!l VX£"] ««WORLD, Page 38SOUTHEAST ASIAWill It Ever End?As Viet Nam's soldiers head home, three guerrilla armies,including the Khmer Rouge, gird for war in CambodiaBy Jill Smolowe
They have known almost nothing but war. For a generation men
have fought over the fabled ruins of Angkor Wat, the colonial
palaces of Phnom Penh, and the rich rice paddies along the Mekong
River, leaving more than a million Cambodians dead and their land
in ruins. But at long last the shell-shocked country had something
to cheer. Cambodians crowded the streets last week to hail the
withdrawal of the last of the 200,000 Vietnamese troops who had
occupied their country for nearly eleven years. Across the eastern
border in Viet Nam, there was also celebration. Senior officials
embraced the leaders of the returning units, and parents rushed to
greet their returning sons.
Cambodia and Viet Nam are desperate for change. Yet there was
no real jubilation for two countries that have battled one enemy
or another, Cambodia for the past 20 years, Viet Nam for more than
twice as long. In Cambodia three guerrilla armies, not least the
brutal Khmer Rouge, are spoiling to settle their differences with
the Hanoi-approved government of Hun Sen. The departure of the
Vietnamese promises only the renewal of civil strife as these
groups struggle for dominance.
Even as the occupiers marched off, Cambodians attacked one
another along the western border shared with Thailand. At dawn on
Saturday, 5,000 fighters from the non-Communist resistance group
linked to former Prime Minister Son Sann launched an offensive that
thrust as deep as 30 miles into northwestern Cambodia, claiming to
capture several towns along Route 69 in a test of strength against
the army of Phnom Penh. As for Viet Nam's soldiers, they left
behind more than 50,000 dead and returned home to a nation
demoralized by poverty, unemployment, food shortages, corruption
and continuing status as an international pariah. Both countries
confront internal challenges that may make the past decade seem a
time of relative tranquillity.
Of the two war-exhausted nations, Cambodia faces the more dire
future. A 19-nation conference convened in Paris to hammer out a
settlement between the Cambodian government and the tripartite
resistance collapsed in August over the fate of the Khmer Rouge.
Hun Sen refused to consider any power-sharing arrangement with the
guerrillas who had turned Cambodia into a charnel house, and Prince
Norodom Sihanouk, the country's former ruler and the titular head
of the resistance, refused to come into a government without them.
The combatants and their assorted international sponsors had hoped
to reach agreement before the Vietnamese pullout. Now, with the
occupiers gone and no political settlement in sight, the country
is girding for further bloodshed. Most chilling is the possibility
of the return of the Khmer Rouge, a force of some 25,000 guerrillas
who now dismiss as "mistakes" the genocidal practices that provoked
the Vietnamese to chase them from power in 1979.
As pessimism descends over a land haunted by shadows and fears,
rumors and bad dreams, there is no obvious leader to guide Cambodia
toward a more sane solution. The capricious Sihanouk, who ruled in
the 1950s and '60s, stands as a symbol of better times. But his
erratic behavior in recent months has baffled Cambodians and
international observers alike as he has bounced between
conciliation with Hun Sen and collaboration with the Khmer Rouge.
Son Sann maintains links with a second guerrilla force whose
disciplined units are outnumbered by troops preoccupied with
smuggling and black-market trading. And the Khmer Rouge continue
to inspire revulsion among a populace that remains deeply scarred
by Pol Pot's reign of terror between 1975 and 1979.
In recent months Prime Minister Hun Sen has been winning
favorable reviews. Once regarded as a mere puppet of the
authorities in Hanoi, Hun Sen, 38, has emerged as a leader with a
mind of his own. Whether by conviction or out of cynical
self-interest, he has pursued reformist policies designed to repair
his country's shattered economy as well as to endear him to
skeptical citizens: the institution of land-tenure rights for
farmers, the beginnings of a free-market economy and recognition
of Buddhism as the state religion. While Hun Sen's cloudy history
as a former member of the Khmer Rouge and his association with the
Vietnamese continue to haunt him, he is gaining stature as a
nationalist. He is regarded by many Cambodians as the only viable
alternative to the Khmer Rouge.
But China and most of the nations of Southeast Asia consider
Hun Sen a usurper. The Prime Minister is a reminder of Viet Nam's
expansionist impulse, which has earned Hanoi distrust and fear
throughout the region for centuries. China, which continues to arm
the Khmer Rouge, is not alone in refusing to allow Viet Nam to win
through political means what it failed to achieve militarily. Prime
Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore says that Hun Sen must
legitimize his rule in a free election. "Any other way of leaving
Hun Sen in charge," says Lee, "would mean that aggression does
pay."
