Nate Thayer

Expat Returnees pose legal questions for the West By Nate Thayer

Expat Returnees pose legal questions for the West

Phnom Penh Post

Friday 10 March 1995

By Nate Thayer

Some come back for the best of reasons, some are "less than altruistic." Expat returnees are posing hard legal questions for their adopted homelands. Nate Thayer reports.

WHEN Sok Chenda Sophea returned to Cambodia in 1992 after nearly two decades in exile in France, he came with a vision of doing his part to help rebuild his shattered homeland. The 38 year old Chenda, now an under secretary of state for the Ministry of Tourism , cuts a sharp figure with his European tailored suits, fluent French and English, and university and professional background in advertising and tourism promotion. His government salary is the equivalent of US$27 a month.

Likewise, Samnang Siv, 39, quit her US$90,000 a year job working for a biotechnology firm in Massachusetts in the US in April 1994 and returned to Cambodia. Leaving behind her husband and 20 year old son, she now serves as an advisor to the Minister of Tourism, and, with fluency in three languages and her dynamic personality, has been instrumental in assisting foreign companies to come to Cambodia and invest.

"I have been given 40 liters of petrol for my car," she says, and no salary yet. "I just want to contribute my knowledge, my skills, and help my government. I think they need people like me."

In a country whose most decimated commodity after decades of warfare is it's human resources, Sok Chenda and Samnang Siv are exactly what Cambodia needs to get back on it's feet. And there are hundreds of Khmers like them who have brought back their technical expertise, leaving behind "the good life" for reasons that are explained in terms little more complicated than a patriotic commitment to their native lands. "I just want to help my country and people," says Chenda.

But along with the good has also come the bad. Cambodia is choc-a-bloc with scores of corrupt and rapacious ethnic Khmers, many holding foreign citizenship and passports, who have returned since the fall of communism and are now officials in the new government. According to many businessmen and other Cambodian officials, the ranks of government are filled with foreign citizens lining their pockets with kickbacks.

"Oh boy," says Chhang Song shaking his head, "We were puritans compared to these guys."

Chhang, a former Minister of Information in the notoriously corrupt, US-backed Lon Nol regime that fell to Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge in 1975, is an American citizen from Washington, DC who recently returned to serve as an advisor to the current government.

The recent phenomena of foreign citizens returning to participate in the rebuilding of their countries since the collapse of communism and the cold war has raised a new set of legal and other complexities for the mostly western governments that the returnees hail from. While Cambodia stands out as a particularly stark example, it is also increasingly common in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Baltic states.

A recent Prime Minister of Bosnia Herzogovina is an American. And in 1992, when an American citizen was chosen as defence minister of the newly independent Lithuania, the U.S. government forced him to make a choice between his passport or the job. A recent Foreign Minister in Armenia was also an American. A Wisconsin politician, Rudy Perpich, was considering accepting the post of Prime Minister of Croatia in 1991. But when U.S. authorities informed him they could not guarantee that he could maintain his American citizenship, he declined the position, according to U.S. diplomats.

But nothing compares to Cambodia. Senior officials who are citizens of foreign countries include the Queen, the First Prime Minister, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Interior, Education, Agriculture, Rural Development, Women's Affairs, Tourism, Information, and even Culture.

As well, the head of the powerful Cambodian Development Council, at least 30 members of Parliament, numerous provincial governors, secretaries and under secretaries of state, civil servants, ambassadors, and military generals hold foreign citizenships.

The bulk of these officials hold French, American, or Australian passports, but Canada, New Zealand, Japan, and Switzerland are also represented. Most fled on the heels of the communist victory in 1975 or through refugee camps on the Thai border set up after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in late 1978.

"On the one hand we want to encourage them to come back to help reconstruct their country," says a US diplomat, "This is a good thing. But there are complications."

While American law states that a US citizen cannot take an oath of allegiance to a foreign government, the law is rarely enforced. "The policy has shifted over the years since the end of the cold war," said a US government lawyer familiar with the issue. "We now approach these on a case by case basis."

One reason, say diplomats from several governments, is that many of the senior officials in the newly emerging democracies would not return to help reconstruct their homeland if forced to give up their foreign citizenship. " The political situation remains unstable during the transition period in many of these countries. They fled for their lives to exile once before, and they want to keep that option open," said a Phnom Penh based diplomat.

A US government internal cable sent to all embassies in February offered instructions on how to deal with U.S. citizens serving foreign governments. It cited several "potentially expatriating acts" which include "joining another country's armed forces" or "taking an oath of allegiance to another government". Scores of Cambodian-Americans fit that bill. It also requires embassies, under section 349 of the US Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 , to inform Washington of any "high level official in a foreign government in a policy making position" who is an American citizen.

But US diplomats say that the courts have now interpreted that Americans can serve in foreign governments as long as they had "no intent of relinquishing citizenship." In effect, it is largely up to the American citizens, according to current US government legal interpretation, whether they choose to give up their citizenship when they join the ranks of a foreign government.

Indeed, foreign governments find benefits in having their citizens in positions of influence. It does not hurt Australia, for instance, to have the Cambodian Foreign Minister hold Australian citizenship. Nor is it detrimental for Australia-which dominates the telecommunications industry in Cambodia-to have Australian citizens in charge of the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications.

The French, who have campaigned strongly for the reemergence of Francophone in Indochina, can only be pleased to have the Cambodian Minister of Culture a French citizen. And the Americans have used Cambodia's top cop, an American citizen, You Hokry who hails from Maryland and serves as minister of interior, to get US citizens in a pickle extra attention.

But there are numerous potential minefields in this new post cold war phenomena. It is well known that many Cambodian government officials who hold dual nationalities are lining their pockets with kickbacks, and their reasons for returning to Cambodia may be less than altruistic. Some Cambodian officials believe that many are here to cash in and have little interest in remaining in Cambodia.

But if they are US citizens, they must file US taxes. "The law is clear. You must declare all your income, whether illegal or legal," said a spokesman for the United States Internal Revenue Service. The US tax laws are often used to collar bad guys involved in more difficult-to-prove criminal activities, such as drug running. As an example the IRS spokesman cited Al Capone, the famous US gangster of the 1930's, who was ultimately jailed for tax evasion. It is common practice for Cambodian government officials to receive kickbacks, and rumors abound of the millions of dollars being pocketed by various officials.

Current Finance Minister Kiet Chhon, estimated that lost revenues from corruption is about US$100 million a year-or more than one-third of internally generated revenue.

"It is shameful," he said.

Senior government ministers privately grouse about a number of their colleagues who are on the take. One example is over a recent US$1.3 billion contract awarded to a little known Malaysian firm, Ariston, for gambling casinos and related development projects in the seaside resort of Sihanoukville. Two senior government officials say they have "proof" that another senior government official-who holds an American passport-received a US$10 million kickback for awarding the contract to Ariston. They say that other companies, including the American hotel firm Hyatt, who bid for the contract "never had a chance" and the corrupt process did "immeasurable damage to our reputation among investors."

Former Finance Minister Sam Rainsy, sacked last fall, and the country's most aggressive anti-graft fighter, said on March 2: " I have spoken with one of the other bidders which did not win the contract...They have been asked ten million dollars in cash. They (were told ) that 'if you give us 10 million US dollars the contract is for you.'" Senior government sources say the official who received the kickback is an American citizen and the company in question which was denied the contract was an American firm. American companies are prohibited by American law from paying bribes to foreign governments, but it is unclear whether American citizens working for foreign governments can receive them without breaking American law.

"In the last few months, the Royal Government of Cambodia has signed a number of contracts with foreign private companies in circumstances which are, to say the least, dubious. These dubious contracts are seriously harmful to the country, the administration of which has become more chaotic and less transparent," said Rainsy. He himself is a French citizen, an elected Member of Parliament, and regularly rates as one of the Kingdom's most popular politicians in public opinion polls.

Furthermore, it remains untested, say legal experts, whether foreign nationals holding senior government portfolios could be charged under criminal and civil laws that apply to the country they hold citizenship in. Of particular concern could be such positions as Minister of Interior or senior officers in the Ministry of Defence who hold American or other passports and ultimately are responsible for the conduct of their subordinates, human rights lawyers point out.

In Cambodia, both the police and military have been repeatedly implicated in human rights abuses including torture and murder in recent years. Rarely, despite cases with overwhelming evidence, are the offenders arrested or prosecuted. The U.S. Torture Victims Protection Act does allow for American authorities to prosecute American or other citizens implicated in torture overseas.

Amnesty International, in a report to be released on 14 March, a copy of which has been obtained by the Post said "members of the armed forces and police are able to impose their will on the civilian population with impunity, committing acts of violence including deliberate and arbitrary killings and extra judicial executions....the Cambodian authorities appear to lack the political will and ability to bring these violators to justice." The report, and an earlier one released by the United Nations Center for Human Rights, cite numerous cases of torture, including military officers involved in eating the livers and gall bladders of their prisoners, and cutting off the heads of prisoners who are alive and under interrogation. The government has, to date, refused to arrest the officers involved.

"Theoretically, they could be charged with, say, conspiracy to obstruct justice," said one human rights lawyer, citing superior officers - who hold foreign citizenship - of subordinates involved in torture. The Cambodian Co-Minister of Interior and scores of senior officers in both the national police apparatus and the military hold US passports.

But "There would have to be some act committed on American soil," insisted a US government lawyer responsible for analyzing such issues. "In general, U.S. law does not follow them around."

But Cambodia's reputation for political thuggery has even spilled over to American soil. Last year, a Cambodian general-an American citizen- was back in California and allegedly threatened a California-based, Khmer language newspaper editor with arrest and death if he returned to Cambodia because of articles critical of the new government, according to complaints filed with U.S. authorities by the newspaper.

U.S. government sources say the general was back in the U.S. to take care of his annual tax obligations, when he read the articles that offended him.

And last month, when an American relief worker in a remote province suffered a heart attack, an official of the Civil Aviation Authority refused to allow an emergency medical airplane run by a non-profit Christian relief organization to take off from Phnom Penh until "fees" were paid. The Civil Aviation official is an American citizen. Could an American citizen be charged with relevant criminal or civil complaints-such as extortion-committed against another American citizen, even though the criminal act was committed on foreign soil? Such questions are largely, so far, in uncharted territory.

"To tell you the truth, we don't like to talk about it. It's a headache," said one American diplomat.

Frantic calls from Regent's Rm 406-Cambodian coup 1994 By Nate Thayer

Frantic calls from Regent's Rm 406

Phnom Penh Post

By Nate Thayer

Friday, 15 July 1994

The Post's Nate Thayer describes how he shared Prince Chakrapong's final hours in Cambodia after receiving a dramatic 6:30 am phone call.

Loyalist troops had taken positions throughout the capital on the night of July 2 as rumors swept the city that a coup attempt was imminent. Heavily armed soldiers were positioned outside the homes of government leaders and military installations by dark, and the children of senior officials were ordered to stay out of the city nightclubs.

Officials confirmed "there will be trouble tonight" and spoke of a coup attempt.

At 3:00 am government forces surrounded the houses of the alleged putsch leaders, who they named as former Interior Minister Sin Song and former Deputy Prime Minister Prince Norodom Chakrapong.

Their houses were invaded, and weapons and communication equipment seized. Sin Song was arrested and allegedly confessed to his role in launching a coup. Chakrapong had fled his house hours before security forces arrived.

At 6:30 am a call to this reporter said "call this number" and hung up. A jittery voice answered after I dialed the mobile phone. "This is Prince Chakrapong. Please, please help me," he said in a frightened broken whisper, "Come right away to the Regent hotel. They have surrounded me. They are trying to kill me."

In the 20 minutes it took for me to arrive, the Prince called me seven times begging for me to come quickly. "I am alone. Please, before they kill me, come now. Call the American Embassy and tell them my life is in danger."

He was obviously hoping that a foreign presence might prevent the security forces from harming him.

Government troops and security forces armed with machine guns, rocket launchers, and carrying walkie talkies were positioned on the street corners and entrance ways around the hotel near Monivong Boulevard when I arrived on the otherwise quiet early Sunday morning. But no one tried to stop me, probably thinking I was a hotel guest.

