Making A Difference

Ominous Signs

As the country prepares for polls, violence and an attempted coup' threaten to tear apart the fragile coalition government

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Ominous Signs
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CAMBODIA'S political goulash of defections, exile, coups, and killings went on the boil last fortnight when the ruling royalist Funcinpec party teetered on theverge of losing its majority in the National Assembly. On April 19 dissidents withdrew their support from the party, but it was not clear whether it would be enough to deny the party, led by a son of King Sihanouk, a working majority in the Assembly.

First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh's Funcinpec party lost the critical backing of 11 of its members of Parliament that day, to the joy of the rival Cambodian People's Party (CPP) of Second Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose comrades gleefully distributed a list of defectors. The defection, which Ranariddh later dubbed as a 'coup' and claimed was a plot masterminded by his bete noire, Hun Sen, would reduce the number of seats held by Funcinpec from 58 to 47. The CPP holds 51 seats.

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But a couple of days later, in a cat and mouse game, eight of the 11 defectors said they had abandoned their rebellion against Ranariddh and were returning to his party. A spokesman for the defectors admitted that the rebels had been "frightened and forced" to rejoin the Funcinpec party.

Recent weeks have also seen snowballing political violence. A grenade exploded outside the National Assembly in Phnom Penh on March 30, disrupting a meeting being held by Khmer Nation Party leader Sam Rainsy, and killing 11 people and wounding 112. Analysts blamed the CPP, which they said was trying to frighten all other parties ahead of the nationwide local elections later this year. In Cambodia, elections have traditionally been bloody events. In a country struggling to heal the scars of years of civil war, violence only creates panic that the cur rent fragile peace will give way once again to anarchy.

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All this has gone hand in hand with some hectic political manoeuvring in Phnom Penh in the run-up to the polls, which have been touted as a sideshow, tobe followed by the main event, the general election, in May 1998. The leading players in the election drama are of course the two largest parties, the Funcinpec and the CPP, that currently form the two-faced coalition, the Royal Government of Cambodia, and that have ruled the country since 1993 in a mutually adversarial manner. The CPP, which narrowly lost the 1993 poll, has gained ground mainly due to the mistakes of its royalist rival. Funcinpec wonthat election but has lost some of its popularity and clean image since then. The French-colonial style political party offices in Phnom Penh have played host to a series of political offensives and parries this year. In mid-February the CPP had forged an alliance with two other parties. CPP leader Hun Sen told this writer in an interview: "We will form many more alliances, with as many as 10 parties."

The royalist Funcinpec was not out to lunch either. On February 27, it launched the National United Front (NUF), banding together Funcinpec, led by Ranariddh, and two other parties—the Khmer Nation Party led by former finance minister Rainsy and a breakaway wing of the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party led by former prime minister Son Sann. The NUF is a curious creature as it includes Rainsy, who was sacked from Funcinpec in 1995 and has returned under the same umbrella as his mother party. But the NUF's most bizarre facet is the support from the genocidal Khmer Rouge that killed more than 1.5 million Cambodians in the mid-'70s. Pol Pot's number two man Ieng Sary has been allowed to return to the country as a hero, without so much as facing a court trial for his war crimes.

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Ranariddh jumped to the defence of his NUF alliance in an interview: "My alliance is not aimed at creating trouble. On the contrary, I hope the alliance will provide a clear platform to unify all Cambodians." But diplomats and observers aren't convinced that the elections will be violence-free, and they expect a repeat of the last general election of May 1993 when dozens of Cambodians were killed and injured in a violent run-up to the polls.

One way of preventing killings, and a repeat of a civil war, is for the CPP and Funcinpec to again form a coalition. With both parties maintaining sizeable, trigger-happy armies, chaos would result if a party that lost the election refuses to hand over power. One question being asked is: Would Hun Sen, who controls the bulk of the army, impose a Burma-type solution if his party loses the 1998 poll? Interestingly, the same question was asked in 1993. At that time, when his party lost, he did not engineer a coup, but struck a cleverer deal with Funcinpec, to share power in a coalition government.

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Moreover, Ranariddh is aware he needs to include the CPP in an alliance, much as the two parties distrust each other. He said the parties were reviewing their existing alliance signed in 1991, but he was not happy with it. Nor was he entirely convinced with the views of some foreign countries that this alliance was best for national stability. And while its politicians engage in rhetoric, Cambodians out in the countryside suffer the vagaries of economic neglect, without electricity, water and access to health care. The signs of civil war are visible in limbless young men on crutches, victims of landmines sown during the civil war. Cambodiais believed to have at least 40,000 mine victims, a tragedy that has not stopped extracting its price. There are six to eight million landmines, compared to a population of 9 million. There are also signs of bizarre economic development as Taiwanese and Singaporean firms build hotels, garment factories and breweries, as part of a foreign investment of some $3 billion—but only a mere 30 per cent is actually in play in the economy.

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King Sihanouk is by no means irrelevant, even though he is recovering from cancer and has been relegated to a ceremonial role. This year, he entered the political fracas with his controversial statement that Cambodia "needed the help of the UN in ensuring free and fair elections", brushing aside concerns that foreign intervention would violate his country's sovereignty.

Besides, many Cambodians are worried that the elections are threatened by a growing rift in the coalition, with Funcinpec accusing the CPP of not sharing power equally, and the CPP accusing Funcinpec officials of rampant corruption. Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng, a senior CPP man, warned recently that unless the political parties find a way to resolve their differences peacefully, there would be trouble. Kheng's comments came on the heels of an armed clash between former Khmer Rouge soldiers who were split in their support of Funcinpec and the CPP. Minor skirmishes and shootouts have also occurred between Cambodian army soldiers loyal to Funcinpec and the CPPin Battambang, the country's second-largest city. The artillery fire seemed to set an ominous tone for an extended drama that in its last episode became a global playfield. Politicians had got the whiff of battle-smoke earlier. The 45-year-old CPP had made a bid to bolster itself at a three-day party congress in late January, at which a new generation of leaders prepared to replace an old guard.

Cambodia's political parties are aware that in order to ensure free and fair elections, they will need to sit down together and prepare an electoral law. This is being drafted to the sound of AK-47s and the thump of mortars. But that's nothing to worry about, laughs a Cambodia veteran. "Everytime it rains, Cambodian troops fire in the air to let off steam."

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