The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) will celebrate the 44th anniversary of the January 7 Victory over Genocide Day with tens of thousands of participants, under the presidency of Prime Minister Hun Sen.
CPP spokesman Sok Eysan said the occasion commemorates the end of the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror.
“This year, we will hold the event on Koh Pich rather than at the CPP headquarters. The venue is ideal, as we have invited 50,000 to 60,000 people to participate. Every year, there are grateful members of the public who join us uninvited – sometimes we have welcomed almost 100,000 to the event,” he told The Post on January 3.
He said the main purpose of the anniversary is to ensure that the public never forget the day the nation was liberated from the genocidal regime and had its freedoms returned.
“It was only thanks to January 7 that we had the Paris Peace Agreements of 1991, which led to the UNTAC-administered elections of 1993,” he said in reference to the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia.
“Without the January 7 victory, we would not have been able to launch the win-win policy and find comprehensive peace and national unity for the nation,” he added.
Eysan explained that the Standing Committee and all members of the Central Committee of the ruling party will be present at the event. Hun Sen will deliver an address which describes the true meaning of the day.
“The CPP-led government has recorded many accomplishments in the 24 years since my win-win policy ended the war in Cambodia and brought the Kingdom under the umbrella of peace,” Hun Sen said in a January 3 social media post.
Yang Peou, secretary-general of the Royal Academy of Cambodia, said the CPP, after overthrowing the Pol Pot regime, still maintained strong political capital, from the national to the grassroots levels.
“Following the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge, and the Paris Peace Agreements, the first elections were held in 1993. The CPP found comprehensive peace in December 1998, finally securing a democratic constitutional monarchy for the Kingdom,” he said.
He opined that the party’s work is not done, with equitable development required to match the Kingdom’s economic development.
The Phnom Penh Municipal Administration has announced that parts of Samdech Sothearos Blvd, Sisowath Quay, Preah Suramarit Blvd, Preah Sihanouk Blvd and other roads around the venue will be closed to traffic on January 7.