Inside, hotel workers, white with fear, stared blankly in response to my inquiry of where the alleged coup leader was staying. But maids hovering in an upstairs hallway, opened Room 401.

A disheveled, barefoot, and petrified son of King Sihanouk was found emerging from a crawl space above the ceiling of his hotel room, begging for help.

"Please, they are trying to arrest me. They will kill me. I am innocent. Please tell the American Ambassador to come right away. I need protection," the wide-eyed Prince said, near tears, and jittery from lack of sleep. He was alone. The bed was still made, and the curtains were drawn. A ceiling panel was removed revealing a small dark crawl space. A chair was under it to allow one to climb up. He said troops had been surrounding him since 3:00 am.

"I hear the rumor that I plan to make a coup d'etat. I am innocent. I have nothing in my hands. I have no political influence now. I have no troops," he said. "Please don't leave me."

So began a four-and-a-half-hour drama that, after scores of frantic phone calls and negotiations, ended with the Prince being whisked to the airport by military escort and forcibly exiled via a scheduled Malaysia Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Frightened hotel staff hovered in hallways and peeked out of rooms in the otherwise completely silent hotel.

Realizing that there was no press or diplomats aware of the developments, and I was alone with a hunted, hated alleged coup plotter. Surrounded by troops clearly prepared to invade, I opted to rent my own room down the hall, with a better view of the troops, street, and hotel entrance way.

I went downstairs to the front desk asked for Room 406 and handed over cash. The desk clerk stared with a furrowed brow look of fear and alarm, said nothing, and handed me the key.

I thought that it might diminish the incentive of the troops outside to act precipitously if I was in a room rented under my own name, and buy time to interview the Prince. The Prince thought it was a great idea and came over to Room 406.

I made a quiet call to senior government contacts and diplomats informing them of the situation, hoping that they would get the message to the troops downstairs - quickly.

My phone rang a few minutes later, saying that Co-Prime Minister Ranariddh was aware I was with the man who allegedly was trying to topple his government and assassinate top officials.

The three mobile phones in my room rang constantly. More than 40 calls came in within the first two hours, as Chakrapong desperately tried to delay the troops from arresting him, and attempted to convince US Ambassador Charles Twining to give him political asylum.

Chakrapong repeatedly denied to me that he was involved in any coup attempt, cursed the leaders of the government, begged for my help and asked me not to leave him if the troops invaded.

He fielded phone calls constantly on his two phones, often listening silently and hanging up, speaking in English, French, and Khmer.

King Norodom Sihanouk rang from Beijing. "I am alright Papa, but the situation is bad. They have surrounded me," he said at one point.

As more calls came in he broke down and again moist-eyed. He looked dejected as Queen Norodom Monineath Sihanouk kept him up to date from Beijing with the state of her negotiations with government leaders over allowing him exile.

"It is not the Queen, but as my parents. It is not politics, it is as a son," he told me when asked whether King Sihanouk and Queen Monineath supported him.

For the first two hours, he was in fear of his life, convinced that if arrested he would be killed.

"They tell me that if we criticize the government, we are serving the interests of the Khmer Rouge. If I am arrested, the embassies must stay with me, to keep looking for me. Please don't let them take me anywhere. Please don't leave me alone," he said to me.

The Prince asked me to contact the US Embassy to request political asylum. I give him the mobile telephone number of the US Ambassador Charles Twining. He calls and Twining is put on the phone. "I ask your protection, your excellency. It is a human right. If you don't come to protect me I prefer not to go outside. I prefer to die here. I will stay here in the room. How can I trust them if they bring me somewhere?", he says to Twining.

Prince Chakrapong's face shows that the American Ambassadors response is not positive. "Please your excellency, if they bring me outside, if they arrest me, they will kill me."

Chakrapong hung up from Twining and went to look outside. The street was quiet save for troops standing guard. "Twining says 'you are not an American citizen, we cannot help you,' " he said.

"They say this is a liberal democracy," staring from behind the curtain down at the soldiers, "They are silencing all opposition now. We will all be accused of serving the interests of the Khmer Rouge. The whole world must know that this regime accuses me without proof. If the free world helps this regime it is the end of democracy."

Another American diplomat called my phone: "Tell Chakrapong he is not a US citizen. As long as the government proceeds in a legal fashion regarding his human rights, there is nothing we can do to interfere in a sovereign government."

But the American message of rejection of official protection was clear.

Crying young hotel maids burst into the room at one point: "The soldiers are coming. They are inside now."

A disheveled Prince - barefoot, shirt unbuttoned, sleepless, and dejected-began to put on his shoes. He handed me his wallet and mobile telephones and asked me to give them to his daughters. "Please make sure my daughters are alright. The soldiers invaded my house last night and they were there."

But the soldiers didn't come in. And the phones rang incessantly, sometimes three at the same time. At one point, Chakrapong had King Sihanouk on the line in one hand, and Twining on the other.

The Queen was still negotiating for safe passage out of the country.

Finally Prime Minister Ranariddh - Chakrapong's nemesis and half brother - agreed to allow the Prince to leave the country. "If I am allowed to join my family in Malaysia, I will accept," he said at one point.

By 10 am we saw Twining, other diplomats, and press begin to gather on the street, to the great relief of the Prince.

"I have given ten years of my life for my country for nothing. They are looking for a plane for me," he said after hanging up from a call from the queen.

"I want you to tell them I am innocent. I am a military man. I know how to make a coup. Now, I have no power and no forces. How can I make a coup? If I was to do something would I stay here in Phnom Penh?

"I left last night with no bodyguards to come to the hotel because I felt something was wrong. Like when I was in the jungle. I knew on the battlefield when something bad would happen. But I was not afraid because I was innocent."

The military called from downstairs to say that the troops were coming to our room now and that the Prince would be allowed to leave the country.

He turned to me: "Please do not leave me. I will only leave if you go with me to the airport in the same car. They may not take me to the airport."

There was a strong knock on the door and I went to open it. A score of heavily armed soldiers and security police waited in the hallway as Twining and Co-Minister of Interior You Hockry entered alone. The four of us sat down.

Hockry asked me to leave. Prince Chakrapong asked that I stay. I said nothing.

"We will promise your safety to the airport. I promise there will be no guns on the plane. The best thing for us it to bring you safely to the airport," Hokry told the Prince.

Men were sent to get passports and luggage at Chakrapong's house. A Malaysian Airlines plane was held on the tarmac at Pochentong as Chakrapong was assured that he would be allowed to safely leave the country.

The behavior of several Ministry of Interior police, who were poised to arrest the Prince until minutes before, now went through a bizarre somersault. They entered the room crouched on their knees and hands clasped to their heads in deference to Royalty as they went about their business preparing to send him to exile.

The Interior Minister said that Chakrapong's alleged collaborator, Sin Song, had confessed. "I think that one or two people cannot do this kind of thing. There will be more arrests," he said. Chakrapong stared blankly, with a mixed expression of anger and fear.

At one point, while, we waited for the motorcade and luggage downstairs, Twining turned to Hockry.

"I just remembered, there will be a fireworks display this afternoon at the fourth of July celebration," he said, suddenly realizing that, as a jittery city emerged from an attempted coup, explosions in the city might not be timely.

"Do you have authorization?" the Minister shot back to the Ambassador, with an alarmed look on his face.

When the mobile phone rang to say that the motorcade of troops was ready, we left the room to walk to the street. Hotel staff and soldiers clasped their hands and knelt in respect as Chakrapong was led by a bevy of sunglassed, automatic weapon-toting officials through a throng of cameras waiting on the street.

Shoved into a sleek Toyota with black tinted windows, we were whisked to the airport in a convoy of a score of cars, including one with Twining. Streets were blocked off and hundreds of people lined them to watch the motorcade pass. The plane was waiting at the airport, full of curious passengers, as Chakrapong was whisked on board and the flight departed.

He called several hours later from Malaysia saying: " I want to thank you sincerely for saving my life. They would have killed me if you had not come. I am innocent. I was not involved in anything. Tell them I am innocent."

Coup debate Letter to the Editor Michael Vickery on Nate Thayer

Coup debate 111

Friday, 23 September 1994 

Letter to the Editor

Phnom Penh Post

Unfortunately, Chris Horwood, in his entirely justifiable 'attack' on Phnom Penh Post (3/17, 26 Aug-8 Sept, p.9), did not say enough, and did not say it right, permitting Nate Thayer to respond disingenuously, further misleading PPP readers - not the first time this has happened. The question is not whether Chakrapong and Sin Song were guilty, or whether Thayer thinks they were innocent. What comes through in Thayer's report is that he is more sympathetic to them than to the government, even if they were guilty. The purpose behind Thayer's article was to discredit the CPP, and this was also the purpose of his interview with Sar Kheng, which he mischievously, brought up as a balance against his coverage of Chakrapong.

Questions? Thayer's first sentences expressed disbelief in the government line on the "alleged coup", 'reporting', without the slightest evidence, that it involved "at the least .. powerful elements of the security forces", an attribution which excludes both Chak-rapong and Sin Song. The first sentence in his second paragraph, that " more questions were raised than answered by the govern-ment's explanation", was also without evidence other than his own speculations, and a dishonest swipe at the government. And, the coup "has exposed a traumatic - and dangerous - split in the Cambodian people's Party", again without explanation to enlighten PPP readers. Need I go on ? Virtually every paragraph, if not every sentence, contains an editorial; and I would have no objection in principle, although I might still argue against Thayer's reasoning, if his piece had been presented as a PPP editorial, or Op-Ed, but not as front-page news.

As news it was impermissible to speculate that "the coup was organized at the highest level by dominant figures within the CPP", and sourcing to "some intelligence analysts and government officials" is without value, particularly after Thayer had named government officials with a variety of opinions. Equally slippery was to suggest it was because the CPP "are unused to dispute or dissent", as though they were the only Cambodian faction with that weakness.

One point neglected by Thayer is equally revealing of his purpose. Nowhere in his front page article, nor even in the page 8 article which directly touched on the subject, did he mention that Chakrapong and Sin Song have been sulking for months because they were dropped from the CPP lists of victorious election candidates in May 1993 and have been trying ever since to regain seats in the National Assembly.

What Thayer did say about the events of May-June last year is even more shady than his speculations about the coup this July, and the disingenuosness goes right to the 'highest level' of PPP editorship. Thayer says that the June 1993 secession led by Chakrapong and Sin Song, following their dismissal by the CPP, "had the covert backing of their Cambodian People's Party leaders - including Hun Sen, Chea Sim, and Sar Kheng". This is the umpteenth time Thayer has written this, without, so far as I have seen, presenting any evidence. The accusation in fact goes back to a confidential analysis by Stephen Heder under his Untac cover, and it had to be confidential because it was so lacking in substance. At the time I prepared a counter analysis, distributed on June 24-25 1993 to PPP and to other journalists, Embassies and Untac offices.

Thayer has ignored the counter argument, and his employers allow him to get away with it, thereby misleading readers like Horwood, who know no better than to repeat with Thayer that the "secession movement.. played a vital role in forcing Funcinpec to accept a greater involvement in government of the defeated CPP".

On this subject Thayer, supported by Michael Hayes, has been exercising self-censorship every time he puts pen to paper.

- Michael Vickery, Penang.

Rebel Group Outlawed by Cambodia; Thais Implicated In Coup Attempt -Nate Thayer

Rebel Group Outlawed by Cambodia; Thais Implicated In Coup Attempt

The Washington Post

July 8, 1994 | Nate Thayer

Cambodia today passed controversial legislation to outlaw the Khmer Rouge rebel group, raising tensions in a government still jittery from a weekend coup attempt.

After the 98 to 1 vote in the National Assembly, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who holds the title of first prime minister in a shaky coalition government, called on all countries to bar Khmer Rouge members from their territory and "arrest those outlaws" who he said will be named on government lists of Khmer Rouge officials. His remarks were aimed primarily at neighboring Thailand, where military officers and businessmen have long maintained ties with the notorious communist guerrilla group.

