Despite Rumors, Pol Pot Remains In Cambodia

Khmer Rouge guerrillas in Cambodia have allowed a Thai reporter to meet briefly with their imprisoned former leader, Pol Pot, dispelling rumors that he had fled abroad from their jungle hideout, The Bangkok Post reported Tuesday.

“My political life is finished,” said Pol Pot, who was condemned last fall by his comrades to life under house arrest in Anlong Veng, a village near the border of Thailand. “I probably cannot say more.”

The former Khmer Rouge leader, 73, is responsible for the deaths of more than a million people when he ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. The Thai reporter, Prasit Saengrungruang, who reportedly met him Sunday, said Pol Pot appeared ill, his voice trembling and barely audible.

It was the first time a reporter had talked to Pol Pot since October, when Nate Thayer, an American correspondent for The Far Eastern Economic Review, conducted the first interview with him since 1980.

The brief fuss over Pol Pot’s whereabouts was touched off by reports last week in two Cambodian newspapers that he had fled the country. It only added to the confusion in Cambodia as the country begins political maneuvering before elections scheduled for July.

“There are a lot of parties being formed and a lot of money going around,” a Western diplomat said.

The current crisis involves the key issue of the participation in the election of Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who was ousted last July in a coup by Hun Sen, his co-prime minister in an antagonistic coalition government.

Apparently as a result of this dispute, King Norodom Sihanouk, the father of Ranariddh, unexpectedly left Cambodia on Monday for his home in Beijing. The king boarded an airliner without prior announcement and without the customary formal departure ceremony.

The king, who was in Beijing at the time of the coup, has returned twice since then for brief sojourns in his homeland.