Cambodia Tells of Closer Ties to Dissidents Within Khmer Rouge

The brutal Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement, shaken by a rebellion in its ranks, looks further weakened with reports of friendly contacts between its rebels and government troops.

Hun Sen, Cambodia’s second prime minister, said Monday that Cambodian soldiers shook hands with guerrillas who were abandoning the Khmer Rouge--the group led by Pol Pot that is blamed for the deaths of as many as 2 million Cambodians during its four-year rule in the late 1970s.

The news comes several days after Hun Sen’s announcement that two Khmer Rouge division commanders, along with their 3,000 troops, had agreed to stop fighting the government. He said Saturday he expected the number of defecting troops to be closer to 4,000.

The group’s dissidents have so far remained at their bases in northwest Cambodia, along the Thai border. In interviews with Thai reporters, they have declined to call themselves defectors, saying they simply no longer wished to fight the government.

“I don’t want war anymore; I’m tired, I want peace,” said Sok Pheap, commander of guerrilla division 450 in Phnom Malai.

Division 450 was the group that Hun Sen said shook hands with government troops Sunday in Sisophon and Poipet.

A report from the League of Cambodian Journalists went further, saying government forces had made radio contact with dissident guerrillas and were working to stabilize the situation in Poipet.

The Khmer Rouge’s clandestine radio station said some of its troops had defected but denied the number was as high as 3,000.