Kampuchea Is Peace at Hand?

By Scott MacLeod

For two decades, Kampuchea has been torn by one of the 20th century's goriest conflicts. During its 3 1/2-year reign, the sternly Communist Khmer Rouge killed anywhere from 1 million to 2 million Kampucheans in a genocidal resettlement program. Up to another million fled, swarming into refugee camps across the border in Thailand. In 1979 invading Vietnamese troops overthrew the murderous Pol Pot. Since then, the Hanoi-backed government in Phnom Penh has been at war with a coalition of three rebel factions that includes as many as 35,000 fighters of the ousted Khmer Rouge.

The dispute involves a dizzyingly complex array of parties: the Soviets support the Vietnamese puppet regime; the U.S., China, Thailand and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), determined to keep Hanoi from overrunning the region, want to oust the invaders, even if that means risking a return of the Khmer Rouge killers. Suddenly, however, a rare convergence of interests among all parties has made the prospect appear bright that a political settlement may finally end the fighting in Kampuchea. The new optimism has been triggered by a "peace blitz" in Asian capitals. Kampuchean President Heng Samrin began raising hopes earlier this month when he said Hanoi might be willing to withdraw its estimated 50,000 remaining troops by September.

Eager to curb Viet Nam's expansive military, China promptly invited First Deputy Foreign Minister Dinh Nho Liem to Beijing last week for the highest- level discussions between the two nations in ten years. Liem presumably asked for assurances that China would reduce aid to the rebels as part of a political settlement.

Pushing diplomacy along, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who ruled Kampuchea from 1953 to 1970, may have dropped his demand that the Hanoi-backed regime be dismantled before a new national-unity government could be installed. As leader of the main non-Communist rebel faction, Sihanouk has a strong claim to at least a symbolic leadership post in a new government after the Vietnamese pull out.

Thailand, host to the rebel factions and the refugees, joined the blitz. In a startling turnaround from a policy of refusing to talk to Phnom Penh, the new Prime Minister, Chatichai Choonhavan, invited Kampuchean Prime Minister Hun Sen for discussions in Bangkok, possibly to start as early as this week. + Before, says an ASEAN diplomat, "Thailand and ASEAN wouldn't have touched Hun Sen with a 10-ft. pole."

Last week ASEAN foreign ministers met to lay the groundwork for another "informal meeting" in Jakarta that will bring together the Kampuchean government, some if not all of the rebel factions, China, Viet Nam and Thailand. The object is to set up a formal peace parley aimed at devising a government power-sharing formula, nailing down a Vietnamese withdrawal timetable and establishing international monitoring of the peace.

The crucial underlying impetus for a settlement, however, is the detente that began emerging last summer between China and the Soviet Union, which have been bankrolling the opposing armies in Kampuchea. "There's recognition on both sides that it's time to move their respective clients toward resolution," said a State Department analyst. A Chinese official put it more bluntly: "Viet Nam is worried about the Soviets reaching an agreement with China and being left out."

One of the questions bedeviling the diplomats is the role the Khmer Rouge would play in a Kampuchean government after the Vietnamese withdraw. As a U.S. official said, "A return of the Khmer Rouge would be unacceptable in the eyes of the world." Its political comeback would be acutely embarrassing to Washington. In supporting the non-Communist members of the rebel coalition, the U.S. has at least indirectly backed the Khmer Rouge as well. But Washington hopes to undercut the Khmer Rouge by boosting aid to Sihanouk. Diplomats in Beijing believe that China is ready to accept the "decapitation" of the Khmer Rouge, permitting it to take part in a national-unity government but barring its infamous leaders from holding power.

Fear of the Khmer Rouge still rules much of the Kampuchean countryside, where the rebel fighters battle the improving army of the People's Republic. Around Chhun Kiri, 65 miles southwest of Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge has stepped up its "war of the villages." At a nearby hospital lay Pen Kea, 40, his leg injured in a guerrilla attack. "The Khmer Rouge comes every three nights," he said. "You have got to be afraid of them."

By comparison, even the once despised government regime is winning some popular support as it gains militarily against the rebels. With a view toward future elections, the government has initiated a series of rural land reforms, and its economic liberalizations have been bringing a measure of prosperity to + this benighted land. With hopes rising that Viet Nam's soldiers will eventually be gone, perhaps peace, too, will visit tortured Kampuchea before long.

With reporting by Sandra Burton/Beijing and William Stewart/Hong Kong