Cambodia Group to Discuss Khmer Rouge Safety

Prince Norodom Sihanouk, head of Cambodia’s reconciliation council, said Thursday that the group will meet next week in Thailand with the United Nations and five major world powers to discuss security for the Khmer Rouge.

The announcement came one day after an angry mob seeking vengeance on the Khmer Rouge beat and nearly lynched its leader, Khieu Samphan, in Phnom Penh, forcing him and his entire delegation to flee to Bangkok.

Khieu Samphan was one of the prime architects of the Khmer Rouge policies blamed for the deaths of 1 million Cambodians by execution, hunger and disease from 1975 to 1978. He now is a Khmer Rouge representative on the Supreme National Council and returned to Phnom Penh this week to be ready for a scheduled meeting of the council next Wednesday.

In Bangkok, a deputy prime minister said Khieu Samphan was receiving medical treatment and was protected by Thai police and military but gave no details on his condition.

A mob broke into Khieu Samphan’s villa Wednesday, only hours after he returned from exile in Thailand to participate in the peace effort. Authorities did little to halt the beating but prevented the mob from killing him.

Both the Phnom Penh government and the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia’s largest guerrilla group, subsequently said they remain committed to the peace effort.

In a third day of protests, about 200 demonstrators chanted anti-Khmer Rouge slogans Thursday in southern Phnom Penh. Diplomats said the demonstrations could not have taken place without government approval.

An advance group of U.N. peacekeepers began arriving earlier this month under terms of a peace treaty signed in October formally ending 13 years of Cambodian civil war that began when Vietnamese troops drove out the brutal Khmer Rouge regime and installed a pro-Hanoi regime.

The pact calls for the Supreme National Council, headed by Sihanouk and including representatives from the three guerrilla factions and the current government, to guide the nation to U.N.-supervised elections in early 1993.