary said that Phalvorun’s testimonies are baseless and the accusations were made because he was fired from the CCHR. 

Kem Sokha, 68, was charged with “Conspiracy with Foreign Power” under article 443 of the Criminal Code, and was arrested on September 3, 2017.