Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Mon, 25 Jan 1993 10:35:07 -0500
From:         Nhan Tran <tran@PEORA.SDC.CCUR.COM>
Subject:      CAM: Khmer Rouge too weak to block polls

01/22

MINISTER SAYS KHMER ROUGE TOO WEAK TO BLOCK POLLS

    By Mark Dodd
    PHNOM PENH, Jan 22, Reuter - Two key players in the Cambodian peace process
said on Friday that U.N.-organised general elections would go ahead even
without the Khmer Rouge guerrilla faction, which refuses to take part.
    Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans said this could mean a new
government being formed while up to 20 per cent of the country remained under
Khmer Rouge control.
    But he said the guerrillas were not strong enough to seriously disrupt the
elections in May, the climax to the U.N.'s largest peacekeeping operation.
    Evans and his Indonesian counterpart Ali Alatas, co-chairmen of a 1991
Paris conference at which the peace agreement was signed, arrived in Phnom Penh
on Friday for talks with U.N. officials and Cambodian leaders.
    Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan told Alatas in Bangkok on Thursday that it
was impossible for his party to take part in the elections under current
conditions.
    The U.N. Security Council has set a January 31 deadline for completion of
voter registration but the Khmer Rouge has resisted attempts to register people
living in zones it controls.
    After talks with Lieutenant-General John Sanderson, military commander of
the 22,000-strong U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia, Evans said he was
convinced the Khmer Rouge would not threaten the holding of elections.
    "His very clearly and persuasively expressed view to me was they
don't...there is simply not the capability to mount a substantial disruption of
the election campaign let alone re-engage in a full scale civil war," Evans
said.
    "I discussed with him very fully the basis for that assessment and I think
it is a plausible and persuasive case."
    The Maoist Khmer Rouge put the country through a reign of terror in the
mid-1970s in which a million people were killed. They were ousted by a
Vietnamese invasion in December 1978.
    The Khmer Rouge and two allied guerrilla groups battled for 12 years to
oust a Vietnam-backed government until the 1991 pact. But the Khmer Rouge have
refused to disarm under the peace plan.
    Evans said earlier the Khmer Rouge poll boycott "doesn't in any way inhibit
the capacity of the elections to proceed on schedule. Whether following those
elections some other process of reconciliation is possible...remains to be
seen."
    Alatas told reporters on arrival: "Now we must look at the real possibility
that these elections will proceed without the participation of the Khmer Rouge."
    Alatas said he regretted the Khmer Rouge position would make it impossible
to achieve the political solution involving all four main Cambodian parties
envisaged in the accords.
    "But look at it this way: according to latest reports 4.5 million
Cambodians -- roughly 90 per cent of eligible voters -- have already been
registered, and also a realistic assessment has been made of the area going to
be covered by these elections.
    "...I think it would amount to a betrayal of the majority of the Cambodian
people if we were just to abandon this whole thing and declare (it)
unimplementable just because one party is not joining."
    Evans said a continuing insurgency need not inhibit the effective running
of the country under a new government.
    "We do have to contemplate the possibility after the elections of some
proportion of Cambodian territory not being effectively controlled by those
parties contesting the election. Maybe of the order of 15, maybe even 20 per
cent," he said.
    "We do have to contemplate the possibility of 500,000 to 600,000 Cambodians
equally being in those areas."
    Cambodian head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk this week formally proposed
April 5 as the date most favourable for the holding of presidential elections.
    But Evans told reporters after meeting envoys from the five permanent
Security Council members: "In terms of the practicability of election dates, it
is very clear from what I've been told it would not be possible to hold any
elections whether for the president or constituent assembly earlier than the
early part of May."
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