Cambodia Coup Poses Dilemma for U.S.

An old ritual was played out in Washington last week. The ousted leader of a foreign government came to town, making the rounds to plead for U.S. support and help in regaining the power he has just lost.

This time, the leader is Prince Norodom Ranariddh of Cambodia, head of a government that was democratically elected in 1993. He was deposed earlier this month in a coup d’etat by Second Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Ranariddh was following a well-trodden path. Take, for example, former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. After losing power in a military coup in 1991, Aristide turned his attention to Washington; he was returned to power with the strong backing of the Clinton administration three years later. There have been other parallel situations, with varying results.

The question now facing President Clinton and his aides is whether they should, in effect, accept the recent coup, or seek to restore Ranariddh’s government.

The debate in Washington at the moment is between foreign-policy pragmatists and pro-democracy crusaders.

The pragmatists say that there is no way to restore the unstable arrangement under which Ranariddh, the head of Cambodia’s royalist party and son of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, has been sharing power with Hun Sen. Let Hun Sen run the country, they say, because he’s a more effective leader.

Moreover, the pragmatists contend, Ranariddh brought this trouble on himself by trying to court support from elements of the Khmer Rouge, under whose rule more than 1 million Cambodians died between 1975-78.

Remember the reports a few weeks ago that Pol Pot, who led Cambodia during that “killing fields” era, might be handed over by other Khmer Rouge leaders coming in out of the jungle? They seem to have been part of an attempt by Ranariddh’s forces to pave the way for an alliance with supposedly more palatable elements of the Khmer Rouge.

Washington’s crusaders, on the other hand, want the United States to help Ranariddh get his job back.

“This military coup must be reversed and the administration must play a leading role,” Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House International Relations Committee, and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote Clinton last week.

Helms would be on stronger ground if he had regularly stuck up for democratic principles elsewhere. He hasn’t. He was, in fact, Washington’s most determined foe of Aristide, even though the Haitian leader was elected in much the same fashion as Ranariddh.

Still, it is hard to see why the United States should go along with Hun Sen’s coup.

According to figures supplied by Human Rights Watch/Asia on Tuesday, as many as 40 people from Ranariddh’s political party, called FUNCINPEC, have been killed since the coup, and at least eight have been assassinated.

In addition, the human rights group says, Hun Sen’s forces have been conducting door-to-door searches and mass arrests to round up hundreds of political opponents.

What can be done to stop this? First, it’s worthwhile to step back and examine the nature of Cambodia.

“This is a country where society itself has been destroyed,” observes Marvin Ott, an Indochina specialist at the National War College in Washington. “Under the Khmer Rouge, people were literally mining mass graves for gold. The worlds of international finance and the information superhighway you see in nearby places like Singapore have nothing to do with Cambodia.”

This makes Cambodia different from its neighbors in other ways, too. Its government is far more dependent on international aid and therefore vulnerable to economic sanctions. More than half of the government’s revenue comes from foreign governments.

Japan, which gave $152 million to Cambodia in 1995 alone, is the largest donor; the United States has been giving $42 million a year. After Hun Sen’s coup, this aid was suspended, but America, Japan and other governments are trying to figure out whether it should be revived.

The Clinton administration, working with Japan and other allies, could keep the freeze on international aid indefinitely, until Hun Sen meets a series of tough conditions.

At the least, Hun Sen could be required to release all the Cambodians who have been rounded up, restore political opposition and freedom of speech, and hold quick elections under conditions under which he can’t rig the outcome.

The pragmatists say there have been no heroes in Cambodia’s ugly power struggle, and they have a point. The United States doesn’t necessarily have to tie its policy to Ranariddh himself. But Ranariddh’s party won Cambodia’s last (and only) fair election, and its leaders are now being locked up or killed.

Under those circumstances, there’s no good reason for the Clinton administration to recognize Hun Sen as Cambodia’s leader or to give aid back to his government.

Cambodia’s government is dependent on international aid and therefore vulnerable to economic sanctions.