BANGKOK, Thailand -- The last main fighting force of the Khmer Rouge, the radical Marxist guerillas who killed nearly two million Cambodians, have surrendered, a journalist close to the rebels said Saturday.
Negotiators for the last band of guerrillas holed up near the Thai border met Friday with representatives of the government in Phnom Penh at Preah Vihear temple and agreed to lay down their arms, according to Nate Thayer of the Far Eastern Economic Review.In 1997, Thayer became the first the first journalist allowed to interview Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who had not been seen in public in nearly two decades and died in April. Thayer is one of few outsiders trusted by the guerrillas.
The surrender of the Khmer Rouge would bring to an end more than 30 years of civil war in Cambodia that began with the Marxist guerilla's insurgency against the government in Phnom Penh in the late 1960s.
Although the fighters' top surviving leaders, Tak Mok, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea were not included in the deal, they no longer command any troops. Their former followers apparently did not want to give them up.