At the same time, however, Ranariddh publicly accused Thai citizens of involvement in the coup plot, which was apparently directed against him and his royalist Funcinpec party by hard-line supporters of the Cambodian People's Party, his main coalition partner.

So far, authorities have arrested 14 Thais connected to a Cambodian general who confessed to involvement in the plot, and a number of others are being sought. Ranariddh said they included a Thai police official and nine Thai specialists in radio communications, weapons and explosives.

According to Cambodian officials and diplomats, the heavy emphasis on Thai involvement appears partly intended to deflect attention from the role in the plot of senior officials of the coalition government. The sources said the coup attempt, which had been in the works for months, stemmed from a broad-based plot by hard-liners in the People's Party to stifle growing dissent among their partners in Funcinpec. The royalist party won last year's U.N.-sponsored elections but has been unable to wrest real power from the formerly communist People's Party, which had ruled Cambodia since 1979 but finished second in last year's voting.

Strains within the coalition intensified after the People's Party rejected a suggestion by King Norodom Sihanouk in mid-June that a national unity government be formed that would include the Khmer Rouge. Today's legislation to outlaw the radical guerrilla group, accused of killing 1 million people while it held power in the late 1970s, has exacerbated splits within the government. Some Funcinpec leaders described it as a move to further sideline Sihanouk and consolidate the People's Party's grip on power.

On Wednesday, security forces arrested Gen. Sin Sen, the number-two official in the powerful Interior Ministry, on charges of involvement in the conspiracy.

The coup attempt started when a dozen armored personnel carriers and 300 rebel troops left the eastern province of Prey Veng for the capital late Saturday afternoon. It ended Sunday when supporting elements failed to materialize and a distraught Prince Norodom Chakrapong, Ranariddh's estranged half-brother and one of the alleged coup leaders, was allowed to fly into exile in Malaysia after pleading for his life in frantic negotiations by mobile phone from a Phnom Penh hotel room.

Chakrapong, 49, a son of King Sihanouk, initially eluded arrest and went into hiding in Phnom Penh's Regent Hotel. From there, he contacted this reporter at 6:30 a.m. Sunday, begging me to come quickly to the hotel in apparent hopes that the presence of a foreign journalist would prevent security forces from killing him.

What followed was a bizarre 4 1/2-hour drama in which the terrified prince engaged in desperate phone negotiations with Cambodian intermediaries, the American ambassador and, in calls from Beijing, King Sihanouk and Queen Monique.

After making my way past government troops and security forces posted outside the hotel with machine guns and rocket launchers, I found Chakrapong, disheveled, barefoot and wide-eyed with fear, emerging from a crawlspace above the ceiling of his room.

"Please, they are trying to arrest me," he pleaded. "They will kill me. I am innocent. Please tell the American ambassador to come right away. I need protection."

Agitated and near tears, he repeatedly denied any involvement in the coup attempt, cursed government leaders and begged me not to leave him in case troops invaded the hotel. He fielded calls constantly on two mobile phones, speaking in English, French and Khmer.

At one point he had Sihanouk on the phone in one hand and U.S. Ambassador Charles Twining on the line in the other. But it was his stepmother, Queen Monique, who appeared to take a leading role in negotiating with government leaders on Chakrapong's behalf to let him leave the country.

"I am all right, Papa, but the situation is bad," he told Sihanouk at one point. "They have surrounded me."

He pleaded with Twining for political asylum but was told the embassy could not help him. Twining eventually showed up at the hotel and joined Interior Minister You Hokry in discussions with Chakrapong on his departure from the country.

"I am a military man," Chakrapong told me in protesting his innocence before being whisked to the airport in a heavily armed convoy. "I know how to make a coup. Now I have no power and no forces. How can I make a coup?"

"Ink':The New Yorker: "Nate Thayer, a thirty-seven-year-old Boston Brahmin with a shaved head and teeth blackened by chewing tobacco, emerged from the Cambodian jungle..."

Ink

The New Yorker

The Talk of the Town

By Philip Gourevitch

August 18, 1997

On Friday, July 25th, Nate Thayer, a thirty-seven-year-old Boston Brahmin with a shaved head and teeth blackened by chewing tobacco, emerged from the Cambodian jungle, having witnessed and recorded on film the Khmer Rouge trial of Pol Pot. Being the first Western journalist to see Pol Pot in nearly two decades was, he said over the telephone from Bangkok last week, the fulfillment of a "life objective." A few years ago, in Phnom Penh, The Cambodian capital, he had given me some indication of what he had endured along the way. By Thayer’s reckoning, over the last ten years he has been the object of several assassination attempts and countless death threats; been taken hostage twice by the Khmer Rouge; seen eight of his personal security guards killed; been hospitalized sixteen times for cerebral malaria; been detained more than ten times by Thai intelligence and Cambodian government troops; and lost hearing in one ear when his vehicle was blown up by a land mine.

Thayer's appetite for the extreme, his gift for shucks-it-ain't nothin' self-dramatization, his readiness to meet armed adversaries with what he calls "superior firepower," and his anti-hair style have won him the nickname Kurtz among the increasingly pampered ranks of contemporary foreign correspondents. Thayer, who speaks Khmer, has said that he feels more attuned to life in Cambodia than in America. Of New York, where he lived, and was mugged, as a teen ager, he says, "Man, I can't control my perimeter there. It's the crazies that I can't deal with." Thayer rarely talks about his family - moneyed New England; Harvard's Thayer Hall; his father, Harry Thayer, a former Ambassador to Singapore - except to ...recall Judge Webster Thayer, who sentenced Sacco and Vanzetti: "Whenever they call me the black sheep of the family, I say, 'What about this fucking guy?

 Whether Thayer’s gnarly macho bluster is more of a gag or pathology, it has served as a useful foil for his intense seriousness as an investigative reporter and political analyst. Since he first turned up, with no journalistic experience, in the refugee camps along the Thai border in 1988, Thayer's muckraking exposed of Cambodia's Jacobean politics have made him not just a chronicler of events but a significant factor in their development. (In a typical story, he found himself alone in a hotel room with a coup plotter, ringed by troops with orders to kill). His principal employer is the Far Eastern Economic Review, but he also contributes to Soldier of Fortune, a magazine which he calls "by far the finest publication of its genre."

 

In 1992, Thayer trekked up the old Ho Chi Minh trail near the border of Vietnam, where he discovered a lost army of anti-communist Montagnards, still loyal to their Saigon and American commanders; he convinced them that the war had been over for seventeen years, and many of them later settled in America. A more recent ‘scientific’ expedition, in search of the Kouprey—a nearly extinct Indochinese bovine species—ended in fiasco, after Thayer and his cohort rode into the jungle on elephants, heavily armed and wearing Donald Duck and Ronald Reagan masks on the backs of their heads to scare off Tigers (the cats tend to attack from the rear).

 

 

In June, when Khmer Rouge radio announced that Pol Pot had been imprisoned, Thayer saw an opportunity to get "the last great interview in Asia." He was broke, so he borrowed the plane fare and set about convincing his Khmer Rouge contacts that they needed to bring a credible witness to Anlong Veng, the jungle redoubt where Pol Pot was being held. With his old friend the cameraman David McKaige, Thayer proceeded through an elaborate underground railroad—“meetings at gas stations, coded phone messages, hotel rooms, waiting”--...into the bush. "I wasn't the first to get into Anlong Veng," he said. "I was the first to get out." Three Westerners had disappeared after venturing into the Khmer Rouge headquarters in the past year or so.

 Thayer never got his interview. Pol Pot, seventy-two years old, and visibly weakened by disease, could not stand on his own, much less speak, when the two-hour trial was over. "Every ounce of his being was struggling to maintain some last vestige of dignity," Thayer said. “You could see his cheeks shaking.” And Thayer, who choked up himself during an interview with Ted Koppel afterward, told me, "It was a tragic thing to watch any human being have to go through that, regardless of what he did to others. I felt great sympathy—and not just for him. My mind raced with the millions of people whose lives were destroyed."

Still, Thayer seems almost to regard the accomplishment of this life goal as old news. The leaders of this summer's coup in Phnom Penh are themselves old Khmer Rouge cadres. "Pol Pot is in jail; the rest of them are in leadership," he said. "They're executing people, and the American government doesn't have the balls to call it a coup, because that would mean cutting off aid, and that's a scandal." To hear him talk, Pol Pot's demise was not the end of the story but the starting point of a new one.—PHILP GOUREVITCH

 

Sihanouk Back at the Helm

Sihanouk Back at the Helm

Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 18 June 1993

By Nate Thayer

The days since the conclusion of U.N.-conducted elections have seen Cambodia descend into what would seem a national embarrassment if the implications were not so depressing for the country's future. In the wake of a solid defeat of the ruling Cambodian People's Party in what was unanimously declared a free and fair election, State of Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen on June 10 declared that the U.N. and foreign countries had engineered a conspiracy of massive fraud and announced that "dissident figures" in the CPP had seceded six eastern provinces, representing almost 40 percent of the nation's territory, from central control in protest.

Behind the scenes a Byzantine soap opera centered around a feuding royal family came to the surface. It pitted two half-brother princes, bitter enemies for years, vying for political power and the allegiance of their father, who himself was obsessed with avenging his deposition from power in a military coup more than 20 years ago.

Meanwhile, the U.S. $2.8 billion Paris peace agreement, the largest ever U.N. effort of its kind, took a decided back seat to traditional Cambodian power politics, leaving diplomats and U.N technocrats confused and muttering half-hearted protests as it became all too clear that the principles of democracy had hardly taken root in this fractured country.

By June 15, the secessionist movement had petered out, with Prince Norodom Chakrapong and other senior CPP officials having fled the country to Vietnam.

But the several day period of instability had managed to tarnish the reputation of many, particularly United Nation's Transitional Authority in Cambodia. chief Yasushi Akashi and Hun Sen.

Akashi remained silent for more than 48 hours after the CPP officials announced their secession plan, leaving many Cambodians wondering whose side UNTAC stood on- those who had won the elections or those who opposed them. Many senior UNTAC officials and others were appalled at UNTACs unwillingness to take a strong stand and lack of political leadership in the face of CPP officials who were threatening violence against UNTAC and attacking opposition party figures who had put their faith in UNTAC promises that they would be protected if they showed support for opposition parties.

On June 15 Akashi announced that he "highly appreciated the efforts of Hun Sen and reaffirmed UNTAC's intention to continue its thorough and objective inquiry into complaints concerning the elections." Many UNTAC officials were appalled that Akashi would complement the CPP official who was said to be behind the secessionist movement and give legitimacy to the CPP election complaints that had been rejected by every independent observer and all the UNTAC senior staff, according to UNTAC officials.

Prince Norodom Ranariddh's FUNCINPEC party was declared the winner of elections by a 7.25 percent margin over the Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party. FUNCINPEC received more than 45 percent of the tally to CPP's 38 percent. The republican Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party received slightly more than 3 percent of the votes. The votes translated into 58 seats for FUNCINPEC, 51 for the CPP, 10 for the BLDP, and one for an obscure FUNCINPEC offshoot party, Molinaka, in the 120 seat constituent assembly. UNTAC, the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, and all international observers declared the results fair.

But immediately the CPP began jockeying to force a power-sharing agreement that would have effectively voided the election in order to give them more power than was accorded them through popular polls. With the CPP threatening coups and military intervention, Sihanouk unilaterally assumed full powers on June 4, in a "government" that collapsed within 24 hours in the face of opposition from the victorious FUNCINPEC and many of the key foreign countries who contended that the move violated the terms of the peace accords and acceded to blackmail from the losers.

Faced with the unfamiliar concept of giving up power based simply on popular will, senior CPP officials on June 6 formerly announced that they had seized control of six eastern provinces bordering on Vietnam. The secessionist move was led by Prince Norodom Chakrapong, a son of Sihanouk and deputy prime minister in the CPP government, Sin Song, the head of the national security ministry which controls the CPP secret police, and Bou Thong, a senior CPP standing committee member. But some analysts agreed that the secessionist move had the sanction of Hun Sen and the CPP leadership and was little more than a political ploy using military leverage to force a power sharing agreement that would give them more power than accorded by the elections.

