G21 ASIA

Election in Kampuchea

Part Three-A: BOTH Sides of The Coin

by Rod Amis

G21 Editor

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Version 4.0, Event #128: The Mammoth Edition

G21 ASIA Logo G21 ASIA: Part Three of ROD AMIS' reporting on the elections in Kampuchea(Cambodia): "Cambodia on the Brink" or "Don't Worry Be Happy?" Preliminary results from the election.

Bare Knuckles Logo BARE KNUCKLES: JEFF WINBUSH on the Thousand-Mile-Stare experience of Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan".

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G21 ASIA Logo G21 ASIA: Part Two of ROD AMIS' reporting on the elections in Kampuchea(Cambodia): Interview with Lar Mundstock of the National Development Party.

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On the last page we reported:

This has always been part of the problem in trying to report about Asia politics from a distance: how many of your sources do you trust, and how much fact-checking is enough? (Ask CNN.)
One thing was clear by 2:00 p.m(PDT): Hun Sen had declared victory today(28 July) and the opposition parties were busy developing a boycott of the National Assembly of Cambodia.
In fact, by 3:30 p.m.(PDT) G21 had in hand a communique from the "National United Front" encouraging a boycott of the National Assembly.

Our Story continues:

By mid/late afternoon, the story I would be writing tonight was clear-cut.

One e-mail was like this:

What you have heard it is true. Will fax the Letter to you received from Rainsy, Ranariddh and others.
4 political parties will boycott the government.
There will be war no matter what.

Phnom Penh July 28, 1998

JOINT STATEMENT ON RESULTS OF CAMBODIAN ELECTIONS FOR NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

We have observed many irregularities in the polling, counting, and reporting of election results. These irregularities include missing ballots, polling station staff marking ballots for voters, purposeful miscounting of ballots, threats to observers, insufficient party agents and NGO observers allowed to watch the counting, improper moving of ballots at night and unexplained delays in reporting results.

We can not accept the result of these elections until these irregularities have been seriously investigated and proven by national and international observers to be nothing more than minor technical errors.

In arreas where major irregularities occurred and election officials are unable to validate the results to the satisfaction of national and international observers, we demand that elections be reorganized and carried out with proper procedure and observation.

signed by

Prince Norodom Ranariddh
President
FUNCINPEC Party

Sam Rainsy
President
Sam Rainsy Party

Buor Hel
President
Cambodian Neutral Party

Keat Sokun
Son Sann Party

At the end of this fax, I received a note from Lar Mundstock, who I had interviewed in Part Two of this series.

I was disconsolate already, but I had to read on.

Lar Mundstock "Lt General Khan Sovoeun declared that he has 16,000 troops ready if the election is not fair. They will not return to join the CPP (Hun Sen) Government because they know them well. They will try to get rid of their opponents. "Eventually we all will be killed." Note: Lt. General Khan Sovoeun is with General Ngele BunChey head commander of Ranariddh's army.

Peg--Oops, so maybe it was Ranariddh that had the 16,000 troops stationed around the border?"

POST SCRIPT: Quite obviously it is very late as we conclude this part of the story.

So I am reflective. I ask myself(again) why the G21 even does this type of story.

One writer for this magazine wrote(via e-mail, of course) that people in the United States don't want to read these types of stories. They don't give a damn, he asserted, about the rest of the world.

Perhaps that's true. But as "The World's Magazine" we'll keep publishing them. Frankly, I don't think we have a choice.

As a reader wrote in(to be published at the end of the week on YOUR Vox Populi page) "...You're like the NPR of the Web..."

Yours Unruly was extremely flattered. That is our mandate.

NEXT WEEK IN G21 ASIA: KIM CARTER is back with a report on the Full Moon Parties on Koh Phangan, Thailand, and the Hong Kong drug ships. In TWO WEEKS: More on Sonia Gandhi of India. And AUGUST 7TH: The next follow-up on the Cambodian elections, after the 4 August announcement. Stay with us.

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