By Helen Jarvis
With barely a week left before the Cambodian elections (scheduled for May 23 to 27), the Khmer Rouge are escalating their acts of terror in an attempt to disrupt the polls — if possible to have them cancelled or at least to have them declared invalid because they are not able to be held throughout the entire country.
On April 13 the official Khmer Rouge delegation left their high-security compound in the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, declaring that they would have no part in the coming election.
Now out of reach of any possible retaliation from the United Nations or the governing State of Cambodia, they have escalated their campaign of intimidation and confrontation. An attack on the provincial capital of Siem Reap on May 3 sent shock waves through the country.
Deliberate assaults on UN positions, including for the first time the Chinese battalion, the killing of a Japanese police officer and troop movements closing in on a number of towns have led to a sense of fear and foreboding.
The UN is coming under increasing criticism, being shown increasingly as ineffective against the KR while actively destabilising the government. To date the UN has still not declared the KR to be outside of the peace accords — by their own actions they are simply not participating in the polls, but still retain their official positions. This includes at present holding the post of charg d'affaires of the Cambodian mission to the UN in New York.
Which party will receive the majority of the votes, if the elections go ahead? Prime Minister Hun Sen enters the final weeks predicting that the Cambodian People's Party will receive 70%, while a Yomiuri Shimbun poll placed its support at 35%. Considerable funds from overseas have flowed into the coffers of FUNCINPEC and a number of the other registered parties, some of whom declare in their electoral platforms that they see the
US political system as their model for Cambodia.
FUNCINPEC was certainly the party favoured by China and the US as the replacement for CPP (replacing the CPP was what they expected the peace plan to accomplish). However, at least part of FUNCINPEC appears to be cooperating with the KR, and their soldiers have participated in joint attacks on government positions.
On May 10 for the first time FUNCINPEC forces were reported to have turned their guns on the KR in an exchange of fire in Ampil, near the Thai border. This confusion over where FUNCINPEC stands with regard to their long-term ally may lead to a lower than anticipated vote.
The greatest danger now is that the KR will disrupt the polls or that an elected government with a strong CPP will be deemed invalid by the UN. The stage has been set for this in recent weeks, with increasing attacks on SoC and the CPP from the foreign press and the UN. It is imperative that the newly elected government receive the long-denied recognition and aid, as well as military protection from the revived KR. Sihanouk's dangerous proposal to include the KR in a government of "national reunification", even after all this, needs to be vigorously opposed.