Sihanouk ‘may be key to peace’

Press, 13 August 1979, Page 13

Sihanouk ‘may be key to peace’

The exiled Kampuchean leader. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, may hold the key to future peace in SouthEast Asia, the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) has Said. He said that the former leader still held widespread support in Kampuchea as well as in the Third World and the Vietnamese could break out of their isolation if they made a deal with him. Mr Muldoon’s comments were in a paper on Asia circulated to other heads of Government in Lusaka and included in the official Commonwealth summit meeting record. He said the Vietnamese had been isolated since their invasion of Kampuchea in January and that the non-aligned nations, which will meet in Havana later this year, were not willing to accept the present Vietnamese-

backed leader in Kampuchea. Heng Samrin, as a genuine representative of the people of Kampuchea. The best chance of the Vietnamese to break out of their isolation, he said, may lie in making a deal with Prince Sihanouk. “The Havana meeting will belooking for ways of re-establishing Kampuchea’s non-alignment,” he said. Mr Muldoon added that the underlying cause of the Vietnamese refugee crisis was the continuing conflict in South-East Asia. Vietnam must accept that it could not hold Kampuchea by force, he said, the best way of obtaining Vietnam’s co-oper-ation was by the dual approach of public pressure and seeking consciously to secure Vietnam’s co-oper-ation.