Edition of  Washington Post-25 nov.2008

"Pol Pot & Co.: The Thai Connection -

A Special Report; In Big Threat to Cambodia,

Thais Still Aid Khmer Rouge"

Not far from here, less than a mile east across the border into Cambodia along a well-maintained dirt road, is a compound of spacious wooden homes and storehouses built by Thai contractors for a demanding client.

Foreign diplomats and United Nations peacekeepers say the client was Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, the Maoist-inspired guerrillas responsible for the deaths of more than one million Cambodians in the 1970's.

Khmer Rouge defectors say that one of the largest houses -- one set on a scrub-covered hillside, with a small garden and a panoramic view back across the border into Thailand -- served as Pol Pot's own home during visits to the compound earlier this year. His wife and 5-year-old daughter were reported to be occasional guests.

Nearby is another large, airy wooden house. The defectors say that house served as the offices of several members of the Royal Thai Army's Task Force 838, a squadron that worked secretly among the Khmer Rouge and served as the rebels' liaison to the Thai military. Evidence of Ties

The discovery of the Thai-built rebel compound in the village of Phnom Prak, which was still under construction when it was overrun by the Cambodian Army late this summer, is only part of the evidence of continued close ties between Thailand -- through elements of its military, its police and its business community -- and the guerrillas of the Khmer Rouge.

The relationship between the Thais and the Khmer Rouge dates from Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia in 1978 and is built upon a mutually lucrative cross-border trade in lumber and gems and a mutual fear of neighboring Vietnam. It is of grave concern to diplomats in Cambodia and to Cambodia's new Government.

Interviews with dozens of diplomats, United Nations peacekeepers and Cambodian and Thai officials, as well as a review of classified reports from the United Nations and foreign embassies, show that the relationship can now be documented to a degree not possible before and that it continues to threaten Cambodia's future.

The fears about the extent of the relationship grew this month with the discovery of a huge cache of Chinese-made weapons stored in Thai Army warehouses near the Cambodian border close to a Khmer Rouge stronghold. The discovery has revived suspicions that the Thai military may still be supplying arms to the rebels.

"We're very worried about the Thais," said Prince Norodom Sirivudh, Cambodia's new Foreign Minister, who in recent weeks has accused Thailand of "scandalous" behavior. War Continues

Despite a $2 billion United Nations peacekeeping operation that resulted last May in the most free and fair elections ever held in Cambodia, the civil war in that shattered nation is still not over. The threat from the Khmer Rouge has not disappeared.

And diplomats and United Nations peacekeepers warn that Thailand could again serve as a staging area and weapons supply route for the Khmer Rouge if the rebels decide to step up the war. Sporadic fighting has been reported in the last week.

"The Thais would have you believe that their relationship with the D.K. is over, but obviously it's not," said a Western diplomat stationed in Cambodia, using the initials for Democratic Kampuchea, the formal name of the Khmer Rouge. "The Thais remain the lifeline for the Khmer Rouge. And the victims are the Cambodian people. Unless the Thais shut them off, the Khmer Rouge could be around forever." The History For the Thais, A Handy Buffer

Diplomats and United Nations officials credit the year-old Government of Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai of Thailand and his army commander, Gen. Wimol Wongwanich, with an effort at least to distance Thailand from the Khmer Rouge.

"The Prime Minister states clearly what the policy is -- no interference in the internal affairs of Cambodia -- and he expects the military and other Government agencies to carry out that order," said Aphisit Vejjajiva, the Thai Government spokesman. General Wimol said flatly this month: "We do not support the Khmer Rouge. It is not the policy of the Government and the army."

But Thailand's armed forces, which have a long history of independence from civilian control, are factionalized, and a number of Thai military and police commanders along the border are known to ignore orders from Bangkok when they see the chance to cash in on a cross-border trade worth tens of millions of dollars a year.

For years, the relationship between the Thais and the guerrillas along the border was the stuff of rumor and sometimes wild speculation. Many people suspected what was going on, but few had the evidence to prove it, since border areas were routinely closed to foreigners by the Thai armed forces.

