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Assembly, and his brother-in-law Sar Kheng remained in charge at the Ministry of In-
terior. Both were closely linked to the RCAF commander-in-chief, General Ke Kim Yan,
who had risen up through the military ranks in Battambang and was related to Sar Kheng
by marriage. This web of alliances, rooted in the security forces and the provincial admin-
istrations in Prey Veng and Battambang, posed a potential rearguard threat to Hun Sen.
The discontent in the CPP came briefly to the surface on July 2, 1994, when armored
personnel carriers carrying around 300 troops based in Prey Veng were deployed west-
ward toward Phnom Penh. Around 30 kilometers from the capital, the column was
stopped by government forces and forced to return to barracks. Not a single shot was
fired, but soldiers were deployed in Phnom Penh and the government immediately an-
nounced that it had quashed an attempted coup. The plot was spearheaded by General Sin
Song and Prince Norodom Chakrapong, who had languished on the political fringes since
leading the secession of Cambodia's eastern provinces in 1993. They found another will-
ing co-conspirator in Sin Sen (no relation to Sin Song), who had commanded the feared
“A-Team” attack squads during UNTAC. He, too, was apparently piqued at having been
sidelined in the new government.
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The aim of the coup was never entirely clear. But the foiled plot had significant politic-
al aftershocks. In the immediate aftermath, Hun Sen moved quickly against his factional
rivals. Sin Song and Sin Sen were taken into custody. After an armed stand-off at a Phnom
Penh hotel, Chakrapong was allowed to go into face-saving exile in Malaysia. Instead of
deploying CPP forces to quash the coup, Hun Sen used Funcinpec and KPNLF men, and
failed to notify Sar Kheng at the Ministry of Interior—both moves that suggested his lack
Implying their involvement in the coup, Hun Sen insisted to Chea Sim and Sar Kheng
that he be allowed to nominate the next chief of the national police, a powerful insti-
tution which had been under Chea Sim's control since 1979. The figure he chose was
Hok Lundy, his old ally from Svay Rieng, who, after his appointment in September 1994,
would report directly to Hun Sen. At the same time, Hun Sen's small security detail began
to expand into a personal army which lay outside the control of any state institution. It
was a decisive turning point. Backed by ruthless force, Hun Sen now had the clout to re-
shape the Cambodian political landscape to his liking.
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For many Funcinpec officials, Sirivudh's arrest was the last straw. In January 1996,
the party held a closed-door meeting in Sihanoukville and resolved to press for a larger
overcompensated. At the next Funcinpec party congress in March, he launched a blister-
ing attack on the CPP, denouncing the coalition government as a “slogan,” or an “empty
bucket” that was beaten in the name of democracy. If the CPP didn't make more conces-
