Cambodia has deployed troops along its borders and staged live fire drills ahead of the return this weekend of exiled leaders of a banned opposition party – a move the country’s leader has denounced as an attempted coup.
Sam Rainsy, the founder of the dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party, has vowed to lead a delegation of opposition leaders and Cambodian migrant workers back to their homeland on Saturday to stage non-violent protests against Hun Sen, the long-serving prime minister.
Mr Rainsy has said he is prepared to risk jail or even to die to restore democracy to the South East Asian nation, accusing the prime minister of being “a national traitor working against our country’s interests.”