Appeals for Serious World Attention on Cambodia

Cambodia is fast on a path to another severe tragedy, threatening regional stability.

SEATTLE, Oct. 18, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Khmer People Network for Cambodia* (KPNC) will host a press conference at The National Press Club, 529 14th Street, NW, Washington, DC, 13th Floor, First Amendment Lounge on Wednesday, October 23, 2013 from 9:15 AM to 11:00 AM. The event will cover critical human rights violations, the dwindling state of democracy in Cambodia and related subjects, and their impacts since the signing of the Paris Peace Agreements (PPA) 22 years ago. The conference will focus on the following:

Human Rights: We look generally into Human rights and basic freedoms violations, and in particular, government treatments of protestors; war crimes and crimes against humanities; ranges of victims and culture of impunity.

State of Democracy: It is to examine the democratic process, starting from voter registration to post election, including the election apparatus, the judicial body, the court system and the king role. Cambodia now faces an ever dangerous post-election political impasse due to fragrantly flawed system and gross mishandling by the electoral authorities.

Land Grabs: We will go over the land rights issues and their impacts on victims and their children.

Human Trafficking: The poor are very vulnerable to trafficking, women and children in particular.

Paris Peace Agreements on Cambodia of October 23, 1991: We will bring back to light this important international instrument. We will see how this legal instrument can be used to help resolve the current impasse, which has caused a lot of concerns around the world. If left unfairly resolved, it may lead Cambodia back on the fast lane to its recent past "Killing Fields."

World Appeals: Given the gravity of the political situation in Cambodia, and on behalf of the Cambodian people inside as well as outside Cambodia, the Khmer People Network for Cambodia*, together with the Cambodia National Rescue Foundation and The Khmer Sleuk Rit, Inc., would like to respectfully ask the world community to help recharge, once again, the forceful implementation of the relevant provisions of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements to halt Cambodia from slipping back into another killing-field.

* A networking organization with 13 member organizations based in US, France and Cambodia.

SOURCE Khmer People Network for Cambodia