Ranariddh concedes defeat to Hun Sen

Lu Laysreng, a steering committee member of Ranariddh’s Funcinpec Party, said the Prince agreed to a proposal hammered out by the foreign ministers and Ranariddh’s father, King Norodom Sihanouk, to resolve the crisis.

Laysreng said the deal requires an end to fighting. Ranariddh’s already beleaguered armed resistance campaign against the bigger, better-armed forces of coup leader Hun Sen would have to be called off.

A caretaker government comprising Funcinpec and Hun Sen’s formerly Communist Cambodian People’s Party would be formed until new elections can be held, Laysreng said. Elections are currently set for May 23. Sihanouk, 74, who is in China undergoing treatment for a variety of ailments, would have control over the military, Laysreng said.

However, no matter what face-saving conditions the royalists set, Hun Sen will retain control of the military. The bulk of the troops are loyal to him, proven in recent fighting where the Prince’s partisans have been smashed or routed.

Under the proposed deal, both parties would renew commitment to the Paris peace accords that ended a decade of civil war and led to elections in UN-organized elections in 1993 that produced the coalition government shattered by the coup.

Ranariddh, whom Hun Sen has threatened with arrest if he returns to Phnom Penh, would be authorised to nominate a member of his party to replace him as co-premier in the caretaker government. This would nullify Hun Sen’s bid to replace Ranariddh with Ung Huot, the foreign minister and a member of the Prince’s party. The bid has been called illegal by Ranariddh loyalists in exile fleeing Hun Sen’s bloody post-coup purges.

“Funcinpec has accepted the proposal of a caretaker government,” Laysreng said. “This is the only solution that prolong fighting and help revive the Khmer Rouge, which is still intact.”

The account was confirmed by other Ranariddh party members. Ranariddh will present his acceptance of the proposals to the foreign ministers of Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, who are representing Asean on Thursday, Laysreng said.