Cambodian Ruler, King Seek to End Turmoil

Trying to quell international criticism and domestic panic, Cambodia’s de facto leader, Second Prime Minister Hun Sen, on Sunday promised free and fair elections and urged human rights organizations and the media to continue their work.

Meanwhile, King Norodom Sihanouk, in an extraordinary statement from Beijing, said he would not oppose a move to replace his son, ousted First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh, with another member of the royalist FUNCINPEC party.

Sihanouk is seen as the only Cambodian political figure who could pose a real threat to Hun Sen’s rule now that Ranariddh’s political and military forces have been all but defeated. By effectively siding with Hun Sen against his son, Sihanouk is allowing Hun Sen to legitimize his government, apparently in hopes of defusing Cambodia’s bloody political crisis.

Since his takeover of the country began July 5, Hun Sen has been maneuvering to have the National Assembly convene to replace Ranariddh with an opposition figure more to Hun Sen’s liking, a move that could take place as early as this week.

Such an outcome would certainly be denounced by human rights and democracy advocates but could come as a relief to an international community that has condemned the violence surrounding Hun Sen’s takeover but shown no inclination to intervene.

Developments over the weekend indicated that at least two of Cambodia’s key financial supporters may be willing to live with a Hun Sen regime.

Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto said he hoped a new first prime minister could be legally chosen to succeed Ranariddh. And an Australian newspaper published a leaked diplomatic cable in which the Australian ambassador to Cambodia urged his government to back Hun Sen rather than prolong the fighting in Cambodia by supporting Ranariddh.

“I think Hun Sen is now trying to pull off what he has always wanted--a more or less well-governed Cambodia under CPP [Cambodian People’s Party] control,” the Sun-Herald of Sydney quoted Ambassador Tony Kevin as having written.

“Is this not better than getting back into the sterile game of propping up Ranariddh?” Kevin was quoted as saying. “It seems to me that this would simply help to prolong the long war--and for what?”

Australian officials declined to comment, the Reuters news agency reported from Canberra. Prime Minister John Howard had said earlier that the Hun Sen regime was not an authorized government but that Australia had to be realistic.

Ranariddh has called on the international community to impose sanctions on the Hun Sen government, which he says was installed by a bloody coup.

The Clinton administration has condemned the violence and frozen aid to Cambodia but has avoided calling the takeover a coup. The U.N. Security Council took a neutral stance Friday, calling for peaceful reconciliation.

*

Ranariddh was in France when Hun Sen sent troops and tanks into the streets of Phnom Penh, the capital, to seize control. Hun Sen then announced that Ranariddh would be arrested on treason and other charges if he returned to Cambodia.

Human rights officials say at least four key political opponents have been killed by Hun Sen’s henchmen. Informed foreign sources said Sunday that arrests and reprisals against other FUNCINPEC officials continue in the provinces, despite Hun Sen’s assurances to the contrary, and that 19 opposition newspapers have stopped publishing for fear of retribution.

In a statement by Hun Sen on Sunday, which was broadcast on state radio a day after remarks he made in a speech raised questions about his tolerance for a free press, he called on those newspapers to resume publication.

“As for the press, including newspapers that used to be critical, please hurry and publish,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hun Sen has been consolidating his military victory over Ranariddh. After six days of fighting, his forces succeeded Sunday in chasing royalist forces out of their stronghold in Siem Reap province, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported from the village of Kralanh in northwestern Cambodia.

“FUNCINPEC party is finished in Siem Reap province,” Hun Sen’s battlefield commander, Gen. Uy Sopheap, told AFP. “We have pushed them out, and I don’t think they will come back.” Royalists still dominate two other provinces in the northwest, but so far there has been no fighting in those areas.

Hun Sen advisor Om Yientieng said the royalist troops had been joined by about 600 soldiers from the Khmer Rouge rebel faction in Anlong Veng, near the Thai border--the guerrilla group that Ranariddh last month claimed had turned against and captured their longtime leader, Pol Pot. That capture has never been confirmed.

*

For months, Hun Sen has accused Ranariddh of plotting an alliance with the Khmer Rouge and of smuggling the much-feared fighters into Phnom Penh. Hun Sen has cited the need to arrest and disarm the guerrillas as one of the reasons for the military crackdown.

But foreign sources noted Sunday that a number of Khmer Rouge defectors have joined the Hun Sen camp over the past year--and that one such commander had taken part in Hun Sen’s military move against Ranariddh.

“The fact of [the Anlong Veng Khmer Rouge’s] involvement or noninvolvement in the last 10 days has to be looked at very carefully, because that’s the cover,” one source said. “That’s the only justification” for Hun Sen’s decision to use force against his rival.

Sihanouk’s French-language statement, which was distributed in Phnom Penh on Sunday, explicitly accepted Hun Sen’s victory.

“I am far away from my beloved fatherland,” the king wrote. “As a result, I cannot act as a ‘judge’ as to whether there was a ‘coup’ or a ‘non-coup d’etat.’

“All that I may allow myself to ask . . . of the victorious . . . Hun Sen is” to respect the constitution and his oath of office, as well as the international agreements that the Cambodian government has signed since 1993, Sihanouk wrote.

The king said he would not personally sign a decree or proclamation installing a new first prime minister but that he would not oppose the signing of any decrees by Chea Sim, the National Assembly chairman who is a longtime Hun Sen ally.

“The king says nothing about the first prime minister,” noted Raoul M. Jennar, a Belgian who has been a longtime observer of Cambodian politics. “Not one word that Norodom Ranariddh remains the legal prime minister, not one word to say that there were violations of the constitution.”

Jennar said the statement reflects Sihanouk’s longtime “disagreement and disappointment” with his son, who won 1993 elections by campaigning on the promise to restore the king to power but subsequently left Sihanouk in the powerless role of a figurehead monarch.

Sihanouk is also signaling his desire to play an active role in any negotiations with Hun Sen, Jennar said. An earlier proposal by Sihanouk to have Hun Sen and Ranariddh come to Beijing, where the king is living, so he could mediate the conflict was bluntly rejected by Hun Sen as “too late.”

Nevertheless, the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was dispatching the Indonesian foreign minister to Beijing to meet with Sihanouk and ask him to help resolve the Cambodian conflict.

Hun Sen’s critics charge that the recent arrests and killings are intimidating those FUNCINPEC party members who have not fled the country into naming a new first prime minister who would be little more than a Hun Sen puppet.

But Jennar disputed that view, noting that the royalist party has long been deeply divided and that many party members--along with much of Phnom Penh’s foreign diplomatic corps--view Ranariddh as an incompetent leader.

Hun Sen’s takeover “was confirmed by gunfire, tanks and terror . . . but there was a split before,” Jennar said. “And the 5th-6th July events increased, probably, by fear or by intimidation, this division. So today maybe there are a lot of FUNCINPEC members of parliament ready to vote for the new government.”