Cambodia on the road to self-destruction

By Harvey Stockwin

HONG KONG (JP): There they were for the whole world to see, the clear signs that Cambodia's enduring tragedy was once more in play.

As television camera crews prudently shot the few scenes that were available to them, there was the Buddhist temple trashed by soldier-vandals in the wake of last weekend's de facto coup. The shots of Buddhist icons broken into pieces suggested strongly that the Khmer Rouge mentality was still in power, the mentality which, between 1975 and 1978, led to the annihilation of around two million Cambodians in an effort to root out the traditional, the religious, the past.

There was the debris at Phnom Penh's international airport after the military looters had done their work, a sharp reminder that there is something deep in the Cambodian soul which rejects all things modern. There were the shops which a few days ago still gave promise of better days for Cambodia, but which were now cleaned out of their stocks by thieves.

Then there were the long lines of evacuees for the military planes which flew into the dilapidated airport. Interestingly, the first planes were from Thailand and then from other ASEAN countries, the very nations which should have been a little more prepared to tough it out through the crisis. Then came the C-130 Hercules transports and a few commercial jets from further afield to take away those engaged, somehow or other, in the rebuilding and economic revival of Cambodia. U.S. Navy ships waited offshore, but so far the Americans have only reduced their presence rather than ended it.

What was missing in all this, of course, were military planes bringing in troops from nations whose governments were determined to stop Cambodia from further destroying itself. Such troops had arrived five years ago, in order to police the processes set out in the Paris Peace Accords which aimed to bring Cambodia's never- ending post-1970 nightmare to an end. They had only accomplished half of their task when their timorous political masters decided to declare victory and go home.

So foreign troops ensured a relatively peaceful election but did not stay around to enforce the Paris Peace Accord's other vital requirement: the disarming of the various Cambodian political factions, and the complete neutralization of the Khmer Rouge. This past week the world has seen where that appalling oversight has inevitably led. Cambodian politics are being determined on the basis of bullets, not ballots, with the remaining factions of the bullet-laden Khmer Rouge being sought by both sides.

Now the only foreign troops who land are for the purpose of briefly guarding the long queues of departing evacuees. There is not a nation on earth -- not even Vietnam or China -- currently considering using its military to save Cambodia from itself. ASEAN has got together this past week to discuss whether Cambodia should become a member of the regional grouping. It should also have been assessing the possibility that Cambodia will ultimately cease to be capable of being a member of anything.

The tragedy of Cambodia can be simply summarized. The Khmer race has a deep underlying fear of its own extinction, yet it persists in acting in ways which reinforce this fear and which could ultimately make those fears come true.

In Cambodia, even the most optimistic events take on a disastrous hue. Take the alleged "arrest" of Cambodia's arch- villain, the butcher Pol Pot, a few weeks ago. To the outside world it seemed that at long last a positive step was being taken to implement a crucial clause in the Paris Peace Accords left unfulfilled by the UN presence in Cambodia 1992-1993. Pol Pot has not been seen for nearly a decade. His exact whereabouts and health remain a matter of conjecture. If ever a 20th century person deserved to be put on trial for genocide then it should be Pol Pot, a point worth remembering as NATO special forces belatedly set about capturing the butchers of Bosnia this past week. But the Bosnian crimes, horrendous as they were, were as nothing compared to the evil Pol Pot visited upon his own people.

Within Cambodia, Pol Pot's alleged arrest set off a very different reaction. To this day Pol Pot remains unseen. If he was detained then those doing the detaining have kept it a secret. But the assertions that Pol Pot had been captured by another Khmer Rouge faction all came from first Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh. In the eyes of second Prime Minister Hun Sen the alleged arrest of Pol Pot was far less important than the clear signal that, once again, the Ranariddh royalists were making a deal with the Khmer Rouge.

For Hun Sen, this was no isolated signal. The power plays between the two main factions, Ranariddh's and Hun Sen's, had been increasing in intensity for months. To call the factions the FUNCINPEC (royalist) party or the Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) misses the point. Both factions were more concerned with amassing weaponry rather than winning arguments. Earlier in the year, Hun Sen had loudly complained about some leading pro-Ranariddh personalities. Ranariddh had unwisely indulged in appeasement, jettisoning those to whom Hun Sen objected.

In this politically fragile environment, governed purely by calculations of power politics, support from one of the Khmer Rouge factions took on the appearance of a deciding vote. For Hun Sen, Pol Pot's "arrest" looked ominous because it could have meant that the balance of power was tilting against him. At the root of last weekend's heavy fighting was Hun Sen decision to make a preemptive strike against his opponents. The subsequent execution of two top Ranariddh loyalists, the arrest and probable deaths of many other royalists -- it all looks like a crudely planned purge.

Ranariddh fled abroad ahead of the battle, always a weak position to take in an arena where might is right. He was banking on international support. So far it has not been forthcoming. The major powers are clearly washing their hands of Cambodia. The resolution passed by the UN Security Council late on July 11th (Friday), after a long week of inaction, neither condemned Hun Sen's coup nor supported Ranariddh. Vainly the United Nations urged both parties to abide by the Paris Peace Accords, which the UN itself had failed to fully implement and which is now an irrelevant document.

So three grim fates await benighted Cambodia.

The civil war which has been fought all this week may intensify and spread. Hun Sen's fear of a royalist-Khmer Rouge alliance may become self-fulfilling.

But if the opposition to him crumbles, Hun Sen seems likely to install another harsh dictatorship upon the long suffering Cambodian people. Hun Sen lost the last election but still fought his way into a coalition government. He aims to intimidate victory if any election is held, for image purposes only, next May.

Either way, Cambodians will have a deep sense of deja vu. They are back where they started before the Paris Peace Accords were signed. Hun Sen is in power in Phnom Penh. The royalists and the Khmer Rouge contest the issue in the north and west. Whether China, Vietnam, and ASEAN repeat their roles in the 1980s, or reverse them, remains to be seen.

But as poor Cambodians have once again fled into the countryside, while better-off Cambodians evacuated themselves along with the foreigners, the greater fear is of the almost indescribable holocaust which seems to be Cambodia's grim fate.

Window A: ASEAN has got together this past week to discuss whether Cambodia should become a member of the regional grouping. It should also have been assessing the possibility that Cambodia will ultimately cease to be capable of being a member of anything.