PRESS CONFERENCE BY CAMBODIA

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY CAMBODIA

At a Headquarters press conference this afternoon, the Permanent Representative of Cambodia to the United Nations, Prince Sisowath Sirirath, denounced as illegal the special session of the Cambodian National Assembly held yesterday to elect another First Prime Minister. He said the Assembly could not be held in a context of political intimidation and harassment. The members of the FUNCINPEC Party in the Assembly were in great fear and had called the special session "a mock up Assembly -- an Assembly of fear".

Prince Sisowath Sirirath, stressing that he was the legal representative of the Royal Government of Cambodia and a member of the FUNCINPEC Party, said First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh could only be replaced by a FUNCINPEC Party Congress, which must be held under the High Presidency of the Prince himself. Cambodia's Second Prime Minister, Hun Sen, could not decide who would be appointed First Prime Minister. That was a decision for the FUNCINPEC Party, which had won the free and fair elections of 1993 that were organized and supervised by the United Nations.

The Ambassador also announced that the Foreign Minister, Ung Huot, who was a member of FUNCINPEC, had been removed temporarily from office by Prince Ranariddh. The National Assembly meeting yesterday was a mockery because it had followed the expulsion of the First Prime Minister by force of arms. It was only a show of having a special session of the Parliament to elect a new Prime Minister.

Prince Sirirath informed correspondents that he was conveying this information to correspondents on behalf of Prince Ranariddh, who had just arrived in Paris.

Asked if there was any chance of the FUNCINPEC Party returning to power in Cambodia with Hun Sen so deeply entrenched, the Ambassador stressed that the Party was already in power, as a result of democratic elections organized by the United Nations in 1993 under the Paris Peace Accords. Anything signed by acting Head of State Chea Sim was not valid because he had taken sides -- as President of the Cambodian People's Party -- with coup leader Hun Sen by accusing Prince Ranariddh of leaving the country without informing the Royal Government and of bringing the Khmer Rouge to the city of Phnom Penh. Press reports of the coup indicated that the accusations against Prince Ranariddh by Hun Sen were not true.

To another question, the Ambassador said the United Nations did not want to treat Cambodia as a special case. His situation was similar to that of the Permanent Representatives of Afghanistan and Sierra Leone. Hun Sen was not an elected party leader. He had come to power by armed aggression. After losing the 1993 elections, he was now bullying his way to power-sharing.

Cambodia Press Conference - 2 - 29 July 1997

During his recent visit to Headquarters, Prince Ranariddh had cited a number of developments as contributing to the coup d'état, the Ambassador said. He drew attention, in particular, to a report on a grenade attack on civilians who were demonstrating in front of the National Assembly, a United States report on the flow of drugs from Cambodia, the possible trial of Pol Pot, and the upcoming elections.

The elections planned for 1998 could no longer be free and fair, Prince Sirirath went on to say. The international community must not allow the Hun Sen regime to organize and supervise those elections, but must supervise them itself.

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