World

U.S. Cautious On Cambodian Peace

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

April 19, 1998 / 12:30 PM EDT / CBS

The death of former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot has raised hopes for peace in Cambodia, but the United States warned on Sunday that the country's path to political stability was still strewn with pitfalls.

"We're not out of the woods yet," the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, told reporters in Bangkok.

Richardson said he was concerned about specific issues, including the safe participation in a July election of deposed co-premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

Cambodia, synonymous with war and human suffering for four decades, was plunged into fresh turmoil last year when Second Prime Minister Hun Sen deposed his coalition partner and co-premier Ranariddh.

Richardson was speaking in after an international gathering in Bangkok to review developments in Cambodia. The talks brought together the Association of South East Asian Nations and a grouping called the Friends of Cambodia, which includes the United States, Japan, France and Australia.

"We still have some specific initiatives...the return of Prince Ranariddh...we are concerned about intimidation in Cambodia," Richardson said.

"I want to make sure that the election can be held freely and safely. And we want to see some clarification about all sides having equal access to media," he added.

As international efforts to solve Cambodia's political crisis moved forward, officials and political analysts said Pol Pot's death and signs his Khmer Rouge guerrilla group was on its last legs should help encourage peace and elusive political stability.

"The death of Pol Pot will be the death of the Khmer Rouge. They will no longer be a factor causing continuing division in Cambodia," said a Cambodian political analyst.

The body of former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, whose brutal 1975-79 rule resulted in the death of an estimated 1.7 million people, was cremated on Saturday by his comrades in a simple ceremony at a northern Cambodian village.

Skeptics had pointed out that the death was fortuitously timed, coming just as it appeared that Pol Pot's comrades-turned-captors might be forced to turn him over for trial before an international genocide tribunal.