Grenade Attack In Cambodia Targeted Politician; 16 Killed

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - The government began an investigation today into a grenade attack that killed 16 people and wounded 118 in an apparent attempt to assassinate an opposition leader.

The attack, the worst political violence in Cambodia in years, has plunged the country's future as a democracy into uncertainty. Many Cambodians now wonder whether legislative elections planned for November 1998 can be held without bloodshed - or even at all.

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy has blamed his enemy, Second Prime Minister Hun Sen, for orchestrating the attack to try to neutralize the opposition. Hun Sen leads the formerly communist Cambodian People's Party.

Rainsy was slightly wounded when several grenades were hurled into a political rally yesterday held by his Khmer Nation Party outside the National Assembly.

A 13-year-old girl died today, raising the death toll to 16, according to police and hospital reports.

King Norodom Sihanouk, undergoing treatment for cataracts in China, issued his condolences and said though Cambodia had an excellent democratic constitution, "a number of people have not respected it."

About 2,000 Interior Ministry experts and police officers have begun an investigation.

Authorities said today they had no suspects, but several members of parliament have pointed accusing fingers at Hun Sen, whose party has long been charged with using violence against opponents.

Hun Sen, the country's most powerful politician, called yesterday for demonstration leaders - meaning Rainsy - to be arrested, accusing them of responsibility for the deaths. His reasoning was unclear.

Today, however, Hun Sen agreed to a request from his rival, First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh, to hold his calls until the end of the investigation.

The outspoken Rainsy, long a thorn in the government's side for his accusations of corruption and human-rights abuses, also toned down his comments.

"I think and hope that the investigation will proceed," Rainsy said today, "and while the investigation is proceeding no action will be taken, and there will be no more groundless accusation from either side."

Preparations were being made for the cremation and mass funeral Wednesday for the victims.

The sister of Yos Sean, a 36-year-old garment worker killed in the blast, wept over her coffin at a Buddhist temple today. Rainsy had championed garment workers in a series of strikes, and many were among yesterday's victims.

The demonstrators had been protesting the control Hun Sen's party exercises over the legal system when three or four grenades were hurled into the crowd. One landed amid journalists standing next to Rainsy and would have killed him if a bodyguard had not pushed him to the ground and covered him.

The bodyguard was killed and Rainsy wounded in the leg. Two local reporters were reported killed and several were injured. An American, Ron Abney, 55, of Cochran, Ga., was wounded in the groin.

U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Quinn urged that the perpetrators be brought to justice.

The violence was the worst since U.N.-supervised elections in 1993 aimed to usher in democracy after decades of civil war and the 1975-79 genocide of the Khmer Rouge.

Next year's elections are the first vote since 1993. Violence has been feared in the contest between the Cambodian People's Party, which ruled Cambodia in the 1980s with the backing of Vietnamese troops that toppled the Khmer Rouge in 1979, and Ranariddh's royalist FUNCINPEC.

FUNCINPEC was part of the Khmer Rouge-dominated resistance to Vietnamese occupation. Though the royalists won the 1993 vote, Hun Sen's threats of a renewed civil war forced the creation of a tense government coalition.