'Kampucheans deserve better’

Press, 3 February 1982, Page 8

'Kampucheans deserve better’

NZPA-Reuter Manila The people of Kampuchea deserve a better choice than between Vietnamese occupation or a return of the Khmer Rouge overthrown three years ago, the British Foreign Secretary, (Lord Carrington) said yesterday. He said that Britain still hoped that efforts towards a coalition of resistance forces there would be a success, he told a dinner given by the Philippine Foreign Minister (Mr Carlos Romulo). British officials said that during their talks earlier the two men agreed to pursue the idea of a loose coalition recently rejected by the Khmer Rouge, who were ousted from Phnom Penh after a Vietnamese invasion in December, 1978. The officials said there was “a broad measure of agreement to explore Khmer Rouge thinking further” on the coalition, which they said would have considerable value if it were created on “the proper terms.” If not, the two sides agreed

that a continuation of the present situation would not be intolerable, the officials said. Lord Carrington, who is on the second stop of a tour of the five-member Association of South-East Asian Nations, said: “We continue to hope that A.'S.E.A.N.’s efforts to promote a coalition of the resistance groups will be crowned with success.” “The Cambodian people deserve better than to face a choice between a Vietnamese occupation and a return to the Khmer Rouge, however improbable the latter may be,” he said. “There can be no real propsect of change for the better while the Vietnamese Army remains in Cambodia,” he said. Britain gave steadfast support to A.S.E.A.N.’s aims of a withdrawal of the 200,000 Vietnamese soldiers in Kampuchea and “an opportunity for the Cambodian people to determine their own future, free from outside pressures of whatever kind,” he said.