UPR46 Session Concluding Remarks
It is important for all of us to understand that the United Nations’ Cambodia Universal Periodic Review session on May 8 is not the end point of the Khmer community’s international advocacy efforts. It is just the starting point. It sets the stage, and provides a model foundation for the advocacy work that now needs to take place. Our task, and our goal, must be to use the Cambodia UPR session, and the lessons we learned from those experiences, as a starting point and the framework for our ongoing advocacy efforts aimed at achieving “meaningful and effective change and progress” for the Khmer people.
The just completed Cambodia UPR process showed us the important results we can achieve through effective organization and advocacy within and by the Khmer community, using the available United Nations and other international forums and platforms, and using as well more effective linkages with Amnesty International and other key non-governmental groups and allies. For example, we saw what we could do adopting the Amnesty International community-based urgent action case alert process, by developing our own Khmer Urgent Alert system based on the Amnesty time tested idea and model. Now we have a new and more active voice to keep members of the Khmer community informed, and able to take action on, important developments and advocacy opportunities.
In the same way, we used the UPR review process to expand our contacts and joint work with the United Nations Special Rapporteurs, generating a number of important new efforts with them, including a special initiative to take the issues of land grabs and illegal land evictions off of the back burner, and to bring attention to what Amnesty International described as “mass land evictions” taking place under the Hun Sen/Hun Manet regimes.
We also organized and submitted major complaints and challenges to the United Nations associated with the Angkor Wat heritage site land evictions, and what the United Nations themselves, in response to our Complaint, described as the “questionable hereditary appointment” of Hun Manet to take over his father’s office, in violation of requirements of the Cambodian Constitution and international law. These were just a few examples of the type of international advocacy actions that the Cambodia UPR process helped to generate, and set in motion. Now, our task is to build on those experiences and accomplishments in order to continue to move forward and to develop even more creative and effective advocacy opportunities that will help to achieve meaningful change and progress on Cambodia’s major and very long-standing and entrenched human rights abuses. How do we do this? What are our next steps forward?
During our preparatory work on the Cambodia UPR session, our meetings and discussions with UN Special Rapporteur Rajagopal on the land eviction issues generated the very intriguing and promising suggestion from him that we work jointly with him, other UN officials, and Amnesty International to bring the long-overlooked land grab and land eviction issues in Cambodia out of the shadows, and make it the focus of a major international advocacy effort.
Another “new direction” that holds special promise is to expand our use of virtual public forums to bring attention to a series of major Cambodia human rights issues in the coming months, as part of the process of generating a wider community-based advocacy campaign. Land evictions could be the first focus for this new round of issue-based virtual forums, followed perhaps by how the Hun Sen/Hun Manet regimes are eliminating any form of meaningful political opposition, and closing down the independent media outlets, through the use of Mass Criminal Trials to intimidate and punish critics of the government.
So, join with us on this new round of international advocacy, as the United Nations’ Cambodia UPR process concludes, aimed at promoting “effective and meaningful” change for Cambodia and the Khmer people. What specifically can and should you be doing?
Follow and participate actively in the Khmer Urgent Action Alerts that are distributed on a regular basis;
Send your complaints and letters of concern to the Cambodian and United Nations’ officials listed with email addresses in each Urgent Action Alert;
Watch and listen to each of the issue-based virtual forums that will be broadcast in the coming months; and,
become an informed and active member of the Khmer advocacy community.
Remember, you are the most critical component and participant in these advocacy efforts. It is your active involvement and support that demonstrates the strength and importance of our advocacy work, and the reason why the international community and the government of Cambodia must pay attention to the concerns and complaints that we are raising. Join with us in “speaking truth to power” in a forceful and effective way, and in promoting meaningful human rights progress for Cambodia!