Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-07-03-Speech-4-171"
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"en.20030703.11.4-171"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it must indeed be recalled that an entire people were traumatised by the terrible years under Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia. Some two million people lost their lives, while an incalculable number were displaced and deported. Even the wearing of spectacles put your life at risk, and higher education meant that you were doomed.
If, today, you travel through this beautiful tropical country, with its impressive stone buildings that testify to the antiquity of its culture, then, wherever you go, you still come face to face with the physical and mental damage done to a tormented people, who, first, were terrorised by the Khmer Rouge, and then put under the yoke by their Vietnamese liberators, finally achieving a small measure of normality under the UN mandate. The reason why I have been able to follow this process is that I have visited the country a number of times and was one of the many who observed the elections in 1998.
I might add that nowhere else in the world are there so many households headed by a woman in comparison to those headed by a man. Even more than the women, it was their sons, husbands and brothers who fell victim to a system that held human life in contempt and in violent conflicts, including American bombs and Vietnamese landmines, which, time and time again, blew people to their deaths or left them gravely wounded – something that they continue to do. What is left is poverty, need, a people torn up by their roots, and – it has to be said – a certain willingness to resort to violence.
The latter is now, of course, being manifested in the run-up to the elections, but I do believe that it has to be made clear – as has been unambiguously stated by, among others, the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia – that the situation is proving to be less hazardous than it once was, and the organisation ‘Asian Network for Free Elections’ notes a marked decrease in violence in comparison to previous elections. As regards these elections, it will be very important that we keep an eye on how things develop before they are held, for it is clear that they will not pass without any friction whatever. Nor, I believe, can we expect them to do so in view of the history on which this country can look back. If, though, we can help to strengthen the forces of democracy in it, and deeply impress upon the population the significance of democratic elections, we will have taken an important step towards creating, in this region, something of an enclave journeying towards democracy, for we have to concede that conditions in neighbouring countries are no better – indeed, they tend to be even worse. I therefore hope that Cambodia will find its way to democracy, a way to be humane and a way to renounce violence, and will be able to lead its neighbours by example."@en1
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