By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
AUSTRALIA is the most “hated Western country” in Cambodia due to its “dirty refugee plan”, says a south-east state MP.
Clarinda MP Hong Lim, in comments sent to the Phnom Penh Post, said he was “ashamed” of Cambodia and Australia over the muiti-million dollar memorandum of understanding with Cambodia to resettle refugees who have agreed to leave Nauru detention centre.
He labelled the deal a “$40 million bribe” of Hun Sen’s “most brutal, corrupt and inept government in Asia”.
“This immoral deal imposed on Cambodia is most condescending, patronising and racist, to say the least,” he wrote to the Post.
Under the arrangement the Australian Government has agreed to pay Cambodia to provide housing, education and employment for any refugees who are willing to settle in Cambodia.
“This dirty deal is only possible because the Australian Government knows that no other Asian countries, with any thread of dignity and decency, would accept such an insulting proposition,” he told the Post.
“Australia is now the most hated Western country in Cambodia and is the only Western nation that have had two demonstrations held against it in front of its embassy in Phnom Penh due to this dirty refugee deal.”
Mr Lim told the Journal that impoverished Cambodians were enraged by the special treatment afforded the returned refugees.
Cambodia had no history of settling refugees and was wracked by “grinding poverty” and daily human rights violations, he said.
“There will be riots.”
The deal has also been condemned by Cambodian Association of Victoria led by Greater Dandenong councillor Youhorn Chea.
Cr Heang Tak, on behalf of the association, told a 27 April council meeting it was an “inhumane” agreement punishing people fleeing to Australia “not for economic reasons but to escape persecution”.
Cr Tak said refugees being sent to Cambodia would be heading to “a country with no better human rights record” than their homelands.
Senator Mitch Fifield said under the MOU Australia would use its “expertise and experience” to help strengthen settlement support to refugees in Cambodia.
“Australia will bear the direct costs of the arrangement, including initial support to refugees, and relevant capacity building for Cambodia to ensure it has the appropriate resources to receive and integrate the refugees successfully.
“Both governments are working closely to ensure the smooth and successful implementation of this arrangement in co-operation with UNHCR.”
Sen Fifield said the first group of refugees volunteering for resettlement were set to depart for Cambodia in the “near future”.
