By Lindsay Murdoch
Phnom Penh: Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen has threatened protesters who burn an effigy of him when he visits Sydney in March, saying he will beat them up.
“I am determined. If they burn an effigy of me I will pursue them to their homes and beat them-up,” Hun Sen, a former commander of the murderous Khmer Rouge, said during a speech to garment workers.
“I tell you in advance. I want to make clear. If they have a right to burn me I have the right to go to their homes and seize them,” he said.
Hun Sen making the threat in a speech on Wednesday to garment workers which has been broadcast across Cambodia.
Video of the speech shows Hun Sen pointing angrily and looking agitated.
Hun Sen, one of the world’s most notorious autocrats, is scheduled to fly to Sydney in mid-March to attend the first summit hosted by Australia for leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Hun Sen also threatened to boycott the summit or veto any joint statements if he is pressured over the visit. “If there is no Hun Sen there will be no ASEAN,” Hun Sen said.
“I’ll just give the reason I am busy with the election,” he said, referring to the July ballot,
Australian diplomats hope the summit will be a diplomatic triumph in Canberra’s sometimes fraught relations with Australia’s neighbours.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will host the leaders at several functions.
A massive security clampdown of Sydney has been planned to protect the leaders.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in February. Credit: AP
But Hun Sen’s comments are sure to stoke anger and division among Cambodians in Australia.
Demonstrations have already been planned against Hun Sen during his visit over a sweeping crackdown he has overseen against opposition figures, independent media organisations and non-government-organisations.
The opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) has been dissolved and 118 of its members banned from politics for five years.
Its leaders are in jail, have fled the country or are in hiding.
Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen Credit: AP
In many speeches Hun Sen has justified the crackdown because of what he claims is a US-backed conspiracy to topple his regime.
But diplomats and analysts say the claim is a cover for him to silence his political opponents and dissent ahead of mid-year elections.
The Cambodian Australian Federation said it is planning to send a contingent of at least 500 people to Sydney to protest.
Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia with an iron-fist for three decades, said in the speech he has been invited to Australia as a guest of the government.
“Those (who will) demonstrate and shout are only a few. Let them do it. Let them shout. But I warn them not to burn my effigy,” he said.
Human Rights Watch said the comments show that Hun Sen should never have been invited to Australia.
Elaine Pearson, the organisation's Australian director, called on Malcolm Turnbull "to draw a line in the sand and make it crystal clear that Hun Sen has no business threatening protesters on Australian soil and that the government does not tolerate harassing or intimidating protesters."
Pearson said Hun Sen will portray has visit to Sydney as showing support for his campaign of repression at home.
"It’s not clear what Australia gets out of it besides headaches and the possibility of further reprisals. It’s time for Turnbull to urge Hun Sen to retract those remarks or uninvite him to the ASEAN summit," she said.
The Turnbull government has developed close ties to Hun Sen’s regime since 2014 when Canberra negotiated a controversial $55 million agreement to send refugees from Nauru to Cambodia.
Only a handful agreed to make the journey.
The agreement was widely condemned, including from the UN refugee agency UNHCR, opposition politicians in Cambodia, refugee advocates and human rights groups.
The $55 million was on top of more than $80 million a year that Australia sends to Cambodia, one of the world’s most corrupt countries.
Other countries, including the US and Germany, are considering sanctions against Hun Sen’s regime over what his critics say is a descent into “outright dictatorship” as the strongman has moved into China’s orbit
In long rambling speeches in the past Hun Sen, who defected from the Khmer Rouge to Vietnam in the 1970s and was installed as Cambodia’s prime minister by Hanoi, has often threatened violence against his political opponents.
He said recently that if he had known earlier about the supposed plot against him the plotters would be “dead already.”
Hun Sen, 66, commands a personal bodyguard unit of more than 8000 crack soldiers.
Australia has spruiked the Sydney summit as marking a “new era” in Australia’s partnership with ASEAN, building on a “deep legacy” of economic cooperation and political dialogue.