Fading Khmer Rouge Down but Not Out in Cambodia

BANGKOK, Thailand — The recent mutiny against Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot may mean the end of his personal leadership of the Communist guerrilla movement, but it could herald a fresh beginning for the fading Khmer Rouge--and perhaps the start of a new civil war in Cambodia.

Remnants of the Maoist guerrilla group, who staged a dramatic purge last week of the man who directed one of this century’s worst genocides, say they are starting over with a new name: the National Solidarity Party. Their new strategy, a top general reportedly has said, is to end decades of military resistance, abandon their Communist ideology and ally themselves with Cambodia’s “democratic forces”--including other breakaway Khmer Rouge factions.

In the jungles of northern Cambodia last week, the core faction of the Khmer Rouge allowed an American reporter, Nate Thayer, and a cameraman to witness a show trial proving Pol Pot’s removal from power.

The group turned against Pol Pot after he ordered the execution of rebels who were pushing for reconciliation with the government, Khmer Rouge army chief Gen. Im Nguon told Thayer. With the purge of the fallen leader, those in revolt believe they can also slough off their bloody history.

“Our movement is pure and clean,” Im Nguon reportedly said.

But despite talk of democracy and new beginnings, the group has held on to its Communist rituals--the orchestrated denunciation of Pol Pot was political theater straight from China’s 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, say experts, as was its vehement ultranationalism.

A younger, less ideological panel of nine leaders will replace Pol Pot, but the fallen dictator’s most brutal former comrades-in-arms will advise them from behind the scenes, Thayer said. The remaining members of the old guard include new front man Khieu Samphan, one-legged military commander Ta Mok, known as “The Butcher,” and Pol Pot’s shadowy No. 2, Nuon Chea.

Most important, they retain a decades-old objective: to overthrow Prime Minister Hun Sen. He has been considered an enemy since Vietnam toppled Pol Pot in 1979 and installed Hun Sen to head a Hanoi-backed government. Hun Sen has retained power by force, despite having lost a U.N.-backed election in 1993: On July 5-6 he ousted elected co-Premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh to win sole control of Cambodia.

“We still recognize Prince Norodom Ranariddh as the legal first prime minister of the country,” said Khieu Samphan in an underground radio broadcast in Cambodia on Thursday. He vowed to join other forces “to oppose and destroy . . . the puppet Hun Sen.”

Though some experts question the Khmer Rouge’s “democratic” intentions, they acknowledge that the well-disciplined, dogmatic group could remain a potent force in Cambodian politics, depending on which way it turns. Im Nguon told Thayer that there are 10,000 guerrillas and 60,000 civilians loyal to the movement around its base in Anlong Veng. And Pol Pot’s successors are expected to be just as ruthless and radical as their former leader, having survived decades of isolation and jungle warfare.

“The alliances change according to the convenience of the moment,” said Khmer Rouge historian Christophe Peschoux, speaking by telephone from Phnom Penh, the capital. “Loyalty means nothing.”

One troubling potential matchup would be with another breakaway group of former Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot’s brother-in-law, Ieng Sary, who controls a zone in western Cambodia along the Thai border. He leans toward supporting the prince and has invited the former Pol Pot faction to join his group, which is economically self-sufficient through legal and illegal trade in gems and timber. The combination could be formidable if the two decided to back other royalist forces against Hun Sen.

At the moment, Hun Sen’s army has the dwindling royalist forces on the run. But a joint opposition would outnumber Hun Sen’s troops and could mean a return to civil war in beleaguered Cambodia, said Cambodia expert Steve Heder of the University of London’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Global leaders, who saw a $3-billion investment in democracy-building crumble when Hun Sen toppled Ranariddh in the bloody July coup that left hundreds dead, are watching warily from the sidelines. Washington now finds itself in the awkward position of sharing the same position--pushing for a restoration of the ousted prince--as the Khmer Rouge.

White House officials, looking for a way to ensure stability in Cambodia, have said quietly that Hun Sen could rehabilitate his reputation by turning Pol Pot over to an international tribunal.

“I want to send him to international court because this is the big problem, the genocide problem,” Hun Sen said in an interview with ABC News on Wednesday. “This is for the Cambodian people as well as for the whole world, to prevent genocide.”

It is considered improbable that Pol Pot’s captors would turn him over to Hun Sen, their avowed enemy, without a fight. And Hun Sen is not likely to get much help from outside--or even from his own side, which includes former peers of Pol Pot who may fear a move to bring the Khmer Rouge to justice.

“The problem is that there are no ‘good guys,’ ” said historian Peschoux. “There are former Khmer Rouge on all sides, including Hun Sen’s.”

Hun Sen’s party has six top Khmer Rouge commanders who defected, Peschoux said, including the deputy and the son-in-law of “The Butcher.”

Heder said party names and alliances have changed in the two decades since the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal rule, but that most of the principal leaders remain in power one way or another.

“Who are the Khmer Rouge?” Heder says. “Former Khmer Rouge are everywhere. Everything has been recombined in a way that the term means nothing. ‘Khmer Rouge’ is now just a label people put on their enemies.”

It may be impossible to root out those responsible for the “killing fields” without further fracturing the country. Many Cambodians, who have endured decades of war and fear, may be willing to trade away the formalities of justice for a stretch of peace.

“Cambodian people are tired of fighting,” said Chaeng Sokhon, 40, a food stall owner in Phnom Penh whose house was burned down in the recent coup. “We don’t care who is the leader. We just want this all to end.”