PHNOM PENH, July 7: Dawn broke over a capital city in chaos today as soldiers carrying out a coup d'etat by Cambodia's second Prime Minister Hun Sen began looting parts of Phnom Penh under their control.Army units loyal to First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh, who is in France attempting to organise a resistance to Hun Sen's power play, were holding out in pockets in the western portion of the city.From Paris, Ranariddh urged Cambodia's people to resist Hun Sen's soldiers.``I call on my people that they join me, my party and all other patriotic forces to carry out resistance against hun sen and his partisans,'' he said. In a radio address, Hun Sen denied his military actions constituted a coup, blamed the violence on Ranariddh, whom he branded a traitor, and said he would no longer accept him as the country's First Prime Minister.He offered the position to Loy Sim Chheang, a member of Ranariddh's royalist Funcinpec Party who attempted to defect to Hun Sen's formerly Communist Cambodian People's party earlier this year. Loy Sim Chheang is seen as easily controlled by Hun Sen.Hun Sen said members of Ranariddh's party could keep their positions in Parliament as long as they renounced Ranariddh as their leader. The violent breakdown of Cambodia's coalition government marked the final unraveling of an imperfect peace settlement worked out by United Nations negotiators in 1991 to end the country's long-running civil war.The deal led to national elections in 1993 won by Ranariddh's party, but Hun Sen and his followers bullied their way into a coalition government by vowing to continue the violence unless they received their share of power.Although no gunfire was reported as the night-time curfew ended at 6 am today, Hun Sen's troops maintained their siege.
