American government criticizes for the act of violence in Cambodia 2013

Cambodian government must respect human rights. People are free to demonstrate peacefully. They should not be stopped just because of different political views. Rather, government should responsibly offer a good care to their own citizens because it is their only role. In addition, peaceful methods such as negotiation, compromise must be put so that conflict are avoided. Yet, such act of violence done lately is completely contrary to above principles. They should go back to the table fairly and openly discuss what to be done to bring greater interests for whole Cambodians.

By whatever mean, discussion is the only approachable solution for all parties in Cambodia. They should put Cambodian interests above all. They should not using violent forces against civilians and innocent people. Rather they should come together and put all issues on the table and begin their negotiation. Because all parties claim to defend Cambodian and national interests, there must be a room for compromising and there must be available options for all involved parties to work together to reach their ended goals.

As far Human Rights is concerned, the ruling government must not use force to depress or put pressure on the opposition parties to reach the deal. From fair competiton, they should accept the result and since their national allows them to recount the ballots, they should do so in a case of unproper during national election. Nothing will be worse, if the result shows the same or different since the opposition or the ruling party win, they would lead to country to better, too. That's their ended goal. Or is it because they wanted to rule the government because they could earn lots of money?

They may be able to earn lots of money from their position but what will be the next result in the next national election? They won't be able to stay in power anymore. People and everybody knows that. They can't hide it. 

At least 4 killed in clash between government forces in Cambodia

Sadly, innocent, unarmed Cambodians were killed during a peaceful demonstration lately. Based on Human Rights Watch, protestors peacefully protested. But they are celebrating a party in the evening and everyone almost went home, the government force came in and hit them violently. And that the clash broke up; many injures and about 4 get killed.

Five people were shot dead and more than 20 injured, most suffering gunshot wounds, when military police officers opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles during clashes with protesters armed with stones, sticks and crude Molotov cocktails on Veng Sreng Street in the heart of the garment factory zone in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district on Friday.

Said local rights group Licadho, the killings represent terrible state violence against civilians and innocent people. In 15 years this is one of the single worst incidents ever to hit the country’s key garment industry, which employs more than 600,000 people in hundreds of mostly foreign-owned firms.

Garment factory workers went strike peacefully to increase their wage to around 160 USD. They did not expect such horrible response from the government which led to deaths and injuries of many peaceful strikers in the capital, the heart city of the Cambodia Kingdom.

Violence in the Veng Sreng Street area was erupted in late Thursday night when reportedly some youths intended to block roads and set fire to some car tires nearby in an intention to call for freedom of detentions of 15 strikers, union leaders and monks by members of the paratrooper 911 Brigade at the Yakjin garment factory, also in Pur Senchey district.

At that time, it was around 2:00 amp of Friday morning, there were hundreds of police and military police tried to quell the unrest but they unsuccessful stopped it, said Licadho officers in its statement. There were up to 2,000 “mixed security forces” had gathered in the area by the time shooting broke out around 10 a.m Friday.

Since early in the morning, hundreds of young workers including men and women stood behind make-shift barricades in the middle of street namely Veng Sreng, which they had made from wooden market stalls and metal street signs, and from where they hurled stones at the military police. Many of the rioting youths had crude Molotov cocktails, though none appeared to hit the military police lines.

Till around 9:00 a.m. in that morning there were two military helicopters flew over the protest site and another. Then at 9:30 a.m. hundreds of military police officers who marched at front of the protesters near the Canadia Industrial Park were ready to march. But the clashes almost went up to 100 decree Celsius.

At around 10:00 a.m. in that morning is when the fire was opening. Under a barrage of stones thrown by more than 100 protesters, the military police opened fire around 10 a.m., shooting hundreds of bullets at the demonstrators, including firing at the upper balconies of buildings where protesters were standing and hurling objects.

This was the tragic history of killing and violence after the country was set on peaceful process for about 20 years. The human rights situation which was supposed to get much improved the end of the fiscal year rather turns down.

Till today, innocent civilians and many peaceful strikers can’t reach their demands. They rather lost their love ones and are awaiting for justice. However, hope of much improve working condition, wages and other kinds of salary became less and less visible for garment factory workers in the whole country. No one knows for sure if all workers will get protected by the factories and the government. Perhaps the next national election that will be taken place in 2018 answer all of these problems.