CIVIL RESISTANCE
My TREASON & INCITEMENT MASS TRIAL (Initial Page on Trial Matters) TUESDAY, 14 JUNE 2022 VERDICT ANNOUNCEMENT Court Statement: Concluding Remarks ការការពារ ផ្លូវច្បាប់ របស់ខ្ញុំ [ ... ] |
CIVIC EDUCATION
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Diet Eman endured Hitler’s occupation separated from her fiance, Hein Sietsma. But apart, they served in the Dutch Underground—saving at least 60 Jews from certain death.
Christianity Today | 23 November 2015
A PROUD HERITAGE
Re the Dutch Rescuers, COURAGEOUS, INSPIRATIONAL, FAITHFUL. And there's the GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN connection!
My parents risking their security and lives gave refuge and shelter to their Vietnamese neighbors during the Lon Nol pogroms of the early 1970s, a proud heritage I am very glad to own.
- Theary, 7 January 2016
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Brave New War
emerged in 2015—
from the Islamic State
to the South China Sea. The Atlantic | Dec 29, 2015
[Excerpts with resonances to Vietnamization in Cambodia] ...2015 has seen the flourishing of conflicts that exist in a gray zone, one which is not quite open war but more than regular competition, which is attuned to globalization, which liberal democracies are ill-equipped to deal with, and which may well be the way power is exercised and conflict conducted in the foreseeable future. ...these conflicts mix psychological, media, economic, cyber, and military operations without requiring a declaration of war. In the case of Russia’s ongoing campaign in Ukraine [Vietnam's ongoing campaign in Cambodia], for example, hyper-intense Russian propaganda has cultivated unrest inside the country by sowing enmity among segments of Ukrainian society and confusing the West with waves of disinformation, while Russian proxy forces and covert troops...to destabilize Ukraine psychologically and advance a narrative of the country as a “failed state,” thus destroying the will and support inside Ukraine and internationally for reforms that would make Kiev more independent from Moscow ...“undermine international institutions, change borders, and subvert global media, all without firing a shot..." An immediate aim of the Three Warfares is to spread China’s dominion over the South China Sea, extending the country’s maritime borders beyond boundaries recognized by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in order to control massive energy reserves and strategic sea-lanes worth $5 trillion dollars; ultimately, the hope is to supplant the United States as the security guarantor in the region. The military strategy was first adopted in 2003, but many of its consequences only became apparent to the media in 2015. ...in the past information tended to be a handmaiden to action. Now the informational element appears to be as important as, if not more important than, the physical dimension. ... This is not “soft power” in the classic sense of projecting a positive national image through culture and public relations, but rather a case of using strategic narrative to keep your opponent intimidated, confused, and dismayed—of exploiting ubiquitous information to appear bigger, scarier, and more indispensable than reality would suggest. What matters in the information age is not so much “military escalation dominance”—the Cold War doctrine emphasizing the ability to introduce more arms than the enemy into a conflict. Rather, it’s “narrative escalation dominance”—being able to introduce more startling storylines than your opponent. ...gray-zone conflicts are the dark flip side of globalization, where transnational media, economic integration, and the free movement of people create not a “global village,” but an environment in which we can all mess with each other in more insidious ways. All this leads to a situation where powers can be fighting each other with one hand and shaking hands with the other: ...It also leads to political promiscuity, wherein alliances are short-term and tactical, but prone to fallings-out: ... While it is relatively easy for authoritarian regimes to fuse the efforts of military, media, and business entities, in democracies the interests of these groups are often diametrically opposed. Ben Nimmo, a defense analyst and former NATO press officer, suggests a new doctrine of “information defense” where governments and transnational bodies support exchanges between journalists, think-tank scholars, and academics in areas that could soon suffer a propaganda attack. These ideas highlight two important elements of hybrid conflicts. The first is the power of civil society in this new form of struggle—a trend also evident in the role that the hacking collective Anonymous has played in taking down ISIS social-media accounts, in how Ukrainian activists debunk Russian disinformation, or how the blogger Eliot Higgins has provided open-source evidence for Russian military involvement in Ukraine. The second is the value of an asymmetric approach to these conflicts.