Nevertheless, the secessionists ordered UNTAC to leave the area they deemed the "King Father Autonomous zone", and hundreds of opposition party officials fled to the jungle or to Phnom Penh. FUNCINPEC and BLDP leaders claimed that dozens of their supporters have been killed in recent days since the break-off. UNTAC evacuated it's non-essential civilian personnel but refused to withdraw the U.N. military, who remained in a tense standoff throughout the area.

While observers said that the movement was doomed to failure from the outset-it had virtually no popular support and no chance of sympathy from any international sector-it was not unexpected. Cambodia has no tradition of peaceful transfer of power, power sharing, or even loyal opposition.

The concept of sharing power with enemies is alien to the former communists in the CPP leadership and to modern Cambodian political culture. Asian diplomats said Chakrapong, during a visit to Beijing in May, responded to a diplomat who asked him what the CPP reaction to losing the elections as: "Remember Burma."

But with Prince Chakrapong taking the lead as the public head of the opposition movement, it forced to the surface a long-standing bitter feud with his half brother Ranariddh and a struggle within the Royal family and palace entourage on who to bestow support to.

Chakrapong, 47, a notoriously wealthy deputy prime minister in the State of Cambodia government was in control of several lucrative portfolios including tourism, aviation, and industry, has long been a thorn in his half brother's side.

Upon his successful electoral victory, Ranariddh immediately demanded that Chakrapong be banished from any future political role.

"How can I work with Prince Chakrapong, who holds no other thought than to eliminate or kill me?," Ranariddh asked last week.

Chakrapong was a military guerrilla commander, technically under Ranariddh's command, fighting against the Vietnamese and the current government of which he is now a senior official. In mid October 1991, only days before the formal signing of the Paris peace accords, Chakrapong, after a final break in the long standing feud, attempted to take his more than 1500 troops and defect to the Khmer Rouge, according to Ranariddh and senior Khmer Rouge officials. After approaching Khmer Rouge commander Ta Mok with his proposal and being rejected by the Khmer Rouge leadership, he appeared in Phnom Penh the following week after negotiating his defection to the State of Cambodia.

The State of Cambodia, while wary of Chakrapong's reputation as a loose canon, accepted him because it was thought it would give them leverage within the royal family, and would be useful in elections where royalty is widely revered among the peasant masses.

In the wake of Ranariddh's election victory and before the secessionist putsch, palace sources say that Sihanouk supported sending Chakrapong to Kuala Lumpur as the new ambassador as a way to resolve the conflict. Chakrapong has developed close business relationships with influential Malaysian finance, aviation, and other companies since assuming his role with the CPP, according to CPP and other sources.

Observers here say that in the aftermath of the secessionist movement, deals will be made to divide real power in an interim authority while the newly elected constituent assembly drafts a constitution and creates a new government in three months as mandated by the peace agreement.

On June 14, in the same national assembly building where Sihanouk's 1970 overthrow was approved, the newly elected assembly convened and voted "unanimously and on behalf of the Khmer people" to appoint Sihanouk back to the position he held 23 years ago. The assembly passed a resolution declaring "null and void the illegal coup d'état of 18 March 1970" and vested "full and special powers inherent in his capacity and duties as Head of State in order that he may save our nation...".

Sihanouk, who is known to be fixated on officially avenging his overthrow, was said to be deeply moved by the resolution, sent a handwritten note to the assembly members calling the move "an historical event that has incomparable value for my life, that restores my honour to the people and nation who I will serve until the end of my life."

While UNTAC and diplomats could not figure out exactly what legal powers the assembly had bestowed on Sihanouk, it was clear that the move helped to encourage peace and stability in the coming weeks as behind the scenes deals, in which Sihanouk will play the pivotal role, are cut for power sharing.

It is said that SOC Prime Minister Hun Sen may be dropped from a senior position in an interim arrangement after objections by Ranariddh. Hun Sen's apparent declining power within the CPP, and in the wake of his obstructionist role against the election results alienated former allies.

Ranariddh accused Hun Sen of being "personally responsible for acts of killings and violence" against FUNCINPEC during the run-up to elections and said he could not work with him in the future.

CPP strongman Chea Sim last week proposed a power sharing arrangement with Ranariddh that would make Sihanouk president, Ranariddh first prime minister and Chea Sim second prime minister. The Chea Sim proposal made no mention of Hun Sen and was thought to reflect a new CPP position that sacrificed Hun Sen.

At a meeting at the palace on June 15, Sihanouk proposed a power-sharing arrangement between the CPP, FUNCINPEC, and the BLDP that was said to be as follows: Sihanouk would assume the position of prime minister, with an equal role for Ranariddh and the CPP as deputies.

This arrangement would also divide subordinate power among FUNCINPEC 45 percent, CPP 45 percent and BLDP 10 percent. Other proposals included giving FUNCINCPEC the defence portfolio, Son Sann the finance portfolio, and the interior/national security portfolio to the CPP.

A constitutional drafting committee was proposed of six seats for FUNCINPEC, five seats for the CPP, and one seat for the BLDP.

But it was cautioned that these are initial proposals and that it was unlikely that FUNCINPEC would accept that they be given equal status with the CPP given that they were the victors in the polling results.

The Post has learned that Ranariddh held private talks with Khmer Rouge President Khieu Samphan on June 13 in which the Khmer Rouge for the first time laid out their position on the post election period.

In an interview with Ranariddh on 14 June, he told the Post that "it was the most concrete, specific meeting we have had. It was very, very good."

He quoted Samphan as saying "we will turn over our territory to your new legal government," dropping their demands for a quadripartite formula coalition government. He said the Khmer Rouge desired no senior positions or portfolios, and offered Ranariddh their full support. Ranariddh said "we accept them as Cambodians and part of the Cambodian nation.

He said that Khieu Samphan relayed that the Khmer Rouge required that the SOC accept that FUNCINPEC won the elections and that FUNCINPEC have superior power in any new government as a reflection of the polls. Khmer Rouge sources confirmed that they supported Ranariddh assuming control over the key ministries of finance and defence in a new government. It was said that FUNCINPEC will be willing to concede the interior portfolio to the CPP.

Despite the tumultuous events of the last two weeks, which included secessionist movements, failed provisional governments, the restoration of Sihanouk to his role before a coup that ushered in 23 years of non-stop warfare and suffering that has left millions dead, and royal drama befitting a B grade movie, analysts say the peace process is basically back on track.

The electoral victors, FUNCINPEC, appears to be assuming their role as winners with the weight of the international community and widespread popular support sustaining them in the face of desperate attempts by other political forces to retain power denied them by through an unfamiliar democratic process that has left many of them confused.

Coup debate III: PPP Letters to the Editor re: July 1994 Coup Attempt

"Coup debate 111"

Phnom Penh Post

Letter to the Editor

Friday, 23 September 1994

Dear Sir,

Unfortunately, Chris Horwood, in his entirely justifiable 'attack' on Phnom Penh Post (3/17, 26 Aug-8 Sept, p.9), did not say enough, and did not say it right, permitting Nate Thayer to respond disingenuously, further misleading PPP readers - not the first time this has happened. The question is not whether Chakrapong and Sin Song were guilty, or whether Thayer thinks they were innocent. What comes through in Thayer's report is that he is more sympathetic to them than to the government, even if they were guilty. The purpose behind Thayer's article was to discredit the CPP, and this was also the purpose of his interview with Sar Kheng, which he mischievously, brought up as a balance against his coverage of Chakrapong.

Questions? Thayer's first sentences expressed disbelief in the government line on the "alleged coup", 'reporting', without the slightest evidence, that it involved "at the least .. powerful elements of the security forces", an attribution which excludes both Chak-rapong and Sin Song. The first sentence in his second paragraph, that " more questions were raised than answered by the govern-ment's explanation", was also without evidence other than his own speculations, and a dishonest swipe at the government. And, the coup "has exposed a traumatic - and dangerous - split in the Cambodian people's Party", again without explanation to enlighten PPP readers. Need I go on ? Virtually every paragraph, if not every sentence, contains an editorial; and I would have no objection in principle, although I might still argue against Thayer's reasoning, if his piece had been presented as a PPP editorial, or Op-Ed, but not as front-page news.

As news it was impermissible to speculate that "the coup was organized at the highest level by dominant figures within the CPP", and sourcing to "some intelligence analysts and government officials" is without value, particularly after Thayer had named government officials with a variety of opinions. Equally slippery was to suggest it was because the CPP "are unused to dispute or dissent", as though they were the only Cambodian faction with that weakness.

One point neglected by Thayer is equally revealing of his purpose. Nowhere in his front page article, nor even in the page 8 article which directly touched on the subject, did he mention that Chakrapong and Sin Song have been sulking for months because they were dropped from the CPP lists of victorious election candidates in May 1993 and have been trying ever since to regain seats in the National Assembly.

What Thayer did say about the events of May-June last year is even more shady than his speculations about the coup this July, and the disingenuosness goes right to the 'highest level' of PPP editorship. Thayer says that the June 1993 secession led by Chakrapong and Sin Song, following their dismissal by the CPP, "had the covert backing of their Cambodian People's Party leaders - including Hun Sen, Chea Sim, and Sar Kheng". This is the umpteenth time Thayer has written this, without, so far as I have seen, presenting any evidence. The accusation in fact goes back to a confidential analysis by Stephen Heder under his Untac cover, and it had to be confidential because it was so lacking in substance. At the time I prepared a counter analysis, distributed on June 24-25 1993 to PPP and to other journalists, Embassies and Untac offices.

Thayer has ignored the counter argument, and his employers allow him to get away with it, thereby misleading readers like Horwood, who know no better than to repeat with Thayer that the "secession movement.. played a vital role in forcing Funcinpec to accept a greater involvement in government of the defeated CPP".

On this subject Thayer, supported by Michael Hayes, has been exercising self-censorship every time he puts pen to paper.

- Michael Vickery, Penang.

Coup debate II: letters to the Editor; PPP Coup detat 1994

"Coup detat ll"

Phnom Penh Post

letters to the Editor

Friday, 09 September 1994

0

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Dear Sir,

R eading the debate between Chris Horwood and Nate Thayer on the subject of the latter's reporting of the July coup attempt, I couldn't help feeling that Horwood came out of the tussle with more marks for logic than Nate Thayer.

Basically, Thayer scored a few quick points defending himself against an imaginary accusation of overt bias; but be seemed to miss the substance of the charge, which was that the bias was covert and arose from a lack of balance in the paper's overall coverage of the situation. This charge wasn't answered at all. The point here is that bias is as much a matter of what's left out as of what is actually printed.

It's true that Nate Thayer's Regent Hotel story made gripping reading. It might have been ideal in a Western weekly paper of 50 pages. But it's questionable whether it was really good journalism in the context of a paper the size of the Phnom Penh Post and in that context it may be pertinent to question the judgment, in this case, of the editor as much as the author. Mayn't it?

Chris Horwood is certainly not the only reader to feel that the issue was perhaps a bit of an ego-trip for the reporter. In the light of this, the rather arrogant and sarcastic tone of Thayer's reply to Horwood's letter was not very well judged.

One felt that although Thayer certainly writes a good story, he's happiest when he's at the center of it.

I was also surprised that Thayer, in an attempt to be snooty to Horwood, should have revealed that he doesn't know the difference between the professions of demining and project management.

And Thayer's accusation of 'pomposity' definitely had the ring of the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.

Brevity is the soul of wit. And it has to be admitted that Thayer, for all his other journalistic talents, can sometimes be just a teeny bit long-winded.

- Colin Alfred, freelance educational materials writer, Regent Hotel, Phnom Penh.

