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From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com
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Subject: Without the Khmer Rouge=
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 04:53:22 EST
Message-ID: <8.1992Nov10.045323@AmeriCast.com>

Without the Khmer Rouge=

 FROM THE beginning, there were great risks in trying to bring
the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia's agents of death, into a United Na-
tions peace agreement. Surely, it was argued, they would cheat
and use the framework only to gain respectability and spoil the
prospects of others.  Still, the counterargument had its claims:
Bringing them in would not transform the Khmer Rouge but would
put them under international observation and pressure to play
fair. The better part of a year has now gone by. The Khmer Rouge
have cheated, refusing to yield arms and access to U.N.  peace-
keepers or to move to elections. But though they have a galling
presence in Phnom Penh, they are almost everywhere newly
discredited for flouting the U.N. Nor have they spoiled the hope
the great majority of Cambodians seem still to repose in the U.N.
plan.

 Plainly, however, the plan needs fixing.  Its emphasis on a
U.N.-managed transition to elections is sound. But the elections
cannot possibly include the Khmer Rouge. By their defiance they
have excluded themselves from a political role. They cannot be
permitted to prevent others from going down the political road.
Fortunately, this seems to be taking root among the principal
sponsors of the U.N. plan. The Security Council is about to re-
view the bidding in Cambodia and should make the necessary timely
adjustments.

  Two further considerations beckon. China, long the principal
patron (for anti-Vietnam reasons) of the Khmer Rouge, has trimmed
some of its support for them. But Thai generals have become the
avaricious business partners of Khmer Rouge guerrillas trading in
gems, hardwoods and drugs to finance their ugly movement. The Un-
ited States has a soft spot for the Thais; through thick and thin
they have been friends. But these deals can't be condoned.

  With elections in Cambodia, the U.N.'s mandate expires. But the
need for a forceful U.N. role - to help deal with a Khmer Rouge
military campaign - does not expire. Estimates differ about the
military capacity of the Khmer Rouge. But they are surely strong
enough to force the incoming president to a difficult political
stretch to mobilize continuing support for Cambodia. He will have
to remind Americans of the political requirement to serve stabil-
ity in this strategic Asian corner and of the moral requirement
to help a victim country come back to life.

02:08 11-10C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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