Cambodia Peace Talks Collapse Over Semantics and Old Issues

Talks to solve the decade-long Cambodian conflict collapsed today when the various parties announced that they remain deadlocked over semantics and the same issues that have wrecked earlier peace efforts.

The 2 1/2 days of talks here had tried to center on how to involve the United Nations in a settlement, and there was general agreement on a possible U.N. role. The stalemate apparently came when Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge delegation raised objections to a proposed final document that was to have been the first peace pact signed by all warring factions.

Vietnam insisted that the document include references to the Khmer Rouge’s past “genocidal policies”--a reference to the 1 million Cambodians believed to have died during 3 1/2 years of Khmer Rouge rule that ended in early 1979. The Khmer Rouge rejected this and tried to raise the issue of Vietnamese settlers in Cambodia.

The two sides also disagreed on the separation of rival armies during a cease-fire, the necessity of sending an international fact-finding mission into Cambodia and over whether a new governing body should be led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the country’s exiled former head of state.

The meeting was attended by three guerrilla factions, the Hanoi-backed Phnom Penh government, Vietnam, Laos, Australia, France, the six-nation Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations and a U.N. representative.

Two years of peace talks, held here and in Paris, have bogged down over the resistance’s demand that Premier Hun Sen step aside and dismantle his government--and that a broad new ruling coalition include resistance leaders.