[January 02, 2014]PHNOM PENH (Reuters) — Cambodian
troops armed with batons and rifles broke up a protest on Thursday by
textile workers demanding a doubling of wages as part of a nation-wide
strike by unions allied with the main opposition party.
Witnesses said around 100 soldiers wearing riot gear and carrying
assault rifles used force to clear hundreds of workers protesting
outside their factory about 20 km (12 miles) west of the capital,
Phnom Penh.
"Soldiers beat up everyone," said labor rights activist Chhorn Sokha
of the Community Legal Education Center. "They had sticks, electric
batons, slingshots and stones."
At least 10 protesters were detained and it was not known yet how
many were hurt, she added.
Photographers, including one from Reuters, were hit by batons while
covering the protest. Two witnesses said they also saw troops
striking a Buddhist monk.
The clashes mark a violent turn after two weeks of relatively
peaceful strikes, marches and demonstrations of unprecedented scale
in Cambodia. Security forces, which have a reputation for
zero-tolerance, have so far exercised restraint.
The garment workers, whose industry is a major employer worth $5
billion a year to the economy, have joined protests led by the
opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which says it was
cheated out of more than 2 million votes in an election last July.
The CNRP has courted some 350,000 garment factory workers with the
promise of a minimum monthly wage equivalent to $160, a proposal
dismissed by the government as unsustainable.
Their support for
the CNRP represents one of the biggest challenges to the 28-year
rule of authoritarian Prime Minister Hun Sen.
He has been credited with steering Cambodia away from being a
war-scarred failed state to a promising frontier market, but
opponents say his power comes not from the people, but from the sway
he has over independent institutions and allege he rigged the
election, which he denies.
The strike has blocked roads briefly in Phnom Penh and threatened to
cripple an industry that is the biggest foreign currency earner for
Cambodia, one of Asia's poorest states. The government offered on
December 24 to raise the minimum wage from $80 to $95, but the
unions have rejected that.
Gap Adidas, Nike and Puma are among big brands that outsource
manufacturing of footwear and apparel to Cambodian factories, in
part due to the cheaper labor costs than China.
(Reporting by Prak Chan Thul; editing by Martin Petty and Ron Popeski)