"Post Attacked": Letters to the Editor PPP on July'94 Failed Coup

"Post Attacked"

Phnom Penh Post

Letters to the Editor

Friday, 26 August 1994

Dear Sir,

Referring to the report on "Political Killing raises fears" written by Ms Anugraha Palan dated May 20 - June 2, 1994, the Press Department of the Ministry for Information would like to clarify the following points:

The Royal Government of Cambodia which emerged from UN supervised elections, is a legal and legitimate one with neither armed forces nor police, nor militia men belonging to any political party. In fact, Ang Noun, a commune militia man and two other policemen, Srey Touch and Som Ra, were not involved in the killing of Mr. Ang Kuoy and his nephew, Yin Nhath, according to the report from Mr. Kun Kim Teng, the governor of Kampot province and a member of Funcinpec. Me. Ang Nuon who tried to intervene that incident, which took in a religious ceremony in Boch Ktnum village, was wounded, while the other two were killed by a group of 15 Khmer Rouge soldiers led by a leader known as "Nhanh" who based in Sen Han headquarter in Kampot province.

The distortion of the news of killings into political issue is not helpful in the current atmosphere.

The reporter should have, at least, conducted some basic inquiries with the police now comprising both people coming from former Funcinpec and CPP.

It is pity that the Phnom Penh Post could not have demonstrated greater professionalism.

Leng Sochea, press director, Information Ministry.

Anugraha Palan replies: The report was based on independent investigations by three different human rights organizations, all of which gave the version of events as reported in the Post.

Dear Sir,

In the 15-28th July issue of the Phnom Penh Post the second anniversary of the paper, the Editor-in chief, Michael Hayes assessed the Post as having an exemplary regard as a 'responsible' paper taking great pains to provide accurate accounting of events. Yet this issue was the same that reported extensively on the alleged coup attempt of the 2nd of July with a definite and disturbing bias.

Over five pages of reporting were devoted to Nate Thayer's interviews assessments and personal experiences in relation to the events of early July. While the alleged coup attempt does raise serious unanswered questions, and Chakrapong and Sin Song may have been used as scapegoats in more complex political maneuv-ring, one was left with the strong impression that the Post and particularly this reporter were not only cynical of government claims but effectively promoted the innocence of Chakrapong and Sin Song. The amount of space and prominence of position in the paper given over to the Chakrapong interview and the highly personalized story of the Prince's arrest in the Regent were unjustified and unbalanced.

We were offered a full page of statements from Chakrapong allowing him to present his case, argue with passion his innocence, discuss democracy and repeatedly criticize the government. This from someone with notoriously few democratic credentials and who seriously crippled the successful resolution of last year's elections by leading the seven province secessionist movement in June '93.

He has also, with Sin Song, been widely suspected of using violence and intimidation in the political process. According to some analysts this sessionist movement and other strong-arm tactics, played a vital role in forcing Funcinpec to accept a greater involvement in government of the defeated CPP. An uneasy alliance which now characterizes the political factionalism in government.

Thayer's question (p age 2 interview); "So you think that this government has shown that it is incapable of dealing with the problems and needs be changed" is entirely 'leading' and performs the dual purpose of illustrating the reporters own bias while offering Chakrapong another platform from which to launch further criticism of the current government.

In a revealing article; again by Thayer but short and printed on Page 8, King Sihanouk makes it clear that the real issue for Chakrapong is one of personal power not democracy. Surely for an issue of this importance the Post relied far too much on the writings and personal experiences of one reporter. Thayer seems to have a disproportional monopoly in the Post on high-profile issues such as these.

Many of us are deeply concerned about human rights and justice issues in Cambodia. Journalists and the Post have become increasingly concerned about press freedoms and I feel they have used the alleged coup attempt to vent frustrations. We must step back and remember the recent history of this country and the conditions from which Cambodia is trying to emerge. Democratic elections took place against high odds and huge numbers of Cambodians voted. Democracy will come slowly - any study of the development of democracies in 'western countries' as well as emergent democracies in Africa etc will illustrate the huge difficulties. Governments must be rigorously checked and controlled but also given time and support. Concerning the alleged coup attempt I felt the Post neither covered the affair 'responsibly' nor did it perform good journalism.

Chris Horwood, project director MAG. This letter was submitted in a personal capacity.

Nate Thayer replies: Horwood accuses the Post of "a definite and disturbing bias" in reporting. However, he fails to provide one piece of evidence to substantiate his contention.

He says we "effectively promoted the innocence of Chak-rapong and Sin Song" and added the space given to Chakrapong was "unjustified and unbalanced".

His only citation to prove these allegations was another article by me in the same issue which he said was "revealing" in proving his point because it "makes it clear that the real issue for Chakrapong is one of personal power not democracy."

Let me see if I have it right: his only "proof" of biased reporting by me is to cite an article in the same issue, written by me, that quotes people taking a contrary view to other articles in the same issue written by me.

The nut of his argument appears to be his objection, in his words, to the Post "allowing [Chakrapong] to present his case" because Horwood doesn't agree with his politics.

It is not only good journalism, but our duty as an independent newspaper, to present views of those accused of trying to topple a government. Whether Horwood or the Post agrees with Chakrapong is irrelevant.

Horwood fails to mention that we gave an equal amount of space to Sar Kheng as Chakrapong, also in an unexpurgated interview format.

It seems Horwood believs the Post should exercise self-censorship against people prominent in the news whose views we disagree with. This would be biased and unethical.

I am grateful that he has chosen a profession other than journalism, so we are saved from having to think of what facts he decided to leave out because he didn't agree with the politics. I would hope that Horwood exercises more logic and less intellectual shortcuts in his chosen profession of demining than he has in this rather confusing and pompous attempt at political punditry.

...and praised...

Dear Sir,

Your newspaper is doing some great things. Keep up the good work!

- J. Ken Bingham, Professor of Law, Institute of Economics

Sar Kheng: "We can survive this"

Sar Kheng: "We can survive this"

Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 15 July 1994

By Nate Thayer

Co-Interior Minister Sar Kheng denied being involved in the July 2 coup plot during his first-ever interview with a foreign journalist. The rising star of the CPP claimed the plotters aimed to give power to the King. Sar Kheng spoke to Nate Thayer.

Deputy Prime Minister and Co-Interior Minister Sar Kheng has emerged in recent years as one of the most powerful members of the government and a rising star in Cambodia's future political landscape.

He has held a series of important posts within the Cambodian People's Party, including the head of the powerful CPP organization portfolio, responsible for approving appointments of all party positions. Therefore thousands of people owe him their jobs.

Since the UN-sponsored elections, he has successfully recruited a number of intellectuals and technocrats as advisors, and has made an effort to grasp the new era of foreign relations and the post-Cold War scenario in order to expand his ability to operate as a statesman.

In the aftermath of the coup, rumors have swirled through the capital of his involvement.

On July 5, in his first interview ever with a foreign journalist, Sar Kheng addressed this and other issues:

On his role in suppressing the coup attempt.

I first received information on the coup around 6 pm on Saturday July 2. Once I was told about the attempted coup I coordinated the efforts of the joint authorities, especially the Royal Army, under the direct command of Samdech Hun Sen.

Since we received information on the attempted coup, along with [Co-Secretaries of State of the Interior] Sin Sen and Kien Van, also along with the Co-Ministers of the national Defense Ministry, as well as the chief of the general staff of the royal army, we coordinated efforts to stop the coup until 5:30 am on Sunday, July 3.

Under the direct command of the Second Prime Minister I ordered our troops to counter and asked them [the rebel troops from Prey Veng] to go back to their barracks. There were no other forces around the men, around the capital, there were no forces at all, and so, as you might be aware, there was no bloodshed, no exchange of fire and no use of force.

On the objective and leaders of the coup plot.

They tried to arrest three generals-Kreuch Yeum, Pan Thai, and Nyek Bun Chhay. The one to give this order was General Sin Song. This is according to one general working under Gen Sin Song and receiving orders directly from him. The objective of the coup authors we don't know clearly. It is still under investigation. So far, we have arrested only Gen Sin Song as the author of the coup.

According to what we have intercepted from phone conversations, and other people, Chakrapong was involved in the coup and his objective was to give power to the King.

On allegations he was involved in the plot.

So far I have heard rumors and speculation that the coup was initiated by the CPP. With you now, I want to strongly deny these rumors. It has nothing to do with the CPP. We should not interpret or speculate about this until the deliberations of the special committee come out.

Really, I would like to know on what grounds they are based. I can tell you that I am not directly or indirectly involved whatsoever in this coup attempt.

But even with all this I have one thing to say. I only knew about this event after it happened. As Minister of Interior, I should have known before. I was not in control until after.

I have thought a lot about this. I take responsibility and there will be reorganization to control the situation in the future. The lesson I draw from this failed coup is I should reorganize some departments in my Ministry so I can control the situation better in the future.

Why did Hun Sen know at 1 pm about the coup attempt and you, as Minister of Interior, not until 6 pm?

Well on the afternoon on Saturday I was working as usual at my office receiving foreign guests. As I told you I didn't know until 6 pm. The Second Prime Minister, didn't know until 3 pm, according to my information.

Well, even if Hun Sen didn't know until 3 pm, why did it take the PM three hours to inform the Interior Minister of a coup attempt underway?

Well the explanation may be that I cut off my phone and usually don't work on Saturday afternoon. Even You Hokry knew only at 5 pm. I got a message from Samdech Hun Sen only when I came back to my house. Sin Sen did not know until 5:30 pm.

Will there be more arrests?

Well, you know, if there will be more arrests in the coming days it is up to the result of the investigation. You are right to say there should be someone more powerful, powerful enough to launch a coup involved. But they [Sin Song and Prince Chakrapong] before launched a secession. General Sin Song commanded the Ministry of National Security for ten years. They know very well how to launch a coup. They were commanders. But remember, the police forces amount to 40,000 men. He got only two hundred. Not very difficult.

There are allegations that you have met Sin Song recently and discussed the possibility of a coup.

In the past I already have met Sin Song many times, not only recently. Once again I assure you that I have never talked to Sin Song about the issue of a coup.

I want to just say lastly that there are a lot of rumors, groundless, without any real facts. I think they were intentionally created by a group of people to create divisions among the politicians, among the people, among the leaders.

On how the investigation will be conducted.

So the second Prime Minister just appointed a special committee comprised of the Co-Ministers of Defense and the Co-Ministers of Interior to conduct an investigation to find the real authors of the coup and who are their accomplices.

This special committee will ask a certain number of personalities - civilian and military alike - to come - like a hearing. After the hearing process, we might know well what will happen clearly.

I just would like to give you one short remark. We were a little late about the coup, but we quickly reacted to get the situation under control. The coup now has been killed.

On the involvement of the Interior Ministry.

You are right to know we got information about the crossing [of armored vehicles and rebel troops at Neak Luong ferry] very late. But I give firm assurance that the Ministry of Interior did not give any order to allow the soldiers to cross the river.

This is to confirm to you there was no permission from the Ministry of Interior. It was decided from the east of the river. We have issued arrest warrants for three men, generals, who gave the order from Prey Veng.

The [rebel] forces of course belonged to the Ministry of Interior. But, as you are aware, Gen Sin Song was Minister of National Security for ten years so he still may have more or less influence.

On the status of Finance Minister Sam Rainsy and Foreign Minister Prince Norodom Sirivuddh.

I have listened to international and national politicians who tell me that around the world there is no government where a minister can make remarks or conduct a policy against his government. But Cambodia is complex and that is why the solution to the problem is delayed.

Well, this afternoon we should debate the issue of outlawing the Khmer Rouge at the National Assembly and other issues of difference of policies of some ministers and their prime ministers.

But I think we have to find a solution very soon. I don't know the solution but there are two options: Either the government changes to adopt the policy of a minority or the minority must leave the government. And I don't think that the goernment should change its policy.

On the consequences of the coup.

I think, like it or not, we will have, more or less, some consequences as a result of this coup. But recall that the government has already passed through bigger problems, or as big. We survived then. We solved them. We can survive this. We will continue to solve the problem of national reconstruction and attract foreign investment.

Frantic calls from Regent's Rm 406 : Coup Leader Holed up in PP Hotel

"frantic calls from regent's Rm 406"

Phnom penh Post

Friday, 15 July 1994

By Nate Thayer

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T he Post's Nate Thayer describes how he shared Prince Chakrapong's final hours in Cambodia after receiving a dramatic 6:30 am phone call.

