Kem Sokha calls on Cambodian politicians to reunite to develop the country

Tin Sokhavuth

Illustration of the Rectangular Strategy. Photo supplied

Mr. Kem Sokha, former president of the dissolved opposition party CNRP, in his New Year Letter from prison, called on Cambodian politicians to reunite to develop the country.

However, in his letter, Mr. Sokha did not forget to also mention about negative political events happening in 2017 such as the dissolution of his party CNRP, restriction of freedom for civil society and media, the arrest of politicians and land rights activists etc. To Mr. Sokha, all those negative events have degraded human rights and liberal democracy in Cambodia.

In a video clip posted on Mr. Sokha's Facebook page on Monday, Ms. Kem Monovithya, Mr. Sokha's eldest daughter, read the letter out loud. At one point, Mr. Sokha said that a clear political agenda was needed to develop the country in order to improve the livelihood of the Cambodian people as well as which of government officials, soldiers and officers in the armed forces.

In the same way, in October 2017, in his speech during a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh, Prime Minister Hun Sen also pointed out that the year 2017 is the 30th anniversary of his party's main political agenda - water, road, electricity, and human resource - aiming to develop the country. He also said that this political agenda was still very efficient to develop the country for at least 30 years to come.

On the other hand, to help Cambodian people develop their country, the European Union (EU) in Cambodia conceived a very consistent agenda, the​ so-called «European Development Cooperation Strategy for Cambodia 2014-2018» in a view to help the Cambodian government reduce poverty in the country.

The strategy is a long term vision for the EU to conduct all social and economic development activities in accordance with the needs of the Cambodian people. The estimated cost for the implementation of the strategy is about EUR 1.4 billion (nearly USD 1.8 billion).

The main goals of the EU's strategy is to help the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) fight against poverty, enable sustainable development, foster respect for human rights, improve effectiveness of development cooperation. Moreover, this strategy is based on previous experiences in the field of development cooperation between the EU and the RGC.

"This European Strategy is thus aligned to the Royal Government’s Rectangular Strategy-Phase III which represents the socio-economic policy agenda of the Royal Government of Cambodia with its four strategic objectives of growth, employment, equity and efficiency," wrote the EU in its development strategy 2014-2018.