Khmer Rouge Chief Flees Cambodia After Beating

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia —  Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan, battered and bloodied by an angry mob shouting “kill, kill, kill,” fled back to Thailand on Wednesday just hours after returning to the Cambodian capital that his followers ruled by terror in the 1970s.

He left with Khmer Rouge defense chief Son Sen, who had been trapped with him for five hours in a Phnom Penh villa besieged by thousands of people demanding retribution for relatives who died under Khmer Rouge rule.

The mob attack seriously threatens Cambodia’s fragile peace. It also shows the hatred that remains for Pol Pot’s revolutionary Communist group, which turned Cambodia’s countryside into killing fields. Khieu Samphan is the right-hand man to Pol Pot, who has remained underground in recent years.

Under a treaty signed last month, U.N. peacekeepers are to disarm most of the forces of the government and three guerrilla groups--including the Khmer Rouge. But the Khmer Rouge leaders’ sudden departure could at best delay disarmament and perhaps lead to renewal of the 13-year civil war.

Son Sann, leader of the rival Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, called for the immediate deployment of U.N. troops to “save the peace plan.”

The incident put in question the meeting of the Supreme National Council planned for next Wednesday--the first on Cambodian soil. The SNC is a reconciliation body bringing together the Phnom Penh government and the guerrilla alliance that had opposed it during the long civil war.

The violence Wednesday began after the arrival from Thailand of Khieu Samphan, who was president during the Khmer Rouge’s 1975-1978 reign of terror, in which at least 1 million Cambodians were killed or died of hunger and disease.

Hundreds of men, women and children, some armed with hatchets, stormed the villa shortly after his arrival on a morning flight from Bangkok. They began ransacking the house, trapping Khieu Samphan, Son Sen and other aides in an upstairs room.

State television showed footage of police and soldiers standing by as crowds tore down the high front fence, making only desultory attempts to hold them back as they climbed over.

Eyewitnesses who got inside the house saw Khieu Samphan lying by a metal cupboard bleeding from a head wound. He was surrounded by police and soldiers, only some of whom were trying to fend off dozens of angry attackers.

“I thought he was going to be torn apart, they were crazy in there,” said veteran Indochina photographer Tim Page.

Khieu Samphan and Son Sen were eventually forced to hide inside the cupboard wearing steel helmets given by the soldiers, while their attackers strung a wire noose from a ceiling fan and hacked and pounded at the hiding place with hatchets and staves of wood.

People in the crowd, sweating with heat and rage, screamed, “Kill, kill, kill, kill him, kill him!” Many shouted that they had lost relatives under Khmer Rouge rule.

Shortly before 2 p.m., Hun Sen, premier of the Vietnamese-installed government, and his defense chief, Gen. Tea Banh, arrived at the house and appealed for calm. The mob began to leave.

An armored car backed into the compound and Son Sen, Khieu Samphan and two other Khmer Rouge officials climbed on all fours across a ladder onto its roof and slipped inside through a hatch.

Khieu Samphan, Son Sen and other members of their delegation were driven to Pochentong Airport and put aboard a special Kampuchea Airlines flight to Bangkok. They were seen off at the airport by Hun Sen and Tea Banh.

The government issued a statement expressing regret and saying it remains committed to last month’s peace accords.