New Plans Emerge for Peace in Cambodia : Phnom Penh’s Offer to Talk to Khmer Rouge Spurs Optimism

BANGKOK, Thailand —  New initiatives for a political settlement of the Cambodian conflict have reached the highest pitch in years, raising expectations that peace may finally come to Indochina, but so far each feeler has run into resistance in some quarter.

In Phnom Penh, Beijing, Hanoi and the current U.N. General Assembly, new or warmed-over peace proposals have been rolled out almost daily for the last few months, couched in terms of conciliation and concession. The focus has been on calls for the Cambodian factions to begin the process with talks among themselves.

Two weeks ago in Beijing, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia’s former monarch and now head of an armed resistance front, floated what has been labeled “the seven wise men proposal,” a purported invitation from seven eminent Cambodians living abroad for the factions to meet, probably somewhere in Europe.

“I . . . accept with great pleasure,” Sihanouk said, adding that those who oppose the idea would have to take responsibility for “the death, sooner or later, of a Kampuchea (Cambodia) belonging to the Kampucheans.”

Days later in Phnom Penh, Hun Sen, premier of the Vietnamese-installed Cambodian government, told The Times in an interview that his regime is willing to meet with all resistance factions. “There should be no preconditions,” he said. “. . . We can discuss the form of government, the constitution, the foreign policy.”

Indonesian Foreign Minister Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, representing the non-Communist Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), got the ball rolling in July talks with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach. Mochtar suggested a “cocktail party”--an informal meeting of the factions. Vietnam, he said, could join the talks “at a later stage.”

Two factors, in particular, have sharpened expectations that a settlement may be possible: Phnom Penh’s stated willingness to deal politically for the first time with the Khmer Rouge, and the impending test of Hanoi’s pledge to withdraw all of its estimated 140,000 troops from Cambodia by 1990.

“It’s going to be hard for the Vietnamese to back down,” said a Phnom Penh-based diplomat, though acknowledging that Hanoi has recently made its withdrawal conditional on the war situation.

But behind all the agreeable words are implied preconditions. These have been stumbling blocks to a political solution since the December, 1978, Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, which drove from power the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, led by Pol Pot, and installed the current, pro-Vietnam government in Phnom Penh.

At the United Nations on Tuesday, Nguyen Dy Nien, a Vietnamese deputy foreign minister, put the standoff succinctly: “The other side (the resistance) demands that Vietnam withdraw its forces from Kampuchea (before any settlement takes place), while the Indochinese countries (Communist-ruled Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) insist on the removal of the genocidal Pol Pot clique.”

Whatever the merits and ambitions of the other parties, the Vietnamese occupation army and Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge guerrillas remain the bogymen in the Cambodian drama--unacceptable to one faction or another.

Further complicating any settlement are the key roles played in the fitful Cambodian conflict by the Soviet Union, Vietnam’s principal backer, and China, which funds the resistance front.

As a Bangkok-based diplomat noted recently, “The whole thing operates at (several) different levels.” Often what seems possible on the level of the Cambodian factions is not acceptable to the big powers. And what is acceptable to China and the Soviet Union might be anathema to Hanoi.

Because of the deep divisions and the number of parties involved, he and other diplomats remain dubious that the current initiatives will lead to an early solution.

And there remains the possibility that the overtures are mainly concentrated on wooing votes in the General Assembly when the annual resolution calling for withdrawal of Vietnamese troops comes to the floor. That resolution and votes awarding Cambodia’s seat in the United Nations to the resistance coalition--rather than to the government that currently runs Cambodia--have passed by overwhelming margins since 1979.

Divisions on Plan

Many think that the Cambodians will have to solve their problems themselves, but even among allies, there are divisions on the proposal for an all-Cambodian meeting:

- Mochtar’s initial “cocktail party” proposal, inviting the Vietnamese in at a later stage, was modified within ASEAN. Thailand and Singapore took the lead, calling for almost immediate Vietnamese participation, and recently the hairs have been split even finer. Indonesia and Malaysia have tended not to be as demanding of Hanoi as Thailand and Singapore.

