By our correspondent
PHNOM PENH — The series of limited military offensives by the government at the end of January has boosted morale after months in which the Khmer Rouge had manipulated the cease-fire to make military gains.
The largest operation, on January 28, was in Bavel district of Battambang province. A three-pronged movement by State of Cambodia forces took three villages. Fighting was intense, and SoC claimed 51 Khmer Rouge soldiers killed and 86 wounded while its own losses were five killed and 25 wounded.
SoC forces were within 10 kilometres of Pailin, nominal headquarters of the KR, but made no attempt to seize the town. A government spokesperson said Prime Minister Hun Sen had limited the operation to driving back KR encroachments over the past year, and Pailin, which was held by the KR at the time of the October 1991 peace accord, would therefore not be attacked.
Other advances, involving less fighting, occurred in Muong Russei district of Battambang, Kravanh district of Pursat province and in Siem Reap, Kompong Thom and Preah Vihear provinces. One aim was to drive back KR artillery which had been brought forward.
SoC wants to ensure a trouble-free harvest, since the country is already looking at a rice deficit of 270,000 tonnes because of insufficient rain. Forcing back the KR also would extend the reach of the upcoming election, which the KR is refusing to permit in areas it controls.
Here in the capital, conventional wisdom holds that FUNCINPEC, the party headed by Prince Sihanouk's son Ranariddh, will win the election; certain Western governments are very keen for this to happen.
However, the policies of most parties are very fluid, often involving little more than nationalism bordering on ultra-nationalism. While FUNCINPEC more or less unites the monarchists, the anti-SoC republicans have splintered into personality-based groups and are not doing very well because of this.
It is still uncertain whether there will be presidential elections as well as the planned general assembly elections. Sihanouk, the most likely winner of any presidential election, was going to put the proposal to the January 28 meeting of the Supreme National Council (held in Beijing). But the KR reportedly told him they were strongly opposed, and Sihanouk abandoned the proposal.
SoC's administration is intact, and in most provinces the arms of government function down to the village level: education, health, agriculture and defence are in place. But the government is broke, unable to fund programs. It is relying on the loyalty of officials, ronage through the community and the promise of a better future, to win the election.
The other parties are talking of promised positions, and there are rumours of buying people's party membership. As always, the elections are getting down to money.
Although the Paris agreements acknowledged a role for the SoC administration independent of its political party, FUNCINPEC looks at this role as dangerous. Its leaders appear to assume they will confront a hostile administration if they win — something which could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But any incoming government will have to accommodate the existing bureaucracy, police and military force. And FUNCINPEC, if it should win, certainly lacks such an apparatus of its own.
Also disturbing is that Sihanouk persists in talking of a "national reconciliation" that includes a role for the KR. Nothing could polarise the population more, and many observers see it as a disaster in the making, not to mention a mockery of the electoral process, which the KR are trying to frustrate.
With the poor rice harvest, there will not be much joy, or spare cash, in the countryside. The cities, groaning under the presence of the UN, now present extremes of the newly rich and the poor, trapped on low salaries or newly arrived from the country because of security concerns or the need for work.
As well, 350,000 returnees from camps on the Thai-Cambodian border are being resettled inside the country; this repatriation is nearly complete. Most of these people have taken the "cash option" offered by the UN and have gone looking for relatives.
Few have land to farm or jobs to go to. Serious social problems loom when their rations run out in a year's time.