Sam Rainsy supporters are set to gather March 30 at the site of the 1997 grenade
attack on what was then Rainsy's Khmer Nation Party. Nineteen people died and 141
were injured when four grenades were thrown into a rally being held in the park opposite
the National Assembly. No arrests were ever made.
"We demand that a real investigation by an independent body takes place and
if there's any result it should be made public," Sam Rainsy told the Post March
28.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation released a report on the attack in November
1998 but skeptics charged that it avoided blaming the CPP, where they suggested the
evidence led.
"We have the feeling that what's been released so far doesn't reflect the whole
evidence," Rainsy said. "Even though five years have passed, the memory
of the grenade attack remains in the minds of survivors and that memory is as vivid
as ever."
Rainsy supporter, 76-year-old Ping Say, was just 10 meters from where the grenades
went off.
"I saw four or five people running to where the CPP soldiers were standing in
front of the pagoda [Wat Botum]," he recalled. "There were around 20 to
30 armed soldiers in uniform. Some people screamed out to the soldiers to arrest
the runners, but they didn't help. It was chaos."
"They went into the pagoda and behind that pagoda the road was blocked because
that is a CPP place," he said.
"We denounce the impunity in Cambodia," Rainsy said of the lack of action
on the case. "It just shows that the judiciary has no credibility whatsoever."
The ceremony, which will include statements made by victims' families and Sam Rainsy,
as well as a blessing by Buddhist monks, begins at 8:30 am.
