Rebels Criticize U.S. for Shift in Cambodia Policy

Leaders of the two non-Communist resistance groups fighting the Vietnamese-backed government in Cambodia criticized the Bush Administration on Wednesday for withdrawing support for their coalition, which includes the murderous Khmer Rouge, and for deciding to start new talks with Vietnam.

“It (the U.S. move) means simply you kill your own friend,” Prince Norodom Ranariddh, the son of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the exiled ruler of Cambodia, told reporters in Bangkok, Thailand. Son Sann, the leader of a second non-Communist Cambodian guerrilla group, said the American decision to open talks with Vietnam about the future of Cambodia could damage the chances for peace in his country.

In Paris, Secretary of State James A. Baker III confirmed a report in Wednesday’s editions of The Times that the Bush Administration has decided to open a dialogue with Vietnam on Cambodia and that it will withdraw the longstanding U.S. recognition of the rebel coalition.

Baker said the changes in Indochina policy were driven by a growing fear that the Khmer Rouge was about to regain power in Cambodia.

“We want to do everything we can to prevent a return of the Khmer Rouge to power,” he told reporters after a 2 1/4-hour meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze. “That has been one of our policy goals that we’ve not been able to achieve.”

Shevardnadze said the switch has brought Washington “much closer” to the Soviet position on Cambodia.

An estimated 1 million to 2 million people were murdered or died of starvation or disease when the Khmer Rouge, the agrarian-based Communist movement supported by China, ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1978. Vietnam invaded Cambodia at the end of 1978, ousting the Khmer Rouge and installing a new government in Phnom Penh that remains in place.

For the last decade, the United States, China and Southeast Asian governments have persuaded the U.N. General Assembly to seat the rebel coalition, including the Khmer Rouge, as the legitimate government of Cambodia. Now, under increasing pressure from European governments and from Congress, the Administration is withdrawing its support for the coalition.

U.S. officials said the shift in policy was approved by President Bush last week in discussions with Baker and National Security Adviser Brent A. Scowcroft after a series of interagency meetings on Indochina policy. Baker is scheduled to travel to Asia next week for meetings with a number of leaders.

A senior Administration official in Washington emphasized Wednesday that the United States will not support a move to let the current Cambodian government, headed by Premier Hun Sen, take over the U.N. seat. Instead, this official said, the United States will try to support “some representative (Cambodian) group (that) believes in fair and free elections.”

He did not say whether the Administration will seek to foster a new coalition between Hun Sen and the non-Communist groups.

Baker insisted Wednesday that the shift in U.S. policy will not “undercut” the non-Communist resistance groups of Sihanouk and Son Sann. He said the Administration will continue to ask Congress for military and economic aid for the two non-Communist factions, and he predicted that the assistance package will fare better in Congress as a result of the effort to isolate the Khmer Rouge.

“In the absence of a bipartisan policy approach, I think it would be ever more difficult to continue to generate the funds that we need from Congress to continue this support to the non-Communist resistance,” he said.

In Congress, some Democratic critics of past U.S. policy on Cambodia hailed the Administration’s change. “Needless to say, I was very pleased,” said California Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica). “I think this is an important step toward a saner policy in Cambodia.”

But others said that the Administration has not gone far enough.

Both Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Asia, called for direct talks between the United States and Hun Sen’s government.

“The Hun Sen government is the only force currently fighting against the Khmer Rouge,” Mitchell said. He added that it is “worth questioning why the United States is funding non-Communist resistance forces that do not oppose the Khmer Rouge but fight (alongside) the Khmer Rouge.”

A senior U.S. official said Wednesday that the Administration has “under consideration” the possibility of talking to the Phnom Penh government.

“But we want to do that only if it can be done in a manner that can advance us toward our goal of fair and free elections in Cambodia, and right now we do not yet see that opportunity presenting itself,” he said.

Mann reported from Washington and Kempster from Paris.

BACKGROUND

Formed in the mid-1960s, the Communist Khmer Rouge was not an important factor until the early 1970s, when its strength increased to 30,000 from about 3,000. The Cambodian government fell in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh, the capital. Under Pol Pot, it began a radical restructuring of society, moving almost all city dwellers to the countryside. In three years of rule, an estimated 1 million to 2 million Cambodians were murdered or died of disease and starvation. The Khmer Rouge was ousted by Vietnamese invaders in 1979.