Alleged Terrorist Chief Invited to Washington; U.N. Linked Cambodian to Death Squads
An official U.S. invitation to a former Cambodian general implicated in death-squad activities and a secessionist attempt has embarrassed the American Embassy here and outraged Cambodian legislators.
Sin Song, who served as minister of national security in the Vietnamese-installed government that was defeated in U.N.-supervised elections last May, was invited by Sen. Howell T. Heflin (D-Ala.) to attend the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Thursday, an event featuring an appearance by President Clinton.
A U.S. Embassy spokesman here confirmed that Sin Song "applied for and was granted a tourist visa to visit the United States." He declined further comment.
Sin Song, after defecting from the radical Khmer Rouge guerrilla group in the late 1970s, became one of the most powerful generals in the former communist government here.
As national security minister, Sin Song controlled the secret police and helped coordinate squads assigned to assassinate or intimidate political opponents during the election campaign, according to U.N. investigators and human rights groups.
More than 100 opposition party activists were killed or wounded in the months leading up to the May 1993 elections. U.N. investigators said documents seized from Sin Song's ministry showed that special units under his overall command had been set up to wage an orchestrated campaign of sabotage and terror against the political opposition.
Days after the then-ruling People's Party lost the elections, Sin Song and a small group of followers declared that they had seized control of seven east Cambodian provinces and would refuse to recognize the election results. The renegades, who included Prince Norodom Chakrapong, then a deputy prime minister, proclaimed the seven provinces an "autonomous zone" and said they would not turn over power to the election winners, the royalist party known by the acronym Funcinpec.
Hundreds of U.N. officials fled the zone after they were threatened by army and police forces loyal to Sin Song, and opposition leaders said more than a dozen of their supporters were executed.
The secessionist movement fizzled in June after it failed to attract popular support, however, and Sin Song fled into neighboring Vietnam.
Although he holds no official position in the new royal government, Sin Song remains a senior member of the Cambodian People's Party, which has retained a major share of power in a governing coalition with Funcinpec.
In Washington, Heflin's office confirmed that the senator, as honorary chairman of the National Prayer Breakfast, had invited Sin Song to visit the United States and asked the State Department to issue him a visa.
"We put in a request to the State Department asking that his visa be granted and asking them to give him every consideration," said Heflin's spokesman, Tom McMahon.
However, he added, the senator's office was not previously aware of Sin Song's background and had merely included him among "many foreign dignitaries" whose names were submitted by the National Prayer Breakfast, a private ecumenical group based in Washington. Representatives of more than 140 countries were invited to the annual event, McMahon said.
It was not immediately clear whose idea it was to include Sin Song or why. McMahon said it was "up to the State Department to decide whether to issue the visas or not."
In Phnom Penh, Ahmed Yahya, an elected legislator from Funcinpec, said: "This is outrageous." The invitation implies U.S. government recognition of Sin Song as "a Cambodian leader."
"How many people lost their lives because of Sin Song, and now he is an official guest of the U.S.?" Yahya said. "Maybe the U.S. government thinks he is a Cambodian leader, but the Cambodian people and {legislators} say, no way."
Sin Song, who had been a People's Party candidate in the May elections, is seeking admission to the parliament. He had resigned his candidacy in internal party jockeying before winners on the competing slates were announced, and U.N. officials declared him ineligible. Many Cambodian legislators are resisting his bid to join the elected body.
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