Cambodia Resistance Asks U.N. Role in Peace Plan

Cambodian resistance leaders meeting here Thursday released details of a peace plan calling for United Nations observers and peacekeeping forces to be sent to Cambodia.

“We want a real peace, a just peace,” Prince Norodom Ranariddh, son of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the resistance leader and former Cambodian ruler, said at a press conference called to introduce the plan.

Ranariddh and other resistance leaders said the plan provides for national reconciliation of all Cambodian factions and includes assurances that the Khmer Rouge will not regain absolute power. Key aspects of the proposal have been rejected by the government in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, and by its Vietnamese and Soviet backers. The plan will be discussed further at informal peace talks scheduled for later this month in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Under the proposal, which was endorsed by the three factions of the resistance coalition, the United Nations would send at least 2,000 observers to Cambodia to supervise the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces. The U.N. team would also oversee the reduction of each Cambodian faction’s army to 10,000 men, the incorporation of these men into a four-party army, and free elections.

Vietnam invaded Cambodia in late 1978, ousting the Khmer Rouge government, which in three years in power had caused the deaths of an estimated 1 million people. Vietnam then installed a client regime in Phnom Penh, which constitutes the fourth faction of Cambodian politics. Vietnam has now promised to pull its troops out by September, but it is not entirely clear what conditions may be attached to that pledge.

Under the resistance leaders’ plan, the U.N. force would stay in Cambodia for at least a year after the withdrawal of Vietnam’s forces. It would be given the task of preventing the renewal of civil war, of ensuring that the Khmer Rouge, the strongest and most feared of the resistance factions, does not retake dictatorial power, and guaranteeing that Vietnam does not send its troops back into the country.

The plan also calls for creation of a provisional government under Sihanouk’s leadership that would incorporate representatives of the three resistance factions and the Phnom Penh regime.

The peace plan, which amplifies proposals made last year by Sihanouk, was signed and jointly released by Ranariddh, Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan, and Son Soubert, the son of guerrilla leader Son Sann, who heads the third resistance faction. It now becomes the basic negotiating position for the Cambodian resistance in the Feb. 19-21 Jakarta talks.

The Phnom Penh government, headed by Premier Hun Sen, has agreed that there could be internationally supervised elections as part of a political settlement. But Hun Sen has insisted that his government should remain in power through the elections.

Phnom Penh also opposes the introduction of a U.N. peacekeeping force to Cambodia. Hun Sen has described such a force as “just another foreign army.”

A PLAN FOR PEACE

Leaders of the three Cambodian resistance factions endorsed a peace plan calling for:

A U.N. force of 2,000 observers to supervise the pullout of Vietnamese forces.

The U.N. force to stay in Cambodia for at least a year to oversee the reduction of each rebel faction’s army to 10,000 troops and their incorporation into a government force.

Creation of a provisional government under Prince Norodom Sihanouk that would include officials of the three resistance factions and the Phnom Penh regime. Elections would be held after provisional government took power.