Tycoon Helped Finance Cambodian Coup

A NEW PLAYER has emerged in last month's bloody overthrow of the Cambodian government. Teng Bunma, his nation's richest businessman, is also a suspected drug dealer.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Cambodia's wealthiest tycoon - also a suspected narcotics trafficker - helped bankroll the country's bloody coup last month, raising fears that drug money will play a role in strongman Hun Sen's new government.

Teng Bunma, the short-tempered president of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce, owns a hotel, a bank, an import-export company and various other properties worth an estimated $400 million.

Also a close friend of Hun Sen, Teng Bunma claimed last month that he gave the country's new leader $1 million in gold to finance the ouster of co-premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

His role in the overthrow has intensified concerns that Cambodia's rulers, widely believed to be corrupt even in the best of times, are now more susceptible to the lure of drug money. Cambodia, along with Thailand, Burma and Laos, form a region that produces most of the world's heroin - with Cambodia as the transit point.

"We have reliable reporting that he (Teng Bunma) is closely and heavily involved in drug trafficking in Cambodia," Nicholas Burns, the U.S. State Department spokesman, said recently. Washington is considering revoking a visa granted to him to visit the United States, Burns said.

Teng Bunma denied the accusations.

"I have never had dealings in the drug business," he told The Associated Press. "It is a business everyone in the world hates."

The State Department says it has no evidence that Hun Sen is personally involved in narcotics trafficking, but said he should do more to purge the government of corruption and links to the drugs trade.

However, a U.S. congressional resolution last month urging aid cuts to Hun Sen's regime noted that pre-coup Cambodian government reports and U.S. narcotics investigators concluded that "Hun Sen and his forces have received millions of dollars in financial and material support from international drug dealers."

Since he was toppled, Ranariddh also has singled out another businessman, Mong Rethy, as being a player in the drug world and a financial backer of Hun Sen's takeover. Mong Rethy, a contractor, has built hundreds of schools in Cambodia that bear Hun Sen's name.

Teng Bunma said last month that he had given Hun Sen 220 pounds of gold during the July 5-6 coup. He said he wanted to preserve stability in the capital, taking up Hun Sen's line that the prince was smuggling a terrorist force of former Khmer Rouge guerrillas into the capital, something Ranariddh denies.

But Hun Sen and aides denied recently that his government had received any financial assistance from Teng Bunma during the coup.

An aide to Teng Bunma, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the tycoon did not know if the money "was a loan or a gift."

Teng Bunma gained international attention in April when he stormed off a Royal Air Cambodge jetliner after it landed in Phnom Penh, demanded a gun from one of his waiting bodyguards and shot out the plane's tires. He was upset his luggage had been lost.

On July 2, he brandished a pistol at the crew of an Orient Thai Airlines plane preparing to leave Phnom Penh and demanded that it stay grounded until late friends of his were allowed to board.

------------------ Update on Cambodia ------------------

-- Cambodian forces loyal to strongman Hun Sen today inched their way toward O'Smach, the last town held by troops loyal to ousted co-premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Hun Sen's soldiers have had to pick their way through booby traps and land mines to reach the area near the border with Thailand.

-- King Norodom Sihanouk said his offer to abdicate the throne had been rejected by Hun Sen after meeting with him at his residence in Beijing. Sihanouk is highly regarded by Cambodians, and if the 74-year-old king were to abdicate, it would be seen as forced by Hun Sen.