Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet has announced he is withdrawing his country from a development deal with neighboring Vietnam and Laos following protests that the agreement would benefit foreign interests.
Criticism on social media has focused on land concessions in border areas, particularly with Vietnam, a highly sensitive issue due to Cambodia’s historical antagonism toward its larger eastern neighbor.
Authorities arrested at least 66 people ahead of a planned rally in August to condemn the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Triangle Development Zone (CLV-DTA). Most were later released, but leaders are facing trial.
The agreement, formalized in 2004, aimed to facilitate cooperation on trade and migration in four provinces in northeastern Cambodia and in border areas of Laos and Vietnam.
Hun Manet called the groups opposed to the deal extremists and said they were using the issue to slander and attack the government and sow confusion among public opinion.
“For example, allegations that the government has ceded the territory of the four northeastern provinces to foreign countries, etc.,” he wrote in a message posted Friday evening.
He said that over the past 25 years, Cambodia had made many achievements in the development of the four provinces, but his government had decided to withdraw from the agreement, “taking into account the people’s concerns about the territory and the need to remove weapons from the hands of extremists to prevent them from using the CLV-DTA to further deceive the people.”
The Cambodian government has long been accused of silencing its critics and political opponents. Hun Manet succeeded his father last year after four decades of rule by Hun Sen, but there has been little sign of political liberalization.
