Our Blind Eye on the Butchers : Cambodia: No good can come of U.S. military support for Sihanouk while he holds hands with the Khmer Rouge.

In its desire to maintain support for Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s effort to regain power in Cambodia, the United States has tolerated not only his diplomatic and political links to the genocidal Khmer Rouge, but also, in defiance of U.S. aid restrictions, military ties to these forces of Pol Pot.

As early as 1985, the United States was moving down contradictory roads in its continuing effort to force the Vietnamese Army out of Cambodia.

First, it was providing Sihanouk with overt humanitarian aid and, in a subsequent CIA covert program, with “non-lethal” aid--including military uniforms and reimbursement of training costs. Sihanouk’s forces also began receiving military advice and surveillance help from CIA operatives at the Bangkok Embassy.

At the same time, Congress had passed legislation saying that no aid funds could be expended if they had the “effect of promoting, sustaining, or augmenting, directly or indirectly” the capacity of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge to conduct military operations.

Unfortunately, direct aid to Sihanouk could hardly avoid constituting “indirect aid” to the Khmer Rouge. Sihanouk was and still is in a political and diplomatic coalition with the Khmer Rouge. They are fighting a common enemy--the Hun Sen government in Phnom Penh. There was and is no way to help one militarily without indirectly benefiting the other.

The drafters of the legislation decided that the notion of “indirect” assistance would apply only to transfers of aid from Sihanouk’s forces to the Khmer Rouge and to military “coordination and cooperation” between the factions. But amid growing reports of such coordination and cooperation, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs last year urged the President “to secure firm and reliable assurances from the leadership of non-Communist forces in Cambodia that they will not use U.S. assistance in cooperation or coordination with the Khmer Rouge or to benefit the Khmer Rouge in any way. . . . “

It would not be possible today for the President to get these reliable assurances. Sihanouk himself has said in interviews that he is coordinating his military activity more and more with the Khmer Rouge. A wide range of television and newspaper accounts of fighting on the ground has confirmed this. One of Sihanouk’s own commanders made open references to reporters about his forces and Khmer Rouge troops fighting “side by side” in attempting to capture the town of Sisophon.

Pressured by these disclosures, House Asian and Pacific affairs subcommittee Chairman Stephen Solarz observed in a hearing Feb. 22 that “direct military cooperation” between Sihanouk’s forces and those of the Khmer Rouge would require the United States to “terminate our assistance” to the Sihanouk forces.

Assistant Secretary of State Richard Solomon responded that there was no “pattern” of military cooperation that was “extensive and sustained over time.” But in messages to Sihanouk and his son, the State Department had already warned of the political danger that public knowledge of the cooperation was generating. Subsequently, Sihanouk’s admissions of cooperation have become more guarded but the cooperation itself has not ceased. On Feb. 27, the Bangkok newspaper The Nation reported that Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk forces had “mounted simultaneous attacks” on a string of government bases in an effort to halt the government troops’ “ferocious advance” on a resistance base.

Intelligence reports as well as public statements by the State Department, now indicate that continued fighting will benefit the Khmer Rouge. Therefore America should work to stop the fighting and, in particular, should use its influence to pull Sihanouk’s forces out of the war, where they now do little more than provide political cover for the Khmer Rouge.

The Sihanouk forces could await the forthcoming Cambodian elections in their sanctuaries in Thailand. The Hun Sen government has already agreed to internationally supervised elections, which the United States can ensure through political and economic pressures, rather than military ones.

But as long as Sihanouk uses our covert aid and our military advice and encouragement to fight, we have no standing to discourage the Chinese from arming the Khmer Rouge or, what is more feasible, to discourage the Thais from delivering the arms.

In sum, Sihanouk’s actions, and those of his non-communist ally Sonn Sann, certainly violate legal restrictions on U.S. aid. But his congressional supporters and the Bush Administration are unwilling to acknowledge this because the consequence would be an end to all U.S. aid to the non-communist resistance at a time when, as always, negotiations are underway.

In fact, the right policy would fall between the current wink and a total cutoff. The Administration should end all military assistance to Sihanouk, including non-lethal aid, while maintaining humanitarian and political aid.

The real point is not to enforce artificial and unenforceable restrictions on his military cooperation with the Khmer Rouge. It is to undermine the political cover that Sihanouk provides the Khmer Rouge juggernaut. If fighting is permitted to continue, Pol Pot’s return to power is likely.