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REUTERS
PHNOM PENH, DEC 8: The three main leaders of the notorious Khmer Rouge will not be hunted down by Cambodian government troops and are likely to die as free men in the jungle, an official said here on Tuesday.
Information Minister Lu Laysreng said that following last week's defection of the remnants of the guerrilla force there was little remaining will to track down Pol Pot's top ideologue Nuon Chea, military Chief Ta Mok and successor Khieu Samphan. ``I don't think the government will use unnecessary money to chase these three old men,'' Lu Laysreng told reporters. ``Sooner or later they will pass away.''
The minister said since the surrender of the last of the once ultra-Maoist force -- which Left the three leaders isolated with just a few bodyguards -- ended the 20-year war between Phnom Penh and the guerrillas. ``Since the whole block has come over those three cannot do anything,'' he said. ``Now we have to concentrate on the economy.''
The Khmer Rouge's aim to transform the country into acollectivised agrarian state transformed Cambodia into a vast killing field, when up to two million perished through torture, execution, overwork or starvation.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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