But that changed in 1991 when a United Nations peacekeeping force arrived in Cambodia and sent soldiers and civilian workers to the border. Reports from the Border

They gathered what they say are the first reliable reports of what had been suspected for so long -- of Thai soldiers providing transportation, medical care and other support for the rebels, sometimes during battle; of Thai loggers and gem merchants at work in Khmer Rouge-held territory in multimillion-dollar business ventures in violation of international sanctions against the guerrillas.

The Thais maintained their contacts with the Khmer Rouge even as the rebels' principal patron, China, was cutting them off in support of the United Nations peacekeeping process. The United Nations frequently praised China for its cooperation in isolating the guerrillas.

Although the Khmer Rouge have been weakened by recent defections, the rebels continue to control nearly one-fifth of the Cambodian countryside, a vast stock of weapons and an army of an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 troops.

In Asian financial circles, it is widely reported that the Khmer Rouge have deposited millions of dollars in Thai banks -- more than enough, it is thought, for the rebels to continue the fight indefinitely. Few Believe Promises

While the Khmer Rouge have suggested that they are willing to hand over their weapons and territory in exchange for a place in Cambodia's new Government, few diplomats believe that they would live up to such an agreement. Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Cambodia's First Prime Minister, scheduled, and then canceled, peace talks with the rebels this month.

"You may see peace talks and some sort of temporary cease-fire, but it won't last," a senior United Nations official said. "The guessing is that the Khmer Rouge want to hold on to most of their weapons and territory and wait out the new Government, hoping that it will collapse from corruption or squabbling."

The involvement of the Khmer Rouge in mass killings in the 1970's, when they massacred intellectuals, Buddhist monks and anyone else who dared question the authority of Pol Pot's black-uniformed henchmen, has always been a secondary concern to Thai military leaders. The rebels were instead seen by the Thais as a useful buffer between their nation and Vietnam, Thailand's traditional adversary.

Thai military commanders say their close, indeed friendly, ties to the Khmer Rouge had at least the tacit approval of the United States and other outside nations that sought the ouster of the Cambodian Government installed by Vietnam. Military Supplies

In the 1980's, the United States used the Thai Army to funnel military assistance to two non-Communist rebel groups that were allied with the Khmer Rouge. Washington also helped support more than 350,000 Cambodian refugees, some of them Khmer Rouge soldiers and their families, who crowded into Thai refugee camps.

"You encouraged us to establish these close contacts with the rebels, and we cannot end these relationships just overnight," a senior Thai official said. "We need time."

The civil war came to an end, if only on paper, in the 1991 peace treaty, brokered by the United Nations, that was signed by the Khmer Rouge, the other rebel factions, and the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian Government. The United Nations sent a 22,000-member peacekeeping force, the largest in its history.

The peacekeeping operation is now shutting down, having succeeded in its most important goal, the elections last May. The voting produced a coalition Government made up of all of the factions except the Khmer Rouge, which boycotted the election after dropping out of the peace process.

Only about 500 United Nations peacekeepers now remain in Cambodia, and the departure of the last members of the peacekeeping force means that almost no one is left to monitor what goes on along the border. The Recent Past Solid Evidence Of Thai Support

Spokesmen for the Royal Thai Army readily acknowledge that they remain in contact with the Khmer Rouge -- a prudent move, they say, given the territory that the rebels control close to Thailand.

But the Thais insist that the assistance that they provide to the Khmer Rouge today is strictly humanitarian, no different from the help they provided to all of the other Cambodian factions during the United Nations peacekeeping operation.

"There is no use for the Royal Thai Army to have a special relationship with the Khmer Rouge, because this is not only against the direction from our political masters, not only against the will of the Thai people, but also against the will of the international community," said Gen. Tawal Sawaengphan, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Thai Army. "We would like to see peace taking place in Cambodia."

"There are incidents, there are situations, that may create some kind of misleading conclusions or confusion that tend to point at the Royal Thai Army as supporting the Khmer Rouge," he said in an interview in the army's headquarters in Bangkok. "But actually we are not doing that." Reports from Witnesses

Diplomats and United Nations officials are not so sure. They say they have highly reliable reports from witnesses along the Thai-Cambodian border that the Thai military arranged for army trucks to transport Khmer Rouge soldiers, some of them armed, along the border during fighting in late August. The Thai military has denied the accusations.

