The 17th of April was and is a very significant day for our Cambodian people. This year marks 41 years since the beginning of the Killing Fields in Cambodia, which lasted from 1975-1979. It is the day that Cambodian people around the world observe as our national mourning day and in solidarity with those who lost their lives in vain.

The Khmer Rouge regime took power on April 17, 1975 and was deposed by the invasion of the Vietnamese Communist military on January 7, 1979. Immediately after the invasion, the Vietnamese Communist military formed a neo-communist political party, the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (later renamed to Cambodian People’s Party), and handpicked any Cambodian leaders who supported the Vietnamese Communist party for their puppet government. Hun Sen, who was a former local Khmer Rouge commander and a faithful ally of the Vietnamese Communist party, ascended to the highest ranks of Cambodian politics in January 1985. He has been the head of the party for 31 years and is currently serving in his sixth prime ministerial term.

The Khmer Rouge regime, created by Pol Pot and the Cambodian People’s Party and orchestrated by Hun Sen are not significantly different in policies, practices, and political ideologies. Pol Pot and Hun Sen were fed through the same umbilical cord and born and raised from the same incubator, communism. Within three years, eight months, and 20 days under the Khmer Rouge regime, nearly two million people are believed to have died from starvation, disease, extrajudicial execution, torture, and forced labor.

Hun Sen has been holding on to power for more than 31 years. He has no intention of sharing power with anyone except his incompetent family circle. Hun Sen has vowed to rule the country until he is 90 years old. Under his iron-fisted rule, the record of human rights violations in Cambodia includes excessive use of force against innocent people and arrests of protesters; threats, intimidation, bribery, and judicial actions targeting human rights defenders, journalists, trade unionists and factory workers, opposition groups, and politicians; human trafficking; corruption; destruction of the country’s national resources including deforestation and illegal mining; mass violations of land and housing rights; and rigged the national elections.

On April 13, 2016, the US State Department issued a statement: “The most significant human rights problems included a politicized and ineffective judiciary; growing restrictions on freedoms of speech, assembly, and association; and the use of violence and threatened imprisonment to intimidate the opposition. Government officials and members of their families who committed crimes often enjoyed impunity.”

Hun Sen has been continuing to interfere with the court proceedings of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). The ECCC is the UN-backed tribunal, which was established in 2006, purportedly, to bring justice for victims of the Khmer Rouge for the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during 1975 -1979.

When the international team of prosecutors filed a motion requiring Hun Sen to submit the names of individuals suspected to be former Khmer Rouge military commanders, he refused to cooperate. He has been sweating bullets over the possibility of having the skeletons in his closet exposed as the findings would likely lead to an indictment. Hun Sen has warned that “further prosecutions would threaten political stability in the country.” On numerous occasions, Hun Sen has hinted to derail and/or shut down the court. Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch said, “The Cambodian government’s refusal to cooperate in bringing Khmer Rouge leaders before the UN-backed tribunal would be the last straw after years of obstruction, delay, and corruption.”

Hun Manet is Hun Sen’s eldest son. He is the head of Cambodia’s military, police, security forces, and president of the overseas youth organization. Hun Sen is grooming Hun Manet to lead the country with the support of sycophants and entourage, in case he dies before he reaches 90 years old. Earlier this month, Hun Manet and his minions traveled abroad to the United States and Canada to tour major Cambodian communities during the New Year celebrations. The Cambodian Americans in Long Beach, California, were outraged when they learned that some of the committees of the Cambodia Town, Inc., had exercised poor judgment by inviting the son of a former local Khmer Rouge commander, Hun Sen, to partake in the New Year celebration.

For those who had survived the Killing Fields in Cambodia, their daily lives are already haunted by the memories of those events that they have tried to bury in the past. And the news about the son of a former local Khmer Rouge commander visiting their communities has brought back horrible memories from those dark days. They have experienced intense psychological distress, recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the events, including images, rumination thoughts, flashbacks, anxiousness and nervousness. They are easily startled, heart palpitations, feeling sudden hot and cold sensations in their bodies, and difficulty falling and staying asleep. Their nights are like dancing ghosts in their dreams.

Their daily experience has been like watching the snapshots of all the events that happened in their lives, which have appeared before them like pictures in a slow-motion filmstrip. It was as if they were describing something they had seen in a movie—a movie in gruesome, graphic colors that left nothing to the imagination. They remembered exactly what happened to them and know who is responsible for these atrocities. For Cambodian American survivors, this unfortunate news is like a new pang of grief beginning to pierce their hearts all over again.

“Psychologically, they still remember their hardship during the Khmer Rouge regime that killed their siblings and parents, and the current leader is one of those leaders. Therefore, they are against the leaders,” said Dr. Samuel Keo, a clinical psychologist, Long Beach, California.

In an interview with the Khmer Times, Hun Manet offered his statement:“If we, as Khmers, could not unite and work together to promote our country to the world, how could we expect other [nationalities] to help us to do so.”

One wonders if Hun Manet has ever shared the statement he made with his father. It is so preposterous to learn that Hun Manet is touring the US and Canada as a “Peacemaker, to unite Khmer people, and for investment opportunity.” Perhaps Hun Manet had already forgotten that West Point is the United States Military Academy, based in New York, United States. America is a country that is being respected worldwide as a leading nation for democratic society. Hun Manet should not try too hard to look farther than the tip of his nose. In October 26, 2015, two opposition lawmakers were dragged out from their cars and savagely beaten by men connected to Hun Sen’s bodyguard corps in broad daylight in front of the National Assembly and left to die in the middle of the street.

It has been almost a year now and the draconian judicial system had nothing to report on the case. With his superior attitude, Hun Manet was sneaking from one Cambodian American community to the next, hid behind his entourages and barked about “making peace and unite Khmer” overseas. Mr. Astra Mam, Cambodian American and a Killing Fields survivor said, “In fact, he does not come to unite Khmers in the US. He is here to split Khmers, politically. Before the elections he needs to conduct a campaign among overseas Khmers to garner support for him. We who live overseas understand the value and suffering of Cambodians living in the country very well. It’s because of the Hun Sen government that our people live in misery, getting jailed, and losing land.”

While the Cambodian people have been relentlessly setting out to seek the truth about the terrible past and ensure it does not recur, the current government is terribly failing daily in its obligation to serve the people. The mistreatment by the Hun Sen government towards people ranges from outright violence, abuse, and infringement upon fundamental rights, to the denial of due process of law. It is certain that peace and freedom cannot be ensured anywhere as long as fundamental human rights are violated. Likewise, there cannot be peace and stability as long as there is oppression and suppression. We can ask the same question, how can truth be revealed if the Hun Sen government shelves the truth, buries the facts, and grant impunity to those responsible?

There is a sense of urgency and growing desire for change in Cambodia. The change that guides a renewed commitment to resolve conflicts peaceably, employing diplomatic dialogue and non-violence that upholds human rights and human dignity as well as human responsibility and accountability. I believe that those goals can be achieved by increase awareness through education and advocacy on issues of national importance to the Cambodian people. Let us widen our perspective to include the well being of everyone and our future generations in the vision of prosperity and freedom. As freedom loving people, we want to see our country, Cambodia, in peace, stability, freedom, economically prosperity, and able to provide justice for all. We are certain that our freedom can never be complete or our democracy can never be stable unless we confront this heinous pattern of abuse and injustice by executing our constitutional rights at the ballot box in 2017 and 2018.