Senate Backs Aid for Rebels in Cambodia

The Senate on Wednesday passed a $14.8-billion foreign aid authorization bill for fiscal 1986 that for the first time would give $5 million in assistance to resistance forces in Cambodia, provided that non-communist countries in that region do likewise.

The bill was adopted by a vote of 75 to 19 after two days of debate. Although the measure was amended 34 times, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) managed to dissuade his colleagues from adding a variety of controversial items that might have jeopardized its passage. Eight amendments were withdrawn, three were defeated and dozens of others that were considered were never offered.

Sanctions Blocked

Among the proposals that Lugar successfully blocked were amendments that would have provided aid to the Nicaraguan contras, imposed sanctions on South Africa and further restricted the expenditure of U.S. funds for population control in other nations.

The measure seeks to alter the Reagan Administration’s foreign policy in dozens of ways, however. For example, as a result of an amendment offered by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), it threatens to withhold aid from the Philippines if the Manila government fails to take specified steps to revive the democratic process.

Lugar said that the Senate-passed bill has the support of the Administration, even though State Department officials have expressed dissatisfaction that the measure provides $190 million less in military assistance than they sought. The bill includes $6.3 billion in military aid.

Congress has not passed a foreign aid authorization bill since 1981 because measures proposed in the House and Senate in the intervening years have been used as vehicles for controversial amendments on a variety of subjects ranging from U.S. policy in Central America to arms sales in the Middle East. In the absence of any comprehensive measure, money has been appropriated on a piecemeal basis.

Lugar said Wednesday night that he now thinks there is “a chance” that a foreign aid bill will be enacted by Congress this year. The House has not yet considered a $13-billion proposal completed recently by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Value of Dollar

The only amendment passed Wednesday without Lugar’s express support was one proposed by Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) that called on the Federal Reserve Board chairman and the secretary of the Treasury to intervene in foreign exchange markets and gradually bring down the value of the U.S. dollar. The Senate voted 56 to 39 against Lugar’s motion to table Bradley’s proposal.

The Cambodian aid proposal, offered by Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska), was adopted on a voice vote. Unlike a similar measure adopted several weeks ago by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Senate version would provide no aid unless the members of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations make a public commitment to provide aid, too.

Although Thailand, Singapore and other ASEAN nations have expressed support for the Cambodian resistance groups fighting the Vietnamese army and the Vietnamese-supported government in Phnom Penh, they have thus far declined to say publicly whether they will provide financial aid.

Deep Involvement Feared

Murkowski indicated that he is fearful the aid otherwise might lead to deeper U.S. involvement in the region, as it did two decades ago in Vietnam. “Why should the United States be alone on this crucial point?” he asked. “We got far out in front in Indochina in the 1960s, and we carried the burden.”

Lugar managed to block a number of controversial amendments from being proposed by promising other senators that the Foreign Relations Committee plans hearings later on the issues involved.

As a result, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) agreed not to offer an amendment to impose sanctions against South Africa; Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) did not bring up an amendment banning U.S. aid for population control, and a variety of other senators agreed to postpone their battle over aid to the Nicaraguan contras.

“We could have had a full-scale debate on Nicaragua alone,” Lugar noted. The bill, as passed, bans military aid to the contras who are fighting the Marxist government in Managua, and also prohibits U.S. aid to other countries that help the rebels.

Lugar also persuaded Helms to withdraw an amendment slashing the U.S. contribution to the United Nations by $71 million. Likewise, Kennedy was persuaded to withdraw an amendment that would have withheld $10 million from Guatemala without evidence of further progress by that nation in the field of human rights.