President Tran cancels visit to Cambodia

President Tran cancels visit to Cambodia

PHNOM PENH (Agencies): Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong has
unexpectedly canceled a two-day trip to Cambodia due to begin
after the weekend, a senior Cambodian official said on Friday.

"I have been told that (President Tran Duc Luong) has
postponed his trip to Cambodia due to health reasons," government
spokesman Khieu Kanharith told Reuters.

Vietnamese embassy spokesman Chu Dong Loc said he was unable
to confirm the trip, which had been scheduled to start on Monday,
had been canceled.
"I cannot confirm yet. There will be an announcement from the
Cambodian foreign affairs ministry," he said.

He declined to comment on Luong's health. The Vietnamese
president last week hosted a historic visit to communist Vietnam
by U.S. President Bill Clinton.

An official at the foreign affairs ministry in Phnom Penh said
he also had heard that Tran Duc Luong's trip had been canceled,
but had not received confirmation from the Vietnamese.

"The visit is 100 percent postponed," said Om Yentieng,
personal adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen. "It is not a good
time for a visit because we are continuing our operation to find
the rest of the terrorists."

The cancellation follows a bloody shootout in Phnom Penh
earlier on Friday, during which eight men were killed, seven
police and more than a dozen civilians injured, and more than 50
people arrested.

A heavily armed gang of 40 to 50 men attacked a police station
in the Cambodian capital at about 1.00 a.m. (1 a.m. Friday)
Thursday) before moving toward the ministry of defense about 800
metres away.

Leaders of the gang were suspected to be associated with one
or more anti-government and anti-communist militia groups
operating from within and outside of Cambodia, including the
Cambodian Freedom Fighters and the Free Khmer and Free Vietnam
movements.

Deputy Phnom Penh Police Commissioner Muong Khim said the
attackers belonged to a group known as the Cambodian Freedom
Fighters.

The Cambodian Freedom Fighters -- like the better-known Free
Khmer movement -- are anti-communist rebels who claim the
government is a Vietnamese puppet regime. They were originally
formed in the 1950s with the backing of the United States Central
Intelligence Agency.

Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia in 1979, drove out the
Khmer Rouge regime and installed a new government.

The nationalist movement, led by Cambodian exiles living in
the United States and believe to train along the Thai border, is
virulently opposed to Vietnamese influence in Cambodia and
regards Hun Sen's government as a puppet of Hanoi.

Hun Sen first came to power in the 1980s when he was installed
by occupying Vietnamese troops.

The Vietnamese army liberated Cambodia from the hated Khmer
Rouge regime in 1979, but its 10-year occupation bred resentment
among many and fueled at least three nationalist resistance
movements.

In a related development, on Friday, Hanoi demanded "serious"
action against a veteran anti-communist who showered the
commercial capital of Ho Chi Minh City with anti-government
leaflets just hours before U.S. President Bill Clinton's historic
visit to Vietnam.

Former south Vietnamese fighter pilot Ly Tong was an
"international terrorist" whose violation of Vietnamese airspace
in a hijacked Thai aircraft last Friday was an "especially
serious" incident, the foreign ministry said.

The Thai authorities, who detained Tong as soon as he landed
back in Thailand, should take all appropriate measures so that he
could be prosecuted under Vietnamese law, ministry spokeswoman
Phan Thuy Thanh said in a statement carried by the official
media.