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OPINION: Pol Pot's Murderous Legacy Live On
by J. Myers of the Hoover Institution

May 1998

The Hun Sen Regime In Cambodia Is A Lineal Successor Of Pol Pot's, And It Is Fervently Backed By The US Government

MENLO PARK, Calif.--- The end of a chapter in Cambodian history is symbolized by the images of Pol Pot's body.  Pol Pot was leader of the Khmer Rouge, the Communist group that seized power at the time of the Vietnam War and whose ``killing fields" regime was responsible for genocide lasting from 1975 until the Vietnamese invasion in 1979.
     Yet, incredibly, Pot's murderous legacy lives on in Cambodian Co-Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander.  He is now both supported and favored by the U.S. government as the candidate to form the next government of Cambodia after the July 26 elections.
     How could such a bizarre situation happen under the Clinton policy of ``enlargement of democracy?"

TO TRY TO ESTABLISH a political structure in Cambodia after the Vietnam War, the United Nations supported an nationwide election in 1993, spending about $1 billion and utilizing 20,000 Japanese ``peacekeepers" to supervise the election.
     At first, the election appeared to be successful.  The democratic forces of Prince Norodom Ranariddh, a son of King Norodom Sihanouk, clearly won the election with 41 percent of the vote.  Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party won 34 percent, with longtime Son Sann and others taking the rest.
     So the democrats were clearly victorious.  The good guys won!

NOT SO FAST, said ``former" Communist Hun Sen. There is a case here for power sharing, because he controlled most of the military.  Co-Prime Ministers was the tactic of the day.
     Two heads of government are almost as bad as none, and on July 5, 1997, Hun Sen staged a coup against Ranariddh, killing over 40 supporters, including generals and intelligence officers.
     The U.S. Department of State, however, refused to call this a ``coup" because that would have automatically cut off aid to Cambodia.
     U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Quinn had taken the position, which he still holds, that Hun Sen is the only power in the country so the United States must deal with him.  Despite the coup, Quinn was certain that Hun Sen was a real democrat at heart.

RANARIDDH FLED for his life, returning to Cambodia in March to rally his supporters with the help of his father, King Sihanouk, who pardoned him of treason charges leveled by none other than Hun Sen.
     However, Ranariddh's return to participate in politics was banded. Hun Sen denied him access to all media, so Ranariddh returned to Bangkok, Thailand.
     At the moment, this leaves the whole political field open to Hun Sen, with no real opposition in sight.

THE U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION reported recently that another 53 of Ranariddh's supporters had been killed by Hun Sen's thugs, slightly embarrassing the State Department.
     Clearly, this situation called attention to the Hun Sen regime's lack of legitimacy.  Not to worry, Strobe Talbol, deputy secretary of state, sent a letter to King Sihanouk in Beijing on Feb. 27 asking that he urgently return to Cambodia to help stabilize and legitimize the political scene.
     So in March, King Sihanouk returned, but not to the capitol, Phnom Penh, but to his palace in Siem Reap, near Angkor Wat, the ancient site of his royal ancestors.
     This positioning is supposed to indicate that he is not totally supportive of Hun Sen, although King Sihanouk has no real power.  (His wife, Monique, to be named queen after King Sihanouk death, is quietly communicating with Hun Sen.)

THE PRESENCE OF SIHANOUK is Cambodia, however, provides the State Department with a flg leaf to claim that the July elections will be aboveboard and that the one-sided  victory of Hun Sen will fully express the people's will.
     So, Ambassador Quinn will argue, the election in Cambodia is just another example of the compelling nature of ``democratic enlargement" and another triumph of Clinton's diplomacy is thereby demonstrated.

THERE WERE HEARINGS in the House last July after the ``coup", and there will be more hearings.
     In March, the House passed HR 361 in exasperation with the State Department, condemning Hun Sen's intimidation of the political opposition and questioning the legitimacy of the July elections.
     In the meantime, however, the State Department still supports the elections, as do the Japanese, who have a big investment in the foreign adventure.  The victims will be the Cambodia people and the idea of democracy.