In this file photo Sam Rainsy, then president of the Khmer Nation Party, is carried away in state of shock after a March 30, 1997 grenade attack on a group of demonstrators outside the National Assembly building. The attack left 16 people dead. (Photo by AFP)
The Cambodian government has shielded those implicated in a deadly grenade attack on an opposition party rally 20 years ago that left at least 16 people dead and more than 150 injured, Human Rights Watch said March 29.
"Compelling evidence of the involvement of Prime Minister Hun Sen's personal bodyguard unit in this atrocity means a serious domestic investigation never has — and never will — take place," HRW's Asia director Brad Adams said.
"The United Nations and Cambodia's donors, who provide a large percentage of the national budget, should demand justice for victims for a crime that helped derail Cambodia's democratic transition."
On March 30, 1997, about 200 supporters of the opposition Khmer Nation Party (KNP), led by Sam Rainsy, a former finance minister, gathered in a park near the National Assembly in Phnom Penh to denounce the judiciary's lack of independence and judicial corruption.
Unidentified assailants threw four grenades into the crowd in a bid to kill Rainsy, killing protesters and bystanders, including children. Rainsy escaped with a minor leg injury.
The police, who had previously maintained a high-profile presence at opposition demonstrations in an effort to discourage them, kept an unusually low profile that day. However, the army's Brigade 70, Hun Sen's personal bodyguard unit, was at the park in full riot gear. It was the first time it had appeared at an opposition demonstration.
Numerous witnesses reported that the people who had thrown the grenades subsequently ran toward Hun Sen's bodyguards. Witnesses said the bodyguards opened the line to allow the assailants to pass then stopped people pursuing the grenade-throwers and threatened to shoot them.
"The grenade attack has cast a long shadow over Cambodian politics that remains today," Adams said.