Word: kampuchean
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...avert that catastrophe, the U.S. should use its influence with China and Thailand not just to cut off arms to the Khmer Rouge but also to shut down their base camps on the Thai side of the Kampuchean border, ferret out and seize their arms caches, round up their most villainous leaders and arrange for their peaceful retirement to, say, rural North Korea...
Thailand, host to the rebel factions and the refugees, joined the blitz. In a startling turnaround from a policy of refusing to talk to Phnom Penh, the new Prime Minister, Chatichai Choonhavan, invited Kampuchean Prime Minister Hun Sen for discussions in Bangkok, possibly to start as early as this week. + Before, says an ASEAN diplomat, "Thailand and ASEAN wouldn't have touched Hun Sen with a 10-ft. pole...
Last week ASEAN foreign ministers met to lay the groundwork for another "informal meeting" in Jakarta that will bring together the Kampuchean government, some if not all of the rebel factions, China, Viet Nam and Thailand. The object is to set up a formal peace parley aimed at devising a government power-sharing formula, nailing down a Vietnamese withdrawal timetable and establishing international monitoring of the peace...
...questions bedeviling the diplomats is the role the Khmer Rouge would play in a Kampuchean government after the Vietnamese withdraw. As a U.S. official said, "A return of the Khmer Rouge would be unacceptable in the eyes of the world." Its political comeback would be acutely embarrassing to Washington. In supporting the non-Communist members of the rebel coalition, the U.S. has at least indirectly backed the Khmer Rouge as well. But Washington hopes to undercut the Khmer Rouge by boosting aid to Sihanouk. Diplomats in Beijing believe that China is ready to accept the "decapitation" of the Khmer Rouge...
Fear of the Khmer Rouge still rules much of the Kampuchean countryside, where the rebel fighters battle the improving army of the People's Republic. Around Chhun Kiri, 65 miles southwest of Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge has stepped up its "war of the villages." At a nearby hospital lay Pen Kea, 40, his leg injured in a guerrilla attack. "The Khmer Rouge comes every three nights," he said. "You have got to be afraid of them...