Khmer Rouge Appears to Be Disintegrating

Government soldiers pushed into the northern jungles Tuesday in a major offensive to destroy the remnants of the Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement that terrorized Cambodia for nearly a decade.

Reports reaching Phnom Penh, confirmed by Western envoys, said the Khmer Rouge appears to be disintegrating as an effective fighting force--not so much because of battlefield defeats as because of large numbers of defections to the government side.

“Militarily, this is the end of the Khmer Rouge,” a European envoy said.

Similar death knells have sounded for two years. But this time, most analysts agree that the defections, internal fighting and loss of a political power base in the Cambodian capital have dealt the guerrillas a potentially fatal wound.

Last weekend, with the remaining hard-line guerrillas fleeing north from their redoubt at the town of Anlong Veng, their commander, Ta Mok--a one-legged Khmer Rouge known as “The Butcher”--and his deputy, Khieu Samphan, asked Thai officials for permission to cross the border, Cambodian officials said. They were refused.

Although he still controls a clandestine radio service, Ta Mok is said to be traveling with only about 200 loyalists. They have lost to government forces the mountaintop temple at Preah Vihear that they had occupied since 1993; their control now appears limited to scattered villages along the spine of the forested Dangrek mountains. The whereabouts of Pol Pot, the former Khmer Rouge leader, was unknown.

Military experts said small bands of Khmer Rouge could probably continue to roam for years in the isolated northern jungles. And the influence of the peasant-rooted movement will long linger because it is seen by many as more nationalistic, incorruptible and pure than any Cambodian political party.

But destroying its military capability would be an important reconciliatory step for this shattered nation that suffered genocide at the hands of Pol Pot’s guerrillas from 1975 to 1979, and, since then, has endured political instability and widespread random violence.

Destruction of this force also would deprive Prince Norodom Ranariddh of the means of pressuring Hun Sen, Cambodia’s strongman, by threatening to form an alliance with the Khmer Rouge.

Hun Sen and Ranariddh both courted the Khmer Rouge during the time they shared power as co-prime ministers. Thousands of guerrillas defected and were absorbed into the government. Ranariddh’s continued attempt to form a union with the Khmer Rouge was one of the reasons Hun Sen overthrew him last July.

Three hundred royalist rebels still fight government troops in northern Cambodia in Ranariddh’s name. They are supported by the remnants of the hard-core Khmer Rouge force.

If Ta Mok’s force ceases to exist, so will the prince’s unsupported rebel band, and Ranariddh will lose an important card in the power game he is presumed to be ready to play with Hun Sen.

Ranariddh returned to Cambodia on Monday from nine months in exile in Thailand, and the loss of his military power base might explain in part why his homecoming seemed to be that of a man cut adrift. It was low-key and appeared to be deliberately bereft of triumphant drama.

He made no stirring speeches and never portrayed himself as the victim of a coup d’etat. He did not rally his supporters or speak much about rebuilding his fractured political party, FUNCINPEC, for a July 26 election. Instead, he spent most of his time holed up in Hotel Le Royal, meeting ambassadors, and said he would spend only four days in Cambodia before returning to Thailand.

“It was a very curious performance,” a European political analyst said. “Everyone thought Ranariddh was coming home to dig in for the election and start campaigning. So what’s he do? He pops in for a visit and takes off again for the air-conditioned comfort of Bangkok.”

Ranariddh, observers said, undeniably did not act like a man whose heart was in a rough-and-tumble electoral campaign. Nor did he even act like a man who intended to stand for election. His quick exit from Cambodia could well cost him much-needed credibility--a prospect that displeases Japan and the United States.

Japan brokered the peace deal that let Ranariddh return to Cambodia, in an effort by Tokyo to become more politically assertive in Asia. Japan has staked a great deal on the prospect of free elections. So has Washington, which led the international campaign to deny legitimacy to the Hun Sen government unless Ranariddh was allowed to compete in elections.

But his seemingly halfhearted return did not surprise those who have followed him over the years. Even as co-prime minister, he never surrendered his French passport, and he used to leave Phnom Penh for a month each summer to teach law at a French university. He was a royalist who did not like to get his hands dirty, and, none other than his father, King Norodom Sihanouk, who lives in China, came to speak disparagingly of his political ineptitude.

Hun Sen, a onetime peasant with virtually no formal education, has used the past nine months to recast himself as a populist. He has repaired roads, cleaned up the parks of Phnom Penh, eliminated checkpoints where motorists were shaken down for money and penalized provincial governors who profited by stealing land from peasants. He has a reputation for getting things done, though not with the charm and sophistication the prince can summon effortlessly.