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Vietnamization The Cambodia Daily | 24 December 2015
The Vietnamese People's Army has quietly assumed control of nearly 40,000 hectares of land in Ratanakiri
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WSD Global Human Rights
Summit in Tokyo in association with the WSD Handa Center at Stanford University and the Human Rights Resource Center of ASEAN
13-14 December 2015
Our gracious host Dr. Handa and the Justice Ninjas
Backstage with former Thai Deputy Prime Minister (and a Keynote speaker) Surakiart Sathirathai, WSD host Dr. Haruhisa Handa, HRRC Trustees (Kavi and Theary), former ambassador Kobsak Chutikul (now secretary general of the Asian Peace and Reconciliation Council) and another member of the Thai DPM's entourage
Same group but now Dr. Handa is replaced by "Wonder Woman" Miyazaki, international executive director of the WSD which does a lot of work in the areas of education and health in Cambodia.
Our host, Dr. Handa and his World Support for Development (WSD), put us up in spacious rooms at the The Hilton overlooking the Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Bay
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European Parliament's Resolution on Cambodia
Aid Threatened as EU Calls for Rainsy’s Return The Cambodia Daily | 27 November 2015
The European Parliament on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling on the Cambodian government to revoke the arrest warrant for opposition leader Sam Rainsy, with its parliamentarians suggesting some $435 million in aid be canceled if it is ignored.
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Right Row: British Ambassador Bill Longhurst, Director of Asia-Pacific of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (London) and former Ambassador to The Philippines Stephen Lillie, Theary Seng, Kem Ley.
Left Row: Brit. Emb. Khemra Heim Suy, Virak Ou, Peng Chiv Guek, Chak Sopheap, DCM Bryony Matthew (Romdeng Restaurant, 17 Nov. 2015)
Stephen Lillie, director for Asia-Pacific in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (London) and former Ambassador to the Philippines, during his one day mission in Cambodia. Here, pictured, before his meeting with us, a few NGO representatives. And what timing to be in Cambodia, arriving into Phnom Penh International Airport only the night before, the night of Sam Rainsy's scheduled return to Cambodia, and was greeted by Hun Sen's best face [sic]. (Pictured here with my good friend, HRH Norodom Sirivudh, half brother of late King Sihanouk.)
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Watch video at Financial Times Facebook
Return to the killing fields
Theary Seng and her family were held in this pagoda in Champa, an impromptu detention centre, 40 years ago. (All Photographs: Antoine Raab; Getty)
One woman’s quest to find the truth about her parents’ death under Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime
Michael Peel / Financial Times | 15 May 2015
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Honorable Exit Strategy for Hun Sen Part II of the commentary written on 17 Sept. 2013 Click on image to read Commentary of Sept. 2013
HUN SEN'S LAST CHANCE:
Promising "Culture of Dialogue" to usher in Reconciliation
Theary C. Seng (Kirirom, 27 April 2015, edited/expanded 29 April, 4-5 May)
This is a companion piece to the commentary Honorable Exit Strategy for Hun Sen that I wrote on 17 Sept. 2013, almost two months after the July 2013 elections during a period of high hopes for regime change, what I called the “Season of Cambodia Flourishing”.
That September commentary has received 1.9 million hits, a reflection of the desire for and curiosity at the possibility....
In one masterstroke, Hun Sen could make all serious reprisals obsolete by accepting Sam Rainsy’s offer of reconciliation by genuinely reforming and making way to step down peacefully. Any lawsuit will be greatly deflated with a genuine reconciliation.
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For asylum seekers, a novel (and odd) solution: Cambodia AP / Yahoo News | 24 April 2015
Theary Seng, a Phnom Penh-based lawyer, expressed similar sentiments. When it comes to statistics for human development, corruption, education, social welfare and security, "Cambodia ranks at the very bottom tier," she said. "These refugees," she said, "will be dumped into a sea of human-rights abuses."
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Scars of the Khmer Rouge: How Cambodia is healing from a genocide
CNN | 16 April 2015
"The scars of the Khmer Rouge are very deep and physical and present in modern Cambodia," said Theary Seng, a human rights lawyer whose parents were killed by the regime, and who moved to the U.S. as a refugee before returning to her homeland as an adult. ... She described the country as a "land of orphans."... How to heal? The silence was also due to the fact that Cambodians, in Seng's words, "lacked the vocabulary" of therapy and healing to process a crime of the magnitude of the one perpetrated against their society.
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Cambodia's Khmer Rouge Tribunal Charges 2 New Suspects
Associated Press / ABC News (America)
Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American human rights activist and lawyer, said she doubted that Hun Sen would allow the cases to proceed to trial, likening the court's proceedings under his pressure to "a political farce that is ridiculing the memory of the dead and grinding salt into the wounds of the survivors."
