U.S. Urges Soviets, Chinese to Cut Arms to Cambodia

A senior Bush Administration official Friday called on the Soviet Union to hold down its shipments of arms to Cambodia and complained that the level of shipments has risen as Vietnam prepares to withdraw its troops from that country.

In a speech to an international symposium on Indochina, Richard H. Solomon, assistant secretary of state for East Asia, also urged China to limit its supply of arms to the Khmer Rouge, the radical Communist faction blamed for the deaths of more than 1 million people when it ruled the country between 1975 and early 1979.

Solomon’s remarks suggested that the Bush Administration is making a last-ditch effort to work with the Soviet Union and China in trying to prevent civil war from widening in Cambodia within the next few weeks. Vietnam has said it will pull out its remaining 26,000 troops by Sept. 26.

“The issue comes back to whether the Cambodian factions, encouraged by their foreign supporters, can join together in a political process of national reconciliation,” Solomon said. “The U.S. will use its influence to move events in this direction. China and the Soviet Union must do the same.”

China has given military, political and financial support to the Khmer Rouge for more than a decade. Since the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia that ousted the Khmer Rouge from power, the Soviet Union and Vietnam have backed the government in Phnom Penh headed by Hun Sen.

The United States and its allies have supported the non-Communist resistance groups led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk. These groups have also received support from China, and Sihanouk has repeatedly insisted that the Khmer Rouge be included in any new coalition government in Cambodia.

11 Shipments Reported

In Bangkok, a government spokesman said Thai intelligence officials reported that since the beginning of the year Moscow has sent at least 11 shipments of arms, weighing about 14,000 tons, into Cambodia through the port of Kampong Som alone, United Press International reported.

The spokesman said the shipments included more than 100 tanks and armored cars, along with large quantities of artillery, helicopter gunships, explosives and ammunition. In addition, he said, a squadron of 16 Soviet-made MIG jet fighters has arrived at an airport in Phnom Penh.

A 19-nation peace conference to avert civil war in Cambodia ended in a stalemate in Paris last month after delegates failed to agree on the role the Khmer Rouge should play in a political settlement.

In his speech, Solomon emphasized once again that despite what he called the “genocidal violence” of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, the Bush Administration would still be willing to go along with a settlement in which the Khmer Rouge becomes part of a future coalition government in Cambodia.

“From an American perspective, we want no role for the Khmer Rouge in a future Cambodian government,” he conceded in remarks to an international symposium in Los Angeles on the future of U.S.-Indochina relations.

“However, the judgment of Prince Sihanouk, of China, and of the ASEAN (Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations) countries . . . has been that the chances for peace are better if the Khmer Rouge is included in a four-party interim government,” he added.

Solomon’s speech also reflected a growing concern by the Bush Administration that Soviet arms shipments could help the Hun Sen regime keep power in Cambodia after the Vietnamese pullout.

At the symposium, which was sponsored by The Times, Times Mirror Co. and the Asia Society, other speakers also emphasized that the solution to the Cambodian problem must include the Khmer Rouge.

“If you try to exclude the Khmer Rouge from a settlement, you invite civil war and continuation of the conflict in Cambodia,” said Kishore Mahbubani, Singapore’s deputy secretary of foreign affairs.

He urged the audience of more than 200 diplomats and scholars to stop viewing the Cambodia problem as a clear-cut moral dilemma, saying: “There are no morally clean positions. There are only morally ambiguous choices.”

In addition to the Khmer Rouge, a peaceful solution must also include three other crucial players--Hun Sen, Sihanouk and Son Sann, head of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, several speakers agreed.

Referring to the monthlong Paris conference, Mahbubani said, “The real untold story . . . is that Vietnam and Hun Sen came with no mandate to compromise on the two key issues” of power-sharing among the four groups and the role of the United Nations in a peacekeeping force.

Despite the disappointing outcome of the Paris talks, speakers at the symposium described them as an important first step toward peace.

“We Cambodians feel very encouraged that it took place at all,” said Vora Huy Kanthoul, associate executive director of the United Cambodian Community in Long Beach. Noting that it takes time to find a political solution, he asked, “How can we expect to solve in a month a problem that took 20 years to develop?”

Jim Mann reported from Washington and Elizabeth Lu from Los Angeles.