- Sihanouk’s “seven wise men” plan, which originated with seven officials of his former regime, has yet to win public agreement from either the Khmer Rouge or the non-Communist Kampuchean People’s National Liberation Front, his partners in the resistance coalition. The Khmer Rouge has refused in the past to have any dealings with the Vietnamese-installed government in Phnom Penh. On Friday, the clandestine Khmer Rouge radio, while not explicitly rejecting all-party talks, called the proposals “just a ploy attempting to cover up Vietnam’s aggression in Kampuchea.”

- Phnom Penh’s acceptance of both the Mochtar and Sihanouk ideas, Hun Sen said, was taken in agreement with Vietnam and Laos. “Anything we say or our friends from Vietnam or Laos say has already been a matter for consultations,” Hun Sen insisted. But although there is no evident policy rift between Phnom Penh and Hanoi, nationalist feelings are strong among all Cambodians.

The eight-year guerrilla war has left Cambodia in a state of “part war, part peace,” Hun Sen has said. No Phnom Penh official denies that the resistance guerrillas are active within the country, though the immediate Phnom Penh area has been secure this year.

Under Vietnamese direction, Cambodian civilians have “volunteered” to build a defensive wall of tank traps and gun emplacements near the Thai border to try to check guerrilla infiltration. But, according to diplomats here, it has not worked. One described it as an “eggshell effect”--initially difficult to crack, but once inside there is fairly free movement.

This diplomat suggested that the Vietnamese hope the wall might allow the 30,000-man Phnom Penh army to hold off the more than 50,000 guerrillas once Hanoi’s troops withdraw. But he saw no reason for Hanoi’s optimism. “They will melt like ice cubes in the sun,” he predicted of an unsupported Phnom Penh army.

The other new factor is Phnom Penh’s willingness to deal with the Khmer Rouge. In previous years, any such talks were rejected because of the unacceptability of “the Pol Pot clique.” The clique was never defined, but clearly included Khieu Samphan, a top Pol Pot aide and the architect of the Khmer Rouge decision to drive people from the cities when the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975.

In July, shortly after Cambodian President Heng Samrin visited Moscow, the line was changed to rejection of any deals with “Pol Pot and his close associates,” and Hun Sen said in The Times interview that he was willing to meet with Khieu Samphan as a representative of the Khmer Rouge.

Whether Pol Pot would allow Khieu Samphan to negotiate for the Khmer Rouge is unknown, but he has represented the faction abroad and is vice president of the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, the resistance front.

Soviets Financing Vietnam

In the background are the Soviets, who by their own admission are financing the Vietnamese military and economy at a cost of more than $2 billion a year. Moscow also has been trying to improve its economic and trade relations with the non-Communist ASEAN countries. The Soviets say publicly, and many diplomats agree, that Moscow would like to see a settlement of the Cambodian problem.

“But they (the Soviets) will not push the Vietnamese too hard on this one,” said the Bangkok diplomat. “You have to remember Cam Ranh Bay (the former U.S. naval base in southern Vietnam, now used by the Soviet fleet). They would not do anything to risk Cam Ranh Bay. If they lose it, their navy goes back to Siberia.”

China, meanwhile, has little to gain by a Cambodian settlement that would allow the Vietnamese and the Soviets to maintain their influence there.

China might support a neutralist, Sihanouk-supported regime, even at the expense of Beijing’s Khmer Rouge clients. But there are some advantages to China in the status quo: Having 140,000 Vietnamese troops tied down in Cambodia eases the pressure on the China-Vietnam border.

More straightforward is the Vietnamese interest in Cambodia. What has been termed Vietnam’s Vietnam is the price Hanoi has so far been willing to pay for the security of its western border. Analysts say the Vietnamese will not soon forget the border trouble caused by the Khmer Rouge when they ruled in Phnom Penh.

Any optimism raised by the prospect of an all-Cambodian meeting does not stretch to an immediate solution of the war, or even to a cease-fire. “How do you implement it?” a Bangkok-based diplomat asked. “Who would enforce it?”