CAMBODIA'S CURSE (Joel Brinkley): "Human rights groups estimated that 650,000 more people had died in the year following the fall of the Khmer Rouge."
THEARY: So, in 1979-1980, Cambodia had a population of less than 4 million (5 M survivors MINUS these 650,000 deaths MINUS another 500,000 refugees who went to Europe, US, Canada, Austr/NZ).
For a people, malnourished with the women not menstruating from genocide and the similar destitution under occupation and famine, beginning in 1984, K5 Plan took another million of the male civilian population.
In law, we have a term for these abuses under occupation: GENOCIDE, the intentional destruction of a people.
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GENOCIDE CONVENTION
Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article III: The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
Indochina Report Publisher M. Rajaretnam:
Dr. Luciolli's is the fourth in a series of exposes that Indochina Report has published on the Vietnamization process and confirms the previous analyses. The others in the series are: "The Vietnamization of Cambodia: A New Model of Colonialism" (pre-publication issue, October 1984), "The Military Occupation of Kampuchea" (Issue No. 3, July-September 1985), and "Vietnamized Cambodia: A Silent Ethnocide" by Marie Alexandrine Martin (Issue No. 7, July-September 1986).
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30 YEARS OF HUN SEN (Human Rights Watch, Jan. 2015) III. Hun Sen and the “K5” Forced Labor Program Vietnam installed a new government, mixing Hanoi-trained communists with former Khmer Rouge officers to run the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK)....Pen Sovann soon fell afoul of Hanoi and was arrested. He was replaced by Chan Si, who died in office in December 1984. Hanoi, impressed with the capacity and loyalty of the young foreign minister, promoted Hun Sen to the post of PRK prime minister on January 14, 1985. The PRK was a police state, with virtually no civil or political freedoms. Among the many serious human rights abuses of its rule, few were more notorious than the Kế hoạch năm or K5 plan. K5 involved the mass mobilization of Cambodian civilians for labor on the Cambodia-Thai border and which led to the deaths of many thousands of Cambodians from disease and landmines. Planned in early 1983 by the Vietnamese military command for Cambodia... The overwhelming bulk of this was carried out by the civilian population as planned.... According to Sin Sen, “K5 was led by Hun Sen. He was assigned this responsibility by Vietnam.”... [by July 1985] 90,362 ordinary people were involved in the construction work.... Overall, one million or more Cambodians may have been sent to the border. Read full report here:
Human Rights Watch | 12 January 2015 The 67-page report chronicles Hun Sen’s career from being a Khmer Rouge commander in the 1970s to his present role as prime minister and head of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). The report details the violence, repression, and corruption that have characterized his rule under successive governments since 1985.
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My commentary on the 30 year rule of Hun Sen
Based on a response to media inquiry (well-known wire service) which I've since edited and expanded: Thirty years ago, Vietnam gave birth to Hun Sen the Prime Minister. Thirty years later, the umbilical cord of Hun Sen and his CPP to Vietnam has not been severed. As a puppet of a historically aggressive, more powerful neighbor, whose annexation of Cambodia consistently over the years are well-documented but uninteresting to non-Cambodians, Hun Sen has consistently appeased and catered to the whims of its political master Vietnam. The facts are indisputable. However, these continuing national security concerns vis-a-vis Vietnam have been overshadowed by virulent charges of racism by foreigners of Cambodians. The unfortunate and potentially dangerous effect has been the silencing of any robust discussion. This in turn leaves the Cambodians frustrated that they can't even express freely what they daily experience in their own home--the flooding of illegal immigrants--while simultaneously are unfairly denounced with the ugly moniker of racism.
Theary's Curriculum Vitae / Resume
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CNRP-NA nominates Ms. Theary Seng to NEC
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Click on image to watch the Skype video interview with Andrew Stevens
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See photos of this amazing trip from the Airport to the CNRP HQ, 19 July 2014
Cambodian Unionists Mark Murder of Prominent Labor Leader (AFP | 22 Jan. 2014)
Photos 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
My presentation on the first day was on The Right to Vote
Sam Rainsy Returns
to a Rapturous
Hero's Welcome
Photos: Theary C. Seng, 19 July 2013 More images taken by me from the truck carrying Sam Rainsy at my Facebook accounts and in KI-Media 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Global Convening to End Mass Atrocities Istanbul (16-21 June 2013) Istanbul, Turkey's largest city at 15 to 17 million people, is magical, as exquisitely stunning as one can imagine it to be and more (!!). Also known as Constantinople, named after the Roman Emperor Constantine who converted to Christianity in 4th century, it has now only one percent Christian out of 55 Million population.
