| Show ‘ 44 4 o A 4 it °:4A The Salt Lake Tribune Sunday September '1:f4-- A 19 1989 Seeds of War May Sprout Another Cambodian Killing Fields By Ted Chan The Baltimore Sun In the spring of 1975 George Bush then the US envoy to China contacted Prince Norodom Sihanouk and relayed Washington's request for him to return to Cambodia to help restore peace But the prince ousted in a 1970 coup and living in exile knew it IA as too late The Communist Khmer Rouge were on the porch of the Cambodian capital of Phnom Perth The killing fields were about to be sown Now more than 14 years later Bush is still ‘vatching for Prince Sihanouk's return home to mend a nation on its knees But the situation is the same: precarious unpredictable and fraught with danger Cambodia the socalled "sideshow- - during the Vietnam War is scheduled to return to the international stage by the end of Septem : gtaiVs 'Ade ' - er1-1-411g- T 1 ll - -- or- I & al Selt — gam 74 taawa — ICIP-1- atilLA Nig?' t la ma ear i i kr2sta -- - 2t-- - -- 4 -- II ---- --- - 1 - --- ah 111211k - 1 ' - ''""'"'' — - 1 ‘ '''Wila Vii"1-10'- —41— (1224114 "WIEE- - - - 14 14 - & wto - - —- - - — - - '7- irs 2 v 1""' INVO I Ma — A 11 dala121111tIitt Ifik Am WORM& --:- 11 " itIPM1114411 1 -- !LIVIIMIlls-- -- SW - - ow - -NW C&M' ' o''----- — io6- - WMinnEnr - iti irt s -' ditw- - aTeii - 1& AZrWimp WilleliGNWr - a2- 111!DIMDIS-114- 46w I VINCRIFIcimmio-Nr-- it dratt- lir - "Ir""-- -1 25 Mt nog j I - 1ft qat :a Airi""r"111713 -- mN ellINIIIVMM1MD - oty0 a - - rI -- wim- p- mm! a o flaoiA in dr1 - r her when Vietnam ends its military occupation During a monthlong peace conference that ended in Paris last week 19 nations and the warring Cambodian factions tried to arrange the props and the script for a lasting peace but to no avail rtiei I opt -- - - 4 rk Warr ej LAO"( 4 1 4 - "- - 2'aalaa ""ra4161- 1 & a -- - 1 1 r"In' A — -1 17 411M0-"11p- : 4 -- :: :011 7 tt& - IPI gt Ted Chan a copy editor for The Baltimore Sun previously was a reporter in Bangkok tAsivikA coHtnt4ce lAir The Cambodian factions failed to agree on Iwo crucial issues --- - how to share power when the last 26000 Vietnamese troops leave and the type of international monitoring group that should be deployed Thus Cambodians are poised to see a clean end to their international dilemma — the Vietnamese occupation only to embark on a domestic course that seems destined for more bloodshed pei haps on a large scale in the dry season that begins in Southeast Asia next month The pivotal questions now center around l he strength and strategy of the Khmer Rouge and the military effectiveness of the Vietnamese-installed Phnom Penh government — the People's Republic of Kampuchea — led by Hun Sen an Rouge who broke ranks and Ileng Samrin No complete answers are available The Cambodian factions carefully guard information about their strength and they met only a few times in large-scalfighting The international community can only watch any fighting play itself out to find the answers -We are deadlocked here because the military situation is not decisive" a spokesman for Prince Sihanouk's delegation Ek Saraywath said in Paris "If there is no result on he battlefield there is no result at the negotiating table" N 001414k ll ARV 41 4 T 47::: The conference vi11 The general fear inside and outside Cambodia is the return of the Khmer Rouge led by HitPot Pot Asia's version of a modern-daler The radical communists defeated the Lon Nol government in April 1975 renamed the country Kampuchea and killed an estimated 1 million to 2 million of Cambodia's poppeople or about ulation over the next 312 years It was all part of n fanatical attempt to turn the nation into a totally agrarian society without Western influence After Vietnam invaded Cambodia on Christmas Day 1978 and captured Phnom Penh two weeks later the Khmer Rouge reborder grouped along the They became the most effective most disciplined and best equipped guerrillas in a fragile coalition government that has opposed the Vietnamese and the Kampuchea government The other coalition factions are groups many of whose members were treated brutally during the brief reign of the Khmer Rouge They include Prince Sihanouk's own group of loyalists and the Khmer h US-backe- d one-sixt- e I coo Sat 1 - f:3 W' It it - II Net Fig Via 44 - lio(SNV ?A allE Alk ONS iiii :iA iiri - IV 611 assure the political rights of the Khmer Rouge National People's Liberation Front led by Son Sann Prince Sihanouk's prime minister during the 1960s Prince SihanoulCs forces and the Liberation Front are both considered weak and dis- organized Indochina analysts question whether they will mount an offensive against the Hun Sen forces In fact they may later disassociate themselves from the Khmer Rouge and attempt to reach a settlement with !tun Sen Political expediency not mutual support have dictated alliances in Cambodia for the past two decades At the Paris conference PA :ire Sihanouk wanted the Khmer Rouge included in an interim government before national elections can be arranged He believed it would be better for the Khmer Rouge to be in Phnom Penh where they could be watched rather than in the jungles plotting a military takeover But Hun Sen vehemently rejected suggestions that the Khmer Rouge be given a major political role Estimates of the Khmer Rouge strength vary widely from 10000 to 60000 They cannot be