KANDAL authorities continue to play tit-for-tat with Sam Rainsy over his attempts

to establish a Khmer Nation Party office there.

Four hours after Rainsy reopened the office in Saang district on July 21- for the

fifth time - local officials, including 30 soldiers and policemen, ripped down the

new party sign, smashed it with an ax and tossed it in a nearby river, he said.

The office was first opened on June 6 and its sign subsequently torn down four times.

Each time KNP Secretary-General Khieu Rada put it up again. Rainsy said another office

in Koh Thom, Kandal, had also been closed by authorities since June. KNP's other

provincial offices - five in Sihanoukville and two in Prey Veng - had not been targeted.

Rainsy blamed the difficulties in Kandal to forces loyal to Hun Sen. He noted the

province's CPP deputy governor Koun Kim was considered to be close to Hun Sen, and

also that Hun Sen's Kraingyov development zone is in Saang.

Rainsy said he was not "in a hurry" to again reopen the Saang office, but

would do so some time in the near future. "If I do something wrong, if KNP does

something wrong, they should come and arrest us. Instead of acting cowardly after

I have gone, they should come and confront me.

Rainsy said KNP planned other regional offices including one in Kompong Cham but

- given that the provincial governor there, Hun Neng, was Hun Sen's brother - there

could be "some problems."