PHNOM PENH -- They fought with guns and bombast during a civil war, a U.N. peacekeeping mission, an election, a coup, another election -- and every free moment in between. For most of the past two years, the followers of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Ranariddh have cooperated in a coalition government, giving Cambodians a taste of peace for the first time in three decades. But the road ahead is full of danger.

First, skeptics say this "political stability" is based on little more than the fact that Hun Sen finally has dominated Ranariddh, now the National Assembly president, and they currently find it expedient not to quarrel. "Stability these days is very fragile because of the absence of rule of law," said Lao Mong Hay, head of The Khmer Institute of Democracy. "Anything can happen overnight."

Last month's bloody attack on government buildings in Phnom Penh may have been an isolated event, but it demonstrated that anything can happen. A group of Cambodian exiles based in the United States said it organized the raid to block a visit by the president of Vietnam, whom it calls Hun Sen's patron. But Hun Sen's government is so distrusted by Cambodians that many suspected that the government itself orchestrated the attack to create a pretext to suppress its critics.