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| Southeast Asia | |
| Strip mall revolutionaries | |
| 2004-03-21 | |
Traditionally, militant groups huddle in caves in the mountains, or they blindfold journalists and drive them in circles before depositing them at their leader's jungle hideout. The Cambodian Freedom Fighters (C.F.F.), a militant group dedicated to the overthrow of Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia, on the other hand, meets each Saturday at 6 p.m. in an accountant's office in a strip mall in Long Beach, Calif. When I called Yasith Chhun, the group's leader, he didn't hesitate to invite me to the next meeting. ''You can't miss our headquarters,'' he said. ''It's right next to the bridal shop.'' When I arrived, eight people were seated in the office. The room was crammed not only with Cambodian political paraphernalia but also with stacks of 1040 forms, evidence of Chhun's double life as a tax preparer. One smiling C.F.F. devotee was offering members glasses of fizzy orange soda. Chhun, 47, didn't cut a very imposing figure. His stomach flopped over his slacks, and his bent legs, small head and doughy face made him look more like a bowling pin than a warrior. Still, a warrior is decidedly what he is. The C.F.F.'s stated goal is to enlist thousands of Cambodians to topple Hun Sen's quasi-authoritarian government by force, creating chaos out of which, the group said, a better government will emerge. ''Hun Sen -- believe it or not -- he's going to get it,'' said one C.F.F. member, a muscular, middle-aged man nearly spitting with rage. ''We are probably the last hope for the 10 million Cambodians.'' Chhun said he has little idea what form of government he plans to replace Hun Sen's with, though he has two guiding principles: he wants to model a new regime as closely as possible on the ideals of the American Republican Party, and he intends to populate the government with lots of accountants. Chhun passed around an attendance sheet so everyone could sign in. After inking the sheet, each member stood up and pledged allegiance to the C.F.F. Then the meeting began in earnest, with one member after another throwing out ambitious, even wild chains of events that might put the group in control of Cambodia. Chhun decided to expand the meeting by phone to include a few members of the C.F.F.'s global network. The group claims to have hundreds of agents inside Cambodia ready to execute its violent plans, each one known to C.F.F. members by a code of letters and numbers; Chhun admits that the coding system is so complicated that he sometimes loses track of which code represents which agent. He picked up the phone and dialed, trying to reach one of his lieutenants in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, he had only 34 cents left on his international phone card and couldn't dial out. Frustrated, he rummaged through desks and cabinets, found another card and finally reached a C.F.F. agent in the field, a former Cambodian Navy officer hiding along the Thai border. Speaking in Khmer, Cambodia's language, the officer confidently reported that he had persuaded more than 400 government soldiers to turn against Hun Sen. (Chhun translated for me as the rebel officer spoke.) ''All of them are ready,'' the officer said. ''They're just waiting for my command.'' The speakerphone crackled. ''They take an oath, they swear to God they're with C.F.F. forever. They have the guns, they have the weapons, they have tanks.'' It was impossible to tell for sure whether the agent's report was genuine, exaggerated or just wishful thinking. But it is clear that the C.F.F. isn't kidding around. The group spent two years methodically planning a coup that culminated in an armed assault on Phnom Penh in the fall of 2000, resulting in some of the worst bloodshed in the Cambodian capital's recent history. Now, Chhun said, the group is planning an even bigger assault. ''Next time,'' he promised, ''we will attack the whole country.'' How does a group get away with planning violent attacks overseas from an office in Southern California? According to most Cambodia experts, the C.F.F.'s actions are illegal, contrary to American policy and harmful to Hun Sen's democratic opponents in Cambodia. Yet at least two conservative American legislators who detest Hun Sen have advocated the removal, or even the overthrow, of the Cambodian leader. That position, some believe, has had the effect of helping provide political cover for the C.F.F. Now that the White House has embraced the idea of regime change in Iraq and other rogue nations, the Cambodia hawks are getting a hearing, and the C.F.F. remains free to plot in Long Beach. Like any major guerrilla attack, the C.F.F.'s November 2000 coup attempt was many years in the making. After fleeing the Khmer Rouge as a teenager in the late 1970's, Chhun sought refuge in the United States in 1982. Like many