Phnom Penh (AsiaNews/Agencies) United Nations human rights envoy Yash Ghai said he wants to go back to Cambodia to complete his mandate despite demands by Cambodian Prime minister Hun Sen he be fired.
Mr Hun Sen said that he won't meet Mr Ghai since the UN envoy suggested he ran the country with an iron fist and was driving it into the ground and poverty. He warned Mr Ghai that should he come back he would be ignored by the authorities.
"Mr Ghai has accused me of using an iron fist to violate the independence of the courts. What he said is wrong. He should not give me advice," Hun Sen said.
Cambodia's PM also described the United Nations human rights panel and its special representative as "long-term tourists" and called Professor Ghai "totally deranged", asking UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to fire him as a special envoy.
"Kofi Annan should remove him. He knows nothing [about Cambodia]," Hun Sen said.
Mr Ghai said on Tuesday that "one individual" continued to control all the levers of power in Cambodia despite its gradual recovery from the Khmer Rouge era.
"I have been quite struck by the enormous centralization of power, not in the government but in one individual," he told reporters. "That's not really a precondition under which human rights can flourish".
What is more, "I am appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations under an agreement that was endorsed by the Security Council and, indeed, all the particular factions in Cambodia," Ghai said. "So I have all these obligations to report and therefore I will have to go back."
