CAMBODIA: Hun Sen Rebuffs Requests from U.N. Secretary-General

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 8 1997 (IPS) - The United Nations’ latest attempt to offer advice to Phnom Penh on the month-old crisis in Cambodia ran aground this week when the country’s de facto leader, Hun Sen, rebuffed most of the key requests made by Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Although Hun Sen, nominally the country’s second prime minister but leader of the dominant Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), pledged to work with the United Nations, he strongly defended his overthrow last month of the first prime minister, Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

In a letter to Annan written Thursday, the co-premier also blamed continuing worries of a crisis on “the truth-twisting and exaggerating propaganda by a number of persons and some media which abandon their professional ethics in pursuit of their own interests.” Hun Sen further argued in favour of Ranariddh’s replacement by Foreign Minister Ung Huot, made two days after Annan wrote him to voice concern about such a move.

U.N. officials revealed their private exchange with Hun Sen, including his defense of his own actions, on Friday, but refused to characterise the past week’s events as a rebuff of the world body. Rather, as one senior U.N. official said on condition of anonymity, the Cambodian leader “has obviously replied,” and in a short time, to Annan’s requests.

That reply, however, might leave much to be desired. In Annan’s private letter issued to both Hun Sen and Ranariddh Monday, the U.N. chief urged the warring leaders to maintain Cambodia’s democratic framework and abide by plans for elections by May 1998. Those elections, he emphasised, should be held “in an atmosphere free of fear or intimidation with the participation of all political forces on an equal footing.”

Hun Sen’s CPP, which ousted Ranariddh Jun. 6, after two days of street fighting in Phnom Penh, has said it intends to abide by the elections timetable. The U.N. official confirmed that the world body still expects to coordinate a team of international observers to confirm that the vote is conducted fairly.

On other requests, the Cambodian co-premier was less cooperative. In particular, Annan urged Hun Sen to allow Ranariddh to return to Cambodia freely and not to replace him hastily. “If any decision were to be taken to replace Prince Ranariddh as first prime minister, this would best be arrived at in a transparent process in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Constitution,” Annan wrote.

Hun Sen’s response was swift: of the 99 officials in Cambodia’s 120-member National Assembly who remain in the country, 86 voted Wednesday to replace Ranariddh with Ung Huot – a member of one faction of the prince’s royalist FUNCINPEC party. This was more than the two-thirds majority needed for approval. In a separate vote, the Assembly also cancelled Ranariddh’s immunity from arrest if he should return to the country, paving the way for him to be tried for alleged corruption and deals with the rebel Khmer Rouge.

In his letter to Annan, Hun Sen justified his actions by accusing Ranariddh’s supporters of trying “to create public insecurity from the extremist group in collusion with the Khmer Rouge and the (Cambodian) Mafia”. He further noted that the National Assembly had been unable to function for seven months. He defended Ung Huot’s selection, which he noted was monitored extensively by journalists.

In perhaps the most direct rejection of U.N. appeals, the co- prime minister added, “Prince Ranariddh can always return to Cambodia, but he must justify himself with the court on the charge of illegal imports of weapons and secret negotiations with the outlawed Khmer Rouge.”

U.N. officials seem unlikely to do anything other than to wait for the results of a proposed trip by Hun Sen and Ung Huot to meet the country’s Constitutional monarch, King Norodom Sihanouk – Ranariddh’s father – in his residence in Beijing. The senior official argued about Ung Huot’s selection that “it’s not for us to characterise whether that’s an election that’s fully accepted.”

Instead, the United Nations intends to see whether Sihanouk, and the countries of the regional Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), accept the new co-premier. The senior official acknowledged that, in some respects, the Assembly’s actions could be decisive: “What seems clear is that the decision which was reached in the National Assembly…had a very large majority. There was clearly a quorum.”

FUNCINPEC rejects such arguments entirely. In a communique released in Bangkok Friday, the party condemned the Wednesday vote as the “meeting of a charade assembly, composed of incomplete, irregular and opportunist membership, manipulated by Mr Hun Sen in an atmosphere of fear, threat and intimidation.” The pro-royalist U.N. ambassador, Prince Sisowath Sirirath, added that the process violated several Constitutional procedures, including regulations that a majority of FUNCINPEC steering committee members be present to approve their candidate for co-premier under the country’s joint government scheme.

Nevertheless, the royalists may be out of luck. Sihanouk has barely mentioned his son’s fate in recent, cordial letters to Hun Sen and, although he did not sign a royal decree nominating Ung Huot, he wrote in a letter on Wednesday that the National Assembly’s president, Chea Sim, could sign that nomination “if (he) feels it appropriate.”

Some U.N. diplomats say privately that governments may be willing to accept any solution that maintains stability in the country and keeps it on track for elections. If that is the case, they say, Ranariddh’s best hopes for a return to power may not come until voting in May – if he is allowed to stand as a candidate.