Invited to handover graduation degrees, Prime Minister Hun Sen chose the venue to call Sam Rainsy the most treacherous person in the last 500 years of Cambodian history, adding that the former opposition leader’s family were all traitors.
Hun Sen was speaking to 6,000 students from the National University of Management in Phnom Penh when he used his speech to respond to an online plea made by Rainsy for the armed forces and people to push for political change.
Rainsy posted a video Sunday night where he told both groups that they have to doggedly push for change in 2023. The armed forces should remain neutral and not kill people or protect the prime minister, Rainsy said, and suggested that there would be opposition to a proposed transfer of power to the premier’s son, Hun Manet.
“So we have to liberate our country from Hun Sen’s family line. Don’t let Hun Sen consider Cambodia as his personal possession and his family’s,” Rainsy said in the video posted to Facebook.
Hun Sen in his speech reacted to Rainsy’s video, and said the opposition leader’s family had been treasonous for three generations and warned any political party to stay clear of the former CNRP president or risk being dissolved.
“Remember! Any party that links themselves to this convict will face a court complaint. Clearly remember!” said Hun Sen.
Hun Sen said Rainsy espoused an extremist ideology, which was a legacy of his family, blaming him for the death of people during a crackdown on garment worker protests along Veng Sreng Boulevard in early 2014.
“I will be determined to get rid of the extremist ideology of the traitor’s family line,” Hun Sen said.
“I would like to remind the Cambodian people in the country that if you dare to link yourselves with this person, you will be in danger yourselves,” he added. “Don’t think that Hun Sen won’t dare to do it.”
The prime minister said he had never banned Rainsy from entering the country, but that if the opposition leader came back he would immediately find himself in handcuffs.
Rainsy was unable to return to Cambodia in 2019, when he said that Thai Airways had refused to board him on a flight to Thailand because the government had instructed airlines to not allow him on flights coming into the country. The government has maintained that there is no ban on Rainsy and he is free to return to the country.
