Sihanouk Wants Khmer Rouge Put on Trial : Cambodia: Interim president also announces formation of a new political coalition and predicts it will win in popular election.

In his first speech inside Cambodia in two decades, Prince Norodom Sihanouk told a throng in front of the royal palace Saturday that his former enemies in the Phnom Penh government had done a good job and his former allies in the Khmer Rouge should be tried as war criminals.

At his first news conference since returning to the country Thursday, a jovial Sihanouk announced the formation of a political coalition between the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and the Sihanouk political party, which is headed by his son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

Sihanouk, who is the president of a four-party coalition government and who has pledged to remain neutral, nevertheless predicted that the alliance between Phnom Penh and Ranariddh would win the popular election expected in about two years.

“It is sure. It is inevitable. I remain neutral, but I bet,” the 69-year-old Sihanouk said. “I am not unhappy.”

The formation of the political alliance follows an amazing transformation in Sihanouk’s relations with the Phnom Penh regime headed by Premier Hun Sen, whom Sihanouk dubbed his “second son.”

Until this fall, Sihanouk headed a three-group guerrilla coalition that since 1979 has sought to oust the Phnom Penh regime because it was installed after a Vietnamese invasion. But on his return Thursday, Sihanouk drove through the streets of Phnom Penh with Hun Sen at his side.

Sihanouk said the recently renamed People’s Party, which had been the ruling Communist Party, had “achieved many positive and beneficial things for Cambodia.”

Among them, he listed the recognition by the state of Buddhism as an official religion, the government’s efforts to care for the people by distributing land, the liberalization of the economy and the acceptance of a multi-party system and liberal democracy.

Under a peace agreement signed in Paris last month, the United Nations will supervise a cease-fire, help administer the country and conduct free elections for a national assembly.

In the interim, the country will be officially governed by a four-party Supreme National Council, which will include Hun Sen’s regime, Ranariddh’s party, the Khmer Rouge and a non-Communist faction headed by former Prime Minister Son Sann.

While Sihanouk said he had entered into a marriage of convenience with the Khmer Rouge against the Phnom Penh regime, he told the crowd of 25,000 people in front of his palace Saturday that the past is “unforgettable” and that he is “100% in support” of calls for a war crimes tribunal to try the leadership of the Khmer Rouge.

He drew a laugh from the crowd when he said he had become skinny during the Khmer Rouge’s rule of Cambodia, when he was kept a virtual prisoner in his palace. The joke was a form of black humor, since the pudgy prince lived far better than most of those who survived the Khmer Rouge experience, many of whom even today are skeletal in their appearance.

More than 1 million Cambodians died during the Khmer Rouge rule from 1975 to early 1979 from executions, torture and starvation.

Sihanouk brought a hush to the crowd when he described how five of his children and 14 of his grandchildren had been murdered by the Khmer Rouge, who beat them against trees on the grounds of the palace.

“It’s unforgettable,” he said. “This disease remains hidden in my body.”

Sihanouk said a decision on a war crimes tribunal would be left to the government to be formed after elections. He said the elections would be a form of trial for the Khmer Rouge, since if the guerrillas are popular, they will receive a large share of the vote.

The prince wore a beige safari suit in his appearance beneath the huge Khmer arch in front of the palace. After a one-hour improvised speech, he went into the crowd and walked a short distance to a pavilion constructed for his use along the banks of the Mekong River.

Sihanouk also announced that he would run for election as a figurehead president of the country. Showing a puckish sense of humor, he even offered to return to the throne he abdicated in the 1950s if a consensus could be reached in the new government.

Sihanouk was monarch and later head of state before being ousted in a 1970 coup. He returned in 1975 after the Khmer Rouge took power and was briefly a figurehead for the radical regime. But he was placed under house arrest, leaving Phnom Penh just before the Vietnamese army captured the capital in January, 1979.