Khmer Rouge hard-liners continued to grapple with defectors and government troops for control of the Anlong Veng area over the weekend as both sides claimed gains in key villages in the last rebel stronghold.
Most of Sunday’s fighting centered around the village of Srah Chouk, about 10 km northeast of Anlong Veng village, according to Chea Saran, chief of operations for the RCAF general staff.
Guerrillas loyal to top Khmer Rouge general Ta Mok regained control of the village late last week, but government forces drove them out again Saturday, Chea Saran said Sunday.
Skirmishes in and around Srah Chouk continued all day, he said.
Nominal Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan announced on rebel radio Saturday that hard-line forces had retaken most of the area. He appealed for the defectors to return to the fold.
Khieu Samphan named several villages that he said the rebel forces had retaken, but Srah Chouk was not among them.
“The National Solidarity soldiers and the impoverished peasants…have completely swept out the communist [Vietnamese] puppets who invaded our liberated zone,” Khieu Samphan said.
It was the first statement any Khmer Rouge leader has made since hundreds of disgruntled rebels defected to the government March 24 and drove Ta Mok and his supporters from their headquarters in Anlong Veng village.
Since then, Ta Mok and an estimated 200 to 300 hard-line loyalists have been battling to regain control of the area.
Ta Mok is basing his counterattack from the Dangrek Mountains about 15 km north of Anlong Veng village and 2 km south of the Thai border.
A high-ranking Khmer Rouge defector, Pich Chheang, said in an interview Saturday on government television that Ta Mok has about 300 solders with him from rebel army divisions 912 and 785.
“The movement led by Ta Mok cannot live much longer,” predicted Pich Chheang, who described himself as the second-in-command at the Anlong Veng military base.
Chea Saran repeated claims Sunday that Ta Mok is being aided by reinforcements sent by Khann Savoeun, a resistance general loyal to deposed first prime minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh. His claim could not be confirmed.
The prince’s forces agreed to a cease-fire last month as part of a Japanese-brokered deal to allow Prince Ranariddh to return for July 26 elections. They have consistently denied being allied with Ta Mok, saying that Khmer Rouge soldiers seen in their camps are defectors.
Still unclear in the fray are the whereabouts of former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who presided over the 1975-79 radical communist regime held responsible for the deaths of as many as 2 million people of starvation, disease, forced labor and execution.
Ta Mok ousted Pol Pot from power last June, saying he had committed crimes against the movement by killing longtime cadre Son Sen and his family for allegedly negotiating with the government.
Under house arrest since June 1997, Pol Pot is rumored to have been moved by Ta Mok to the mountains.
(Reporting by Touch Rotha, Kim Chan, Ham Samnang and Kay Johnson)