counted because many Khmer Rouge camps are closed to outsiders Subscribers to the lo‘ver estimates believe that fears of a possible Khmer Rouge take over are exaggerated They say the communist group may be able to carve out a small area of Cambodia but hot really be a thi ea I o the central government — similar to the standing of communists in the Philippines and ethnic tribes in Burma Analysts who follow the consensus estimate of 35000 to 40000 fighters believe the Khmer Rouge are fully capable of seizing the large swaths of Cambodia especially western region next to Thailand but p iably lack the mobility to mount a blitzki eg for Phnom Penh about 200 miles from the -- 1 border Nevertheless the Khmer Rouge usual strategy is a prolonged grinding guerrilla war that eventually breaks down regions and finally the central government The Khmer Rouge forces are wely ber st ( pile of lieved to already have a two-yea- ' 1 arms and ammunition But in a protracted fight they will naturally have to loOk to China for military and political support The Khmer Rouge are to China v hat thu Nicaraguan Contras are to the United States Beijing rearmed and rein igorated their weakened communist brethren after the Vietnamese invasion to fight Vietnam China-nemesis as MOSCCW'S client state in Asia As the Chinese arms flowed to the Kluner Rouge to fight the 'Vietnamese this decade US officials and other leaders of the world turned a blind eye There was no public outcr to stop military support to perpetrators (it Cambodia's genocide China's public comments give every indica two that the arms flow will continue Beijing officials have said the shipments will be maim tamed if the Khmer Rouge are excluded from an interim government "I would think the Khmer Rouge will test the strength of the PRK troops very quickly before they can really adjust to the absence of the Vietnamese military- - said Gareth Porter an Indochina specialist at American University -- If they Khmer Rouge) cannot score a quick knockout punch the credibility of the Hun Sen forces will rise further damaging any support for the Khmer Rouge" Porter added The Kampuchea goy ernment has an army of 40000 to 50000 troops and tens of thou sands of villagers organised as local militia units Assessments of their ability also vary widely but the general opinion is they are barely equal to the Khmer Rouge "Cambodia is to Vietnam what South Vietnarn was to the United States" said a US' official "America left South Vietnam in the but poorly led army hands of a and the communists took the south I doubt if there is enough support for Cambodian sol- der s to die for Hun Sen considering his own " background Hun Sen was one of Pol Pots lieutenants in the Differences apparently over policy developed and Hun Sen and other Khmer Rouge officials joined with Vietnam While Vietnam and the Soviet Union proba' bly will continue military supplies to Hun Sens forces Hanoi has made it clear that it will not reoccupy Cambodia Vietnam's tong reconstruction is the coun- delayed post-wa- r try's top priority After Vietnam invaded Cambodia the United States spearheaded an international eco-- nomic boycott of Vietnam With the troop' pullout Hanoi and Phnom Penh officials hope foreign aid will begin soon to their poverished nations 4 d i 1 mid-1970- s Compare 2 Recent Attacks and Take a Reading on Racism By chased by a gang of whites A "good neighborhood" as long as you're not black The only reasons blacks aren't attacked more often in Bensonhurst is simple — the mostly Italian neighborhood has long been considered dangerous to their health I agree that Bensonhurst is not "another Howard Jerry Bembry The Baltimore Sun I've seen the footage of civil rights demon strators being knocked to the ground from the force of hoses And 1 can't help but wince every time I see film showing the bloated decomposed body of Emmett Till the Chicago boy who was killed in Mississippi in 1955 for merely whistling at a hite woman But even those incidents probably because they happened in a different era couldn't match the shock felt as I watched on d I Beach" I Bensonburst is now the new measuring stick on which this country can measure racist attitudes I guess the reason I felt so strongly about Yusef's death was that it opened up a lot of bitter memories for me Like young Hawkins I too grew up in the East New York section of Brooklyn And like Yuset I too was the victim of a violent attack while walking through a mostly Italian neighborhood When I entered seventh grade in 1974 many of the students from my neighborhood were bused to Abraham Lincoln Junior High School in the Ridgewood section of Brooklyn One day during my first year there my best friend Rudolph and I decided to skip the school bus ride home opting to walk two blocks to the city bus stop on Atlantic Avenue We had never had problems during our previous walks but on that spring day we passed near an area where about 30 white had converged neighborhood Since we were not bothering anyone and were minding our business we felt it strange that they followed us "They still walking behind us?" my friend asked nervously hoping as I was that our bus would be at the stop when we got there "Yeah" I answered as we picked up our 1 television the confrontation between white residents of the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn and people who marched on the street