Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Hun Sen immediately denounced the grenade attack, but then went on to accuse Rainsy
and the KNP of staging it themselves order to smear the government. The police, he
however, eyewitnesses reported the presence of around 15 heavily armed members of
Hun Sen's bodyguard unit, who were not usually deployed on such occasions. Not only
did the troops fail to help the wounded; they also let the assailants pass through their cor-
don and flee to the CPP compound behind Hun Sen's villa, blocking those who tried to
pursue them. Similar claims were later echoed by the UN and human rights groups.
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To satisfy international demands for an investigation, the government formed a com-
mittee filled with squabbling Funcinpec and CPP officials. Few people expected much
to come of it, but there were hopes for a proper investigation from another direction.
During the attack, Ron Abney, an American citizen who headed the local office of the
International Republican Institute, had been injured by a piece of shrapnel. Under US
law, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was authorized to probe any terrorist attack that
killed or injured US citizens abroad. The FBI decided to become involved. It dispatched a
team headed by Agent Thomas Nicoletti, who arrived in Cambodia on April 17. Within a
month Nicoletti and his team had interviewed several dozen sources and identified three
suspects. All the signs pointed to Hun Sen's bodyguards.
For US officials, however, the case posed a political conundrum. Putting Hun Sen's
men on trial in the US could have explosive diplomatic ramifications. Kenneth Quinn,
who succeeded Twining as ambassador in 1995, was particularly uncomfortable with
pointing the finger at the CPP. He had a close relationship with Hun Sen dating back to
the peace talks of the early 1990s, and after documenting communist atrocities on the Vi-
etnamese border in the mid-1970s, shared his deep disdain for the Khmer Rouge. Like
many other diplomats posted in Cambodia at the time, Quinn saw Hun Sen as a man who
could get things done in Cambodia. Quinn spoke with Hun Sen in Vietnamese and felt
he had a good rapport. As he later said, Hun Sen “had a lot of power and influence …
Therefore, he was somebody, along with others, who you would hope to shape.”
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Where the grenade attack was concerned, Quinn was anxious about the US burning its
bridges with the CPP or getting sucked into Cambodia's internecine political struggles.
Declassified files released under Freedom of Information laws and published by the
Cam-
bodia Daily
in 2009 showed that at least one FBI official shared his concerns, fearing that
the probe could embroil the agency in a combustive political fight and jeopardize its re-
investigation, Nicoletti was ordered out of Cambodia. Rising political tensions between
the CPP and Funcinpec had made his work difficult. Quinn also warned Nicoletti that his
life had been threatened, supposedly by the Khmer Rouge. The withdrawal was supposed
to be temporary, but Nicoletti was never sent back to finish the job.
