(21 Jun 1997) Eng/Khmer/Nat
Cambodia's co-prime ministers announced on Saturday that Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, had been captured.
The announcement -- the first time that both leaders agreed on Pol Pot's fate -- brings to an end several days of speculation concerning his whereabouts.
The Cambodian government now plans to ask a United Nations tribunal to try the infamous leader of the Khmer Rouge for his crimes.
The man who presided over a regime that killed as many as 2 (m) million Cambodians through starvation, overwork and systematic torture and execution was on Saturday said to have been captured.
Speaking in the Cambodian capital, First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh announced the Khmer Rouge leader's detention.
He said Pol Pot's capture marked the end of the much feared guerrilla movement.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We have captured Pol Pot and we think that is the end of the Khmer Rouge both politically and militarily."
SUPER CAPTION: Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Cambodian First Prime Minister
Ranariddh said Cambodia would now be trying to have Pol Pot pay for the hundreds of thousands of Cambodians executed during the Khmer Rouge's three-and-a-half year rule in the 1970s.
Many more died through overwork and starvation as his ultra-Communist vision imploded.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"The two Prime Ministers will be writing a letter the UN to set up an international tribunal at the Hague for example, to try Pol Pot we need a real trial. Pol Pot is a criminal against humanity, not just against the Cambodian people."
SUPER CAPTION: Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Cambodian First Prime Minister
It was the first time both Prince Ranariddh and Cambodia's Second Prime Minister Hun Sen agreed on accounts of the fugitive Khmer Rouge leader.
They are engaged in a bitter political feud.
SOUNDBITE: (Khmer)
"They told me this morning that they arrested both Khieu Sampan (Khmer Rouge leader) and Pol Pot."
SUPER CAPTION: Hun Sen, Cambodian Second Prime Minister
Pol Pot was said to have been on the run since last week when a violent split divided the remaining hard-line Khmer Rouge guerrillas in their stronghold of Anlong Veng in northern Cambodia near the Thai border.
After Pol Pot executed his defence minister Son Sen and 10 members of his family, reportedly for engaging in secret peace negotiations with the government, other remaining guerrillas turned against their leader.
Under the command of Ta Mok, a one-legged officer with a reputation for brutality, they chased the 69-year-old Pol Pot and a handful of loyalists through the jungles.
Pol Pot was reportedly so ill that he was being carried in a hammock by his men.
He has not been seen publicly since 1979, when invading Vietnamese forces toppled his regime.
Thousands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas have defected to the government over the last year, after Cambodia offered amnesty to a top member of the guerrilla movement.
Both parties in the government have been courting Khmer Rouge defectors in advance of upcoming elections.
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