I'm presenting on 19 June 2013 "Reconciling Peace with Justice in Cambodia: the Limitations of Tribunals to Address Mass Crimes"
https://www.box.com/s/g9go7em1jyvuhvy8jbjj
Click here to read narratives and see more photos, or go to Ms. Seng's Facebook accounts
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Theary C. Seng and the Road Ahead in Cambodia By Michelle Phipps-Evans Asian Fortune News, 3 Feb. 2013
The name Theary Chan Seng generates a fervor approaching reverence in the Cambodian community here and abroad. She is the Cambodian-born, American-educated lawyer and civil rights activist who founded the Cambodian Center for Justice & Reconciliation. It is a major component of another organization she serves as founding president, CIVICUS: Center for Cambodian Civic Education. This nonprofit group is dedicated to promoting an enlightened and responsible citizenry committed to democratic principles. It is actively engaged in the practice of democracy and reconciliation in Cambodia and the larger, globalized world. So who really is Seng, the person? She is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge (KR) regime, and has spent almost two decades advocating for its victims, many of whom were orphaned, widowed, abused or molested—victims who were like Seng herself.
. . . Obama, in Cambodia for a Meeting, Sidesteps the Ghosts of History
International Herald Tribune (Peter Baker, November 20, 2012)
Theary Seng, president of the Association of Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia, said, “President Obama should have met with the human rights community and activists challenging the Hun Sen regime, and while then and there, offer a public apology to the Cambodian people for the illegal U.S. bombings, which took the lives of half a million Cambodians and created the conditions for the Khmer Rouge genocide.”
Click here to read this complete news analysis
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Protests Greet Obama's Visit International Herald Tribune / New York Times PHNOM PENH — Theary Seng was taking aim with precision and anger. The 41-year-old U.S.-trained lawyer and a regular on Cambodia’s crowded protest circuit was about to throw a dart at a poster of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Kissinger is one of 13 politicians and senior Khmer Rouge leaders in a dart game created by Poetic Justice, a nongovernmental organization run by Theary Seng that highlights deficiencies of the special U.N.-backed tribunal judging the Khmer Rouge’s crimes. Each player gets five throws. A bull’s-eye is worth seven points. The highest score wins. Last Sunday afternoon, Theary Seng and three members of her staff were playing on Phnom Penh’s riverfront opposite the storied Foreign Correspondents’ Club. On this occasion — the fourth time the game has been staged in public — the point was to draw attention to the narrow scope of the Khmer Rouge tribunal ahead of President Barack Obama’s visit for a summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Click here to read full article.
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Watch the TV3 New Zealand broadcast with Mike McRoberts (aired 21 Nov. 2012) At ASEAN summit, trade overshadows human rights
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Open Letter to U.S. President Barack Obama Published in The Phnom Penh Post, 20 November 2012
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Theary Seng and some 30 security (plus more embedded in Wat Phnom Penh and Sunway Hotel) Narrative of harassment and images of Ms. Theary C. Seng's stand-off with at least 30 big bulky, heavily armed security in front of US Embassy Phnom Penh (Tuesday, 19 Nov. 2012)
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Emotional Violence of Past Poetic Justice Dart Games flared into Physical Assault on Ms. Theary C. Seng and those around her along the Riverfront, Sunday, 18 Nov. 2012
Reykjavik, Iceland SESSION 3: CALLING 4.15 - 5.45 pm Led by Miriam Subirana, Foundation for a Culture of Peace The session includes: Theary C. Seng, Founder, Centre for Justice and Reconciliation, Cambodia
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More at Association of Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia... "Cambodia's Khmer Rouge Court 'Dying' ABC News film, aired 16 Oct. 2012
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Khmer Rouge defendant Ieng Thirith ruled unfit for Cambodian genocide trial due to dementia The Washington Post, 13 Sept. 2012 Of course if she is seriously ill with Alzheimer’s, she should be released. There is no point in trying an incapacitated person,” said Theary Seng, a human rights advocate representing some victims who are allowed a role in the proceedings. “The point is the (tribunal) is so late in coming. The political foot-dragging and inertia has caused this travesty of justice.”
