Tea Banh denies military rights abuse … but confessed that a number of high-ranking army officers are banned by the US for human rights violations

Tea Banh at RFA's office in Washington DC (Photo: Sam Borin, RFA)

22 September 2009
By San Suwidh
Source: Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy for KI-Media
Click here to read the article in Khmer

Vice-PM Tea Banh, the Cambodian minister of defense, denied reports indicating that a number of RCAF units are involved with human rights violations in Cambodia.

However, he recognized that a number of high-ranking army officers were denied entry visa by the US because of human rights violations.

The denial and the recognition by Tea Banh took place during his answer to questions raised by RFA and VOA reporters in the morning of Tuesday 22 September, following Tea Banh’s official meeting with Robert Gates, the US Secretary of Defense, on Monday afternoon.

In response to a question asked by RFA regarding the questions raised by 8 US Representatives addressed to Robert Gates for the involvement of RCAF officers in human rights violations in Cambodia, Tea Banh denies this information, claiming that they were not true.

Tea Banh declared: “The army brigades 31, 611, 70 and up the bodyguards unit of Samdach PM, that were raised in this [US Representatives’] letter, I also heard about this issue. I consider that the information contained in that letter to be all false. How can I say that they are false? They actually conducted a number of activities, such as regarding the grenade explosion [against peaceful demonstrators in front of the National Assembly] … in March of 1997, in this case, they (Cambodian soldiers) were working actively in the past, and the US even sent the FBI to work in this case. They (US Representatives) are not satisfied, they came to accuse [instead] … this means that there was no truth in this affair. Regarding the 911 [brigade], there was nothing, this is a brigade that performed good cooperation.”

Nevertheless, Tea Banh admitted to VOA’s Taing Sarada that, due to human rights violations, a number of army officers, whom Tea Banh declined to provide their names, were refused entry visa to the US.

Taing Sarada: Does Your Excellency have any mechanism to guarantee that the group of Cambodian army officers who violated human rights do not reap the benefit from the US?

Tea Banh: Let me tell you this in short: when the US takes a decision, it’s never a normal affair, they work on the details. I want to say that, if there is something that is not right that surfaces, and it affects the US policy, the US will send the information [to us] immediately. Truthfully, right now, there are a number of [Cambodian army] officers who are refused entry to the US. There are a number of them, I don’t want to talk about it now, because I want to continue to educate these officers so that they can change. It’s nothing major. There are a number of them, they are not that many.”