The opposition National Rescue Party marked the 21st anniversary of the Paris Peace Agreements yesterday at the Sam Rainsy Party headquarters in Meanchey district in northwest Cambodia.
The ceremony was attended by lawmakers from the Human Rights and Sam Rainsy Party, the two parties behind the new National Rescue Party, as well as Sam Rainsy himself, who spoke by phone from Canada. Lu Lay Sreng, a former deputy prime minister from Funcinpec, also joined the ceremony.
Kong Korm, the Sam Rainsy Party acting president, urged the government to let Sam Rainsy return from exile abroad to take part in next year's elections.
A government official, however, accused the opposition party of exploiting last week's death of King Father Norodom Sihanouk for political purposes.
"National unification doesn't mean transforming the country into a place full of impunity," said the official, who noted that Sam Rainsy had been sentenced to 10 years for forgery and uprooting markers along the border with Vietnam.
"Sam Rainsy has committed an offence, so he has to be punished," he added. The official, who asked not to be named, said that using the former king's death for political reasons was an insult to Cambodian citizens.
The Cambodian government this week redesignated October 23 as a public holiday to commemorate the Paris Peace Agreements.
The agreements offered a comprehensive political settlement of the “tragic conflict and continuing bloodshed in Cambodia”. The country went through over 20 years of violence during the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime that killed 1.7 million people.
The agreements were signed in 1991 by the late King Father Norodom Sihanouk, Prime Minister Hun Sen and other Cambodians with the support of France and Indonesia along with the then five Asean members, along with Australia, Britain, Canada, China, India, Japan, Russia, the United States, Vietnam and Yugoslavia.
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