The agreement in 1991 ended years of civil war in Cambodia and led to elections in 1993. Ranariddh's party won, but has been criticized since then for allowing Hun Sen's party to bully its way into government. We hope very much that Hun Sen will reconsider his actions of going it alone, of rupturing the Paris peace accords and breaking the coalition government that had been in place for the last four years. During his rounds at the U.N. Thursday, Ranariddh also met with General Assembly President Razali Ismail of Malaysia and Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Annan has criticized the coup, but the Security Council has taken no action yet.
Diplomats say the Chinese delegation is awaiting instructions from Beijing before taking a stand.
He knows very well his party will lose. He was worried that an investigation of a grenade attack on a political rally last year will show that his bodyguards were responsible. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency had discovered that 600 tons of marijuana had been exported from Cambodia. He opposed a trial of former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot by an international tribunal that Ranariddh said he had been close to arranging. Hun Sen said Thursday in Phnom Penh that there had been no coup.