Cambodians, he maintained ties with his brutalized homeland, returning to assist an opposition party in the early 1990's, when the United Nations oversaw a transition to elected governments. But Chhun grew incensed at repression by Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge officer who used force and violent purges to remain in power after losing the 1993 election. ''When I came back to the States,'' Chhun said, ''I felt that nonviolence cannot do anything to the dictatorship in Cambodia.'' Chhun soon found a channel for his rage. In October 1998, Chhun and several other emigres held a clandestine meeting on the Thai border with 120 Cambodian dissidents. Together they vowed to foment a coup. Chhun returned to America and persuaded Cambodian-American friends to join his nascent organization, the C.F.F. In May 2000, Chhun held a fund-raiser attended by more than 500 people, many of them Cambodian expatriates, on the Queen Mary, the old cruise ship permanently moored at Long Beach. Attendees raised their right hands and swore to overthrow the Cambodian government. Chhun told them the money they were donating would be used to attack Hun Sen. Through the fund-raisers, Chhun said, the C.F.F. amassed a war chest of roughly $300,000. Money in hand, Chhun and Richard Kiri Kim, a local Cambodian immigrant, recruited 20 or so Cambodian-Americans to travel with them to the Thai-Cambodian border, where they set up a secret base. From there, Chhun dispatched Kim into Cambodia to contact military officers and offer many of them money and positions in a potential new government. In June 2000, Kim and his colleagues brought several officers to the border to meet with Chhun, who organized them into units and sent them back to recruit foot soldiers and wait for a signal. On Nov. 23, 2000, Chhun called Kim from the base on the border and told him to strike the following day. Early on Nov. 24, a team of about 70 C.F.F. agents slipped into the center of Phnom Penh. Armed with B-40 rockets and assault rifles, they moved swiftly toward a compound of government buildings. They attacked the Ministry of Defense and the Council of Ministers, peppering them with fire, then turned their weapons on a local television station and a nearby military base. State security forces engaged the group in a fierce firefight that lasted more than an hour, leaving bullet holes in ministry offices and blood pooled in the street. By daybreak, eight people lay dead. In the wake of the violence, more than 200 people, including Richard Kiri Kim, were arrested by the Cambodian police. Chhun fled to Thailand and then returned to Long Beach to raise more money for the C.F.F., arriving in time for the 2001 tax season. ''I couldn't keep my tax clients waiting,'' he said. Chhun defended his group by claiming he limits his actions in the United States to raising money and planning strategy. But under the Neutrality Act, it is illegal for American citizens on American soil to organize military action against a country with which the United States is not at war. The C.F.F. does not seem to pose a very serious threat to the government of Cambodia. Its real effect, in fact, may be to hurt nonviolent opponents of Hun Sen. The C.F.F. can be ''used as a cudgel to threaten democratic opposition,'' said Tim Johnson, a former director of the Cambodia program at the International Republican Institute in Washington. In fact, after the November 2000 attack, Hun Sen jailed hundreds of critics who had no apparent connection to the C.F.F. Sam Rainsy, head of a leading Cambodian opposition party, said that at least 25 members of his party have been harassed or arrested on trumped-up C.F.F. charges; five remain in jail. Since the C.F.F.'s coup attempt, the State Department has issued public statements condemning the group's actions and has listed the C.F.F. as a ''terrorist group'' in its annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report. So how does the C.F.F. manage to keep functioning? The fact is, in Washington there is official policy and unofficial policy, and unofficial policy sometimes wins the day. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California, a blunt, passionate advocate of human rights and a man with a history of supporting covert operations abroad, has become Hun Sen's most vociferous opponent. As a senior aide to Ronald Reagan, Rohrabacher, a Republican, was instrumental in enlisting quiet White House backing for insurgents like the Afghan resistance warriors and the contras. The congressman's district offices in Huntington Beach, 10 miles south of Long Beach, are adorned with photos of Rohrabacher, in full mujahedeen beard, holding a machine gun alongside Afghan rebels in the 1980's. Rohrabacher has retained his commitment to renegade action. In 1997, after Hun Sen attacked and purged political rivals, Rohrabacher traveled to the Thai-Cambodian border to meet