Loyalist troops had taken positions throughout the capital on the night of July 2 as rumors swept the city that a coup attempt was imminent. Heavily armed soldiers were positioned outside the homes of government leaders and military installations by dark, and the children of senior officials were ordered to stay out of the city nightclubs.

Officials confirmed "there will be trouble tonight" and spoke of a coup attempt.

At 3:00 am government forces surrounded the houses of the alleged putsch leaders, who they named as former Interior Minister Sin Song and former Deputy Prime Minister Prince Norodom Chakrapong.

Their houses were invaded, and weapons and communication equipment seized. Sin Song was arrested and allegedly confessed to his role in launching a coup. Chakrapong had fled his house hours before security forces arrived.

At 6:30 am a call to this reporter said "call this number" and hung up. A jittery voice answered after I dialed the mobile phone. "This is Prince Chakrapong. Please, please help me," he said in a frightened broken whisper, "Come right away to the Regent hotel. They have surrounded me. They are trying to kill me."

In the 20 minutes it took for me to arrive, the Prince called me seven times begging for me to come quickly. "I am alone. Please, before they kill me, come now. Call the American Embassy and tell them my life is in danger."

He was obviously hoping that a foreign presence might prevent the security forces from harming him.

Government troops and security forces armed with machine guns, rocket launchers, and carrying walkie talkies were positioned on the street corners and entrance ways around the hotel near Monivong Boulevard when I arrived on the otherwise quiet early Sunday morning. But no one tried to stop me, probably thinking I was a hotel guest.

Inside, hotel workers, white with fear, stared blankly in response to my inquiry of where the alleged coup leader was staying. But maids hovering in an upstairs hallway, opened Room 401.

A disheveled, barefoot, and petrified son of King Sihanouk was found emerging from a crawl space above the ceiling of his hotel room, begging for help.

"Please, they are trying to arrest me. They will kill me. I am innocent. Please tell the American Ambassador to come right away. I need protection," the wide-eyed Prince said, near tears, and jittery from lack of sleep. He was alone. The bed was still made, and the curtains were drawn. A ceiling panel was removed revealing a small dark crawl space. A chair was under it to allow one to climb up. He said troops had been surrounding him since 3:00 am.

"I hear the rumor that I plan to make a coup d'etat. I am innocent. I have nothing in my hands. I have no political influence now. I have no troops," he said. "Please don't leave me."

So began a four-and-a-half-hour drama that, after scores of frantic phone calls and negotiations, ended with the Prince being whisked to the airport by military escort and forcibly exiled via a scheduled Malaysia Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Frightened hotel staff hovered in hallways and peeked out of rooms in the otherwise completely silent hotel.

Realizing that there was no press or diplomats aware of the developments, and I was alone with a hunted, hated alleged coup plotter. Surrounded by troops clearly prepared to invade, I opted to rent my own room down the hall, with a better view of the troops, street, and hotel entrance way.

I went downstairs to the front desk asked for Room 406 and handed over cash. The desk clerk stared with a furrowed brow look of fear and alarm, said nothing, and handed me the key.

I thought that it might diminish the incentive of the troops outside to act precipitously if I was in a room rented under my own name, and buy time to interview the Prince. The Prince thought it was a great idea and came over to Room 406.

I made a quiet call to senior government contacts and diplomats informing them of the situation, hoping that they would get the message to the troops downstairs - quickly.

My phone rang a few minutes later, saying that Co-Prime Minister Ranariddh was aware I was with the man who allegedly was trying to topple his government and assassinate top officials.

The three mobile phones in my room rang constantly. More than 40 calls came in within the first two hours, as Chakrapong desperately tried to delay the troops from arresting him, and attempted to convince US Ambassador Charles Twining to give him political asylum.

Chakrapong repeatedly denied to me that he was involved in any coup attempt, cursed the leaders of the government, begged for my help and asked me not to leave him if the troops invaded.

He fielded phone calls constantly on his two phones, often listening silently and hanging up, speaking in English, French, and Khmer.

King Norodom Sihanouk rang from Beijing. "I am alright Papa, but the situation is bad. They have surrounded me," he said at one point.

As more calls came in he broke down and again moist-eyed. He looked dejected as Queen Norodom Monineath Sihanouk kept him up to date from Beijing with the state of her negotiations with government leaders over allowing him exile.

"It is not the Queen, but as my parents. It is not politics, it is as a son," he told me when asked whether King Sihanouk and Queen Monineath supported him.

For the first two hours, he was in fear of his life, convinced that if arrested he would be killed.

"They tell me that if we criticize the government, we are serving the interests of the Khmer Rouge. If I am arrested, the embassies must stay with me, to keep looking for me. Please don't let them take me anywhere. Please don't leave me alone," he said to me.

The Prince asked me to contact the US Embassy to request political asylum. I give him the mobile telephone number of the US Ambassador Charles Twining. He calls and Twining is put on the phone. "I ask your protection, your excellency. It is a human right. If you don't come to protect me I prefer not to go outside. I prefer to die here. I will stay here in the room. How can I trust them if they bring me somewhere?", he says to Twining.

Prince Chakrapong's face shows that the American Ambassadors response is not positive. "Please your excellency, if they bring me outside, if they arrest me, they will kill me."

Chakrapong hung up from Twining and went to look outside. The street was quiet save for troops standing guard. "Twining says 'you are not an American citizen, we cannot help you,' " he said.

"They say this is a liberal democracy," staring from behind the curtain down at the soldiers, "They are silencing all opposition now. We will all be accused of serving the interests of the Khmer Rouge. The whole world must know that this regime accuses me without proof. If the free world helps this regime it is the end of democracy."

Another American diplomat called my phone: "Tell Chakrapong he is not a US citizen. As long as the government proceeds in a legal fashion regarding his human rights, there is nothing we can do to interfere in a sovereign government."

But the American message of rejection of official protection was clear.

Crying young hotel maids burst into the room at one point: "The soldiers are coming. They are inside now."

A disheveled Prince - barefoot, shirt unbuttoned, sleepless, and dejected-began to put on his shoes. He handed me his wallet and mobile telephones and asked me to give them to his daughters. "Please make sure my daughters are alright. The soldiers invaded my house last night and they were there."

But the soldiers didn't come in. And the phones rang incessantly, sometimes three at the same time. At one point, Chakrapong had King Sihanouk on the line in one hand, and Twining on the other.

The Queen was still negotiating for safe passage out of the country.

Finally Prime Minister Ranariddh - Chakrapong's nemesis and half brother - agreed to allow the Prince to leave the country. "If I am allowed to join my family in Malaysia, I will accept," he said at one point.

By 10 am we saw Twining, other diplomats, and press begin to gather on the street, to the great relief of the Prince.

"I have given ten years of my life for my country for nothing. They are looking for a plane for me," he said after hanging up from a call from the queen.

"I want you to tell them I am innocent. I am a military man. I know how to make a coup. Now, I have no power and no forces. How can I make a coup? If I was to do something would I stay here in Phnom Penh?

"I left last night with no bodyguards to come to the hotel because I felt something was wrong. Like when I was in the jungle. I knew on the battlefield when something bad would happen. But I was not afraid because I was innocent."

The military called from downstairs to say that the troops were coming to our room now and that the Prince would be allowed to leave the country.

He turned to me: "Please do not leave me. I will only leave if you go with me to the airport in the same car. They may not take me to the airport."

There was a strong knock on the door and I went to open it. A score of heavily armed soldiers and security police waited in the hallway as Twining and Co-Minister of Interior You Hockry entered alone. The four of us sat down.

Hockry asked me to leave. Prince Chakrapong asked that I stay. I said nothing.

"We will promise your safety to the airport. I promise there will be no guns on the plane. The best thing for us it to bring you safely to the airport," Hokry told the Prince.

Men were sent to get passports and luggage at Chakrapong's house. A Malaysian Airlines plane was held on the tarmac at Pochentong as Chakrapong was assured that he would be allowed to safely leave the country.

The behavior of several Ministry of Interior police, who were poised to arrest the Prince until minutes before, now went through a bizarre somersault. They entered the room crouched on their knees and hands clasped to their heads in deference to Royalty as they went about their business preparing to send him to exile.

The Interior Minister said that Chakrapong's alleged collaborator, Sin Song, had confessed. "I think that one or two people cannot do this kind of thing. There will be more arrests," he said. Chakrapong stared blankly, with a mixed expression of anger and fear.

At one point, while, we waited for the motorcade and luggage downstairs, Twining turned to Hockry.

"I just remembered, there will be a fireworks display this afternoon at the fourth of July celebration," he said, suddenly realizing that, as a jittery city emerged from an attempted coup, explosions in the city might not be timely.

"Do you have authorization?" the Minister shot back to the Ambassador, with an alarmed look on his face.

When the mobile phone rang to say that the motorcade of troops was ready, we left the room to walk to the street. Hotel staff and soldiers clasped their hands and knelt in respect as Chakrapong was led by a bevy of sunglassed, automatic weapon-toting officials through a throng of cameras waiting on the street.

Shoved into a sleek Toyota with black tinted windows, we were whisked to the airport in a convoy of a score of cars, including one with Twining. Streets were blocked off and hundreds of people lined them to watch the motorcade pass. The plane was waiting at the airport, full of curious passengers, as Chakrapong was whisked on board and the flight departed.

He called several hours later from Malaysia saying: " I want to thank you sincerely for saving my life. They would have killed me if you had not come. I am innocent. I was not involved in anything. Tell them I am innocent."

 

 

Friday, 15 July 1994 14:00

July 1994 Coup Attempt: Prince pleads his innocence

Prince pleads his innocence

Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 15 July 1994 

By Nate Thayer

A lleged coup plotter Prince Chakrapong made his first public comments from exile during an interview with Nate Thayer in Kuala Lumpur on July 9.

Prince Norodom Chakrapong went into exile in Malaysia on July 3 after troops surrounded a Phnom Penh hotel he was hiding in. He was accused of treason and being linked to a rebel force of up to 300 troops. They were persuaded to peacefully return to barracks before reaching the capital.

On his alleged role in the coup.

You know as a professional, it makes no sense. They say I had 200 people. Compared with more than 100,000. I am courageous but I am not stupid. Three hundred to compare with 100,000. What can they do? It is ridiculous to do that. In guerrilla warfare, yes. You know, in the jungle we can do that but in the town, how can we do that? Secondly, those responsible for the coup must stay with their troops, you know, at least to protect him, in case it is not successful. At least they know where to escape, to prepare the retreat, the withdrawal. Not to allow myself to be surrounded like that.......

If I knew anything, I would have gone into the jungle already or in the province. When I go into battle I tell no one the time, the day I go. Nobody knows what I am going to do, even my bodyguards don't know and nobody can find me. That is the reason I can survive ten years in the jungle. And all of us - General Sin Song has experience during 70-75. He was the Minister of Security more than 14 years. I have my military experience of more than 30 years and more than 10 years in jungle warfare. We are not young people who have just become Generals. We are professionals. How can we do that?

The government elected by Untac is collapsing, the regime is collapsing. But they must find someone as a, you know, as a wall to protect them. What they did finally is they found the people, Chakrapong and Sin Song........I say to you, for myself I think we don't need to have a coup. Because everybody expects the government is going to fall by itself. Why to make the coup illegally?......Everybody expects that this government must be changed. If this government must be changed, why do you need the coup, why? It is illogical to do that and it is illogical to have 200 or 300 men to make a coup.

You say that we, Sin Song and so on, are behind it. But how can you be assured that we are behind the coup. We have no voice to explain our point of view. Sin Song so called confessed, but who has come to ask him what he is really saying? Because what you know is only by the government , not by the people themselves who are responsible. If you have a democracy, you know, looking at even your country, the mafia even has a right to answer in public. Only the government says he confessed. What is the proof? They can falsify, they can change anything, they can make it up. Whoever has the power can make it up.

On the state of the government.

I have been very disappointed with what was organized by the United Nations, what has happened here. But never mind, the past is the past. I believe in the constitution, but what is now happening with democracy in Cambodia? Nothing is new. Nothing. Has Cambodia become as a dictatorship, but under another way, another form? It is more dangerous. Before I am fighting against the regime of the communists but now the so-called liberal democracy because on behalf of the liberal democracy they have made a dictatorship. It is more dangerous.

