PARIS: Exiled Cambodian opposition party leader Sam Rainsy was blocked in Paris on Thursday (Nov 7) and his deputy detained in Malaysia as they tried to fly home despite arrest threats from Cambodia's strongman leader Hun Sen.
Both Rainsy and Mu Sochua had planned to meet with other opposition supporters to mark Cambodia's Independence Day on Saturday.
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"I am extremely shocked because the people need me in Cambodia," Rainsy, arch rival of Prime Minister Hun Sen, told journalists at Charles de Gaulle airport after an agent at the Thai Airways counter turned him away.
Supporters greeted Sam Rainsy in the terminal building, including a handful of Buddhist monks with a banner supporting the return of "Mr Rainsy to the mother country". (AFP/DOMINIQUE FAGET)
He had planned to travel to Thailand and from there to Cambodia to make a dramatic end to his exile in France, where he is also a citizen after his family moved to the country in the 1960s.
But Hun Sen, an authoritarian leader in power since 1985, vowed not to allow Rainsy to return, saying he would be arrested on sight, and has sought support from regional neighbours to thwart the opposition's plans.
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"I will never give up," Rainsy said as he got into a taxi to leave the Paris airport, insisting that he would seek "an alternative flight to be able to leave for Thailand today."
"Hun Sen's days are counted," said the leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). "Democracy will be established as soon as possible; it is our determination, it is our conviction."
Rainsy has lived in France since 2015 to avoid jail in Cambodia on charges he says are politically motivated.
In September, Rainsy and several opposition officials were charged with plotting a coup, which carries a prison term of up to 30 years.
PACT NOT TO 'INTERFERE'
Sochua, the CNRP's deputy leader, was held at Kuala Lumpur airport as she tried to fly home for her leader's return.
Cambodian opposition figure Mu Sochua (right) was held at Kuala Lumpur airport. (AFP/Handout)
READ: Malaysia detains Cambodian opposition leader Mu Sochua
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said she would not be deported to Cambodia but sent to another country, without saying which one.
Sochua had flown in from neighbouring Indonesia, where the Cambodian ambassador stormed a press conference she was giving and attempted to get the event cancelled.
Hun Sen said Sochua was stopped in Malaysia because authorities were upholding a tenet of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations not to "interfere in each other's internal affairs."
Earlier this weekRead More – Source