with opponents to the Cambodian government. As Hun Sen has consolidated his power, Rohrabacher, a barrel-chested man with a close-cropped hairstyle that makes him look like an aging drill sergeant, has trained his sights on the Cambodian prime minister -- and on official American policy toward him, which he has compared to denying ''that Adolf Hitler really is as bad as he really looks.'' When I met him in Washington, the congressman said that because he is willing to meet with armed opponents of Hun Sen, he has entered what he admits ''most people think are murky waters.'' But if there's a possibility that Hun Sen can be overthrown, Rohrabacher said, jabbing his finger in the air, the United States ''should evaluate the chances of any type of armed resistance and help them if they have a chance to win.'' If they seem to have a good shot at overthrowing the government, he said, ''we should be happy to support them with lethal and nonlethal support.'' Rohrabacher's strident words and actions provide implicit sanction for the C.F.F. One advocate for human rights in Cambodia (who did not want to be identified because he fears retribution against the international human rights organization for which he works) said Rohrabacher's statements encourage exiles to act. ''Words from these congressmen do matter,'' the advocate said. ''The exile communities take heart from them.'' A Congressional Republican like Rohrabacher may have ideological reasons for advocating regime change in the region, but politics play a role, too. Southeast-Asian-Americans are becoming a solid Republican bloc, and they dominate some Congressional districts. In 2002, staff members of the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (N.R.C.C.), Thomas M. Reynolds, asked Chhun to serve as a fund-raiser in the Cambodian community. The C.F.F. leader said that he and his vice-president contributed more than $5,000 to the N.R.C.C. and that he canvassed some 1,600 people to persuade them to vote Republican. N.R.C.C. representatives call Chhun twice a month to check up on his political work, Chhun said, and the committee has rewarded him by nominating him for a Congressional Order of Merit, appointing him to N.R.C.C.'s Business Advisory Council and inviting him to the council's annual meeting in Washington last May. At the meeting, where Chhun wore a pin saying ''Cambodian Freedom Fighters,'' council members hobnobbed with Newt Gingrich, Katherine Harris and other Republican luminaries and then attended a fund-raising dinner for President Bush. When I called the N.R.C.C. and asked about Chhun's attendance at the meeting, Carl Forti, a spokesman, told me it was impossible to thoroughly investigate every person invited to join the group. Needless to say, representatives of the Cambodian government are not happy about Washington's laissez-faire attitude toward the C.F.F., especially since, after 9/11, the White House has increased its demands on Cambodia in the war on terror. According to Zachary Abuza, a professor of Southeast Asian politics at Simmons College in Boston, Cambodia has become a base for Jemaah Islamiyah, a Qaeda ally that is believed to have masterminded the October 2002 Bali bombing. Abuza said Jemaah Islamiyah and Al Qaeda itself have begun using Cambodia to train militants and to move funds. A State Department official said the United States has pushed Phnom Penh to round up members of Jemaah Islamiyah. In return, the Cambodian government has pressed Washington to arrest American-based insurgent groups like the C.F.F. Vanyuang Tan, the former political officer at the Cambodian Embassy in Washington, said that he insisted in 2000 that the Americans investigate the C.F.F. The F.B.I. has opened investigations into the C.F.F.'s activities, but the investigation seems to be going nowhere, and officials at the Cambodian Embassy say they have received no information from the F.B.I. A spokeswoman for the bureau refused to comment on the investigation. Chhun himself isn't worried. When I asked him about the investigation, he laughed and said the F.B.I. has come to his office three times since 2000 to question him. He said he simply told the agents that the C.F.F. will plan more violence and showed them his files and tax returns; Chhun registered the C.F.F. in California as a nonprofit. He said he told the F.B.I.: ''We won't stop. We'll have more plans in the future.'' There is no single clear reason why the C.F.F. seems not to be a serious target of law enforcement, but different sources offer overlapping explanations. ''Since 9/11, over 90 percent of international resources have been diverted to monitor the Islamist terror organizations,'' said Rohan Gunaratna, a specialist on Asia-Pacific terror groups. Others said that the investigations are impeded by the fact that some elected officials in Washington support regime change in Southeast Asia. ''You or I could get the goods