Petitioners say “Not the Cambodian deputy prime minister!”

The 2008 Cambodian New Year Parade isn’t until some time in April–so far off that folks in the Mayor’s office say they haven’t even set a date. But already tensions are mounting over plans by Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister Sok An to attend the parade.

According to Greg Mellen in this morning’s Press-Telegram, some people in Long Beach’s Cambodian community oppose the current Cambodian government for its human rights violations, corruption and other “misdeeds.”

They’ve launched a petition to protest Sok An’s appearance–copies of which will be printed in the Jan. 31 edition of the Angkor Borei News, its editor Anthony Ly told Mellen.

Ly also said the petition has more than 20 signatures to date–and he called Sok An “the most corrupt man in [Prime Minister] Hun Sen’s government.”

So now the question becomes: who invited him?

Former councilman Evan Anderson Braude was part of a Long Beach delegation which visited Phnom Penh, the country’s capital, earlier this month–and extended what Braude characterized to Mellen as “a general invitation to anyone who wanted to attend.”

“There was no specific invitation to a specific person,” Braude is quoted as saying. But Sok An accepted.

And if the Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister decides he wants to actually be in the parade, Mellen reports that he’ll be “provided with a car to ride in, and banners identifying him.”

No matter where you stand on the issue, it should make the three months leading up to the parade exceedingly interesting.

Tags: 2008 Cambodian New Year Parade, California, cambodia, corruption, Deputy Prime Minister, Evan Anderson Braude, Greg Mellen, human rights violations, Hun Sen, Long Beach, Phnom Penh, press telegram, Prime Minister, Sok An, Southern California, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas