Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 1992 10:43:19 -0500
From:         Nhan Tran <tran@PEORA.SDC.CCUR.COM>
Subject:      CAM: talks fail to break deadlock

11/09

Cambodia talks fail to break deadlock

By DAVID R. SCHWEISBERG
   BEIJING (UPI) -- International talks on Cambodia ended in failure as the
country's rival factions remained deadlocked on their disputed peace accord,
and officials struggling to avert renewed fighting said the agreement might
have to be partly rewritten.
   But the leader of the hard-line communist Khmer Rouge, which has blocked the
Paris peace accord by refusing to disarm its forces, rejected any changes
Sunday and warned the U.N.-sponsored agreement could not proceed without Khmer
Rouge participation.
   "We do not want war," said Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan. "We only want
the correct implementation of the Paris agreement."
   The two days of weekend talks in Beijing, involving the four Cambodian
factions and officials of more than a dozen nations involved in the peace
settlement, ended in impasse as the Cambodians appeared to harden their
conflicting positions.
   "At the end of the day, we could not yet get full consensus on the way in
which we should resolve the major obstacles," said Indonesian Foreign Minister
Ali Alatas, co-chairman of the Paris conference that organized the Cambodian
peace pact last year.
   Alatas and the other conference co-chairman, French Foreign Minister Roland
Dumas, must report before Nov. 15 to the United Nations on the progress of the
settlement, after which the U.N. Security Council will decide how to proceed.
   The Khmer Rouge, which still fields the largest guerrilla army in Cambodia,
has threatened to derail the accord by refusing to lay down its arms or
participate in free elections called for next spring.
   The United Nations could impose sanctions on the group or try to proceed
without its consent. But Alatas said "some adjustments may be made" to the
Paris agreement to break the deadlock.
   "Time is running out on the implementation of the Paris accords," Alatas
warned, although he noted all sides appeared to want to continue the process
and "avoid a relapse into renewed fighting on a large scale."
   Samphan, however, said Khmer Rouge officials "do not call for rewriting the
Paris agreement" and charged the U.N. supervision of the accord favors the
Phnom Penh government installed by Vietnam after it invaded Cambodia in 1978.
   The Vietnamese invasion ousted a brutal Khmer Rouge government that is
blamed for the death of at least 1 million Cambodians.
   Samphan reiterated claims that Vietnamese troops remain in Cambodia despite
their official withdrawal two years ago, saying some are among up to 2 million
Vietnamese settlers in the country and that any election now would be a "sheer
rubber-stamp" for Vietnam.
   Rejecting threats that the U.N. could go ahead without the Khmer Rouge,
Samphan said "the Cambodian people will not accept the elimination" of his
group.
   After the international talks Saturday, the Cambodian factions met Sunday as
the country's Supreme National Council but made no progress, officials said.
   The council, headed by Prince Norodom Sihanouk to represent Cambodian
sovereignty during the U.N.-administered transition, includes the Khmer Rouge,
two non-communist factions and the Phnom Penh government.
   "They basically just restated their positions, and didn't move at all," said
a Western official present at the talks.
   Yasushi Akashi, head of the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia, said
that despite investigations by U.N. peacekeeping forces, officials have found
"no precise information" on the claims of a continued Vietnamese presence.
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