Seizing Cambodia Would be Suicide, Khmer Rouge Says
The Khmer Rouge, once rulers of Cambodia and now the main strength of the three-party guerrilla coalition fighting the Vietnamese-backed government, said Saturday that any attempt to seize power alone would be tantamount to suicide.
Khmer Rouge chief Khieu Samphan told a private Bangkok conference that a return to power by the Khmer Rouge would divide Cambodia, deprive it of international support and leave it vulnerable to Vietnamese control.
A bid to seize power alone from the Phnom Penh government “would be tantamount to committing suicide,” Samphan told the gathering of exiles and foreigners opposed to the presence of an estimated 180,000 Vietnamese troops in Cambodia.
The Khmer Rouge, which caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people by execution, starvation or overwork from 1975 to 1979, is allied with two weak non-communist groups in a coalition headed by Prince Norodom Sihanouk.
Sihanouk has accused the Khmer Rouge of human rights abuses against civilians and killings of his followers.
Samphan did not comment on these charges.
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