By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, May 9 -- When UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Cambodia last October, Prime Minister Hun Sen “ordered” him to remove the head of the UN human rights office in Phnom Penh, Christophe Peschoux.
Now six months later, Peschoux has been chased from the country. Human rights groups call it “worrying.” Mr. Peschoux himself has said that in Cambodia
“human rights are tolerated to the extent that they do not challenge the political, economic and financial interests of the ruling elite. That’s where the red line runs. If you cross that line, trouble starts... Of course I’m leaving because it has become impossible for me to continue to operate in this environment.”
Given this, one might have expected Ban Ki-moon to have some follow up comment, if not to have actually defended Mr. Peschoux. But when Inner City Press on May 9 asked Ban's acting deputy spokeman Farhan Haq about Peschoux's leaving Cambodia, Haq said “we do not have any comment at this stage,” nor “any reaction.”
Back on April 12, Inner City Press had asked Haq about Cambodia:
Inner City Press: there is a lot of controversy about the UN-backed Court [Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia] there. Some are saying that the President told Ban Ki-moon that there should be no more prosecutions and that the Court should be wound down. And advocates are saying that the UN hasn’t spoken up in defence of the Court’s mandate. Does the Secretary-General have a view on whether this Court should go on in a non-politicized fashion, or, as many say, should be moving to dismiss future cases beyond those it has?
Acting Deputy Spokesperson Haq: The Secretary-General fully supports the work of the Extraordinary Chambers in Cambodia, and he believes that it is up, ultimately, to the senior officials of the Extraordinary Chambers to proceed with their work as they see fit.
Since then, concerns have only grown. Ban Ki-moon and human rights: que pasa? Watch this site.
