A garment worker holds rocks as police officers stand with rifles in Phnom Penh on January 3, 2014. REUTERS/Samrang Pring
On Friday, Cambodian forces struck out against protesting garment workers in the capital of Phnom Penh, killing at least four people.
The violent measure follows a period of unusual restraint from longtime strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose authority has been tested in the aftermath of a disputed national election this July. (Cambodia’s main opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), contends that Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) won thanks to election fraud.) Thanks to the lack of international interest — most Western states have avoided outright condemnation of the election — and the limited influence of the opposition, led by formerly exiled leader Sam Rainsy, Sen was set to outlast, once again, a popular movement.
This strike has changed that. Starting December 24, tens of thousands of garment workers took to Cambodia’s streets to demand higher wages, breathing new life to the CNRP’s waning protest movement in the process. The result is a motley crowd of anti-government protesters who all want a new ballot — and Sen out. Hence the prime minister’s rising panic, no doubt, and Friday’s misstep.
After months of offering cosmetic reforms to the opposition — including a proposed (and rebuffed) per-month increase in the minimum wage equivalent to US$20 — hints of a change in the government’s strategy, and a return to Sen’s habitual bellicosity, were apparent Thursday when security forces cracked down on a small protest, reportedly detaining several demonstrators and injuring at least one monk present. Sen warned that strikers would be forced to return to work Friday, setting the stage for this violent confrontation.
The crackdown is good news (so to speak) for Rainsy, who has been cultivating his party’s pacifist image all summer, preparing his troops for the government’s use of force — and the inevitable PR gains of countering aggression with nonviolent tactics. But will it prove enough to pique attention outside of Cambodia? Perhaps. The global garment industry came under heavy scrutiny in 2013, following a series of deadly accidents in Bangladesh, prompting some major retailers to move their factories elsewhere. (In some cases to Cambodia, whose textile industry saw a 22% increase in revenue in the first 11 months of 2013.) But so far, Western brands have shown little of the concern that followed the Bangladesh incidents for Cambodia’s garment workers. Even the International Labor Organization has shied away from backing the striking workers’ demand for better wages.
While Rainsy’s camp has momentum and public backing, Sen’s forces still exercise enormous control over Cambodia’s military, judiciary, and state media. What’s more, the garment workers reinvigorating the opposition movement — many of whom have few other career options — can’t hold out indefinitely. Making this a waiting game in which, after over three decades in power, Sen looks to have the upper hand.
