Cambodia Wants U.N. to Cancel Peace Process

The Phnom Penh government called Tuesday for a U.N.-brokered disarmament plan in Cambodia to be scrapped so its soldiers can go back in the field to counter attacks by Khmer Rouge guerrillas.

“We want the U.N. to declare an official end to Phase 2 of the cease-fire,” government spokesman Khieu Khanarith said. “We want troops that have been cantoned to go back to their positions.”

The second phase of the accord signed last year requires fighters from the four Cambodian factions to enter U.N.-guarded camps and hand in their guns as a prelude to demobilization.

The process has stalled because of the Khmer Rouge’s refusal to go along with the plan, which they signed with two allied guerrilla armies and the Phnom Penh government in October, 1991.

Accusing the Khmer Rouge of a series of recent cease-fire violations, Khanarith said: “We cannot canton while the Khmer Rouge has the right to attack us--it creates an imbalance.”

The radical faction should be excluded from the process and lose its seat on the provisional Supreme National Council if it continues to spurn the peace treaty, he said.

Khanarith said the mandate of the huge peacekeeping operation, the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia, should be changed to let its soldiers train the three other Cambodian armies to fight the Khmer Rouge.

He said his government wants a presidential poll before general elections scheduled for next May.

Such a poll would anoint Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the former leader of the guerrilla alliance and now the neutral head of state, as president.

If this is not done, his government will reconsider its participation in the general election, Khanarith said.

The Khmer Rouge, still led by the same chiefs who subjected Cambodia to a reign of terror in the 1970s that cost an estimated 1 million lives, have already threatened to boycott the election.