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Poetic Justice and Civil Party Withdrawal in the News Nov. 2011 Ex-leader: Khmer Rouge atrocities are 'fairy tale' AP Newswire, 23 Nov. 2011 "I'm not surprised that Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary continue to deny their crimes as the charges against them of genocide, war crimes are very serious," said Theary Seng, a Cambodian lawyer and human rights activist who lost family members under their regime. "Even if I am not surprised, I am however disgusted by their lack of remorse for the suffering they caused. They are delusional in their denial in light of the weight of evidence against them - the mounds of skulls and bones, the horrific testimonies from every survivor of cruelty, the magnitude and scope of evil unleashed by them across the whole of Cambodia."
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"Khmer Rouge trial is failing Cambodian victims of Pol Pot's regime" Human Rights Watch Brad Adams' editorial The Guardian, 26 Nov. 2011
. . . "Justice Denied" Douglas Gillison, Foreign Policy Magazine, 23 Nov. 2011 . . . Deputy President of Victims Association, a Civil Party of the Orphans Class, Mr. CHEY Theara, Withdraws Civil Party Status, Denounces ECCC as Political Farce _______________________ PRESS RELEASE _______________________
Full statement in both Khmer and English in KI-Media. Here, if ISP censors in Cambodia.
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Khmer Rouge Trial Missing a Marquee Defendant Wall Street Journal, 21 Nov. 2011 “The release of Ieng Thirith is only one reflection of how incredibly late these trials are coming into place,” said Theary Seng, founder of the Cambodian Center for Justice and Reconciliation and herself, too, a victim of the Khmer Rouge regime, having lost her parents and spent five months in prison. She has withdrawn from the tribunal process, and instead put her energy into organizing public games of darts featuring the faces of the Khmer Rouge leaders along Phnom Penh’s riverfront – a “way of release” following victims’ frustrations with the trial process, mixed with “dark humor,” she said.
But the trial - a joint enterprise between the UN and Cambodia - has been heavily criticised. Theary Seng, whose parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge, said putting three people on trial for the deaths of 1.7 million simply wasn't enough. (BBC News, 21 Nov. 2011)
Khmer Rouge Trial: Cambodia Awaits Answers BBC News, 21 Nov. 2011
. . . AFP, 21 Nov. 2011 Khmer Rouge survivor Theary Seng told AFP she was "frustrated beyond words" that only Khieu Samphan looked likely to shed light on what happened. "The people want to know who is behind the Khmer Rouge, we want to see and understand the larger picture and we're not going to get that," she said.
From Tragedy to Sham in Cambodia Asia Times Online, 19 Nov. 2011 In KI-Media Others have gone further, arguing that the time might be ripe for the UN to pull the plug on the controversy-plagued court altogether. Last week, Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime and a prominent advocate for victims' rights, withdrew her status as a civil party to the court, describing the proceedings as a "complete sham". She said the UN should threaten to withdraw after setting some clear conditions for its continued participation. By pressing ahead, Seng said, the world body runs the risk of rubber-stamping a flawed process and further embedding cynicism in the Cambodian population. "I understand the unwieldiness of any large bureaucracy, but at the end of the day it comes down to personalities, and there have been extremely weak personalities," she said. "In this regard, the UN is complicit."
In the End, Loss of Faith in Tribunal: Former Complainant Hello VOA Special with Theary Seng, 16 Nov. 2011 Khmer Rouge Victim Quits Tribunal Saying UN-backed Court is a Sham DPA, 15 Nov. 2011
Prominent Victims' Advocate Quits Khmer Rouge Tribunal VOA International/English, 15 Nov. 2011 KRT Critic Offers 'Poetic Justice' The Phnom Penh Post, 16 Nov. 2011 Theary Seng Denounces Tribunal; Introduces Dartboard Scheme The Cambodia Daily, 16 Nov. 2011
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Click here to read the full press release...
More information at "ECCC Civil Party" More information at Association of Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia Theary Seng Criticizes KRT as "Political Farce" The Phnom Penh Post, 10 Nov. 2011
Radio Free Asia (both AM and PM broadcasts on 10 Nov. 2011)
Cambodian-American Lawyer Withdraws her Civil Party Status Voice of America Khmer Service, 10 Nov. 2011
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