Sihanouk Defends Accord, Heads Home : Cambodia: Interim leader says he still hasn’t forgiven Khmer Rouge for reign of terror, but he tries to ease apprehensions.

Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk today sharply criticized his former Khmer Rouge guerrilla allies but defended his own efforts to include them in a coalition government. He then flew out of Beijing to resume leadership of his war-torn nation.

Sihanouk was accompanied by Cambodian Premier Hun Sen, head of the Vietnamese-backed government in Phnom Penh. Hun Sen came to Beijing, Sihanouk’s base in exile, to accompany him back to Cambodia, where they are to arrive later today. Hun Sen made no public comments, but Sihanouk spoke briefly in English to reporters at the Beijing airport.

“I feel very happy to have the opportunity to go home and to work there among the Cambodian nation and people, in particular to achieve our national reconciliation and unity--national unity to rehabilitate our people and to reconstruct our country and to remake a very independent, neutral, united Cambodia with honor and dignity. . . ,” Sihanouk said.

Overthrown in 1970 by a U.S.-backed right-wing coup, Sihanouk joined forces with the Communist Khmer Rouge that came to power in 1975. But he was soon placed under house arrest in the royal palace while the Khmer Rouge launched a reign of terror in which at least 1 million Cambodians died of execution, disease or starvation.

Vietnam invaded Cambodia in late 1978 to oust the Khmer Rouge, which allowed Sihanouk to flee to China just before Vietnamese troops arrived in Phnom Penh in January, 1979. During the 1980s, Sihanouk served as head of a resistance coalition, including the Khmer Rouge, which fought to oust the Vietnamese-installed government. The various Cambodian factions signed a peace agreement in Paris last month, and it is under the terms of that pact that Sihanouk returns to Cambodia today.

Khmer Rouge military strength played a key role in forcing the ultimate withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia and opening the way for Sihanouk’s return to leadership as head of an interim Supreme National Council pending U.N.-supervised elections.

Sihanouk indicated that he has not forgiven the Khmer Rouge and its notorious leader, Pol Pot, for the suffering inflicted on his nation. But he also defended his attempt to compromise with them, suggesting with a rhetorical flourish that if the United States feels he isn’t doing enough to block the Khmer Rouge, it should send troops under Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf to Cambodia.

“When I met American congressmen and so on in New York recently, they wanted to set up an international tribunal to judge and condemn the Khmer Rouge,” Sihanouk said. “I said that I supported their idea. But I told them also that since the U.S.A. has Schwarzkopf and its famous army which defeated Iraq and Saddam Hussein, the U.S.A. should go there instead of asking the same questions since so many months and many years. I (do not need to) give more explanations. If you think that what I am doing as the president of the (Supreme National Council) is not enough, you will have to intervene. . . . If Schwarzkopf wants to go to Cambodia, I allow him to go there, to make war with Pol Pot. Yes, yes!”

Sihanouk expressed optimism, however, that the Khmer Rouge can be blocked from retaking absolute power.

“One, the Khmer Rouge promised solemnly not to try to return to power by using force,” he said. “Secondly, there will be the United Nations transitional authority, with several thousand military and civilian elements, to control everybody, to oversee the situation and to prevent the Khmer Rouge, etc. from violating human rights. . . . And thirdly, the people of Cambodia will never allow anything like the period of Pol Pot in 1975-78 to happen again in Cambodia.”