The U.S., which has long provided aid to the non-Communist
forces of Sihanouk and Son Sann and has not ruled out military
assistance in the future, similarly argues that Hun Sen heads an
illegitimate administration imposed by a foreign power. In its
anti-Vietnamese zeal, Washington overlooked Sihanouk's alliance
with the Khmer Rouge, which did most of the fighting during eleven
years of guerrilla opposition. The Bush Administration is left in
the uncomfortable position of backing a mercurial prince who
remains aligned with men bent on restoring an odious regime. But
the Administration maintains, with good reason, that any settlement
that ignores the Khmer Rouge is a formula for civil war.
Last week the U.S. attempted to lay blame for the policy
impasse on Hanoi's doorstep. Said State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher: "We believe that Viet Nam cannot evade its
responsibility to help achieve a comprehensive political solution
in Cambodia." Until now, the U.S. led Hanoi to believe that the
withdrawal of its troops from Cambodia would be enough to rescue
Viet Nam from its international isolation. But with that
formulation, Washington destroyed Hanoi's hopes for prompt
normalization of relations with the outside world and an end to the
trade embargo that has wrecked Viet Nam's economy. The crippling
boycott has deprived Hanoi of all Western aid, credit, technology
and trade, turning the country of 65 million people into a basket
case.
Hanoi will have to try to revive its bankrupt economy with
little help from the outside world. The Vietnamese dream is for
another Asian miracle, patterned on what its newly industrialized
neighbors have achieved. Reformers have laid ambitious plans for
restructuring the economy on free-market principles. "We think of
ourselves as South Korea 25 years ago," says Nguyen Xuan Oanh, a
senior adviser to the Vietnamese government. "The only stumbling
block is how soon will the U.S. give us the green light."
Even with American cooperation, that vision could prove
elusive. The aging revolutionaries who dominate Viet Nam's
13-member Politburo are largely uneducated and rigidly dogmatic.
They resist the creative solutions of younger technocrats and
refuse to countenance the kind of political renovation that might
stanch the flow of tens of thousands of refugees each year. Like
the Chinese, they continue to believe that economic miracles are
possible without political reform. "The Old Guard was good for
war," says a Foreign Ministry official, "but not for peacetime Viet
Nam."
As for Cambodia, the current political stalemate is certain to
prove costly for the country's weary civilians. Deserters from Hun
Sen's army tell stories suggesting that some of the 40,000 regulars
lack both the esprit and basic fighting skills required to hold
back the resistance forces. The army's recent practice of
shanghaiing young conscripts off the streets is not likely to
generate goodwill -- or good soldiers. The national battalions are
supplemented by local and provincial militias, perhaps 150,000 in
all, which Hun Sen hopes will do better at defending their homes.
As yet, both the army and the rural militias are largely untested.
But last week the regulars were still resisting a Khmer Rouge
offensive on Pailin, a ruby-rich district near the Thai border that
is critical to the rebels' infiltration route.
Hun Sen's forces should be able to hold off the poorly
disciplined forces of Sihanouk and Son Sann, perhaps 20,000 in all.
The declared aim of their offensive was to test the strength of the
government and force resumption of political talks. The Khmer Rouge
are a different matter. Inside Cambodia the common wisdom is that
Khmer Rouge strength and ability are overrated. But the view from
the border, where most of the troops are based, is far less
sanguine. "The Khmer Rouge are in this fight to the end," says a
guerrilla-warfare expert in Thailand. Observes an international
relief worker: "They are known as a clean and disciplined movement,
not corrupt like the others."
There is a widespread assumption that the Khmer Rouge are
gearing for a major offensive. Many analysts believe that the
rebels will move fast to demonstrate the military weakness of the
Hun Sen government. Only by inflicting a significant military
defeat within the next couple of months can they forestall a
growing willingness to recognize his rule. Equally important, a
major Khmer Rouge victory would destroy any lingering thoughts
Sihanouk might entertain about cutting a deal with Hun Sen. Sadly,
it seems more bloodletting will be needed to convince the various
factions that political compromise is the only answer. Until then,
Cambodia's long nightmare will go on.
-- Ross H. Munro/Aranyaprathet and William Stewart/Phnom Penh
