Khmer Rouge Boycotts Cambodian Cease-Fire : Southeast Asia: Other parties sign an accord called a ‘half success.’

The Cambodian government and the nominal head of the insurgent coalition warring against it signed an agreement here Tuesday for a cease-fire and an interim control council, but the Khmer Rouge, militarily the most powerful of the three rebel groups in the alliance, boycotted the pact.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk told reporters that a two-day meeting, the first international peace conference in Tokyo since World War II, was a “half success.” But the Khmer Rouge, and its supporter, China, are the key to whether there will be peace.

The former Cambodian monarch, who was ousted in a 1970 coup, signed the agreement with Cambodian Premier Hun Sen, whose government is backed by Vietnam.

The accord, also approved by rebel leader Son Sann of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, calls for a cease-fire in the 11-year-old war and specifies the composition of an ad hoc body, the Supreme National Council. The council would “symbolize Cambodia’s neutrality, national sovereignty and national unity” until elections are held.

In a news conference at the Japanese Foreign Ministry, the American-supported Sihanouk said Hun Sun’s government will name six representatives to the supreme council, while his backers and those of Son Sann will each appoint three.

A deadline of July 31 was set to convene the first meeting of the supreme council.

Khieu Samphan, leader of the Khmer Rouge, which is blamed for the deaths of more than a million Cambodians when it ruled between 1975 and 1978, refused to sign the agreement. But Sihanouk left the door open to the Khmer Rouge to join later, saying his royalists and the backers of Son Sann would each yield one seat if the Communist group decided to participate.

Despite American opposition to any role in government for the Khmer Rouge, such an arrangement would give the Khmer Rouge a one-sixth share in the supreme council, instead of the one-fourth share that it demands.

The Khmer Rouge also insists that the share of the Hun Sen government be limited to one quarter of the seats.

Sihanouk said the agreement means, at the least, that his forces and the troops of Son Sann will stop fighting immediately. Looking at Son Sann seated next to him, the prince asked, “You are going to stop fighting, aren’t you? Yes or no?”

“Yes,” replied Son Sann. It was the only word he spoke at the news conference, which was not attended by Hun Sen or Khieu Samphan.

Khieu Samphan stayed away from the talks Monday and Tuesday. Japanese officials, as well as Thailand’s deputy prime minister, Gen. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, served as intermediaries between him and the others.

Sihanouk acknowledged that the Khmer Rouge is likely to continue fighting.

“Until the day we have an international control mechanism . . . it will be difficult to implement a cease-fire,” he said.

Foreign Minister Taro Nakayama told Parliament today that Japan will ask China, the main weapons supplier for the Khmer Rouge, to exert pressure on the Communist rebels to accept the accord.

“The Chinese have been very understanding,” one Japanese official said.

Nakayama said Japan’s main hope in hosting the conference was to prevent the Cambodian peace dialogue from stagnating. Signing of the agreement, he said, accomplished that aim. The next step, he said, will come when the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council--the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China--meet in July.

Japanese officials had insisted that any cease-fire agreement--the four factions had signed one earlier--be tied to an enforcement mechanism as well as an interim arrangement leading to elections for a new government.

An international peacekeeping force would be charged not only with implementing a cease-fire agreement but would also “monitor, supervise and verify the withdrawal of all foreign forces and the cessation of all foreign military assistance,” the Tokyo agreement specified.

Sihanouk said the ultimate aim of his followers and those of Son Sann and the Khmer Rouge is the expulsion of Vietnamese troops and the recovery of territory “colonized and annexed” by Vietnam.

Vietnam, which invaded Cambodia in late 1978 to oust the Khmer Rouge, says that it has removed all of its troops and that only advisers, technicians and intelligence officers remain. U.S. officials, however, charge that 40,000 Vietnamese combat troops are still in Cambodia.

NEXT STEP

A supreme council for Cambodia is to be convened by the end of July, and the parties to the Tokyo accord are to implement a cease-fire by that date. But the Khmer Rouge, the strongest rebel group, did not accept the Tokyo agreement, and its participation is in question. The parties urged that a Paris conference on Cambodia be reconvened and asked to monitor and supervise the cease-fire with U.N. assistance.