After a nearly a week of government censure, the US Embassy is still mum on the fallout from Ambassador Carol Rodley’s remark on 30th may addressing corruption in Cambodia.
Cambodian government have reacted severely to Ms. Rodely’s assertion, made at an anti-corruption concert that Cambodian government loss US$500 millions in public funds every year to corruption.
Two ministries and the Cambodian ambassador to London have now issued statement condemning the ambassador’s speech, while Phnom Penh municipality on Thursday questioned organizers of the Clean Hands anti-corruption concert.
Embassy spokesman John Johnson said yesterday that he still has no comment on the reaction to Ms. Rodley’s speech or the apparent consequence for the Clean Hands organizers.
Most of the concert’s organizers were equally silent on Monday.
Pact Cambodia Country director Paul Mason and People’s Centre for Development and Peace President Yang Kim Eng both declined to comment.
Cambodian Defenders Project Executive Director Sok Sam Oeun said that the government’s response to Ms. Rodley’s speck was unfortunate.
CDP helped organize the Clean Hands concert, but Mr. Sam Oeun was not personally involved.
“I think that the government reacts too fast ….. What she said, it is opinion,” Mr. Sam Oeun said of the ambassador’s comments that put a dollar sum on the amount of money lost to the exchequer and the uses to which such money could have been put, including building schools.
Although he would not comment on whether organization working on anti-corruption issues would be intimidated into silence by the government’s strong response to perceived critics, Mr. Sam Oeun said that education and public awareness were keys to fighting graft.
“We must do campaigns to encourage people to hate the corruption,” he said. “If we are too afraid, we cannot fight corruption.”
In the most recent official rebuke, Cambodia’s ambassador pt Britain Hor Nambora, a son of Foreign Minister Hor Namhong who also has another son who is ambassador to Japan, wrote to Ms.Rodley on Thursday, starting that “I am both surprise and disappointed that you should choose to make such inflammatory comments.”
He acknowledges that the position in Cambodia is Ms. Rodley’s first ambassador. “However,” he added, “I’m sure you will be familiar with the overriding principle to which diplomats of all countries normally adhere…..namely that we seek to maintain neutrality at all costs and refrain to the nation to which we have been appointed envoy.”
Cambodian government have reacted severely to Ms. Rodely’s assertion, made at an anti-corruption concert that Cambodian government loss US$500 millions in public funds every year to corruption.
Two ministries and the Cambodian ambassador to London have now issued statement condemning the ambassador’s speech, while Phnom Penh municipality on Thursday questioned organizers of the Clean Hands anti-corruption concert.
Embassy spokesman John Johnson said yesterday that he still has no comment on the reaction to Ms. Rodley’s speech or the apparent consequence for the Clean Hands organizers.
Most of the concert’s organizers were equally silent on Monday.
Pact Cambodia Country director Paul Mason and People’s Centre for Development and Peace President Yang Kim Eng both declined to comment.
Cambodian Defenders Project Executive Director Sok Sam Oeun said that the government’s response to Ms. Rodley’s speck was unfortunate.
CDP helped organize the Clean Hands concert, but Mr. Sam Oeun was not personally involved.
“I think that the government reacts too fast ….. What she said, it is opinion,” Mr. Sam Oeun said of the ambassador’s comments that put a dollar sum on the amount of money lost to the exchequer and the uses to which such money could have been put, including building schools.
Although he would not comment on whether organization working on anti-corruption issues would be intimidated into silence by the government’s strong response to perceived critics, Mr. Sam Oeun said that education and public awareness were keys to fighting graft.
“We must do campaigns to encourage people to hate the corruption,” he said. “If we are too afraid, we cannot fight corruption.”
In the most recent official rebuke, Cambodia’s ambassador pt Britain Hor Nambora, a son of Foreign Minister Hor Namhong who also has another son who is ambassador to Japan, wrote to Ms.Rodley on Thursday, starting that “I am both surprise and disappointed that you should choose to make such inflammatory comments.”
He acknowledges that the position in Cambodia is Ms. Rodley’s first ambassador. “However,” he added, “I’m sure you will be familiar with the overriding principle to which diplomats of all countries normally adhere…..namely that we seek to maintain neutrality at all costs and refrain to the nation to which we have been appointed envoy.”
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