A lot of countries, the super powers and so on, they are looking just only at the face and artificially. It is very dangerous. But the super powers and the other countries forget. In any country, in your country, in the democratic country, if something is wrong, all the people who do something wrong must go, but the institutions must be there.... this government cannot stay forever, must be replaced. Make new elections and so on......The fruit is already ripe for the collapse of the government. Everybody is talking about that. Not just me, but everybody. The question is just a question of time already. Just only that.

The best way is new elections. They will give the people the choice to elect the Khmer Rouge or to come and enter the government. They don't need to make an amendment if the people choose the Khmer Rouge. We cannot. But if the Khmer Rouge are not elected, they have no reason to reject this constitution and the new government.

You know, I say if you don't choose something, no election, at least we can change the government because new faces, new people, can regain the confidence of the people. If we allow the same people to do the same policy, you lose the confidence of the people. I think that for the next election everybody will lose... a third party will win.

On the Khmer Rouge

The government is very smart. They know the whole world is very anti-Khmer Rouge. It is Khmer Rouge, Khmer Rouge. But what about the other problems? Yes, it is important the problem of the Khmer Rouge but it is more important the problem of democracy. The problem is there.

I ask your country and everybody: Is democracy more important than the problem of the Khmer Rouge or not? If you promote democracy the problem of the Khmer Rouge can be solved by democracy. The government must do a good job for the people. The only way to fight the Khmer Rouge is not fighting but through promoting a better life for the people.

So you think that this government has shown that it is incapable of dealing with the problems and needs to be changed?

Yes. First there is economic collapse. Secondly, security collapse. Third, justice for the people. Fourth, for the democracy.

Now, they ban everybody who dares to criticize the government, to put them in jail or put them somewhere. But the Constitution says that you can criticize, you have the right to free speech in the Constitution.

And, you know, everything goes down like economic, social, and security and a lot of people just dying for nothing.

Like I say to you, again the Khmer Rouge, in Anlong Veng and Pailin, many people lose their lives and materials but nobody is responsible. Only some commanders have changed. But who gave them the order to go attack? Who are responsible for ordering them to go to attack Anlong Veng and Pailin? Who takes this position? It is the responsibility of the government. Why to change only the men who just only execute the order? Nobody is responsible. In this government everything goes wrong but it is the fault of the others but never them.

On Hun Sen

Look at Hun Sen. Hun Sen conducts all the government and the party through the election and he lost. But he stays there. And this government has had no success. I don't ask the government to go undemocratically, like in a coup, but they must take responsibility as the people who are responsible for the country. Like the other leaders of democratic countries. Like your country, like France, like Japan. I don't ask them to go undemocratically, to make a coup d'etat, but they have to take responsibility for their job.

On the CPP after the coup attempt.

I think the CPP artificially still stays the same, but internally I think it is destroyed by Hun Sen. The majority in the CPP want to say something but they have no opportunity to express their thinking democratically. You know, in our party we have the congress, but Hun Sen is always against the Party congress. I think this is the beginning of the end of the CPP because Hun Sen destroyed everything. In the political ring and the military ring.....I don't know if the CPP can recover...It depends on the reaction of Sar Kheng and Chea Sim.

In the CPP now, nobody can control anybody because it is so divided, so divided. I can assure you it is so divided, so divided...the smaller commanders are worried about their safety and security. They are less controlled by the people in power. But according to experience, Hun Sen doesn't trust anybody now. I don't know who depends on who now. Hun Sen may use more and more the troops of Funcinpec, the cadres of Funcinpec also. Hun Sen arrests the CPP people to destroy the CPP. In this way, Hun Sen is a champion to destroy his own party for his own ambition. And what will Funcinpec do now? Funcinpec maybe now has more or less the possibility to make pressure against Hun Sen because Hun Sen is more and more isolated from his party. Now the main obstacle is over Chakrapong, Sin Song and so on. But the next target is Chea Sim and Sar Kheng. I think that in this way the strategy of the two is there. The two prime ministers agreed to have to, you know, divide the power.

Hun Sen is looking for security and military affairs and Funcinpec are looking for economic affairs and financial affairs.

'Coup' plot thickens

'Coup' plot thickens

Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 15 July 1994

By Nate Thayer

TWO weeks after factions in the government stifled an alleged coup plot involving-at the least-powerful elements of the security forces, jittery leaders are privately accusing each other of betrayal and internal power plays, rocking the already fragile coalition government.

While more questions were raised than answered by the government's explanation for the coup bid, the move has forced to the surface simmering tensions within the administration.

While the government leadership remains intact on paper, the aftermath of the coup has exposed a traumatic-and dangerous-split in the Cambodian People's Party-the dominant factions within the coalition.

This comes weeks after a public split within Funcinpec, the other main partner in the coalition.

While several senior officials of the CPP connected to the powerful Interior Ministry have been arrested or accused, it is accepted by diplomats and senior government officials from both parties that a much larger story of skullduggery, backstabbing, and Machiavellian politics between senior political figures lies at the root of the affair.

Some believe the coup attempt had a three-fold objective, firstly against Funcinpec, secondly against the King's recent initiative to assume temporary authority, thirdly, perhaps, against CPP Co-Prime Minister Hun Sen.

According to this theory, this was a conspiracy to consolidate control over the government by powerful factions within the CPP allied to the CPP tightly-controlled security services and Sar Kheng.

Others were convinced that Hun Sen organized a fake coup plot to undermine the growing power of his CPP colleagues, who he feared were seizing real control over the state and party at his expense.

What is apparent is that the events were, as a senior Party official said, "an internal CPP matter."

While confirmed facts are scarce and rumors and speculation abound, the events appeared to evolve sometime around 1 pm on Saturday, July 2.

It was then that Secretary of State for Defense Chhay Sung Yung approached the chief of the military court with an order to arrest three senior generals of the Defense Ministry-Gen Pan Thai, Gen Nyek Bun Chay, and Gen Kreuch Yeum. The military court official was skeptical that the order had real authority and informed Hun Sen, who then ordered Chan Sung Yung to his residence. All three generals were from non-CPP former resistance factions who controlled significant troops in the new integrated army that emerged after elections.

The objective of the arrests was to prevent army-which is not under the full control of the CPP-from mobilizing opposition to the coup makers. The men alleged to be coup plotters by the government are mostly associated with the CPP-controlled security apparatus from the Ministry of Interior and the army appeared to play only a minor role in the affair.

The failure of the attempt to arrest the three generals began the unraveling of the plot, with details provided by Chhay Sung Yung's confession.

He is said to have implicated Sin Song and Prince Chakropong in the plot, before Hun Sen allowed him-inexplicably-to leave, whereupon he fled to Vietnam.

At 5 pm on July 2, 12 armored personnel carriers and under 300 troops, said to be loyal to Sin Song, left the eastern province of Prey Veng and headed for the capital to launch a coup against the government.

Hun Sen consulted Minister of Justice Chem Sngoun, who said despite Gen Chay Sung Yung having fingered Sin Song, there were insufficient grounds to arrest the former National Security Minister.

But once the movement of troops had been confirmed, the arrest order was approved.

According to several sources, Hun Sen failed to notify Co-Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh until 5 pm or his Minister of Interior Sar Kheng until 6 pm-hours after the alleged coup bid began.
Importantly, Sar Kheng, who as Interior Minister ultimately controls the important secret police and security forces, was not informed of the coup attempt for a full five hours after his CPP colleague and Prime Minister, Hun Sen, began plans to quell the plot.

Government and diplomatic sources say that is clear that Sar Kheng was not informed because either Hun Sen suspected that he had a hand in the coup attempt, or that the Second Prime Minister was orchestrating a complicated pot against Sa Kheng.

They say that even after Sar Kheng was summoned to Hun Sen's residence-the command center to quell the coup-he was not given authority to supervise his duties as head of the interior ministry until the plot was quelled.

In what analysts see as a highly unusual move, CPP leader Hun Sen used Funcinpec forces-co-minister of Interior You Hokry and his Funcinpec associates and those of former KPNLF General Pan Thai, to quell the coup attempt.

By dusk on Saturday night, government troops took up positions at the homes of major government leaders in Phnom Pneh, and word spread rapidly of a coup attempt overnight in the city. Government officials and their families were warned to stay at home.

The APCs and rebel troops were stopped by loyalist forces 25 km from Phnom Penh at Dei Eth at 8 pm without a confrontation, and eventually allowed to return to barracks unpunished.

Government troops led by Gen Pan Thai, stormed the houses of out-of-favor CPP leaders Prince Norodom Chakrapong and Sin Song and seized a small amount of weapons and communication gear.

Former National Security Minister Sin Song was arrested and former Deputy Prime Minister Prince Chakrapong-after a several-hour standoff at the Regent Hotel off Monivong Boulevard-was allowed to go into exile in Malaysia.

On the afternoon of July 3 government spokesman Sieng LaPresse said that "one armed group led by Sin song and Prince Chakrapong" attempted "to create disorder" and assassinate senior government and military officials.

He said the threat had subsided without any shots fired, and the rebel troops had been allowed to return to their barracks.

"Those guys realized they made the wrong move and want to go back to serve the government," Lapresse said.

Government leaders moved quickly to contend that a major threat to the coalition had been thwarted.

"We arrested Sin Song because he had confessed to what he had done," Co-Minister of Interior You Hokry told the Post on July 3, "I think that one or two people cannot do this kind of thing. There will be more arrests. But this is a personal and individual act-this is not a CPP policy."

Government officials fuelled confusion about the plot by giving conflicting accounts about the motives of the two alleged ringleaders.

Coalition spokesmen said Sin Song had confessed and said the reason he gave for the coup was that King Sihanouk had suggested bringing back the Khmer Rouge in a government of national unity, which was, to him, unacceptable.

But Interior Minister Sar Kheng said: "According to what we intercepted from phone conversations and other people was that Chakrapong was involved in a coup and his objective was to give power to the King."

Just as confusingly Hokry told the Post on July 3, shortly before he escorted Chakrapong to the airport, that: "We have no evidence to accuse him [Chakrapong]. That is why we are letting him go."

What seems to be the only consensus is that Chakrapong and Sin Song's involvement is the tip of the iceberg of deeper plots within the government to stifle suspected opposition and consolidate power from within.

Senior government sources involved in the interrogation of Gen Sin Song-who allegedly controlled the small group of rebel forces-say he has "threatened to reveal very high government officials who supported him" On Tuesday July 5 one name he allegedly reveal was his colleague Sin Sen.

Gen Sin Sen, the Secretary of State of the Interior Ministry, who, along with Sing Song, holds great power and influence over the national police units, was arrested at the airport on Wednesday, July 6, as he was prepared to make a routine, pre-scheduled working visit to Malaysia. His bags had already been loaded on the plane and he was waiting in the VIP lounge.

Sin Sen was arrested along with his powerful deputy, Gen Tes Choy. Tes Choy controls the elite A-3 police forces and "protection" units, responsible for security of leaders, VIPs and Phnom Penh.

All of the officials implicated are known to have close links to the faction within the CPP led by party President Chea Sim and Co-Interior Minister Sar Kheng.

On Tuesday, July 7, at a highly charged private dinner of senior CPP officials Chea Sim issued a stern warning to Hun Sen to end the arrests, or risk a backlash. Hun Sen agreed, after it was clear that a push for more arrests would likely result in armed conflict and a collapse of both the party and government, sources said.

On July 8 and 9, government leaders-including both Prime Ministers and both Interior Ministers-in their first show of unity since the events began, issued strong joint warnings to the media and officials against "spreading rumors" that cause "divisions among the leadership" to try to stifle what was by then an open secret that powerful figures in the government were deeply embroiled in a power struggle.

They backed up their threat by arresting Ngoun Noun, editor of the popular Khmer paper the Morning News, which had insinuated in July 8 editions that Sar Kheng was involved in the plot.