where a black teen-age- r was killed almost two weeks ago One would have expected sympathy from the neighborhood that had produced the gang s of 10 to 30 who chased down Yusef Hawkins and in a modern-dalynching ended his life with two bullets Instead of compassion the marchers were met by teen-agboys proudly waving American flags while shouting obscenities: the chant of "Central Park" and "N iggers go home:" the sight of scores of people in the crowd passing pieces of watermelon and pork chops teen-ager- y e among themselves mocking the peaceful visitors as they strolled down Bay Ridge Avenue "An isolated incident" was how one resident described the attack "This is a good neighborhood they're trying to make this into another Howard Beach" another said referring to the incident in Queens where a black man was hit by a car and killed after being teen-ager- s pace -- What about now?'' he said seconds later "They're not walking" I said after glancing back "They're running now" It's been more than 14 years but I still and blue clearly see the guy in the red jeans cock the wooden bat in his hand and smiling break it in half across my friend's back They say best friends help each other in the toughest of times but with the last sight of my friend sprawled face down on a sidewalk in a sea of swinging arms I never felt guilty dodging the rest of the group and sprinting back toward the school It was a frightening experience no one should ever have to go through Jerry Bembry Baltimore Sun Is a sports reporter for The My friend beat me home that day — amazingly his only injuries were raised welts on his back — and abruptly cut my mother's workday short with news of the attack and my disappearance She remembers that day's 40- minute ride from Lower Manhattan to East New York's seeming longer than usual "All I could think about was that you were laid out somewhere bloodied" she recalled when I asked her about the incident last week An isolated incident? Hardly Later there was the time in 8th grade when our school band of which I and about eight other blacks were members held a concert at school When the blacks students and their family and friends as a group left the front door of the school there were borne 75 people waiting across the street As we headed to the subway station they followed The students in our group immediately knew what to expect We knew the risks when we dared to venture off school grounds during the day We were spat on attacked by teens and adults and called every variation of "nigger' that ever existed But for the older siblings and adults many of' whom thought the bitter race confrontations that occurred between blacks and whites in the 1970s were commonplace only in the South and in Boston what happened next was totally unexpected By the time we got underneath the overhead J Train line on Cypress Avenue it literally rained bottles Then suddenly the gang was armed with baseball bats as if they had been purposely stashed for handy access No one was hurt including my older sister who was carrying her infant son For the older members of the group the incident was reminiscent of attacks on civil rights marchers in the '50s and '60s So the death of Yusef Hawkins does nut surprise me it just shows that the race problems that I endured in the '70s that my mother endured in the '50s and that my grandmother endured before that are as strong today as ever What is horrifying in Bensonhurst is the neighborhood's cavalier acceptance of what happened despite a man's death Their actions leave a lingering threat that it can and will happen there again Yes the incident was condemned by some in the neighborhood but even some of their ' remarks have been -Chase them beat them up a bit give them a black eye" a 76yearold woman told a reporter last week "But don't kill them They're human beings" If that's the kind of treatment I can expect as a black human being I'll pass Perhaps its time the sociologists psychia trists and all the other ologists and iatrists who were quick to examine the plight of black youth following the Central Park rape make a beeline to Bensonhurst to examine these people who clearly have problems I find it strange that the Bensonhurst bandits have thus far escaped the tags of "animals" and "savages" that were thrust upon the black youths charged in the brutal Central Park attack They've escaped the labels even though the attack there was even more pro- found the woman in Central Park survived' the boy in Bensonhurst died And by the way I where is Donald Trump with his newspaper ad calling for the death penalty as he did in the wake of the Central Park attack? Isn't it amazing the money and enthusiasm we put into determining how cold a planet is billions of miles away yet continue to sweep the problems of racism under the rug Racism is a problem that's going to have to be addressed and soon The fuse that is black people's intolerance level is increasingly get ting shorter And if we're not careful we'll Soon be recovering from a tremendous explosion half-hearte- d -- full-pag- e L A Quixotic Quest? No We Can Slay the Drug Dragon Washington Post Service — As the nation prepares for yet another assault on the malignant drug problem the greatest barrier to success is not obvious It is not the Colombian drug cartel the shortage of treatment centers or the scarcity of prison cells serious as those obstacles