A False Dawn - Hun Sen's Cambodia - page 89

drove protesters off the streets and beat up those who refused to budge. 90 By the time the
demonstrations came to an end, dozens of protesters had been beaten and several shot.
As the situation simmered in the capital, Sihanouk again stepped in to mediate. A few
days before the newly elected parliamentarians were to be sworn in at Angkor Wat, he
called the three parties to his Siem Reap residence to end the political deadlock. The talks
went well. But on September 24, as the parliamentary motorcade made its way through
Siem Reap to the swearing-in ceremony, a rocket whizzed out of the bushes on the side
of the road, narrowly missing Hun Sen's passing car. When police investigated, they un-
covered four B-40 rocket-propelled grenades concealed in the brush, wired rigged for re-
mote detonation. Three of them had failed to fire; the one that did smashed into a house
across the road, killing a 12-year-old boy and injuring three members of his family.
It was never clear who was the target of the attack. The government denounced it as
an attempt to assassinate Hun Sen, again leveling a finger at the opposition. The prime
minister later claimed the rocket missed his car by “just 20 centimeters.” 91 Rainsy and
Ranariddh fled the country, fearing arrest or retaliation from Hun Sen's men. Opposition
supporters accused the CPP of staging the attack to provide a pretext for cracking down
on prodemocracy demonstrators, and others blamed the Khmer Rouge or rogue royalist
elements. As the years went by Hun Sen would repeatedly accuse the SRP of involve-
ment in the attack, a Damoclean threat that could be conjured up whenever the situation
demanded it. But the mystery of the rockets was never properly investigated. 92 Like so
many collateral bystanders, Sor Chanrithy, the young boy killed in the rocket explosion,
was quickly forgotten.
Political negotiations resumed, and in November Sihanouk finally arranged a deal for
the formation of a new government. Ranariddh walked out on his alliance with the SRP
and again joined hands with Hun Sen, who became sole prime minister in a new govern-
ment. Ranariddh agreed to accept the post of National Assembly president in exchange
for amnesties for Funcinpec commanders who took part in the July 1997 clashes. The oth-
er two exiled Norodoms, Sirivudh and Chakrapong, were also pardoned for their earlier
misdemeanors and allowed to return to Cambodia. Chea Sim, forced to vacate his old post
at the National Assembly, was installed at the head of a newly created Senate, a legislat-
ively unnecessary body designed to provide jobs for members of his entourage and other
stray officials. As so often in Cambodian politics, old grudges were put on ice and en-
emies became apparent allies. Champagne flowed in Phnom Penh as the deal was signed.
Politicians who had been at war with each other just a year before smiled and raised a
toast to the new coalition government. 93 It was as if nothing had ever happened.
By the end of 1998, little remained of the Khmer Rouge. After his “trial” Pol Pot was
confined to a wooden hut in Anlong Veng, a ward of his own collapsing revolution. A