ASEAN turns its back on Cambodia's new leader

ASEAN turns its back on Cambodia's new leader

By Karl Grobe

FRANKFURT AM MAIN (DPA): The Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) has delayed Cambodia's membership indefinitely.
The German government has also put its development aid program on
hold.

While the new internationally unrecognized head of government,
Hun Sen, held his first cabinet meeting on Thursday, fighting was
taking place near the north western city of Siem Reap.

The leading member of the opposition, Sam Rainsy welcomed the
ASEAN decision which was taken at an emergency meeting in Kuala
Lumpur on Thursday.

Rainsy, who is in Germany, told the Frankfurter Rundschau
newspaper that "ASEAN and the international community had no
recognized figure in Cambodia to whom they could express their
concern during these difficult times."

Rainsy dismissed the new Hun Sen government, which is only
represented by the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) -- the
successor to the organization imposed by Vietnam in 1980 -- as
illegal. The opposition politician called the breach of the
coalition by Hun Sen a "coup d'etat, slap in the face of the UN
and a return to the conditions of the civil war in 1993."

According to his information, Phnom Penh was in the grip of
"angst, terror, violence and plunderers." However, he
categorically ruled out any prospect of an alliance between the
deposed First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh and the Khmer
Rouge in order to resist Hun Sen. Instead he stressed the need
for democratic forces to unite in their opposition to Hun Sen.

Rainsy was the finance minister in Ranariddh's government
until leaving both office and the FUNCINPEC Party in 1995.
Recently he had started working with the government despite
remaining in opposition himself. The so-called NUF alliance with
the Funcinpec Party had a "solid foundation based on common
ground," says Rainsy.

He describes Hun Sen's dissolution of the coalition as a "coup
d'etat designed to prevent next year's democratic elections" As
the People's Party couldn't have won the elections, "Now they
will postpone or rig the elections to maintain power," says
Rainsy.

In Phnom Penh meanwhile, news agencies report that Hun Sen's
rump cabinet is meeting. The agency denied that a coup had taken
place, pointing out that the monarch had not been deposed.

Ranariddh, who is at the UN in New York, is free to return to
Cambodia but would have to face a court. The Thai government has
refused to allow him a military base on their territory.

Fighting was reported on Thursday between the Thai border and
Siem Reap, near the temple city of Angkor.

The German government's decision to withhold development
cooperation was announced in Bonn on Thursday by Carl-Dieter
Spranger, the minister responsible. Work on all projects will be
stopped, as will the transfer of funding.