Khmer Rouge on the march
By Helen Jarvis
Cambodia is once again at a crisis point. The Khmer Rouge are wreaking havoc across a 400 km arc in the north-western provinces, burning schools and hospitals so painfully rebuilt in recent years, raping and executing "collaborators" with the new government, causing tens of thousands to flee. Even more menacingly, their presence is felt in parts of the country where they have not been seen for over a decade, even close to Phnom Penh on both sides of the Mekong River.
The UN operation, hailed by Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans as a great achievement, has left a fragile government unable to resist the force that signed the peace agreement but never implemented a single clause — in short, that used it as a shield behind which to build up political and military strength for a new offensive. The state and army that represented the only force able to resist the KR were dismantled in the name of the peace process.
The real problem of Cambodia today is that from 1979 the United States and its allies (including Australia), and China as well, consistently refused to support or even recognise the government that overthrew Pol Pot and tried to rebuild Cambodia, because it was "installed by Vietnam". Evans' "comprehensive peace settlement", according political legitimacy to the KR, was entirely consistent with that position, and we are now seeing the logic of that policy unfold. Today's reality was perfectly predictable, and was in fact predicted by critics such as John Pilger.
It is still today primarily a political rather than a military solution that must be sought. After all, the UN had a 16,000-soldier juggernaut in the country last year but failed to use it against the KR because of a political decision that it was more important to dismantle the State of Cambodia.
The military threat posed by the KR would not exist if Thailand were pressured to observe the peace agreement, to rein in the army units supporting the KR, to seal the border against them and to desist from handing over unwilling civilian refugees to their hands. Thailand has continued to provide sanctuary to the Khmer Rouge and more — a channel for money and arms and even, it seems, logistic support — despite the Thai government's signature on the peace accords promising non-interference.
[The writer is a member of the executive of the Campaign to Oppose the Return of the Khmer Rouge — Australia.]