A grenade attack on an opposition rally led by Sam Rainsy in March 1997 killed 16 people and injured more than a hundred. That July, after an uneasy period of sharing power with Prince Norodom Ranariddh’s royalist party, Hun Sen launched a bloody coup in which his opponents were exiled, arrested, tortured, and in some cases summarily executed.
但自巴黎和平协定以来，柬埔寨民主和人权纪录并不出色。1997年3月，沈良西（Sam Rainsy）领导的反对运动遭遇手榴弹袭击，造成16人死亡、一百多人手上。当年7月，在经历了和拉那烈亲王的保皇党分享权力的艰难时期后，洪森发动了流血政变，驱逐、逮捕、拷打甚至就地处决了他的反对者。