By Porter Barron
The cambodia daily

A soldier loyal to Hun Sen armed with a B40 rocket launcher prepares to move toward the front line of fighting on July 6, 1997, in western Phnom Penh.

In 1997, Cambodia enjoyed a rice harvest of unprecedented abundance and got its first entry in the Guinness Book of Records (longest clothesline), but the resonant stories from that year are violent.

On the morning of March 30, up to four grenade blasts tore through a rally of opposition leader Sam Rainsy—whose party was then known as the Khmer Nation Party—in front of the National Assembly. The explosions killed at least 16 and wounded scores. Accounts of the day include gore, agony and confusion.

Six years later, no arrests have been made. Suspicion rests heavily on allies of Prime Minister Hun Sen, though. Grenade shrapnel struck Ron Abney, a US citizen, in the left hip, which put the case under US Federal Bureau of Investigation jurisdiction. The FBI’s full findings were never made public—Abney recently called the bureau’s work here “one of the great cover-ups in modern FBI history.”

In 1999, James Doran, a US professional staff member for East Asian Affairs, submitted a report to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Doran’s report, based on unclassified FBI documents, a police report and a letter to a US congressman, concluded that Hun Sen’s bodyguards carried out the attack, probably with Hun Sen’s knowledge. It also concluded that the US government has known this since June 1997 and failed to take action, to the detriment of democracy here.

Regardless of who masterminded the attack, and Hun Sen has firmly denied involvement, March 30 remains a stain on the national reputation.

Another tale of impunity: Tycoon Teng Bunma, raging over lost luggage, shot out a tire of a Royal Air Cambodge Boeing 737 on the evening of April 7, 1997. “I wanted to shoot more of them, to make sure that all [the tires] were flat, but there were a lot of passengers surrounding the plane,” he said shortly afterward.

The driver of a cyclo loaded with baggage flees from the July 1997 fighting.

No one was hurt, but the episode continually resurfaces as a textbook example of the lawless grandstanding enjoyed by some of Cambodia’s well-heeled and well-connected.

For behavior most international airports would have treated with severity, Teng Bunma, Hun Sen financier and president of Phnom Penh’s Chamber of Commerce, went unpunished. Several weeks later the Far Eastern Economic Review reported that Teng Bunma had been included in a “secret blacklist” of drug traffickers banned from entering the US.

As for the government, the CPP and Funcinpec’s four-year coalition turned volatile. With elections expected in 1998 and the two parties vying for the loyalties of splintering Khmer Rouge defectors, the partnership that had been arranged to maintain peace broke and grabbed its guns.

On the evening of June 17, the bodyguards of then-first prime minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh and the CPP’s National Police director, Hok Lundy, exchanged gunfire and rockets near the prince’s home off Phnom Penh’s Norodom Boulevard, killing two of their number. Each party blamed the other for the several hours of intermittent violence, which was only a precursor.

The situation in the capital inspired powder-keg comparisons. Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh both spoke of plots against them.

The CPP accused the royalists of trying to build up their forces in the capital with former Khmer Rouge. A 2-ton munitions shipment labeled “spare parts” and addressed to the prince had been found in Sihanoukville port in May.

Then on July 5, widespread fighting erupted in Phnom Penh. It began that morning with CPP troops trying to disarm Funcinpec soldiers near royalist-controlled Tang Kasaing military base, near the airport. From there it spread to the homes of some Funcinpec officials and by the afternoon to Svay Rieng and Kompong Speu provinces. In the following days, clashes broke out in Siem Reap and Battambang, with CPP troops mostly dominating nationwide.

Funcinpec called the fighting a coup d’etat. Hun Sen, after announcing that he would appoint a replacement for Prince Ranariddh, said his troops were merely ensuring safety and enforcing law. Then he told the indignant international community to stay out of it.

Asean, which had recently decided to grant the country membership, postponed Cambodia’s admission. Eight Thai military aircraft and a Malaysian passenger jet evacuated more than 1,000 foreign nationals.

Soldiers loyal to Funcinpec dug in along the Thai border in Siem Reap (now Oddar Meanchey), Banteay Meanchey and Battambang provinces.

Prince Ranariddh lived out the rest of the year in exile.