Cambodian opposition critic Lim Kimya refused to be silenced

 

After decades in France, Lim Kimya returned to Cambodia to win a National Assembly seat in 2013.

By Yang Chandara for RFA Khmer

2025.01.09

Lim Kimya at the headquarters of Cambodia National Rescue Party in Phnom Penh, Oct. 23, 2017. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP)

 

The Cambodian opposition politician shot dead in Bangkok on Tuesday was a tireless government critic who refused to be cowed into silence on issues such as corruption and human rights despite the grave dangers that challenges to the powerful can bring.

Lim Kimya, a former member of parliament from the Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP, was shot twice by an assassin on a street near Wat Bowonniwet Vihara temple in Bangkok’s old quarter, less than a kilometer from the Royal Palace, just after arriving in the Thai capital. 

Surveillance footage showed much of the shooting and a suspect was arrested on Wednesday in Cambodia’s Battambang province.

A Cambodian government spokesperson rejected any suggestion that Cambodia could be blamed for a killing in another country.

Lim Kimya, a dual French-Cambodian citizen, won a seat in Cambodia’s National Assembly in a 2013 election that saw the CNRP put in a surprisingly good showing, winning 44% of seats, as the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, lost ground though it still secured 55% of the seats.

The striking result, marred by accusations of irregularities, was the CPP’s poorest performace since 1998. Four years later, the Supreme Court made sure the CNRP would not get a chance to repeat that by banning it just ahead of a 2018 general election.

 

As a member of parliament, Lim Kimya didn’t hesitate to criticize the then prime minister, Cambodia’s veteran strongman Hun Sen, and his family.

At a National Assembly meeting in 2015, Lim Kimya said the Cambodian Red Cross, led since 1998 by Hun Sen’s wife, Bun Rany, only provided humanitarian assistance to CPP loyalists.

“The Cambodian Red Cross is biased in helping people who are affected by disasters,” he said. “If the victims aren’t supporters of the Cambodian People’s Party, they’ll definitely not receive assistance.”

An angry Hun Sen, who was present at the meeting, demanded that Lim Kimya swear that he was telling the truth.

“Do you dare to swear to be struck by lightning?” Hun Sen asked.

But Lim Kimya didn’t appear to be intimidated and brushed off the prime minister’s question.

Return from France

Lim Kimya was born in Battambang province in either 1951 or 1952. According to his Facebook page, he earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the Royal University of Phnom Penh.

As the war in neighboring Vietnam engulfed Cambodia, he moved to France in the early 1970s, finding work with the French Ministry of Economy and Finance and living with his wife, a French citizen, near Paris.

He returned to Cambodia about a year before the 2013 election and was a member of the CNRP’s executive committee.

In 2014, he was one of 10 supporters of top CNRP member Mu Sochua, who were beaten by security forces in a Phnom Penh park known as Freedom Park, a site for protests until the government banned gatherings there.

Lim Kimya was hit in the face and some journalists were also attacked, Radio Free Asia reported at the time.

In the National Assembly, Lim Kimya questioned the government’s handling of natural resources, a sector that critics say has been riddled with corruption for years, and the sensitive issue of territorial integrity.

At a public forum in Kampong Thom province in 2015, he complained that state institutions borrowed money “to build roads, build buildings” but failed to develop the country.

“We live from day to day, without hope,” he said. “The Cambodian People’s Party has been in power since 1979 and … it has not brought our country forward.”

Another CNRP lawmaker, Men Sothavarin, told RFA that Lim Kimya believed in democratic values.

“He does clear work. He helps the people. He goes down to meet the people himself,” he said. “He says what he sees.”

Daily Facebook posts

In 2017, a private conversation between Lim Kimya and former Senate Deputy Secretary-General Hy Yoeun was posted on Facebook in which they discussed the recent death of Sok An, a top CPP lawmaker close to Hun Sen, in an exchange that CPP officials said was insulting.

Both Lim Kimya and Hy Yoeun sent letters of apology to Sok An’s family.

Later that year, after the CNRP was banned, Lim Kimya told Agence France-Presse that he would “never give up politics” and planned to stay in Cambodia, even as many of the party’s top leaders left.

More recently, Lim Kimya posted almost daily on Facebook, often about Hun Sen’s family, many of whom, like his elder son, Prime Minister Hun Manet, hold important government jobs.

His last post was on Jan. 3, when he criticized Hun Sen’s youngest son, Deputy Prime Minister Hun Many, for organizing lavish public events, including a New Year celebration in Phnom Penh in which a big portrait of King Norodom Sihamoni caught fire and burned. The cause was not determined.

Lim Kimya took a bus from Siem Reap province to Bangkok early on Tuesday, along with his wife and uncle.

He was the first Cambodian politician to be shot dead in Thailand but Cambodian critics in self-exile there have been facing increasing danger of attacks and deportation, rights groups say.

Several Cambodian opposition activists say they have been attacked in Thailand because of criticism of their government and in November, six activists were charged with treason shortly after Thai authorities sent them home.

Cambodian government spokesperson Pen Bona dismissed any suggestion that Cambodia could bear blame for Lim Kimya’s death.

“Cambodia has no authority to be responsible for any problem that occurs on the sovereign territory of other countries,” Pen Bona told the Kampuchea Thmey newspaper, which is owned by one of Hun Sen’s daughters.

Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed.