Mok Chito attends the trial of Ran Boroth at the Koh Kong Provincial Court last month, October 2012. Boroth was found guilty of killing the military police officer who gunned down conservationist Chut Wutty, but was later released after serving six months, with the remaining 18 months of his sentence suspended. Photograph: Heng Chivoan/Phnom Penh Post

Dear editor,

My objective is to propose that the Phnom Penh Post itself shed more light on the article headlined “A history of violence”, written by David Boyle and May Titthara and published in your November 14 issue.

With the greatest respect to the editors-in-chief of the Post newspapers, I am extremely shocked by the publication of the above-mentioned article.

I strongly believe you would have the same feeling of fury if your name appeared in a newspaper in such a way.

I really don’t understand what the intention of this article was. Was it an expression of hatred against me, or to distort and defame my reputation to serve the interests of a political party or an individual?

Having carefully read the Post’s article and, in particular, the 72-page report written by Brad Adams and his colleagues,  I place a very low value on them, for a number of reasons:

1. The writers and authors [of the Human Rights Watch report] are clearly not aware of some state organisations and their acronyms, and have foolishly turned them into so-called crime-related organisations.

For the record, S-21 was the acronym for the Department of Anti-Terrorism, S-22 was the acronym of the Department of Intelligence, S-23 was the acronym for the Department of Foreigners Control (since re-named the Department of Immigration) and A3 was the armed investigator force (also called A386, because this task force was formed in March, 1986). A3’s purpose was to investigate, and oppose, armed rivals and the soldiers of Democratic Cambodia (the Khmer Rouge).  

2. Moreover, Brad Adams writes in his report that “I Mok Chito worked under the orders of His Excellency Sok Phal”, but in fact I have not done so even once since January 7, 1979, the day of liberation from the genocidal regime.

What’s more, I want to inform the editors-in-chief that there have been a number of stories in which Brad Adams and his co-workers have linked me with other high-profile people in connection with various offences, with a serious impact on my reputation.

As a consequence, what they have done stands in contradiction to what they are proud of: being the ones who respect and protect human rights.

At the same time, I want to unleash strong criticism of The Phnom Penh Post, which published such a cheap, unreal, distorted, immoral, unethical and idiotic article in which the Post’s knowledgeable and scholarly human resources were, unbelievably, lobbied by the anger and insults of an international organisation that is known to be a promoter of human rights.

The result is a serious violation of the individual rights contained in the law of the Kingdom of Cambodia.

The most striking point is that these people wrote the article with rumour and baseless evidence as their only sources.

My perception is that this attempt by Brad Adams and his co-workers to distort and defame my reputation, and the reputations of other high-ranking people, is a trick to obstruct the victorious progress of the Kingdom of Cambodia during its term as ASEAN chair and during the upcoming 21st ASEAN Summit, and especially to obstruct the path to success of the government led by Premier Hun Sen.

I should lodge a complaint about the stupid and distorted writing and publication of these cheap, tricky people.

But I feel sympathy for such people, who live in the darkness and complete unconsciousness of stupidity and who lack even the values of human conscience.

Finally, I want to pray for the God to give me justice and to reveal and punish the bad people and keep them in the darkness of life with no beam of light, faced with failure for their entire lives and living without happiness and tranquillity.

All these words come from the bottom of my heart, although they may not be as attractive as those of the authors.

I also insist that the editors-in-chief publish this entire letter in the interests of raising the awareness of these unwise people, as well as national and international public opinion, so they can judge the real situation of our whole society at the present time.

Thank you for publishing this letter.

General Mok Chito

Chief of the Interior Ministry’s Criminal Department Phnom Penh