on Yasith Chhun,'' said the advocate for Cambodian human rights, but ''there is political interference'' stymieing an investigation. Eric Pape, a former reporter for The Cambodia Daily of Phnom Penh who has covered the C.F.F. extensively, said that individual members of Congress are sending a message to American law enforcement that the C.F.F. isn't a problem worth taking on. ''There's not a chance in hell the U.S. would extradite Yasith Chhun to Cambodia or go after him,'' Pape said, suggesting Congress would stop the investigation by warning that Chhun would face an unfair trial in Cambodia. Some Cambodian politicians, including Rainsy, said they believed Hun Sen may not really want the United States to investigate Chhun, since the C.F.F. creates an excuse to crack down on mainstream opponents. ''The U.S. has a moral responsibility to clear up the mess and render justice,'' Rainsy said. If the Americans were to say that Chhun Yasith is ''just a clown,'' that his group is being used by Hun Sen, Rainsy said, then legitimate opposition members in jail in Cambodia -- democrats who are charged with being members of the C.F.F. -- could be freed. ''If the U.S. said he's a real terrorist, then he should be arrested,'' Rainsy added. Yet so many parties appear to benefit from Chhun that the United States government probably won't be coming after him anytime soon. Unless, perhaps, the C.F.F. unleashes more violence. In May, the group is holding another big fund-raiser in Long Beach. And not long ago, I sat in Chhun's office as he again made calls to his agents in Southeast Asia to discuss a possible C.F.F. attack. He was particularly excited about the near future, he said, when C.F.F. members will have more free time. ''Many of my other leaders are in accounting,'' he said. ''I have to put off planning attacks until after tax season.'' | |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #4 They take attendance???? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-3-21 11:25:57 PM |
| #3 First, thanks for an interesting article. With that out of the way...give me a BREAK!! This is soooo typically leftist NYT, screwed up mentality, anti-Bush propaganda. But I have to applaud them, in terms of propaganda, I rate this a 9 out of 10. Now that the White House has embraced the idea of regime change in Iraq and other rogue nations, the Cambodia hawks are getting a hearing, and the C.F.F. remains free to plot in Long Beach. First, notice how most of this occurs during the Clinton administration, yet all blame is directed towards Bush and Reagan. Nary a word about Clinton, even though the attacks happened in the fall of 2000 . In case we didn't grasp the point, he gives us this: "he laughed and said the F.B.I. has come to his office three times since 2000" Hmm...only three times SINCE 2000? How many times did they come by during the Clinton administration??? I'm guessing a big fat ZERO. But he didn't ask that question, now did he? BLAME JOHN ASHCROFT ...oh wait...we're supposed to be mad at him for snooping into things like this...BLAME BUSH and the evil Republicans. Note the brief handwave of the brutality of Hun Sen. Gotta get that in there somewhere in the article. Chhun grew incensed at repression by Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge officer who used force and violent purges to remain in power after losing the 1993 election. With the handwave to the brutality occuring in 1993 (Clinton years) out of the way, we are to believe that the real damage of this so- The C.F.F. does not seem to pose a very serious threat to the government of Cambodia. Its real effect, in fact, may be to hurt nonviolent opponents of Hun Sen. The C.F.F. can be ''used as a cudgel to threaten democratic opposition,'' said Tim Johnson, a former director of the Cambodia program at the International Republican Institute in Washington. In fact, after the November 2000 attack, Hun Sen jailed hundreds of critics who had no apparent connection to the C.F.F Ahhh..so it's the C.F.F.'s fault that he jailed hundreds of his critics. Give me a *&^%^^* break!! Hun Sen used violence back in 1993!!During the Clinton administration! Yet according to this NYT BOZO, we are to blame the Bush for orchestrating the killing of Hun Sen's non-violent opponents I could go on. You know this is propaganda just from the excess adjectives these losers always use. They paint pretty pictures of his stomach falling over his waist line. He forgot the birds chiping. What a joke, even tough I rate it 9 out of 10 for subtle, it's really only worth 3 out of 10 for the useless lie this is based on. |
| Posted by: B 2004-3-21 9:33:59 AM |
| #2 Which has nothing to do with the subject at hand, does it? Dumbass. |
| Posted by: Fred 2004-3-21 8:18:16 AM |
| #1 Anti-Defamation League is fighting anti-Goyism world-wide. http://AntiDefamationLeague.com |
| Posted by: Gentile Warrior 2004-3-21 7:17:33 AM |