Phnom Penh: Prime Minister Hun Sen has responded to a Facebook comment by saying that “in order to catch the traitors, we had to go to the place where the traitors are.” The response came after a man wrote a comment mentioning the Prime Minister meeting with opposition officials via Zoom a few days ago. The Prime Minister added that by attending the meeting of the opposition group a few days ago, he wanted to tell his “people are everywhere, so do not act against the national interest”. He also called on the opposition to stop believing that the CNRP would be reborn, that he would pardon them or that he was afraid of international pressure, because “Cambodia's democratic process is still moving forward without them”.

He wrote: “I have done a lot in the matter of national unification, but the traitors do not understand national unification. Now there is no political issue to be resolved through negotiations. All that is to be done is for them to serve two thirds of their sentences before thinking about pardons or commutations of sentence. For the political process, we have been moving towards the 2022 commune elections and the 2023 national elections, with the participation of many political parties, both old and newly formed.”

A video leaked and posted on Facebook shows the Prime Minister entering an online meeting of overseas opposition leaders chaired by Long Ry. He also told the meeting that he knew everything about their plan and people. The Prime Minister also told them to stop insulting and creating fake news about the government if they want to get back to Cambodia.

In response, Long Ry has defended his group saying that their leaders had never insulted or made any political propaganda against the government. Instead, he blamed his subordinates and other members for what the Prime Minister called the weakness of leaders in managing their people.