Sec. 2. Findings

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Congress finds the following: On October 23, 1991, Cambodia and 18 other countries signed the Comprehensive Cambodian Peace Agreement (commonly referred to as the Paris Peace Agreements ), which committed Cambodia to a democratic system of governance protected by a constitution and free and fair elections and stated that the people of Cambodia shall enjoy the rights and freedoms embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant international human rights instruments .

Prime Minister Hun Sen has been in power in Cambodia since 1985 and is the longest-serving leader in Southeast Asia. Despite decades of international attention and assistance to promote a pluralistic, multi-party democratic system in Cambodia, the Government of Cambodia continues to be undemocratically dominated by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. In 2015, the Cambodian People’s Party-controlled National Assembly adopted the Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations, which gave the Government of Cambodia sweeping powers to revoke the registration of nongovernmental organizations in the name of national unity , and which the government has used to restrict the legitimate work of civil society.

On August 23, 2017, Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs ordered the closure of the National Democratic Institute office in Cambodia and the expulsion of its foreign staff. On September 15, 2017, Prime Minister Hun Sen called for the withdrawal of all volunteers from the United States Peace Corps, which has operated in Cambodia since 2006 with approximately 500 United States volunteers providing English language and healthcare training. The Government of Cambodia has taken several measures to restrict its media environment, especially through politicized tax investigations against independent media outlets that resulted in the closure of The Cambodia Daily and Radio Free Asia in early September 2017.

Additionally, the Government of Cambodia ordered several radio stations to stop the broadcasting of Radio Free Asia and Voice of America programming. Cambodia’s small number of independent trade unions and workers have the right to strike, but many face retribution for doing so, according to Freedom House. Each of the 6 elections that have taken place in Cambodia since 1991 was conducted in circumstances that were not free and fair, and were marked, to varying degrees, by fraud, intimidation, violence, and the misuse by the Government of Cambodia of legal mechanisms to weaken opposition candidates and parties.

The 2017 local elections were marked by fewer reported irregularities, however, which helped the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (in this section referred to as the CNRP ). Hun Sen responded to those improvements in elections, resulting in part from international assistance and observers, by banning the CNRP, the primary opposition party, which was growing in popularity, on November 16, 2017. On September 3, 2017, Kem Sokha, the President of the CNRP, was arrested on politically motivated charges, including treason and conspiring to overthrow the Government of Cambodia.

He has been tried in a Cambodian court and is facing a 27-year prison sentence. In the most recent general election in July 2018, following the dissolution of the CNRP, the Cambodian People’s Party secured every parliamentary seat, an electoral victory that the White House Press Secretary stated was neither free nor fair and failed to represent the will of the Cambodian people . In the 2022 local elections, the Candlelight Party, founded in 1995 as the Khmer Nation Party and renamed the Sam Rainsy Party in 1997, won 22 percent of seats.

The United Nations Human Rights Office reported pre-election threats, intimidation, and obstruction, including the imprisonment of some candidates. In February 2023, the government charged several Candlelight Party leaders with defamation and writing bad checks, which some analysts view as politically motivated in advance of the 2023 national elections. The widespread crackdown by the Government of Cambodia on the political opposition and other independent voices has caused many CNRP leaders to flee abroad.

Since 2021, Cambodian courts have convicted more than 115 former CNRP politicians and opposition activists, including Sam Rainsy (in absentia) and Cambodian-American lawyer Theary Seng (jailed in Cambodia), of crimes against the state. Other convicted opposition figures living in exile include Rainsy’s wife, Tioulong Saumura, Mu Sochua, Eng Chhay Eang, Men Sothavarin, Ou Chanrith, Ho Vann, Long Ry, and Nuth Romduol. According to Freedom House, Hun Sen uses the police and armed forces as instruments of repression.

The military has stood firmly behind Hun Sen and his crackdown on opposition groups and Hun Sen has built a personal bodyguard unit in the armed forces that he reportedly uses to harass and abuse Cambodian People’s Party opponents. Beginning in December 2021, the Government of Cambodia has restricted the labor rights of workers protesting working conditions and illegal dismissals at the NagaWorld Casino, including using the COVID–19 pandemic as an excuse to limit the ability of workers to protest.

In February 2022, officials of the Government of Cambodia arrested 6 workers of the casino after leaving a COVID–19 testing center, claiming that they had obstructed testing. In 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported that Cambodia had signed a deal with the Government of the People’s Republic of China to allow that Government access to and use of the Ream Naval Base on the Gulf of Thailand, even though the Constitution of Cambodia prohibits the establishment of foreign military bases.

