U.N. Peacekeeping Mission Chief Arrives in Cambodia

After decades of war, Cambodia reached a historic turning point today when the United Nations began the official deployment of the largest peacekeeping mission in its history.

“My first priority is peace,” said Yasushi Akashi, a Japanese civil servant at the U.N. who arrived in Phnom Penh to take up his duties as head of the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC).

Among those greeting Akashi was Son Sen, military commander of the dreaded Khmer Rouge, who announced that his group had finally agreed to a cease-fire after a week of heavy fighting for control of northern Kompong Thom province.

Akashi noted that the U.N. role will be the largest and most expensive in the 47-year history of the world body, designed to enforce a cease-fire among Cambodia’s four factions, demobilize 70% of the armies and collect the remainder in 52 camps where they will be supervised by 15,900 U.N. troops.

Akashi said he expects the military deployment, which began earlier this week with the arrival of a battalion of troops from Indonesia, to be completed by May 20 to allow them to begin the regrouping of Cambodian fighters into camps by June 1.

At the same time, 5,000 civil servants are expected to arrive in Cambodia over the next few weeks to supervise a civilian administration and prepare for national elections in the country early next year.

Akashi said he would give a high priority to the issue of removing millions of land mines planted in the country, making it especially dangerous to undertake the mass repatriation of 360,000 refugees who live in camps inside Thailand. The repatriation is expected to begin March 30.

Akashi was accompanied by a large team of U.N. officials who will try to restore peace to Cambodia. They included Australian Lt. Gen. John Sanderson, who will command the large military contingent.

Akashi, wearing a garland of red, pink and yellow flowers, was greeted at the airport by delegations representing all four factions in Cambodia’s civil war.

Akashi indicated that who exactly will be in charge in Cambodia was still not clear, as the peace agreement signed in Paris last year provided for an interim administration, the Supreme National Council, composed of the four parties, while leaving the factions in physical control of territory they possessed at the time of the cease-fire.

But he noted in an arrival statement that the four parties agreed in Paris to delegate all necessary authority to the U.N. to enable it to carry out its mandate.

“The Cambodian parties are committed under the Paris agreement to extend their full cooperation to UNTAC in this regard,” Akashi said.

The remark may have been intended as a vague warning to the Khmer Rouge following complaints from senior U.N. officials that the guerrilla organization was failing to comply with a cease-fire agreement or to cooperate on other issues.

While there had been reports of scattered skirmishes from the start, last week’s fighting in Kompong Thom province was the first sustained violation of the truce. According to U.N. officials and diplomats, at least 10 government soldiers have been killed in the fighting with Khmer Rouge guerrillas.

The Khmer Rouge is widely detested in Cambodia for its bloody reign in the late 1970s, during which more than a million people died of privation, torture or execution.

The diplomats said the Khmer Rouge appeared to be attempting to grab territory in advance of the U.N. deployment, which will freeze the size of each group’s area of control.

French Gen. Jean-Michel Loridon, head of the military contingent for an interim U.N. force, told reporters on Saturday that the fighting in Kompong Thom northwest of Phnom Penh was the worst since the truce was signed.

“All factions try to control as many villages as they can . . . because they know that when UNTAC arrives they have to stop,” Loridon said.