Help Wanted:Forces loyal to the deposed Premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh are regrouping. But to hold out against Co-Premier Hun Sen's army, they will need foreign assistance-which doesn't seem forthcoming.
After the July 5 coup, the REVIEW's Nate Thayer
crossed the frontline in Cambodia's emerging
civil war. Over the next nine days, he travelled
through both government and resistance
strongholds, covering 110 kilometres in a
military jeep escorted by armoured personnel
carriers. Thayer got a ring-side view of the
fighting across the northern and northwestern
regions of the country. He interviewed dozens of
commanders and soldiers representing both sides,
including Gen. Khan Savoeun, now commanding the
resistance fighters, and Gen. Serei Kosal, one
of the two men most wanted by Second Prime
Minister Hun Sen.
-------------------------------------------------
By Nate Thayer in Phnom Penh and Samrong,
northwestern Cambodia
Far Eastern Economic Review
-------------------------------------------------
July 24, 1997
My name is Number Sixteen." The coded message,
delivered to a mobile-phone number on July 11,
brought this reporter in contact with Gen. Serei
Kosal, one of the two most-wanted men in
Cambodia. Loyal to ousted First Prime Minister
Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Serei Kosal had
escaped from Phnom Penh hours after the July 5
coup by Second Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Now he was in a secret base in northwestern
Cambodia, not far from Poipet, on the Thai
border. Tired, frightened and cut off from other
commanders of forces loyal to Ranariddh's
royalist Funcinpec party, the general is
nonetheless determined to keep fighting. If Hun
Sen's Cambodian People's Party doesn't agree to
a negotiated settlement, he says, "we will fight
them to the end."
As Hun Sen consolidated his grip over Phnom Penh
in the second week of July, thousands of
resistance fighters were regrouping in the
country's northern and northwestern provinces,
where they still control some territory. From
here, they hope to mount a political and
military counterattack against Hun Sen's
Cambodian People's Party.
It won't be easy. For any kind of fightback, the
Ranariddh loyalists will need ammunition and
food-and the support of the international
community. Serei Kosal ticks off a wish-list:
"We need mosquito nets, Icom [radios], canned
fish and rice." All that, plus ammunition. "It
is necessary for us to take out bridges and send
out small units to practise guerrilla warfare,"
he explains.
The general's position appears hopeless to some
observers. CPP commanders in Phnom Penh and Siem
Reap are confident it is only a matter of time
before Funcinpec forces surrender. There is a
palpable sense of fear in the
resistance-controlled areas, as thousands of
refugees arrive daily from other parts of the
country, with stories of arrests and executions
conducted by CPP forces. Many refugees carry
their passports, hoping to find a way out of the
country.
But Serei Kosal insists the end is nowhere near
nigh. "Now the situation is much easier than
when we fought the Vietnamese," he says.
Certainly, the Funcinpec forces are better
manned and armed than they were during the 1980s
when, along with the Khmer Rouge, they waged a
guerrilla war against the Vietnam-backed regime.
Funcinpec commanders claim to have at least
10,000 armed men-and CPP commanders agree that
figure is realistic. In addition, travelling in
Funcinpec-held territory, this reporter saw at
least 12 tanks, 30 heavy artillery pieces and
several armoured personnel carriers.
But the Funcinpec commanders concede that their
forces are perilously short on ammunition. And
support from the Khmer Rouge-who have 3,000
fighters each in the north and west-may not be
enough to fight the larger, better-equipped CPP
forces. "We need help from our foreign friends,"
says Serei Kosal.
On that front, he's had little cheer. To be
sure, the international community has rebuked
Hun Sen for his violent putsch. The United
States, Germany and Japan have suspended
financial aid to Phnom Penh, while the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations has
postponed Cambodia's induction to the regional
grouping (see stories on pages 18 and 19).
But the expression of displeasure over Hun Sen's
power grab does not automatically translate into
support for Ranariddh's forces. There is little
likelihood that Asean, the United Nations or
Western donor countries will encourage a return
to civil war. Thailand, central to the success
of any resistance movement along its border with
Cambodia, is reluctant to take sides.
Nor does it help the resistance fighters that
some senior Funcinpec leaders are ready to sleep
with the enemy. On July 16, Foreign Minister Ung
Huot was picked by remaining members of the
Funcinpec steering committee to succeed
Ranariddh as first prime minister. Away from the
country when the coup took place, Ung Huot
returned to Phnom Penh on July 14.
Toan Chay, governor of the northwestern Siem
Reap province and former Ranariddh ally, has
said many Fincinpec members of parliament are
prepared to cooperate with Hun Sen. However, at
least 24 MPs have arrived in Bangkok seeking
political asylum.
Still, some Funcinpec members say it would be
politically expeditious to remain within the
power loop in Phnom Penh, even if they privately
support the resistance fighters in the
northwest. "Many will give their bodies, but not
their hearts," says Serei Kosal.
For his part, Hun Sen has invited Funcinpec
ministers to stay on in their posts-only
Ranariddh and a few senior leaders would be
punished as "traitors," the second prime
minister has said. This would allow Hun Sen to
claim that he is staying within the framework of
the Paris Peace Agreement, the Cambodian
constitution and the coalition government
approved by the international community after
the UN-sponsored 1993 elections.
But few doubt that any authority that emerges in
Phnom Penh will be subservient to Hun Sen. "If
we do not support Hun Sen, we will be killed,"
Serei Kosal says. He himself came very close to
death on July 5. When the coup began, Serei
Kosal was in Phnom Penh with another Funcinpec
general, Ho Sok. When their compound came under
artillery shelling, he escaped by foot to the
military airfield; he commandeered an aircraft
and flew to Battambang in the northwest. From
there, he trekked for three days, without food
or rest, to reach his current position.
Ho Sok, meanwhile, was captured and executed,
"as a warning to all of us," Serei Kosal says.
So too was another general, Chau Sambath. Of the
four Funcinpec commanders on the CPP army's
most-wanted list, only Serei Kosal and top
commander Nyek Bun Chhay-rumoured to be wounded
and fleeing-survive.
But Serei Kosal is not alone in holding out
against the CPP forces. In the northern
provincial capital of Samrong, Gen. Long
Sareirath says he will be ready for the CPP
attack when it comes. "We will blow up key
bridges to keep them from coming north with
artillery," he says. Already, some bridges on
the strategic Highway Six and Highway 68 have
been blown up. This reporter saw at least 100
anti-tank mines unloaded from a truck 12
kilometres north of Kralanh, on Highway 68.
Some 70 kilometres away, in his frontline
command post, Gen. Khan Savoeun claims to have
most of seven armed divisions-more than 10,000
men-under his command. "We will fight even if we
don't get foreign assistance," he says,
defiantly, surrounded by Russian T-54 tanks,
armoured personnel carriers, heavy artillery and
anti-aircraft guns.
In Banteay Meanchey province, the one-armed Gen.
Ta Sou, a former Khmer Rouge commander who
defected to the Funcinpec cause, claims to have
2,000 men-and says he can call on his old
comrades for help. Referring to the Khmer Rouge
military overlord, he vows: "If the world
doesn't help us, we will ask Ta Mok." ■