Samphan must denounce Pol Pot first: Ranariddh
Samphan must denounce Pol Pot first: Ranariddh
PHNOM PENH (Agencies): Nominal Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan will have to denounce Pol Pot before he can meet the press at Preah Vihear temple on the Thai-Cambodian border, Prince Norodom Ranariddh said yesterday.
The royalist FUNCINPEC party chief and co-prime minister said fellow premier Hun Sen was not willing to provide army helicopters to take journalists to the remote rebel base.
As a result, the planned news conference will have to wait until Khieu Samphan makes a unilateral declaration that he has split from Pol Pot and supports the royal government and the Cambodian constitution, Prince Ranariddh said.
"I have asked Khieu Samphan to make his unilateral declaration first (over clandestine Khmer Rouge radio)," he told AFP.
The prince said he would then once again ask Hun Sen, leader of the formerly-communist Cambodian People's Party (CPP), to agree to the use of military helicopters.
If Hun Sen was still opposed, Prince Ranaraddh said: "I will send journalists on a FUNCINPEC helicopter."
Investigate
In a separate development, the Washington Post reported that U.S. agents investigating a March 30 grenade attack in Phnom Penh which killed over 20 people are tentatively blaming personal bodyguard forces of Second Prime Minister Hun Sen,
The paper yesterday quoted four unidentified United States government sources as saying that conclusion was contained in a classified, preliminary report after agents conducted a two-month investigation.
The agents were sent to Cambodia under a U.S. law that gives the Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) jurisdiction whenever an American citizen is injured by terrorism.
Ron Abney, 55, of Cochran, Georgia, who was with the International Republican Institute, which promotes democracy, was among more than 100 people wounded in the grenade attack.
In the attack, four grenades were thrown into a crowd during a demonstration led by Khmer Nation Party president Sam Rainsy in front of the National Assembly building.
Human rights supporters and many members of parliament blamed Hun Sen and his rival People's Party of being behind the attack.
The Post said the tentative FBI report suggested that soldiers acting as personal bodyguards to Hun Sen permitted the grenades to be thrown and then interfered with ambulances and taxicabs attempting to carry away the victims.
The FBI presence in Cambodia ended prematurely after agents reportedly told Sam Rainsy that witnesses had been intimidated.
The Post said U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Quinn also told the agents that they had been targeted for assassination and could not be protected adequately. The investigation is continuing.