are The biggest hurdle to overcome is the cynical belief that the problem is beyond remedy Too many Americans think that the people who are caught in the drug trap are too far gone to be saved Essentially the fear is that social problems of this dimension are insoluble that you can tinker around the edges (and waste a lot of money in the process) but you're not going to be able to do much to help people who don't want to be helped You often find the same defeatist attitude when it comes to discussions about improving the quality of schools and the performance of students aiding the homeless or for that matter improving the productivity and competitiveness of the American economy The tendency in every case is to shrug and say: That's too big a problem We just have to be patient and wait for it to cure itself There's no justification for that attitude As evidence consider the report just published by the Southern Regional Project on Infant Mortality Four years ago the Southern Governors Association and the Southern Legislative Conference formed a joint task force under then-GoRichard Riley of South Carolina to attack the region's frighteningly high rates When the project started the latest available figures for 1903 showed none of the 17 participating states was losing fewer than 10 of every' 1000 infants during their first year of life The death rate which lopped 15 in stone states was closer to Third World standards than to the advanced industrial nations of Europe Many of the deaths were the result of the mothers malnutrition causing low WASHINGTON 'It: 1 x 4 - r s ( -- 471 k: ir" It 1 Arl I t t 11 - ' ''- ' - Mi - !1— —0 — i1 le 11Fgoc 1' 1 I- - Y 3: : ) i fz - )::'st-- rI L r: 1 L i r j ''' 41: 1 -- i ! - - - 111:::::F7::-- 1 t : '4' ' : v 'ttrAki'' infant-mortalit- '! ilii-:- : 4--- l ' '''-'- ' li! : ? :it c r fot 4 6Amidbc:6064sAwos 1 The Cocaine itour I - al-- If v-'r7- A t r -: i uti c : 11 1:11 et"' ): IL Iffii4 ' rft tet t David Broder requiring hospitals to admit all women in labor Expansion of Medicaid benefits to reach more of the poor was a key element Most of the states have made good use of the recommendations But the report also slims intelligent adaptations and innovations to meet local needs South Carolina for exam: channeling pro- pie established a "high-risMedicaid-eligiblwhich screened pregject" nant women to assure that they were sent to an appropriate facility at the time of delivery The project has succeeded not only in saving lives but in reducing emergency transporta- tion and medical costs Georgia has eitablished an effective coon s trained in seling program using schools churches and community organizations to work with their contemporaries on understanding the responsibilities and problems of pregnancy The state also has trained nurses as midwives and placed them in publichealth clinics North Carolina set up a program to subsidize medical-liabilitinsurance premiums for doctors who agree to provide obstetrical and infant-carservices in rural counties where that kind of help is hard to find A West Vir— ginia University doctor developed a simple' ''birth score' system that hospitals can use to infants and see that they are identify high-risreferred for frequent doctor visits during their first year of life The list goes on with many examples of foundation business and community support for the governmental and medical services The point is that when the officials of these states identified a serious problem and made the commitment to attack it they didn't stop with a declaration id good intentions They took up e ery possible avCiltie that looke'd hopeful committed resources to the task and vviduated what works That is what the nation has to do about the drug crisis If national leaders will do that there is no reAson to throw up imr hands in despair k I birth-weigh- t e 41 babies In too many cases the teen-agparents lacked even rudimentary knowledge of how to care for their infants And in too many places care was not available or pre- - and post-nate not being used The state officials decided that the human tragedy and economic waste were intolerable and they pledged to improve the situation Flow well they have begun to do is indicated in their report "A Bold Step: The South Acts to Reduce Infant Mortality" By 1987 16 of the 17 states (Delaware being the exception) reported that they had sig- nificantly reduced their rates The death rate for the United States as infant-mortalit- y a whole declined in that four-yea- r period but nine of the Southern states achieved greater reductions than the national average Among those which started off with relatively low death rates West Virginia Kentucky Oklahoma and Texas have reduced their rates below the current national average of 10 per thousand Mississippi and South Carolina which began with the highest death rates among the 17 states made notable gains with South Carolina leading all the others in the absolute size of the reduction They did it by attacking all phases oC the -problem not trying to find a single magic bullet' cure At the outset the project staff came up with a checklist of 27 programs that plausibly could contribute to reducing the in lantdeath rate They ranged from establishing special adolescent hetilthcary clinics to teen-ager- - e k tS $ ( t k t :' ILl t ' 1P- 0 i 1 li : 41okm!e441 ra01400iikot 41445it510 Avolt441 Lesoxe40 |
