Cambodia Elections

In what they call their first postwar test in international diplomacy, Japanese officials are pushing to play the leading role in rebuilding devastated Cambodia. Far away from the Southeast Asian nation, in the heart of Tokyo's Kasumigaseki government complex, Foreign Ministry bureaucrats pore over studies, plot out aid schemes and dream of leading a nation ripped apart by genocide and war into a new century of peace and prosperity. As hundreds of thousands of Cambodian refugees prepare to head home, and U.N. "blue helmets" launch the largest peacekeeping operation in the organization's history, the Japanese say they are focusing on Cambodia's long-term reconstruction.

Hun Sen, the Communist leader whose reign was imposed by the bayonets of an invading Vietnamese army, probably will win Cambodia's first free and fair election, Prince Norodom Sihanouk told President Bush on Tuesday. Sihanouk, tapped to be head of state as part of a compromise settlement of Cambodia's complex civil war, told Bush that he is ready to name Hun Sen the prime minister of the elected regime, the same post Hun Sen now holds in the Vietnamese-installed government. Richard H.

A dispute over elections was left unresolved Thursday as the four factions in Cambodia completed four days of peace talks, dashing hopes of reaching an early settlement to their 12 years of conflict. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who chaired the negotiations, said the four parties have resolved outstanding differences over military demobilization and human rights.

The Khmer Rouge guerrilla group rejected a 12-point Vietnamese proposal for free elections in Cambodia, saying it was simply meant to preserve the Vietnamese-installed government in Phnom Penh. Hanoi's proposal, put forward in talks with the United States earlier this month, is supposed to guarantee free and fair elections as the key to ending more than 11 years of conflict in Cambodia.

The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council called for free and fair elections in Cambodia under direct U.N. administration. But their statement after talks in Paris did not address the main issue in attempts to end the conflict--the role of the Khmer Rouge in any political settlement. The five nations--the United States, Soviet Union, Britain, France and China--are expected to meet again soon.

Cambodia's Vietnamese-backed rulers, in a major move toward ending an eight-year-old political deadlock, proposed free elections for a coalition government that would include opposition leader Prince Norodom Sihanouk. The coalition also would include some members of the armed resistance but not the Khmer Rouge, which was responsible for a bloody repression in Cambodia before it was ousted in 1979 by the Vietnamese.