In 2019, the New York Times reported that a company described by the Department of the Treasury as being a state-owned company of the People’s Republic of China had secured a 99-year lease to build an airport capable of supporting military aircraft at Dara Sakor, raising concerns that Beijing intends to use this facility for its military, despite the prohibition against the establishment of foreign military bases set forth in the Constitution of Cambodia. In section 401 of the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018 ( Public Law 115–409 ; 132 Stat. 5407), Congress expressed serious concerns with the rule of law and civil liberties in Cambodia and made the finding that the promotion of human rights and respect for democratic values in the Indo-Pacific region is in the United States national security interest.

The 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices of the Department of State stated, of Cambodia, Corruption was endemic throughout society and government. There were reports police, prosecutors, investigating judges, and presiding judges took bribes from owners of both legal and illegal businesses … Citizens frequently and publicly complained about corruption. Meager salaries contributed to . survival corruption among low-level public servants, while a culture of impunity enabled corruption to flourish among senior officials.

Cambodia currently occupies a Tier 3 ranking on the Department of State’s Annual Trafficking in Persons Report, indicating that Cambodia does not meet the minimum standards for preventing trafficking in persons and is not making significant efforts to do so. Human trafficking is rampant across a number of industries in Cambodia and is often linked to Chinese-organized crime networks. For many years, members of the ruling elite, including personal family members and advisors of the Prime Minister, have been individually linked to businesses implicated in trafficking in persons into Cambodia.

Many of the trafficked persons are forced to work in scamming operations that target United States citizens. Section 7043(b) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2023 (division K of Public Law 117–328 ) restricts assistance to the Government of Cambodia until “the Secretary of State certifies and reports to the Committees on Appropriations that such Government is taking effective steps to— strengthen regional security and stability, particularly regarding territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the enforcement of international sanctions with respect to North Korea; assert its sovereignty against interference by the People’s Republic of China, including by verifiably maintaining the neutrality of Ream Naval Base, other military installations in Cambodia, and dual use facilities such as the runway at the Dara Sakor development project; cease violence, threats, and harassment against civil society and the political opposition in Cambodia, and dismiss any politically motivated criminal charges against critics of the government; and respect the rights, freedoms, and responsibilities enshrined in the Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia as enacted in 1993. .

Section 201(f) of the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018 ( Public Law 115–409 ; 132 Stat. 5392) restricts assistance to Cambodia until the Government of Cambodia takes effective steps to— strengthen regional security and stability, particularly regarding territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the enforcement of international sanctions with respect to North Korea; and respect the rights and responsibilities enshrined in the Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia as enacted in 1993, including through the— restoration of the civil and political rights of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, media, and civil society organizations; restoration of all elected officials to their elected offices; and release of all political prisoners, including journalists, civil society activists, and members of the opposition political party.

On December 9, 2019, the Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act ( 22 U.S.C. 10101 et seq. ) with respect to certain corrupt Cambodian actors and their networks. In February 2020, the European Union, Cambodia’s largest export market, partially suspended trade preferences for Cambodia under its Everything but Arms trade program, in response to Cambodia’s violations of civil and political rights. In 2021, the Joint Vietnamese Friendship building, a facility built by the Government of Vietnam, was relocated off the Ream Naval Base, reportedly to avert conflicts with military personnel of the People’s Republic of China.

On June 8, 2022, in the groundbreaking ceremony for constructing new facilities of the Ream Naval Base, which, according to the Washington Post, would allow the People’s Liberation Army to have exclusive use of the northern portion of the base , the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Cambodia, Wang Wentian, declared that the base would be a monument to the ironclad friendship and cooperation between the two militaries of the People’s Republic of China and Cambodia.

In June 2018, the United States sanctioned Hun Sen’s chief bodyguard, Hing Bun Hieng, for being the leader of an entity involved in serious human rights abuse , according to the Department of the Treasury. In March 2020, a French court issued arrest warrants for Hing Bun Hieng and Huy Piseth, the former deputy chief of Hun Sen’s bodyguard unit, for taking part in a grenade attack against the opposition party in 1997. In 2015, 2 CNRP lawmakers were viciously attacked while they were leaving the National Assembly.

Three men were arrested and put on trial for the attack. All 3 men are members of Hun Sen’s personal bodyguard unit.

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