With this year’s fourth-ever Cambodian New Year Parade just four days away, the Press-Telegram’s Greg Mellen notes that Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An–invited to the parade in December, by a delegation of Long Beach notables which included former councilman Evan Anderson Braude–will not attend.

This is welcome news to protestors in the Cambodian community, whose petition against Sok An had swelled to more than 1,000 signatures in just about four months since the controversy broke.

Back in December, Anthony Ly–publisher of the local Angkor Borei News–called Sok An “the most corrupt man in [Prime Minister] Hun Sen’s government.”

That government, Mellen writes today, “has been linked to a variety of human rights abuses.”

Speculation still swirls that Sok An may visit Southern California, but according to Peter Long, president of the Cambodian Coordinating Council which organizes the parade, the government official will not actually be in the parade.

And in other Cambodian emigre news, the P-T’s Wendy Thomas Russell writes that Long Beach businessman Yasith Chhun will go on trial today in U.S. District Court, on charges of allegedly spearheading a coup–a failed coup–against Hun Sen’s government.

Chhun was arrested in 2005–roughly five years after the alleged coup attempt–and, Thomas Russell writes, is “charged with conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, conspiracy to damage or destroy property in a foreign country, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States and engaging in a military expedition against a nation with which the United States is at peace.”

“According to an indictment,” Thomas Russell explains, “Chhun’s anti-communist rebel group, the Cambodian Freedom Fighters, attempted to overthrow Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government in November 2000 by launching an attack on several government buildings. The coup failed almost immediately, but at least three people were killed - all of them rebels - and others were injured.”

Tags: Angkor Borei News, Anthony Ly, California, Cambodian Coordinating Council, Cambodian Freedom Fighters, Cambodian New Year Parade, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, Evan Anderson Braude, Greg Mellen, Long Beach, Peter Long, Southern California, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas, U.S. District Court, Wendy Thomas Russell, Yasith Chhun