Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Mon, 28 Sep 1992 12:02:35 -0400
From:         Nhan Tran <tran@PEORA.SDC.CCUR.COM>
Subject:      CAM: UN faces tough decisions in Cambodia

09/26

U.N. faces tough decisions in Cambodia

    By Angus MacSwan
    PHNOM PENH, Sept 26, Reuter - The United Nations is treading warily around
the edge of a quagmire in Cambodia.
    Faced with the Khmer Rouge guerrillas' refusal to honour the peace accord
they signed almost a year ago, the United Nations must make some tough
decisions about how to press ahead with its mission.
    "The entire future of the peace settlement is tenuous," the human rights
group Asia Watch said in a report this week.
    Cambodia is the United Nation's most comprehensive mission so far and its
success or failure could determine the world body's future role in resolving
international conflicts.
    More than 15,000 foreign troops from 50 countries are now deployed across
the country. But those intending to move into Khmer Rouge zones and disarm the
fighters are sitting idle, barred from entry by the secretive guerrilla group.
    The Khmer Rouge, responsible for the deaths of one million Cambodians
during their fanatical communist rule under Pol Pot before a 1978 Vietnamese
invasion drove them into the jungle, continue to make sporadic small-scale
attacks on villages.
    They have increased the amount of territory under their control, including
areas previously held by their former guerrilla allies during the 13-year civil
war.
    They are blamed for several firings on U.N. helicopters in which U.N.
soldiers have been wounded.
    A stream of invective broadcast over their clandestine radio has pilloried
the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) and accused its
chief, Japanese diplomat Yasushi Akashi, of bias towards the Phnom Penh
government.
    Akashi has charged the Khmer Rouge of conducting "a deliberate policy of
terror against ordinary Cambodians."
    Elsewhere in the country soldiers from the government army and two other
guerrilla groups have begun to hand in their weapons and move into special
camps.
    A huge U.N. civilian administration has descended on the capital and is
spreading to the provinces. Key government ministries are under U.N.
supervision, U.N. police and human rights monitors are curbing the repressive
tendencies of the security forces, and refugees are being brought home.
    On October 5 UNTAC officials are due to start registering Cambodians to
vote in elections scheduled for next May -- the centrepiece of the U.N.
mission.
    As things stand there will be no registration in the Khmer Rouge zones and
the prospects of any free political campaigning there are decidedly dim.
    U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, in a report to the Security
Council this week, said the Khmer Rouge position was of serious concern.
    He stressed his determination that the elections should go ahead and warned
the Khmer Rouge time was running out.
    "It is clear that the time is approaching when some difficult decisions
regarding ways and means of pursuing this operation will have to be seriously
considered."
    He said he would ask France and Indonesia, co-chairmen of the Paris
Conference peace forum, to find a way out of the impasse.
    But no one is quite sure what are the Khmer Rouge's intentions.
    Some Western diplomats think they do not intend to rejoin the peace
process.  Others disagree.
    "They think their interests can be best served by leaving it as late as
they can," said one. "But even if they do come back it might be too late to
spread the UNTAC message."
    A foreign Cambodia expert said the guerrillas may not have decided
themselves yet whether to take part in the elections.
    "They are trying to extract concessions to weaken the government and are
pursuing options should those concessions not be forthcoming," he said.
    UNTAC officials say the elections could be held without the Khmer Rouge,
leaving them to fester in their enclaves.
    It would be an imperfect solution as it would leave open the door for a
renewed insurgency.
    Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Tuesday the Khmer Rouge were playing for
time and had plans to launch a dry-season offensive.
    U.N. military officers stress their troops are not here to enforce a peace
and the current mandate rules out such action.
    If it came to war, foreign governments might be reluctant to commit troops.
    And, officers say, the multi-national force would find itself bogged down
in a guerrilla war, which like the French and Americans found in Vietnam and
the Vietnamese themselves found in Cambodia, could be impossible to win.
    Khmer Rouge officials, in robotic style, repeat basic demands for a say in
running the Phnom Penh government and for UNTAC to rid Cambodia of Vietnamese
settlers and soldiers.
    The peacekeepers have discovered no troops from Vietnam but there are
hundreds of thousands of settlers.
    Stirring up ethnic hatred against them has become the Khmer Rouge's main
political rallying point and one which foreign observers say strikes a chord
with ordinary Cambodians.
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