Cambodians Begin Journey to Democracy : Asia: Voters go to the polls for a U.N.-supervised election under veiled threats of guerrilla violence.

The people of Cambodia began voting today in a historic, six-day election designed to steer the country away from decades of civil war onto the road of democratic government.

The U.N. official in charge of the $2.6-billion international peacekeeping effort, the largest ever undertaken, said the months of fighting and political violence that led up to today’s voting mean that the country is deciding its fate in an atmosphere far from the desired neutral political environment.

But Yasushi Akashi, a Japanese diplomat who heads the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), said: “I am confident that we have the minimum acceptable conditions for free and fair elections.”

With 22,000 military and civilian peacekeepers spread across the country, the United Nations is attempting an unprecedented political balancing act--moving a country of 8 million people, in a one-party Communist state with four rival military factions, to a multi-party democracy with a new constitution and a freely elected parliament.

Nearly 5 million citizens registered to vote in the election, which is being contested by 20 political parties. But one of the key players in Cambodia’s civil war, the hated Khmer Rouge guerrilla group, under whose rule 1 million Cambodians died in the 1970s, refused to participate and issued veiled threats to disrupt the voting with violence.

On election eve, U.N. officials reported scattered violence around the country but said there was only one district where voting would definitely have to be abandoned because of the Khmer Rouge threat. Two other districts may also be eliminated, they said.

Unidentified gunmen attacked a passenger train Saturday afternoon only a few miles east of the provincial capital of Kampot, the country’s southernmost city on the Gulf of Thailand.

A U.N. spokesman said three civilians were killed and three others were injured when the train was blown up by an explosive charge. The gunmen then fired rockets and small arms into the train and looted it.

Before dawn, a group of 20 soldiers believed to be Khmer Rouge fired a rocket at a police station of the Phnom Penh administration in the town of Skoun, about 40 miles northeast of Phnom Penh. A U.N. spokesman said the rocket missed its target and hit a barracks housing a battalion of Chinese engineers attached to UNTAC, killing two soldiers and wounding four others.

While the deaths of the Chinese appeared unintended, the attack was ironic because China was the principal arms supplier and supporter of the Khmer Rouge after it was toppled from power by Vietnam in early 1979.

The Vietnamese installed their own supporters in Cambodia, and that government now forms the Phnom Penh administration, which controls about 80% of the country’s territory. The Khmer Rouge joined two non-Communist factions to fight the Phnom Penh government from bases in Thailand, and in October, 1991, the four groups agreed to hold internationally-supervised elections.

Under the plan, the United Nations was supposed to have disarmed the four factions and controlled their armies in military camps. But last June, the Khmer Rouge ended its participation in the peace process.

Mak Ben, a senior Khmer Rouge official, told a news conference Friday at a jungle camp near the Thai border that UNTAC “would have to take the full consequences” of proceeding with the election, which many took as a threat to disrupt the voting.

Violence in Cambodia was extremely light in the week leading up to the election, in contrast to the previous few weeks when the Khmer Rouge launched a coordinated attack against the provincial capital of Siem Reap and appeared to have targeted U.N. peacekeepers.

While 20 parties are taking part, most observers believe the race will boil down to a contest between the Phnom Penh regime, whose party is called the Cambodia People’s Party, and a non-Communist party known by its French acronym, FUNCINPEC, standing for National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia.

The government is headed by Premier Hun Sen, while FUNCINPEC is led by a French-educated lawyer, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, son of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who ruled Cambodia until he was overthrown by a coup in 1970 but who is widely revered in the country.

The main issue in the election is how best to deal with the threat posed by the Khmer Rouge, with Phnom Penh vowing to fight the guerrillas as outlaws and FUNCINPEC suggesting that the Khmer Rouge should be brought into a government of national reconciliation.

While the United Nations banned opinion polls to avoid further campaign disturbances, many analysts predicted that neither major party would receive an outright majority in the 120-seat Parliament and would be forced to form a coalition with other parties to govern.

Sihanouk, who heads a four-party committee called the Supreme National Council, returned to Phnom Penh on Saturday after a long stay in China. Officially described as ill, Sihanouk expressed his desire to remain aloof from the political fray.

“I am happy to be back to support the electoral process, to support the new democracy, to support UNTAC and support the people,” Sihanouk said upon arrival.

He said he doubted that the elections will be entirely free and fair but added, “The democratic process of UNTAC and the U.N. is much better than not having such a good thing.”

The United Nations has brought in more than 1,400 international polling station officials to run the election alongside the UNTAC staff. Every polling station will have unarmed U.N. policemen, and some will be guarded by armed troops. The United Nations has developed safeguards to discourage fraudulent voting.

The first three days of voting will be at fixed sites, followed by three days of voting at mobile polling booths. Several thousand Cambodians living in Southern California who previously registered to vote are also eligible, but they will have to travel to U.N. headquarters in New York to cast their ballots.

Akashi said the leaders of the four largest parties had agreed to appear on television to reassure voters that their ballots would be secret, a major concern because intimidation campaigns by the Phnom Penh government have left many Cambodians, especially in rural areas, afraid to vote.

Akashi announced Saturday that a third official of the Phnom Penh regime, a police lieutenant from a province in northwestern Cambodia, had been struck off the voting rolls for threatening a meeting of FUNCINPEC.

More than 60 party officials have been killed in recent weeks in attacks believed to have been carried out by Phnom Penh officials.

Akashi also announced that Prince Norodom Chakrapong, a deputy prime minister in the Phnom Penh government and a son of Prince Sihanouk, had been fined $5,000 for violating the campaign law.

Akashi also told a news conference Saturday that he hopes the United Nations’ role in Cambodia will end in August after a new constitution is drafted and the new government takes office.

“I think the continued presence of UNTAC beyond September will not be necessary . . . because Cambodians should try to become masters of their own country under the principle of self-determination,” Akashi said.