Khmer Rouge Rebels Join in Cambodian Truce

The Khmer Rouge joined other battling Cambodian groups Friday in accepting a temporary cease-fire in the country’s 12-year-old civil war to pave the way for peace talks next month.

“We accept the call (for a cease-fire) and we are pleased with the call. We hope that Vietnam will abide by it,” Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan told reporters after meeting with Thai Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun.

The United Nations, along with France and Indonesia--the co-chairmen of the Paris International Conference on Cambodia--issued a formal call Monday for a Cambodian cease-fire.

Under the proposal, the four battling factions in Cambodia are to stop fighting May 1 and maintain the cease-fire at least until the conclusion of a meeting among the four groups in Jakarta, Indonesia, some time next month.

The Khmer Rouge were the last of the four groups, which include the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian government and the non-Communist resistance groups led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk and former Prime Minister Son Sann, to accept the cease-fire.

The agreement improves the atmosphere for talks aimed at working out a comprehensive political settlement of the conflict.

Vichien Wattanakhun, the Thai deputy foreign minister, said Khieu Samphan, Son Sann and Sihanouk’s son, Prince Norodom Ranarriddh, met with Anand for more than two hours to discuss the Cambodian situation.

He said all three groups agreed to attend the Jakarta meetings.

Vichien said the Thai government supports the meeting and hopes it will lead to peace and the reconstruction of Cambodia.

Anand is to meet Cambodian Premier Hun Sen here on Sunday.

The three resistance groups have agreed to a U.N. peace plan that includes a U.N. peacekeeping force and U.N.-supervised elections, but the government in Phnom Penh has called for changes in the plan.

Hun Sen’s government has insisted, among other demands, that the U.N. plan include specific measures, such as a peacekeeping force, to prevent the return to power of the Khmer Rouge or a resurgence of fighting.

Despite the moves toward peace, Thai military officers at the border said fighting is continuing on the ground.

One Thai officer said Cambodian government troops Wednesday captured an important Khmer Rouge base only 2 miles from the ruby-mining town of Pailin.

The battered and uninhabited town, seized by the Khmer Rouge in October, 1989, has been the focus of a government offensive for several weeks, he said.

He said government troops killed about 40 Khmer Rouge soldiers, wounded more than 60 and forced 300 others to retreat from the base.

The Khmer Rouge was blamed for the deaths of 1 million people with its radical agrarian policies and brutal suppression when it ruled Cambodia from 1975 until Vietnam invaded in late 1978 and installed another government.

The Khmer Rouge retreated to western Cambodia to conduct a guerrilla resistance, and was later joined in an alliance by the two non-Communist groups supported by the United States.

Vietnam withdrew its troops from Cambodia in 1989, but reportedly has sent some forces back into Cambodia to help the Phnom Penh government against the guerrillas, particularly the Khmer Rouge, the strongest of the resistance factions.

Recent fighting has driven about 20,000 more Cambodians into refugee camps just inside Thailand this year, adding to the 300,000 already there.