ANOTHER SEASON'S KILLING FIELDS
The British Government is in danger of letting Pol Pot take back control
Site 2, on the Thai-Cambodian border EVERYONE knows that the Khmer Rouge are despicable. It is less well estab- lished that the two other Cambodian resist- ance groups, led by Prince Norodom Siha- nouk and Son Sann, are also corrupt, sometimes brutal and have small regard for liberty. Of course they cannot match their Khmer Rouge allies for misdeeds; but from a position on the Thai-Cambodian border they appear to be a bad lot. America, Europe and the countries of South-East Asia are sending money and in effect arms for the resistance military campaign in Cambodia. The policy seems wrong.
Son Sarin was once America's hope for a moderate force. His organisation runs Site 2, a vast sprawl of bamboo huts just inside Thailand. It is the biggest of the resistance- run camps that house 300,000 Cambo- dians. The mountains of Cambodia are in sight and the sound of shells falling there is a reminder of war. These days the state of Site 2 is evidence of the mess Son Sann's faction would make of running Cambodia should it get the chance.
Site 2 is a corrupt and lawless place. When the United Nations delivers rice rations, camp officials steal it for resale, or divert it to soldiers. At night people fear raids by Son Sann's soldiers or those of his powerful rival, General Sak. They arrive with guns and strip homes of household goods, food and savings of gold. In ten years of running the camp Son Sann has failed to build an effective army.
Prince Sihanouk has also failed the West. His endless contrariety is one reason. Another is his failure to fashion an effective military. Some years ago Amer- icans calculated that the prince's army simply could not absorb the amount of aid they would like to give it. (Perhaps the SAS helped things a little). Now the general offensive in Cambodia has forced the Sihanoukists to take extreme mea- sures. Hundreds of boys, aged 12 to 14, are being taken away from refugee camps, for military training. The Khmer Rouge run a well-organised, relatively crime-free camp at Site 8. This year they have been conducting a futile campaign to persuade outsiders they have reformed. At one of the Jakarta meetings on Cambodia their spokesman Khieu Sam- phan for the first time gave a long inter- view to journalists in which he smiled a lot and tried to appear reasonable. He served fruit and petits fours. But on the border few doubt that the Khmer Rouge are the same monsters as ever they were. They force young men to become porters for the soldiers in Cambodia. That means risking life or limb in heavily-mined jungles. In the past weeks they have emptied two Thai camps of about 15,000 people and marched them south to help in the war.
The Khmer Rouge army is leagues better than those of the non-communist resistance. In the past year the Khmer Rouge have been buying loyalty from villages inside Cambodia, or terrorising villagers into faking it. They have arms caches all over the place. That is why the Khmer Rouge captured the gem-town of Pailin and are marching on Battambang while Son Sann is struggling to take High- way 69 and the town of Sisaphon. The Khmer Rouge military strength makes real the threat that they will shoot their way back to Phnom Penh, in effect with the backing of America, and the rest of us. Every penny spent on propping up the weak armies of Son Sant' and Sihanouk with anti-tank guns, helps the Khmer Rouge advance.
This has been the case only since the Vietnamese left Cambodia in September. Before then the Vietnamese army kept the Khmer Rouge at bay. Hun Sen's army is inexperienced and weak. In ten years of Vietnamese occupation, Pol Pot's soldiers did not manage to take a town. Pailin was the first. So why not avoid the disgrace of helping the Khmer Rouge back to power and ditch the resistance? Instead support the government of Hun Sen which was installed by the Vietnamese but looks relatively respectable to capitalist coun- tries.
Two arguments are made against the proposition. They are both weak. The first is that the resistance, which runs a government-in-exile, is the true repre- sentative of Cambodians. Hun Sen, it is said, is merely a 'Vietnamese puppet' forced upon the people. But the resistance does not have the popular support it likes to claim. Thousands of 'resistance suppor- ters' in Thai camps were shanghaied a decade ago when they came across the border as walking skeletons. The three groups simply divided people up, herded them into their camps, and spent the next ten years indoctrinating them. Movement between camps is forbidden.
Resistance leaders fear peace in Cambo- dia that would allow their 'supporters' to return to their homeland freely and non- aligned. So they have cooked up a horrible plan to prevent that from happening. If they can take and hold enough territory inside the Cambodian border, they intend to take all 300,000 refugees there and keep them imprisoned in new camps out of the reach of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Hun Sen's government, for sure, was not elected. Hun Sen himself is no saint. He keeps political prisoners, and torture has been used in Cambodian prisons. In his youth he was a Khmer Rouge commander in the eastern province of Cambodia where some of the worst atrocities took place. But his government has some popular support because he has worked at convinc- ing people that, in fact, he hated the genocide of Pol Pot and was instrumental in driving him out of the country. No doubt he has blood on his hands, but so do all the other Cambodian leaders. These days Hun Sen talks of economic reform and co- operation with capitalist countries, espe- cially Thailand. He considered it safe to arm a militia at least 100,000-strong.
A second argument dictates that the resistance must be supported in the hope of securing a 'comprehensive settlement' for Cambodia. Only that, it is said, will bring real peace. Led by America, Western countries refuse to acknowledge fully Viet- nam's troop withdrawal and lift an econo- mic embargo on Vietnam until the precious 'comprehensive settlement' is in place. The plan requires that Hun Sen allow the Khmer Rouge and the other resistance groups to join him in an interim govern- ment which will hold elections.
But the elections will be a shambles. All four factions are more concerned for power-seeking than for democracy. No one will vote for the Khmer Rouge, and failure at the ballot box will not prompt them into giving up their bid to return to Phnom Penh. So fighting will resume.
A better way would be to impose a new political settlement on Cambodia. Back Hun Sen. Demand elections. Send a moni- toring team and a peace-keeping force. Put pressure on Sihanouk to desert the Khmer Rouge in favour of the young prime minister. The prince came close to doing that earlier this year when for a while he gave up calling Hun Sen 'the quisling, the one-eyed traitor' and instead referred to him as 'charming' and even 'my son'. It is supposed that pressure from China made him change his mind and stick with the Khmer Rouge. It was a decision that alienated many of his own people and has prolonged Cambodia's agony.
Cambodia is a sad country. The best that anyone can offer its people is to help the least bad of a bad lot fight off the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot is still alive.
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