News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Bob Necci & Carol Hrdlicka, Andi Wolos
(POW-MIA FaxNetwork)

Re: Cambodia Under Siege

Date: July 07, 1997

The following Special Report comes from Ted Samply via Roger 'Bear' Young of The Northwest Veterans Newsletter.

The U.S. Veteran Dispatch - Special Internet Report
AFTER MATH OF SECRETARY ALBRIGHT'S ASIA TOUR:
HANOI-BACKED FORMER KHMER ROUGE LEAD CAMBODIA COUP

On Sunday, July 6, 1997, democracy died in Cambodia. Shortly after sunrise over central Phnom Penh, troops loyal to Hanoi-installed former Khmer Rouge commander Hun Sen opened fire on the home of the elected Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh and government buildings. During attacks that Hun Sen initiated on Saturday, major thoroughfares were blocked by armored vehicles. As explosions and gunfire echoed across the capitol, panicked civilians fled the city while similar attacks were taking place against non-communist bases in at least three other major provinces. As the attacks began, a video tape of Hun Sen dressed in camouflage fatigues, a'la Saddam Hussein, accusing the non-communists of "treachery," repeatedly appeared on national television. The previous day, the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry informed the international press that Hun Sen was in Vietnam for a "holiday."

The attacks began less than one week after Madeline Albright the self-proclaimed, "tell it like it is," U.S. Secretary of State was squired across Vietnam by Ambassador Pete Peterson, laying a symbolic brick in Ho Chi Minh City as the cornerstone for a new $40 million American consulate. Secretary Albright canceled a planned trip to Cambodia for fear of political instability. On the eve of her departure to Asia, the Washington Post published a hard-hitting expose of a classified FBI report on the Easter Sunday massacre in Phnom Penh that has been suppressed by the Clinton Administration.

In the report, FBI investigators who traveled to Phnom Penh pinned the responsibility for the massacre and assassination attempt on democratic anti-corruption leader Sam Rainsy on the personal bodyguard forces of Hun Sen . The incideninvolved grenades pitched into a crowd during a pro-democracy rally in front of the Parliament building resulting in at least 20 deaths - including one of Sam Rainsy's bodyguards - and 150 injuries. Witnesses told United Nations officials that Hun Sen's soldiers urged suspected grenade throwers to "run faster" and sheltered them from pursuing crowds. After the incident, soldiers beat wounded civilians who pleaded for help and fired on taxi drivers who attempted to provide assistance to the severely injured.

The U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, Ken Quinn advised the FBI agents to leave Cambodia before they could complete interviews because of rumors that they were being targeted for assassination. Despite the known abuses by Hun Sen, including his financial backing by major international drug dealers, a senior Clinton Administration official told the Washington Post that the U.S. Government would have enormous difficulties ending its dealings with Hun Sen, "if you want to get something done in Cambodia."

Since 1991, the international community, primarily the United States has spent more than $3 billion in Cambodia for peace-keeping and nation building operations. The royalist FUNCINPEC Party led by Ranariddh and their non-communist allies won a decisive victory in a 1993 national election. However, under the threat of a military coup by Hun Sen and his Hanoi-trained army, the United Nations made an unprecedented gesture of permitting Hun Sen to be the "co-Prime Minister," and did not challenge his former-communist forces from retaining control of the army, the security police, the courts and most provincial governments.

During recent months, tension has built as the country begins preparation for new national elections scheduled for 1998. Under threats and pressure from Hun Sen, the elected Parliament has been reluctant to meet to draw up new election laws that are necessary to begin the electoral campaign process. International human rights organizations have criticized the Cambodian government for assassinations, arrests and intimidation of journalists and pro-democracy advocates. Sam Rainsy, 48, leader of the democratic Khmer Nation Party, and his family received numerous death threats before the Easter Sunday assassination attempt. Former Foreign Minister and chairman of the FUNCINPEC Party Prince Norodom Serivuth was arrested and exiled from Cambodia by Hun Sen, who threatened to "shoot down" any civilian airplane that carried Prince Serivuth back to Phnom Penh.

The coup began amid the short lived euphoria of the demise of Pol Pot, Hun Sen's former supreme Khmer Rouge commander. During the past year, both Ranariddh and Hun Sen have competed for the loyalty of Khmer Rouge soldiers and their families who have surrendered but have not given up their arms. An apparent 1996 accommodation between former-rivals China and Vietnam laid the foundation for Hun Sen and his Party to initiate their courting of the Chinese backed Khmer Rouge forces and to isolate and attack the royalists and non-communists. In China, following the communist accord, an ailing Prince Sihanouk has remained mostly silent about the fratricide in his kingdom.

One reason for the coup may have been the forging of a new alliance between Sam Rainsy, Prince Ranariddh, republican Son Sann's Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party and smaller pro-democracy parties. Knowledge of Hun Sen's Easter massacre has been growing among the country's primarily rural population, strengthening the support for non-communist alliance. The fear of a galvanized electoral opposition and the fear of being held accountable by international jurists, may have played a role in Hanoi advising Hun Sen to strike before the national election campaign had begun.

During recent weeks, as Hun Sen's public statements became more threatening -- including orders to arrest Prime Minister Ranariddh -- and his forces increasing intimidation and gunfights with army and naval forces loyal to Prince Ranariddh, non-communists within the military began stockpiling ammunition and supplies. The coup events began with Hun Sen's forces surrounding and opening fire on a munitions warehouse at a base run by troops loyal to Ranariddh.

On Friday, July 4, with Hun Sen in Vietnam, Ranariddh flew to France to seek help to avoid a civil war. The desperate act was too little, too late. By Saturday, Hun Sen's armored personnel carriers were rumbling through the streets of Phnom Penh. The gruff voice of Hun Sen was heard over the radio and television airwaves in a repeated taped statement labeling Ranariddh a "traitor" who had to be deposed. Mortar, rockets and machine gun fire caused thousands of civilians to flee the city. Hundreds more crowded along ferry boat docks on the banks of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers, desperate for transportation to safety.

As of midday on Sunday, local hospitals began reporting civilian casualties. During the fighting, a stray mortar shell damaged the French Embassy. The U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh urged all Americans to take refuge in a relatively secure hotel on theTonle Sap River, where walls were lined with mattresses to limit any damage caused by shelling.

Upon her arrival in Vietnam. U.S. Secretary Albright told reporters that during the Vietnam War she was uninvolved with its political turmoil. Throughout her visit to Vietnam she advocated that the U.S. and Vietnamese Communist government develop a new relationship, and that Americans view Vietnam in the lingo of the public relations department of the U.S. -Vietnam Trade Council, "as a country and not a war." Tragically, the Vietnamese, Chinese and Cambodian Communists viewed the U.S. Government denial of Hanoi's role in Hun Sen's violent ambition as a license to destroy the very people who believe in American ideals of democracy.

American officials such as Ambassador Peterson and Secretary Albright expect the American people to believe that the Asian communist governments simply have no knowledge of what they did to American prisoners of war that were known to be in their gruesome hands. Or that "internationalist" communist regimes are our misunderstood friends, and are not manipulating the affairs of their neighbors. It is apparent, however, that the life long revolutionary killers are holding fast to Chairman Mao's dictum, "political power comes through the barrel of a gun."