The New York Times

Thursday, April 09, 1998

US Is Planning A Move to Seize Pol Pot for Trial

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Thais Said to Be Ready to Help Capture Him

By Philip Shenon and Eric Schmitt

WASHINGTON, April 8 - President Clinton has ordered the Departments of Defense, State and Justice to devise plans for the arrest a trial of Pol Pot, the shadowy Khmer Rouge leader responsible for the death of perhaps a million Cambodians in the 1970's.

Clinton Administration officials and Western diplomats said that the Khmer Rouge appeared to be near collapse as a result of mass defections and internal fighting. Pal Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders are said to be in hiding in the Cambodian

jungle only a few miles across the border with Thailand.

The Thai Government, diplomats said, has suggested it would be willing to take Pol Pot into custody as long as the United States agreed to spirit him out of Thailand within hours of his capture.

Senior American military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that intelligence reports from Southeast Asia showed that the Thai military had actually taken Pol Pot into custody late last week but then freed him.

The Thai military, the officials said, may have feared that his capture would antagonize China long an ally of the Khmer Rouge, and would complicate the foreign policy of Thailand's recently installed Government, which is already struggling with an economic crisis.

Spokesmen at the Thai Embassy in Washington had no comment. Other American officials described the intelligence reports as sketchy and said it would be unfair to criticize the Thai military on the basis of such fragmentary evidence.

While Administration officials cautioned that there was no guarantee that the ailing Khmer Rouge leader would be apprehended, they said that recent developments along the border were so significant that President Clinton issue a written order Monday to organized logistics for Pol Pot's capture and trial.

Under one plan being discussed within the Administration, an American military plane would take Pol Pot from Thailand to a third country, possibly the Netherlands, were international tribunals are prosecuting war crimes carried out in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

A military official said the Pentagon had drawn up a list of interim sites where Pol Pot might be held until a location for the trial was selected. These include the Northern Marianas Islands and Wake Island - both territories in the Pacific - or the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"We've had many false alarms before with the Khmer Rouge, but this may be our best chance to get Pol Pot," said a Clinton Administration official who is involved in the planning. "We're not going to be caught unprepared if he's made available to us."

American official said that "if we don't get Pol Pot this time, he may die before we ever have the chance to bring him to justice." The official said that despite the reports of Pol Pot's capture- and release by Thai soldiers last week, the Thai Government "is being cooperative, and their cooperation will be essential, if we're to pull this off."

Under, President Clinton's order, officials said, the State Department has been directed to oversee negotiations with Thailand, the Netherlands and other nations that might be involved in the apprehension and trial. The Justice Department has beep asked to review the legal authority that would be needed under international law for the United States to become involved in the detention of Pol Pot.

Western diplomatic said prosecutors at the international tribunals in The Hague had already tentatively agreed to organize a trial for Pol Pot for crimes against humanity, as long as the United Nations Security Council empower them to oversee the prosecution. The diplomats said the United States, France and other nations had already begun drafting a Security Council resolution to deal with such a trial.

From 1975 to 1979, Pol Pot, who is now in his 70's and in poor health, turned Cambodia, into a vast labor camp. Millions of Cambodians, especially city-dwellers, were driven from their homes and forced to work in the fields under

primitive conditions. Pol Pot labeled anyone with money or education an enemy of the revolution, and much of the middle class was killed during his four-year reign of terror or starved to death.

The Khmer Rouge were toppled by a Vietnamese invasion in 1979. They resumed their guerrilla struggle in the jungle, where their have remained for two decades. They have armed and fed themselves with the proceeds of the sale of gems and timber harvested in areas of Cambodia under their control.

The movement began to fall apart last year, when the followers of Pol Pot turned against him, apparently over his decision to order the assassination of the Khmer Rouge defense chief Soa Sen, and 14 relatives, including his grandchildren.

After the killings, Pol Pot's former comrades tried him- and sentenced him to house arrest. He is reported to be under the control of his former top military commander, Ta Mok.

In interviews last year with an American reporter who observed portions of the trial, Pol Pot said that "My conscience is clear."

"I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people" he explained. He insisted that estimates that mill had died during the Khmer Rouge reign were overstated. "To say that millions died is too much," he said.