Human Rights Watch condemned US support for Cambodian military units participating in peacekeeping exercises next week in Cambodia, accusing those units of committing human rights abuses, according to dpa. The human rights group said in a statement released Thursday in New York that material and money provided to Cambodian brigades taking part in the multinational exercise was unacceptable given those units' documented history of rights violations. "For the Pentagon and State Department to permit abusive Cambodian military units to host a high-profile regional peacekeeping exercise is outrageous," said Phil Robertson, the rights group's deputy Asia director. "The US undermines its protests against the Cambodian government for rampant rights abuses like forced evictions when it showers international attention and funds on military units involved in grabbing land and other human rights violations," he said. The peacekeeping exercise, which was scheduled to begin Monday, involves more than 1,000 troops from 23 Asia-Pacific nations as well as US soldiers. It is part of the 2010 Global Peace Operations Initiative, a US-run effort to help train peacekeepers. US embassy spokesman John Johnson said the US has provided military assistance and training for peacekeeping operations to the Cambodian military since 2006. "The fact that a country that was recently a beneficiary of peacekeeping troops is now providing them to areas of conflict is a testament to the efforts of both countries," Johnson said, adding that US law required Washington to vet all participants in the exercise. Human Rights Watch singled out for criticism a two-week field training exercise at the provincial headquarters of a tank unit that has been implicated in land grabs and evictions. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen announced this year a sponsorship programme that saw more than 40 businesses sign up to support military units. Critics said the programme formalized existing arrangements whereby well-connected companies use military personnel to guard corporate assets, such as plantations. The right group said the US should desist from training corrupt military units just to bolster international peacekeeping operations. "Instead, military units that are called to deploy abroad as international peacekeepers must be true professionals, not only in technical expertise, but in their respect for human rights," Robertson said.
