A former Cambodian opposition party official who fled to Thailand several years ago has arrived in the United States days after Senate President Hun Sen ordered authorities to work with Thai officials to bring him back to Phnom Penh.
Phorn Phanna told Radio Free Asia on Friday that he flew with his wife and their two children to North Carolina last week.
“I will find new means to reveal the government and Hun Sen’s family’s bad deeds so they can return to walk along the democratic path,” he said.
In September, Hun Sen said he wanted Phorn Phanna brought to Cambodia “dead or alive.”
“The working group in Thailand must work with Thai police to eliminate the group of people who are living in Thailand, one is Phorn Phanna,” he said in an audio clip posted to Facebook.
“He must be brought to Cambodia. We can’t let him be free. He is staging something to incite a movement,” Hun Sen said. “Our forces must bring him here at any cost – dead or alive.”
Six months in Thai detention
Dozens of pro-democracy Cambodian activists have fled to Thailand to seek asylum in recent years as the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, has used intimidation and the courts to neutralize the political opposition.
In February, Prime Minister Hun Manet met with then-Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin in Bangkok to discuss a crackdown on what they called “interference” in Cambodian politics by Thai-based Cambodian political activists.
“I’ve assured Prime Minister Hun Manet that it’s Thailand’s policy to not allow anyone to use Thailand as a platform to interfere in internal affairs or conduct harmful activities against our neighboring countries,” Srettha told reporters at a news conference after the meeting.
A week before Hun Manet’s arrival, Thai police arrested Phorn Phanna and two other activists, as well as their family members.
“I am afraid that I will be deported back to Cambodia,” he told RFA from jail at the time. “The CPP were behind this arrest because the police are asking for details about other activists.”
He was held in Thai immigration for six months.
Hun Sen’s audio clip was posted a few weeks after he was released on bail and was likely prompted by online comments he made about the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development area – a decades-old economic cooperation agreement that sparked demonstrations and widespread arrests in August.
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After that, Phorn Phanna said he moved from place to place with the help of an undisclosed humanitarian organization.
“I was living from one hotel to another only a few days at a time,” he told RFA on Friday. “I felt I was living in Pol Pot’s regime, where I was being hunted by people who wanted to murder me.”
In June, Hun Sen encouraged CPP supporters to “smash” and “destroy” opposition political activists in audio comments that were purportedly recorded at a party meeting and circulated on Cambodian social media.
“You must smash this force to a point that they no longer disturb us, let’s make it clear,” he said.
Hun Sen stepped down as prime minister last year, a position he held since 1985, allowing his son, Hun Manet, to take over. But he retains power as the president of the Senate and head of the CPP.
The run-up to the 2023 parliamentary elections saw a months-long campaign of intimidation and threats against opposition leaders and activists. Some activists were persuaded to publicly switch their allegiance to the CPP.
Phorn Phanna was an official with the Candlelight Party – Cambodia’s main opposition party in 2023. Two months before last year’s election, the National Election Committee ruled that the party was ineligible for the general election ballot.
Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.