Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
back and forth between the two prime ministers and skirmishes broke out between their
personal bodyguard armies. In February factional forces clashed in Battambang, leaving
14 CPP and two royalist soldiers dead. The two sides hovered on the edge of open war-
fare.
On the morning of March 30, 1997, Im Malen and two of her sons left their home in Ph-
nom Penh and joined a group of KNP supporters in a march on the National Assembly.
Malen was 55 years old. She was a nurse who ran a small clinic and pharmacy. She had
been a member of Sam Rainsy's party since 1995 and admired the leader for standing up
to the sorts of official corruption she had encountered while working at the Ministry of
Health in the 1980s. The rally on March 30 wasn't much different to others Malen had
previously taken part in. Several hundred people gathered at KNP party headquarters and
then proceeded on foot toward the parliament. Malen walked behind Rainsy as the crowd
marched down leafy Street 240 behind the Royal Palace, coming to a stop in the park
across the road from the National Assembly. It was a hot morning; the building's spired
roof rose to a pinnacle against a blue sky. Protesters held blue banners emblazoned with
the words “Down with the Communist Judiciary!”
Rainsy began to speak, denouncing corruption in the courts. At around 8:25 a.m. he fin-
ished his speech and handed the microphone to a female garment worker. A few seconds
later there was a deafening explosion. Malen was thrown to the ground as three more
blasts ripped through the crowd. “At first I didn't realize I'd been hurt,” Malen told me.
“I saw Mr Sam Rainsy, he escaped and got up. But what had happened to me? When I
touched my back I felt a lot of blood.” Malen looked around. The dirt around her was
streaked with red. Torn placards covered mangled bodies. Malen tried to get up but her
legs didn't respond. The police stood back. Why weren't they doing something? One of
her sons appeared. He had a shrapnel gash on his cheek but was otherwise unscathed. He
picked her up and took her by cyclo to hospital, steering the rickety pedicab through the
traffic after its driver had fled the scene in fear.
In the space of 15 seconds, four American-made M33 fragmentation grenades had
transformed a peaceful gathering into a scene of carnage. Sixteen people were killed in
the grenade attack and more than one hundred were injured. Some of the worst carnage
took place around a sugarcane cart, where people had gathered to slake their thirsts in the
rising morning heat. The target of the attack was Rainsy, who survived when one of his
bodyguards shoved him to the ground and took the full force of the blast, which killed
him instantly. After escaping the park, Rainsy held an impromptu press conference dur-
ing which he pointed the finger squarely at the second prime minister. “Hun Sen is behind
this,” he declared, his suit still covered with blood and broken glass. “He is a bloody man.
He will be arrested and sentenced one day.”
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