Senator Objects to U.N.’s Plan for Cambodia

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Sunday criticized a U.N. peace plan for Cambodia as being unclear about how it would disarm warring factions and censure the Khmer Rouge for “genocide.”

“It is imperative those matters be addressed,” he said after a three-day visit to Cambodia and Vietnam.

Kerry, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the plan could be revised to work so that all parties involved would sign it.

Kerry said the peace initiative needs to be encouraged by the permanent members of the Security Council--the United States, Soviet Union, China, Britain and France.

“But (the plan) is flawed and needs to be fixed,” he said.

He said it should deal with the issue of genocide by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, which is blamed for the deaths of a million Cambodians when it ruled from 1975-79. It is now the strongest of the three guerrilla factions bidding for a say in running the country.

The plan calls for the United Nations to administer Cambodia pending general elections. Kerry said it needs to spell out how the Vietnamese-backed army and guerrilla groups backed by China, the United States and other non-Communist allies would be demobilized.

Cambodia’s government and Vietnam say the two issues are blocking agreement on the plan. They do not want the Khmer Rouge to have a political role.

Phnom Penh and the guerrillas are scheduled to hold another round of peace talks in Jakarta, Indonesia, in June.

Kerry, a Vietnam War veteran, said he met Cambodian Premier Hun Sen in Phnom Penh on Friday and discussed the U.N. plan.

Kerry said Hun Sen gave him a letter for Secretary of State James A. Baker III meant to clear up U.S. “misconceptions” about whether Vietnamese troops are in Cambodia. Kerry declined to give details.

One foreign diplomat in Hanoi said Hun Sen’s letter offered the United States free rein in Cambodia to verify that there are no Vietnamese soldiers in the country.

Last month, Assistant Secretary of State Richard H. Solomon told the Senate that Vietnam sent troops into Cambodia recently to back up the government it installed in 1979. Hanoi and Phnom Penh insist that the last Vietnamese soldier was withdrawn in 1989.