Relatives, unions and civil society groups gathered Saturday on the 18th anniversary of the murder of unionist Chea Vichea to call on the Cambodian government to find the perpetrators and end a culture of impunity.
More than 100 people gathered to commemorate the former president of the Cambodian Free Trade Union, who was gunned down on the morning of January 22, 2004 while reading a newspaper in front of Wat Lanka. Two men widely viewed as scapegoats were arrested for the murder and spent a total of nearly six years in prison before being acquitted.
Speaking to the crowd, Chea Mony said that his family continued to urge the government to seek justice for his brother.
“We will not drop our demands and our pain will never be forgotten. We urge the government to find the murderer and those who behind other murders, not just Chea Vichea’s case,” he said.
Mony said the murder involved powerful people, which is why prosecutors did not dare to hold a legitimate investigation. In 2015, Prime Minister Hun Sen set up a special committee to investigate the killing and that of two other unionists shot shortly after, though there has been little progress since.
“We think that the establishment of the interministerial commission is just an excuse to prolong the time as this murder is related to those in power,” he said.
Five months after Chea Vichea’s killing, Ros Sovannareth, a Free Trade Union committee member, was shot dead. In 2007, Hy Vuthy, a president of the movement at the time, met the same fate.
Unionist Rong Chhun, who has long been an outspoken critic of the government, said that 18 years on, the shadow of justice remains unseen. Chhun, who was recently released from prison after serving more than one year for what rights groups say was a politically motivated conviction, urged the authorities to end impunity in Cambodia.
“Cambodian authorities have the capacity to identify the murderers, but the authorities are unwilling to do so and prolong the case for 18 years of injustice,” he said. “[This case] has let the perpetrators live freely for 18 years now, and impunity in Cambodia is remain.”
As president of the Free Trade Union of Workers in the Kingdom of Cambodia, Chea Vichea was at the forefront of a nascent labor movement being built on the back of mass expansion of the garment industry in Cambodia.
He was a staunch critic of Prime Minister Hun Sen and an ally of now exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy – and his murder came amid a spate of politically-connected assassinations in Phnom Penh.
Days after Chea Vichea was killed, police arrested two men, Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, but a judge dismissed the case against them for a lack of evidence.
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court overturned that decision and both men were sentenced in 2005 to 20 years jail for the murder. They were released on bail in 2008, only to be unexpectedly re-imprisoned in 2012. Nearly a year later, they were exonerated by the Supreme Court and freed in 2013.
Police said they reopened investigations into the murder, but there has been no indication of progress since.
Shortly after Chea Vichea’s death, his wife and children fled to Finland, where they have lived since.
Chak Sopheap, executive director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights said that impunity runs rampant in Cambodia with Chea Vichea’s case only one example of the failures of Cambodia’s judicial system to bring perpetrators of human rights violations to justice.
She said it is crucial that crimes against human rights defenders are met with effective, independent, and transparent investigations, and that justice for all those whose rights have been cast aside is delivered.
