Phnom Penh (FN), March 5 – Manfred Grund, a German Parliamentary secretary, pledged to provide facts about Cambodia to the relevant stakeholders, speaking on Monday at the meeting with Chheang Vun, chairman of the National Assembly's Commission of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation, and Information and Media, during his visit to Cambodia.

Manfred’s visit aims to strengthen the cooperation between the German parliament and the National Assembly of Cambodia. He also pledged to report unbiased information about Cambodia to all the related parties, particularly on the Everything But Arms preferential scheme which unilaterally grants duty-free and quota-free access to the European Union for all products (except arms and ammunition) for the world's Least Developed Countries.

“Focusing on EBA issues, we pledge to provide true information about political and situation of Cambodia to all the relevant parties,” said Manfred Grund.

Chairman Chheang Vun informed Manfred Grund that Cambodia has implemented a multi-party democracy and have regularly held free and fair elections every five years.

He added that Cambodia has experienced a four-decade war that brought Cambodia into poverty. Today, Cambodia has attained a lower middle-income country status nowadays, and enjoyed peace secured by Prime Minister under his national reconciliation win-win policy, five years after the departure of the United Nations Transitional Authority of Cambodia.

According to Cambodian minister of foreign affairs, Cambodian achievements, for instance, from being a recipient-state of PKO forces to a dispatching-state to UN peacekeeping missions, were hardly reflected in the various reports submitted to Human Rights Council.

"Criticisms quite prejudicial of government continue unabated on the basis of partial and biased information, generated from practically the same sources: the political opposition and some local or foreign NGOs driven by their own political agenda," he said.

“Speaking of partiality, it should be noted that those reports so critical of the government have rarely denounced a political opposition’s practices that, for all intent and purposes, are in blatant violation of the values underlying democracy and human rights, such as defamation and serious slander of our leaders, systematic appeals to racial hatred and xenophobia, production of false documents, provocations endangering our relations with a neighboring state, delegitimization of our institutions, repeated calls for the sedition of our armed forces,” according to the Intervention of Cambodian Minister Prak Sokhonn of foreign affairs and international cooperation at the High-Level Segment of the 40th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on 25 February 2019.

Before concluding the meeting, Chheang Vun urged Germany to continue assisting Cambodia in all fields, particularly on training of the next generation youth. He added that the EU should not take “EBA” as a political tool to attack Cambodia.
=FRESH NEWS