Khmer Times/May Titthara Tuesday, 11 October 2016
A military unit in Battambang province is now turning to the public for help in alerting Prime Minister Hun Sen about their issues with their commander, dropping hundreds of leaflets asking the premier to force their leader to resign because of corruption.
Alleged members of Battalion 52 in Garrison 5 of the army scattered “anonymous” leaflets in Battambang town center on Sunday listing 11 reasons why the soldiers were dissatisfied with Commander Mey Seounghorn, who they say has led them “immorally” and with an overarching plan to use the state budget for his own personal expenses.
Among a host of claims, the group says Mr. Seounghorn raped a woman, took 36,000 riel in food stipends – designated for them by Mr. Hun Sen – from each soldier, and changed positions within the battalion “inappropriately.”
“This commander is immoral and incompetent in managing the forces. Moreover, he blames us and insults us with bad words in front of the soldiers,” the leaflet said.
“A cook who is the wife of a disabled soldier, who sacrifices to cook for the deputy commander, was forcibly raped by this commander and spread this throughout the brigade.”
The leaflet goes on to say that even the battalion’s fuel was kept under strict guard by Mr. Seounghorn, who they claim restricted its use solely to his own personal vehicle.
Their superiors in the battalion are aware of the problems but have chosen to ignore them, take action against those speaking out and cultivate a “conspiracy” to hide the charges, the soldiers say in the leaflet.
“We decided to do this in order for the prime minister to know. If we don’t do this, the prime minister will not know our difficulties and injustices because we have submitted this to the Garrison 5 commander several times, but he did not solve anything and instead hid it,” it reads.
“We request Samdech [Mr. Hun Sen] to help change Mr. Seounghorn from Battalion 52 for us to have strength to work and serve the nation. We do not want to claim anything but a change of this commander,” they wrote.
Mr. Seounghorn could not be reached for comment, but told local media outlets that the claims made in the leaflet were untrue or “old.”
“I deny that there is a problem with these issues. The above stories were not made by my soldiers. These problems may be made by other people,” he said, adding that a Defense Ministry directive explicitly said salaries for soldiers were not to be cut or amended in any way.
This is not the first time leaflets have been spread around Battambang by purported soldiers within the battalion. It happened twice in August – on the 17th and 19th – before it happened again this past weekend.
Claims of corruption within the army are not new. Sok Ren, a soldier serving in Battalion 383 under Division 8 along the Cambodia-Thailand border near Preah Vihear Temple, said that during the last election in 2013, he slipped in a list of complaints about his commander along with his ballot. In his note, he criticized his commander for taking a cut of soldiers’ salaries and forcing land surveyors to give them larger plots of land.
Mr. Ren was detained and punished for the letter, but his commanders eventually returned the money taken from each soldier.