A False Dawn - Hun Sen's Cambodia - page 79

sions, Ranariddh threatened to dissolve the National Assembly and hold a new election
“before the end of 1996.” 47
The Funcinpec leadership failed to anticipate Ranariddh's outburst. “It came out spon-
taneously,” one former royalist minister told me. “He couldn't bite his tongue.” The CPP
responded by accusing Funcinpec of using the issue of power-sharing as a pretext to cre-
ate “political instability” and confuse public opinion. CPP-controlled media outlets ex-
coriated Ranariddh and began speaking of a “royal plot” against Hun Sen. In a speech on
April 27, Hun Sen ominously pledged to use force against any “coup to destroy the Con-
stitution.” 48 In contrast to Rainsy and Ranariddh, who both held dual French-Cambodian
citizenship, Hun Sen painted himself as a true Khmer, a son of the soil who stood by the
people and wouldn't board a plane to Paris at the first sign of trouble. In a similar vein, he
threatened to pass legislation disqualifying dual nationals from public office. He warned
his opponents, “Don't say you are Khmer when it is easy and American when it is diffi-
cult.” 49
Just as the coalition began to fracture, a volatile new element was added to the mix.
On August 9 Hun Sen announced that Ieng Sary, Pol Pot's brother-in-law and the former
Khmer Rouge foreign minister, had defected to the government, bringing with him not
only a large portion of the Khmer Rouge fighting force—including the commanders Y
Chhean (in charge of Division 415) and Sok Pheap (Division 450)—but also the gem and
timber-rich areas around Pailin. The Khmer Rouge had been in a slow decline since the
departure of UNTAC. After the movement was outlawed in mid-1994, the Thai govern-
ment finally began cracking down on exports from Khmer Rouge zones, choking off its
finances. All the while, a steady trickle of defections turned into a cascade, as soldiers
and their commanders, worn out from decades of fighting, cut deals with the government.
Ieng Sary had always been the most flexible and slippery of the Khmer Rouge top
brass—the one who most easily shed old revolutionary convictions and adopted new
guises. Sary had a taste for the finer things, like lobster thermidor, cognac, and French
perfume, which he indulged even as Cambodia suffered through years of civil war.
Throughout the 1980s, he had enjoyed prominence due to his close ties with Beijing, but
had lost influence when Chinese aid came to an end in 1991. The Khmer Rouge leader-
ship in Anlong Veng were also suspicious of the great wealth he had amassed from Pail-
in's gem mines and timber concessions. 50 Faced with the enmity of his old comrades and
recognizing that their days were numbered, Sary put out feelers to the government. On
August 7, after word of the negotiations leaked out, Khmer Rouge radio denounced Sary
as a “traitor” who had embezzled millions in Chinese aid and collaborated with the “Vi-
etnamese aggressors, annexationists, and race-exterminators.” 51
The defection dealt the Khmer Rouge a body-blow; Sary took more than 3,000 soldiers
with him, delivering to the government two base areas—Pailin and Malai—that years of