Hopes Rise for Cambodian Visit : Politics: Official returns from Phnom Penh optimistic, but State Department still must decide if dance troupe’s visit is a cultural exchange.

The Cambodian National Dance Company has “a 95% chance” that it will participate in September’s Los Angeles Festival, according to a central figure in the delicate political negotiations who just returned from Cambodia.

“It ultimately depends on Washington,” said John McAuliff, who represented the L.A. Festival when he met with Cambodian officials. “I’m optimistic that (the State Department) will see it as a cultural opportunity and let them come,” said McAuliff, who is also the director of the Philadelphia-based U.S.-Indochina Reconciliation Project.

But State Department officials have been noncommittal when asked by The Times if they would approve visas for the dance company, although one highly placed official has said “there are hopes that such a thing will come to pass.”

According to a State Department spokesman, who stressed that his department had not yet received the applications: “I don’t know what’s going to happen when the dance company applies for visas. We don’t prejudge an applicant for a visa. We process them when we get them.”

Festival officials were also a good deal more skeptical than McAuliff.

“I think that’s a little optimistic,” said Judith Luther, festival executive director, referring to McAuliff’s 95% prediction. “I think things are loosening up, but I don’t expect anything to happen right away.

“I’m encouraged, but I don’t think it’s going to be quite that easy--although I do think that it will happen,” Luther said, noting that the festival has set aside $77,000 of its $4.5-million budget to present performances by the Cambodians.

McAuliff made his prediction after returning earlier this week from a 10-day visit to the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, where he had been arranging an unrelated educational exchange and also working on behalf of the arts festival. While in Phnom Penh, McAuliff met with Cambodia’s culture minister and an official of the Phnom Penh School of Fine Arts, through which the dance company is run.

McAuliff said the school’s vice dean, Proeung Chhieng, who is also a choreographer and teacher with the dance company, will visit Los Angeles at the end of this month. The Phnom Penh government last month would not permit Proeung Chhieng to travel here after the U.S. State Department approved his visitor’s visa but denied one for Chheng Phon, Cambodia’s minister of culture and information. The United States does not recognize the Phnom Penh government or its leader, Hun Sen, because of claims that the ruling power was instituted by force.

McAuliff said that the Cambodians had absolutely “no concerns” that could interfere with the dance company’s appearance at the festival if the U.S. government grants the necessary visas.

“They’re very enthusiastic about it and they’ve already selected the people who will come,” McAuliff said. “The people (in Cambodia) are very optimistic it will happen,” he added. McAuliff also cited the dance company’s impending visit to Britain and Scotland as hopeful signs that the U.S. visas will be granted.

McAuliff’s optimism was met with a mixed reaction from the Cambodian community in Long Beach. Some of its leaders suggested that a few local Cambodians could be upset--and perhaps even react violently--if the company, which is viewed by many as an official instrument of the Vietnam-installed government, is allowed to enter the United States.

The State Department’s decision on the dance company’s participation in the Sept. 1-17 festival hinges on whether the company is viewed as a purely cultural entity or as an arm of the Hun Sen regime under which it was established.

According to Eileen Blumenthal, a Rutgers University professor who has visited Phnom Penh and studied Cambodian dance, the present dance company has its roots in centuries-old Cambodian dance traditions, although all established companies were virtually wiped out when the Khmer Rouge took control of the country in 1975.

But in 1981, Blumenthal said, Cambodian dance was re-established when culture minister Chheng Phon opened the Phnom Penh School of Fine Arts and recruited students--80% of whom were orphans--for the dance company. And it is out of that group, established by the government, Blumenthal said, that the 32 members selected for the L.A. Festival were chosen.

Blumenthal said that the company is “sponsored by the government in Cambodia.” But she said “they’re given very free reign. The instruction of the government is merely to preserve the traditional dance.”

However, Narim Kem, editor of the Long Beach-based Cambodian newspaper, Serey Pheap, said he felt the government’s influence is much stronger. “What (the Hun Sen government tries) to do is put a lot of politics into the art of dancing today--it’s not exactly as it used to be,” he said. “They try to put the point of view . . . of the (Vietnamese-style) Communist society . . . in there.”

Nevertheless, Kem said, from his standpoint he would still prefer to see the dancers included in the Pacific-themed L.A. Festival, “because then we as Cambodians (will) have something to prove that we do have art.”

According to Than Pok, executive director of the United Cambodian Community service organization, local Cambodians are divided as to whether the dance company should be brought to the United States at all. The group in Long Beach, estimated at 40,000, is considered the largest Cambodian population outside of Asia.

“One group feels that it’s OK for them to come and that they represent art, but the other group feels that if they come it would imply recognition by (the U.S.) government of that (Hun Sen) regime,” he said, noting that such divisions could pose a problem--and possibly lead to violence--if the company does visit L.A. in September.

“If they come, there’s going be one group for it and one group against it. The people are very political and sometimes they are violent too, so there could be a problem. But I don’t know right now what will happen,” Pok said.

Luther, who has ties to the Cambodian community going back 10 years and currently serves on the United Cambodian Community directors’ board, said that there has been no record of politically motivated violence in the community and “I do not expect any if the dance company comes to the festival.”

Crystal Hul, a local Cambodian student of dance whose father heads the Long Beach-based Cambodian Assn. of America, predicted a peaceful response if the Cambodian dancers participate in the festival.

“We’re all Cambodians and (not) at all do we want Cambodian blood shed, so I really doubt that there would be any hatred going on between those two (factions),” Hul said. “I think everyone would come together and there would be no problems.”

Shawn Pogatchnik in Washington contributed to this story.