Sihanouk Cancels Talks, Dims Cambodia Peace Hopes

Prince Norodom Sihanouk, dramatically puncturing a week of euphoria over the start of a Cambodian peace process, announced Thursday that he has canceled his two scheduled meetings next year with Premier Hun Sen of Cambodia despite their signed agreement to meet.

In a note released to the press, Sihanouk denounced the 36-year-old premier whom he had embraced and toasted only a week ago. Sihanouk called Hun Sen “a lackey” of the Vietnamese who prop up his government.

Some analysts said they thought the announcement was a theatrical ploy by Sihanouk, a former ruler of Cambodia who is now the figurehead of a rebellion, to pressure the Vietnamese and Sihanouk’s two rebel partners, Khieu Samphan, leader of the Khmer Rouge, and Son Sann, leader of an anti-Communist nationalist movement, to join them in a broad Cambodian peace conference.

“I will not see Hun Sen anymore,” Sihanouk said, “if the Viets of Hanoi do not come to negotiate with me and if Khieu Samphan and Son Sann do not accept to see Hun Sen with me.”

Uses Insulting Language

But, if it was a ploy, it was an odd one, for the 65-year-old Sihanouk used some insulting language to describe the young Cambodian who had signed an accord with him amid much fanfare just six days before at a chateau in Fere-en-Tardenois, 75 miles east of Paris.

Sihanouk said that Hun Sen had come to Fere-en-Tardenois “with empty hands” and had refused to include in their accord a call for the withdrawal of 140,000 Vietnamese troops now in Cambodia. Hun Sen insisted that such a call would be useless, the prince said.

This refusal, Sihanouk went on, “did not presage anything good for the future of our people and our country.”

The agreement that was signed provided for a meeting of the two Cambodians at Fere-en-Tardenois in January and in Pyongyang, North Korea, in April. But Sihanouk released the text of a telegram that he had sent Hun Sen on Wednesday canceling the sessions.

“After carefully studying the depth of your thoughts and the true nature of your proposals concerning the Cambodian problem,” Sihanouk telegraphed Hun Sen, “I have reached the conclusion today, that, conforming to your conclusions, we two cannot arrive at anything in the common search for an equitable solution” without the participation of the Khmer Rouge and the anti-Communist nationalists.

Sihanouk said, in the telegram, that he still favors a future Cambodia that is “non-Communist, non-socialist, neutral and truly nonaligned” with “a French-style, liberal democracy.” The government, Sihanouk went on, should include all four political segments of Cambodia: the Khmer Rouge, the anti-Communists, Sihanouk’s followers, and the present government. But the prince said that Vietnam will have to withdraw all its troops before the new Cambodian government is formed.

Patrice de Beer, an analyst for Le Monde, the Paris newspaper, wrote that Sihanouk seemed to be trying to push his partners, the Khmer Rouge and the Son Sann movement, “with their backs to the wall” so they would feel forced to join the talks.

But a spokesman for the Son Sann movement made it clear in Paris that they would not join such talks unless Vietnam took a direct part in the negotiations.

The latest phase of the civil war in Cambodia began in late 1978 when the Vietnamese invaded and brought down the bloody regime of the Khmer Rouge. Sihanouk and Son Sann later joined the Khmer Rouge in a rebel coalition against the Vietnamese-backed government in Phnom Penh.

The coalition is reported to have 60,000 troops, about two-thirds run by the Khmer Rouge, nearly a third by Sihanouk, and several thousand by Son Sann.