Cambodia's Hun Sen dares rival to r

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Subject: Cambodia's Hun Sen dares rival to return

The Nation July 10th
Cambodia's Hun Sen dares rival to return



posted at 13:30 hrs (Bangkok time) 



PHNOM PENH, July 10 -- A defiant Second Prime Minister Hun Sen on 
Thursday challenged the rival he effectively ousted at the weekend to 
return to Cambodia to face charges for his alleged illegal actions. 

''If he wants to return, he can return and confront the court and his 
own party,'' Hun Sen said of First Prime Minister Prince Norodom 
Ranariddh, who was travelling abroad when factional fighting erupted in 
the capital last weekend. 

Speaking to reporters after the first government meeting since the 
violence, Hun Sen insisted he had not overthrown the prince in a coup 
d'etat. 

''Is it a coup d'etat when the constitution remains unchanged, ... the 
king remains untouched, the national assembly continues its work and the 
government continues its work?'' he asked. 

He said there was ''no persecution'' of the prince's supporters or of 
members of his royalist FUNCINPEC party. 

''All political parties remain untouched,'' he stressed. 

About half the ministers and secretaries of state were absent from 
Thursday's expanded government meeting -- including members of both 
FUNCINPEC and Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP), the second 
premier noted. 

He named several ministers from both parties who were ''waiting to 
return to Cambodia because they are members of the legal government.'' 
(AFP)



"THERE WILL BE NO REAL DEMOCRACY IF WE CAN'T GURANTEE THE RIGHTS OF THE 
MINORITY ETHNIC PEOPLE.  ONLY UNDERSTANDING THEIR SUFFERING AND HELPING 
THEM TO EXERCISE THEIR RIGHTS WILL ASSIST PREVENTING FROM THE 
DISINTEGRATION AND THE SESESSION."  "WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING THEIR 
STRENGTH, WE CAN'T TOPPLE THE SLORC AND BURMA WILL NEVER BE IN PEACE."


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