Khmer Rouge Chiefs Say They’ll Defect
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Two senior Khmer Rouge leaders wanted for genocide and crimes against humanity have announced that they are willing to defect to the Cambodian government, national radio reported Saturday.
In a letter to King Norodom Sihanouk read over national radio, Prime Minister Hun Sen praised the defection of Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan and the rebel movement’s political chief, Nuon Chea.
“I would like to warmly welcome the two personalities, and I hope this decision made by the two personalities will become a mobilization of strength for national reconstruction and peace,” Hun Sen wrote.
The Cambodian government and the United States have said they wanted the two captured and tried for genocide and crimes against humanity. It was unclear whether the defection meant the Cambodian government will not pursue charges against them.
Both of the Khmer Rouge leaders, who were in the former rebel town of Pailin in Cambodia’s rugged northwest, sent letters to Hun Sen announcing that they had broken from guerrilla army chief Ta Mok.
The two were key figures in the Maoist Khmer Rouge’s brutal 1975-79 rule, under which up to 2 million people were killed.
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