The National Assembly on Friday repealed a law related to the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development area – the decades-old economic cooperation agreement that sparked demonstrations, online criticism and widespread arrests in August.
All 109 lawmakers voted to cancel the 1999 agreement, also known as the CLV.
The formality follows an announcement by Senate President Hun Sen in September that Cambodia would no longer participate in the deal, which encouraged development and trade between Cambodia’s four northeastern provinces and neighboring provinces in Laos and Vietnam.
Opposition activists had expressed concerns that it could cause Cambodia to lose territory or control of its natural resources to Vietnam, including through private land concessions.
Cambodians living overseas held protests against the CLV in South Korea, Japan, France, Canada and Australia in August. Planned demonstrations in Cambodia on Aug. 18 were never held after the government deployed security forces across the country and arrested more than 30 people.
Hun Sen wrote on Facebook in September that opposition activists had used the deal as “a political weapon to slander and attack the government by constantly lying to the people.”
The government has evaluated the CLV and has determined that it has reached its goals of improving the lives of people living in the four provinces, the General Secretariat of the National Assembly said in a statement.
The government should cancel all land concessions in the area, said Oum Sam An, a former lawmaker for the former main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party. Additionally, everyone who was arrested in August should be released, he told Radio Free Asia.
“The Parliament has abolished it, and we congratulate it, but this is not enough,” he said.
Leaving the CLV was only motivated by politics – and it shows that protests can have an impact in Cambodia, according to Matt Vanny, a Cambodian activist in South Korea.
“We are proud of the struggle – that we have mobilized as a large force that strongly influences the government and pushes Parliament to make this decision,” he said.
RFA was unable to reach any National Assembly officials for further comment.
Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.