F’pec requests Chinese ‘help’
FOLLOWING a meeting with a Chinese delegation yesterday morning, Funcinpec President Prince Norodom Ranariddh claimed to have requested monetary assistance from China, an apparent violation of the Law on Political Parties.
Funcinpec’s purported request for foreign funding follows the recent dissolution of Cambodia’s only viable opposition party – which Funcinpec largely replaced in the National Assembly – over widely panned accusations that it was colluding with foreign governments to topple the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.
“I did request the Chinese to help us. We became the second biggest party, but we are poorer than the other, very poor, and we are empty,” Ranariddh said to reporters after the meeting.
Ranariddh met with Wang Weiguang, president of the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and claimed Wang pledged to report his request to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“They will continue to stand with us, like they used to provide to Funcinpec,” Ranariddh said, adding that China has already provided some materials, such as computers.
He said the purpose of the visit was for Wang to inform the party about the results of China’s 19th National Congress of the Communist
operation.
However, a trove of documents left behind by police at the cockfighting ring in Kandal showed what appeared to be a network of payments to local authorities, including police and government officials.
Independent observers called for an investigation staffed by a multi-stakeholder body or the ACU, but Yentieng dismissed the case at the time as “old rice”.
Preap Kol, executive director of Transparency International, said that only the public can judge now.
“When competent authorities fail to perform their duties to properly investigate allegations of crimes, they consciously allow the existence of impunities,” Kol said.
Kandal Provincial Governor Mao Phir un, meanwhile, denied that he or his officials were cowed by fear of Phany or his relatives yesterday. “If we were scared, why did we come to crack down?” Phirun said.
He also raised the possibility that documents showing payments to local authorities and journalists could have been fabricated by Phany “to show others that he has influence with the court, police, village chief and commune chief”.
Yentieng said much the same thing about a document that appears to show bribes to officials in Takeo province – a copy of which was also found at the Kandal cockfighting ring by Post reporters last weekend.
“Can we take action based on just one piece of paper? They can write whatever they want,” Yentieng said to journalists at the workshop. “Is there anyone responsible for that paper?”
The extensive documents recovered in Kandal, however,