Whoever was behind the events starting on July 2, Cambodian officials and diplomats acknowledge that there has indeed been serious talk of a coup for several months among CPP officials upset with recent political developments.

Sources confirm that the United States and others had wind that coup plots were in the air for more than two months, and had specifically informed government officials in recent weeks-including Sin Song and Sar Kheng-that the United States would refuse to support any government that emerged from a putsch.

Tensions within the government have increased dramatically in recent weeks after King Norodom Siihanouk called in mid-June for a new government, which would bring in the Khmer Rouge in an effort to end the civil war.

The CPP, in May during private party meetings, reacted strongly against earlier suggestions by the King that the Khmer Rouge be included in a national reconciliation government and that the King be given real powers to administer the state.

Last week, at the prompting of the CPP, the National Assembly officially outlawed the Khmer Rouge, in a move that directly opposed the King's peace initiatives.

Divisions within Funcinpec, that included a public split in June between Finance Minister Sam Rainsy along with Foreign Minister Norodom Sirivuddh against party boss Prince Ranariddh, also spelled to many in the CPP that the government was being allowed to get dangerously factionalized.

The tension within the government in recent weeks has caused serious concern among the CPP in particular that it could cause the collapse of the fragile coalition of former enemies.

An internal CPP document dated June 29 obtained by the Post, demands that all party members sign an oath of loyalty to not criticize the government or Party.

"All levels of officials and members of the CPP must avoid directly or indirectly criticizing the Royal Government, which will only hinder the process of national reconstruction and serve the advantage of the enemy," said the document.

It was in this atmosphere that some intelligence analysts and government officials concluded that the coup was organized at the highest level by dominant figures within the CPP to attain an iron grip over the government after weeks of open dissent among government officials.

The CPP-the former communist party installed by Vietnam-are unused to debate or dissent that has been forced on them in the wake of the UN-organized elections that created a multiparty system of former battlefield enemies within the government.

According to supporters of this theory, the CPP coup plotters-which included, among others Sin Song, Sin Sen, and had, at the least, the knowledge and tacit approval of Sar Kheng and Chea Sim-planned to seize temporary power but retain the National Assembly and Constitution so as to preserve the image of success of the $2 billion dollar Untac mission and maintain the flow of foreign aid.

This theory then has a cowed National Assembly electing a new Prime Minister, likely to have been Sar Kheng, according to sources.

Sar Kheng denied to the Post any prior knowledge or involvement of the coup plots.

Evidence suggests, according to these sources, that the coup plotters were to rely on the highly politicized national police force under the Ministry of Interior.

The post has learned that thousands of new style military uniforms were covertly delivered from Thailand in recent weeks, and were said to be targeted to outfit the police forces to replace the army in the event of a successful coup.

Intelligence sources, diplomats, and government officials say they have strong evidence that both Chakrapong and Sin Song had traveled to Vietnam and Thailand in recent weeks seeking support for launching a coup.

But diplomats and even government officials themselves agreed that neither Chakrapong nor Sin Song had either a political power base nor controlled sufficient armed forces to launch a coup attempt alone.

"I have no power and I have no forces. How can I make a coup?" Chakrapong said while holed up in a hotel room surrounded by troops during the waning hours of the drama on July 3.

Many suggested that the two leaders this time had been promised support, and then betrayed by more powerful figures within the ruling government.

"These two people are not stupid. If they were to launch a coup, they would not do alone," said a senior government official.

Sar Kheng, considered one of the most powerful figures in both the CPP and the government, gave credence to this view in an interview with the Post on July 5.

He said: "You are right to say there should be someone powerful enough to launch a coup involved. That is why we will investigate further."

He said the government would form a military inquiry board to seek other plotters out.

But he acknowledged he himself has been the target of suspicion.

"We want to clarify some speculation you may have heard that His Excellency Sar Kheng was involved in that [coup] attempt," government spokesman Lapresse said on July 3, "Not so. When the attempt took place Sar Kheng was in the Prime Minister's residence."

Sar Kheng also denied involvement during his interview with the Post. "I can tell you that I am not directly or indirectly connected whatsoever in the coup attempt.

"I have one thing to say. I only knew about this event after it happened. As Minister of Interior I should know before. I was not in control until after."

Analysts say that if a coup involving Chakrapong and Sin Song was indeed planned, there had to have been figures with political legitimacy to lead a new government, and that neither of the figures would have attempted a coup without the support of more powerful figures.

The two accused plotters led an aborted secessionist movement of seven eastern provinces in June 1993 in protest of UN-organized elections which saw their party lose to the royalist Funcinpec.

The movement then had the covert backing of their Cambodian People's Party leaders-including Hun Sen, Chea Sim, and Sar Kheng-and resulted in forcing the fragile power sharing arrangement of the current coalition government.

Sources told the Post that Vietnam informed Cambodian leaders of the plot after Sin song and Chakrapong went to Hanoi in recent weeks seeking weapons. The two were also said to have gone to Thailand on a similar mission.

While gaping holes remained in the government version of who was ultimately involved in the coup attempt, Cambodian leaders suggested Thailand had a hand in the affair. Fourteen Thais detained at Pochentong on July 3 were investigated for links to Sin Song.

"We are waiting for one witness that told us that there are nine Thai specialists on radio communications, on weapons, on explosives who are now in Cambodia," First Prime Minister Ranariddh said on July 7.

The accusations have severely strained an already dismal relationship with Thailand after months of Cambodian accusations of official Thai support for the Khmer Rouge.

Strong evidence has emerged, according to diplomatic and government sources, that senior Thai officials were aware of the coup attempt and had consulted with the plotters in recent weeks.

There is no proof that the Thai officials were acting with the approval of the Thai government.

Diplomats and government officials say there are also unconfirmed reports that weapons shipments arrived to the coup plotters via Thailand in the days before the coup.

What most analysts agree is that there has been treachery within the ranks of the coup plotters and between government leaders, and the real powers behind the turmoil have yet to emerge.

But some observers contend that, even though it is expected eventually to become clear who were the real powers behind the move, they may remain too powerful to confront without risking a real collapse of the government and it may take months before the real story emerges.

 

King tells of irate Prince

King tells of Irate Prince

Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 15 July 1994

By Nate Thayer

PRIOR to the coup attempt, His Majesty King Norodom Sihanouk related how the two alleged masterminds were angry with their leaders in the CPP.

During an interview with the Post in Beijing on June 11 the King said his son, Prince Chakrapong, and former Defence Minister Sin Song were furious because they had not been rewarded for leading a secession movement in the wake of the elections last year.

Though breakaway bid in several eastern provinces quickly fizzled out, many seasoned observers credited it with forcing Funcinpec to include their CPP rivals in a coalition government.

The King said: "The reason why Sin Song and Chakrapong are now very very angry, vis a vis angry at Hun Sen, is because they serve Hun Sen, the puppets of Hun Sen, and they cannot have any important position now.

"Chakrapong told me after the end of the seccession 'I served Hun Sen, but now Hun Sen let me down. He is co-premier and his party , his group remain in power with Ranariddh. We the People's Party continue to dominate, to have the real power, to exercise it to dominate Cambodia, and there are only two victims, Sin Song and Chakrapong.'

"He told me that! He told me! 'Papa it is unnacceptable. They enjoy power. They continue. They used us as their instrument to remain in power because I saved the situation, by forming, setting up, against the will of Prince Ranariddh.' "

Reuters reports: Cambodian government and parliamentary leaders paid their respects in Phnom Penh on Monday to the late North Korean Kim Il-sung, a long-time friend of King Norodom Sihanouk.

About 100 diplomats and government officials, including Second Prime Minister Hun Sen and parliamentary president Chea Sim, attended a ceremony at the North Korean Embassy where both national flags flew at halt mast.

The King decreed three days of mourning in Cambodia

Rebel Group Outlawed by Cambodia; Thais Implicated In Coup Attempt

Rebel Group Outlawed by Cambodia; Thais Implicated In Coup Attempt

The Washington Post

July 8, 1994 | Nate Thayer

Cambodia today passed controversial legislation to outlaw the Khmer Rouge rebel group, raising tensions in a government still jittery from a weekend coup attempt.

After the 98 to 1 vote in the National Assembly, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who holds the title of first prime minister in a shaky coalition government, called on all countries to bar Khmer Rouge members from their territory and "arrest those outlaws" who he said will be named on government lists of Khmer Rouge officials. His remarks were aimed primarily at neighboring Thailand, where military officers and businessmen have long maintained ties with the notorious communist guerrilla group.

At the same time, however, Ranariddh publicly accused Thai citizens of involvement in the coup plot, which was apparently directed against him and his royalist Funcinpec party by hard-line supporters of the Cambodian People's Party, his main coalition partner.

So far, authorities have arrested 14 Thais connected to a Cambodian general who confessed to involvement in the plot, and a number of others are being sought. Ranariddh said they included a Thai police official and nine Thai specialists in radio communications, weapons and explosives.

According to Cambodian officials and diplomats, the heavy emphasis on Thai involvement appears partly intended to deflect attention from the role in the plot of senior officials of the coalition government. The sources said the coup attempt, which had been in the works for months, stemmed from a broad-based plot by hard-liners in the People's Party to stifle growing dissent among their partners in Funcinpec. The royalist party won last year's U.N.-sponsored elections but has been unable to wrest real power from the formerly communist People's Party, which had ruled Cambodia since 1979 but finished second in last year's voting.

Strains within the coalition intensified after the People's Party rejected a suggestion by King Norodom Sihanouk in mid-June that a national unity government be formed that would include the Khmer Rouge. Today's legislation to outlaw the radical guerrilla group, accused of killing 1 million people while it held power in the late 1970s, has exacerbated splits within the government. Some Funcinpec leaders described it as a move to further sideline Sihanouk and consolidate the People's Party's grip on power.

On Wednesday, security forces arrested Gen. Sin Sen, the number-two official in the powerful Interior Ministry, on charges of involvement in the conspiracy.

The coup attempt started when a dozen armored personnel carriers and 300 rebel troops left the eastern province of Prey Veng for the capital late Saturday afternoon. It ended Sunday when supporting elements failed to materialize and a distraught Prince Norodom Chakrapong, Ranariddh's estranged half-brother and one of the alleged coup leaders, was allowed to fly into exile in Malaysia after pleading for his life in frantic negotiations by mobile phone from a Phnom Penh hotel room.

Chakrapong, 49, a son of King Sihanouk, initially eluded arrest and went into hiding in Phnom Penh's Regent Hotel. From there, he contacted this reporter at 6:30 a.m. Sunday, begging me to come quickly to the hotel in apparent hopes that the presence of a foreign journalist would prevent security forces from killing him.

What followed was a bizarre 4 1/2-hour drama in which the terrified prince engaged in desperate phone negotiations with Cambodian intermediaries, the American ambassador and, in calls from Beijing, King Sihanouk and Queen Monique.

After making my way past government troops and security forces posted outside the hotel with machine guns and rocket launchers, I found Chakrapong, disheveled, barefoot and wide-eyed with fear, emerging from a crawlspace above the ceiling of his room.

"Please, they are trying to arrest me," he pleaded. "They will kill me. I am innocent. Please tell the American ambassador to come right away. I need protection."

Agitated and near tears, he repeatedly denied any involvement in the coup attempt, cursed government leaders and begged me not to leave him in case troops invaded the hotel. He fielded calls constantly on two mobile phones, speaking in English, French and Khmer.

At one point he had Sihanouk on the phone in one hand and U.S. Ambassador Charles Twining on the line in the other. But it was his stepmother, Queen Monique, who appeared to take a leading role in negotiating with government leaders on Chakrapong's behalf to let him leave the country.

"I am all right, Papa, but the situation is bad," he told Sihanouk at one point. "They have surrounded me."

He pleaded with Twining for political asylum but was told the embassy could not help him. Twining eventually showed up at the hotel and joined Interior Minister You Hokry in discussions with Chakrapong on his departure from the country.

"I am a military man," Chakrapong told me in protesting his innocence before being whisked to the airport in a heavily armed convoy. "I know how to make a coup. Now I have no power and no forces. How can I make a coup?"