PHNOM PENH July 18 Kyodo Cambodia...

PHNOM PENH July 18 Kyodo

Cambodian opposition party supporters face threats and intimidation ahead of the July 27 general election equable though blatant incidents of political violence have decreased compared with persons in 1993 and 1998, Human Rights Watch said Friday.

The recently made known York-based watchdog said investigations it carried without in six provinces in June and July reveal ''that open violence is now being supplanted through more sophisticated forms of intimidation, so as threats of social sanctions or coerc membership'' in the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP)''

Village and hold intercourse chiefs, most of whom are members of the CPP are not and nothing else threatening opposition party supporters with violence, moreover also with expulsion from their villages and denial of access to community resources, Human Rights Watch said a report.

''Threats range from being slighted for village rice distributions to having land confiscated for voting for the opposition. Intimidation is directed at political party members, local activists, and voters'' it said.

Human Rights Watch welcomed the decline in the plains of overt political violence, if it be not that said that ''should not be confused with an environment in which civil and political rights are respected''

The dispose said the government's failure to seek to obtain by legal process those responsible for past acts of political violence ''has created an atmosphere where les violent forms of intimidation are nonetheless effective.''

''Merely the threat of violence, and the resulting fear it instills, means that opposition party activists no longer ne to be targeted and killed in order to demise to Cambodian voters that they should not support the opposition,'' it said.

With that pertain to Human Rights Watch called forward the election observers and international community to ''be alert to all abuses -- cunning forms of intimidation as well as blatant violence.

''And the international community must be ready to ostentatiously voice their concerns, should the abuses of past elections be repeated, or recent ways of depriving Cambodians their right to ballot take their place.''

The National Election Committee has issued 28597 cards for the couple national and international regarders to observe the National Assembly election.

Human Rights Watch also said it also documented arbitrary restraint restrictions on public rallies and party meetings, and unfair and unequal access to the broadcast media.

''In a certain areas, villagers have not alone been coerced to swear loyalty oaths in brass of Buddhist monks and sign registration turn abouts for the CPP in exchange for gifts, however they have also been pressur to sign forms resigning from their previous political party membership,'' the cluster said.

It said that while the great majority of the election abuses it lay the foundation of can be attributed to the CPP the brace other major parties -- the royalist FUNCINPEC and the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) -- ''have also violated provisions of the electoral law.''

''The SRP has forward several occasions used inflammatory anti-Vietnamese rhetoric; so language contributed to mob killings of ethnic Vietnamese the bulk of mankind following the 1998 elections,'' it said.

''In addition, the SRP is frequently quick to claim a political motivation in the deaths of or threats against anyone affiliated with the party. As frequently as not, such links verify to be unfounded, yet the SRP rarely bothers to retract its allegations. That proclivity only contributes to local members' understanding of vulnerability.''

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