World Notes Diplomacy

The peace treaty took two years to work out, but foreign ministers of 18 countries and representatives from four Cambodian political factions finally signed it in Paris last week. The accord is supposed to lead to a permanent cease-fire in the civil war, demobilization, repatriation of 350,000 refugees, and United Nations-supervised elections by early 1993.

That vision of a democratic Cambodia, alas, is fraught with peril. Chief fear is that the Khmer Rouge, the rebel faction that ruled the country with a brutal hand in the mid-1970s, may try once again to seize power.

The signing of the accord, however, produced one glimmer of hope. With the Cambodian issue settled for the moment, the U.S. announced that it is ready to seek normal relations with Vietnam. That could lead to an infusion of aid and investment dollars, which would breathe new life into Hanoi's stagnant economy and might even stem the crushing flow of Vietnamese boat people to foreign shores.