Govt angry at rivals' calls to halt loans to Cambodia
Govt angry at rivals' calls to halt loans to Cambodia
PHNOM PENH (Agencies): The government accused opposition leaders on Tuesday of risking the Cambodian people's survival by calling for international lenders to stop providing loans to the kingdom.
Opposition chiefs Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy asked the Asian Development Bank, in a letter sent to the bank's president on Monday, to withhold further loans to Cambodia until a new coalition government is in place.
"They are destroying the rice pot, depriving the people who voted for them during elections of their food," government spokesman Sieng Lapresse said at a news briefing on Tuesday.
The national treasury is in dire need of the foreign investment and assistance lost after Hun Sen ousted Ranariddh in a coup d'etat in July of last year. The potential for problems has been highlighted by the recent arrival in the capital of many farmers from the countryside seeking food.
In their letter to the ADB, Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy, who have been abroad since just after the ceremonial opening of the new national assembly session on Sept. 24, warned that any loans given by the Manila-based bank to the present regime would be considered illegal.
In another development, the CPP published a staunch defense of premier Hun Sen's record on Tuesday and called on the U.S. Senate to reject a resolution seeking to put him on trial for alleged human rights crimes.
U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has submitted a resolution calling for steps to be taken to support a possible indictment and trial of Hun Sen for alleged violations of international humanitarian law.
The draft U.S. resolution attacks Hun Sen for his role in the Phnom Penh government set up in 1979 by invading Vietnamese forces, who drove the notorious Khmer Rouge government led by Pol Pot from power, according to a copy obtained by Reuters.
The resolution also blames Hun Sen for political turmoil after a UN-organized election in 1993 in which the CPP came second, and for political violence since July last year when Hun Sen ousted his then senior co-premier Ranariddh.