Diplomats in Bangkok and Phnom Penh say there is also solid evidence to show that Thai troops provided support, including food, medical supplies and fuel, to Khmer Rouge soldiers last June after the guerrillas captured a historic 12th-century temple close to the border in the Cambodian province of Preah Vihear. (The Thai military has denied that it offered military support to the rebels at the temple.)

In the best-documented and most telling example of cooperation between the Thais and the Khmer Rouge, the United Nations charged that Thai soldiers simply looked on as 21 peacekeepers were held hostage by a Khmer Rouge squadron last August on Thai soil near the Cambodian border.

Photographs taken by an Australian soldier who was among the captured peacekeepers show the Thai and Khmer Rouge commanders standing on Thai territory just beyond a Thai border checkpoint -- the writing on the wooden checkpoint is in Thai -- and chatting amiably. A Thai Presence

The peacekeepers were freed after the Thai commander played host at a banquet for his Khmer Rouge counterparts. Khmer Rouge soldiers who were wounded during the struggle with the United Nations peacekeepers were taken to a Thai hospital by a Thai ambulance.

"It was clear that the Thais and the Khmer Rouge were simply the best of friends," a senior United Nations official said. "We were shocked by how cordial the relationship is."

The Thai Foreign Ministry said in a statement at the time that the United Nations had misrepresented the episode at the checkpoint and that the attack on the peacekeepers and their capture took place just inside Cambodia -- not in Thailand. "This is not the first time that such irresponsible press statements have been issued" by the United Nations, the Foreign Ministry said.

In its public statements, Cambodia's new Government has become remarkably blunt in attacking Thailand's dealings with the Khmer Rouge.

Prince Sirivudh, the new Foreign Minister, said in an interview this fall:

"Thailand continues to support the Khmer Rouge. The Thais have not changed their attitudes at all. Thailand's activities are not just an insult to Cambodia, they are a scandal." The Problem Remains

Asked more recently whether moves by the Thai Government to distance itself from the Khmer Rouge had ended his fears, Prince Sirivudh replied, "Some of the words are better, but the Thais must fix this problem."

Cambodia's military leaders have made more detailed allegations against the Thais, charging that the Thai Army supplied the Khmer Rouge with tanks and heavy artillery for battles in October near the town of Anlong Veng, a Khmer Rouge stronghold in northern Cambodia.

While Western diplomats doubt the allegations involving Anlong Veng, many were astounded by the discovery this month of the vast arms cache in 12 warehouses along the Thai-Cambodian border. The arsenal, uncovered in a raid by the Thai national police, included several large artillery pieces, dozens of antitank rockets and millions of rounds of ammunition. The Thai police estimated the cache at 1,500 tons.

After the raid, police commanders initially suggested that the stockpile belonged to the Khmer Rouge, But Thai military commanders, who are often at odds with their police counterparts, later announced that the army owned the warehouses. The military's statement raised as many questions as it answered since the warehouses were being guarded by several Cambodians. The Present Complex Ties Are Hard to Cut

Even after they try to sabotage the United Nations peacekeeping efforts, the leaders of the Khmer Rouge continue to be treated as dignitaries by the Thais.

The rebels' titular leader and public spokesman, Khieu Samphan, travels freely across the border from Cambodia, usually with Thai military escorts, and frequently makes use of the international airport in Bangkok, the Thai capital.

Although Pol Pot is now reported by intelligence officials to divide his time among camps in western Cambodia, the 65-year-old rebel leader is believed to enjoy an open invitation to visit Thailand, where he lived for several years after he fled from the invading Vietnamese Army in 1979.

The Thais provided him with a compound, known by the Khmer Rouge as Camp 87, near the eastern Thai border town of Trat.

United Nations peacekeepers and diplomats say that the Khmer Rouge and the Thais have built up such a close and mutually beneficial relationship over the years -- the Khmer Rouge gets logistical support from Thailand, and the Thais get lumber, gems and money from the Khmer Rouge -- that it may be impossible to sever the ties completely. Sold Lumber and Gems

Money appears to be no problem for the Khmer Rouge. Diplomats stationed in Bangkok and Phnom Penh say it is widely believed that Thai banks hold tens of millions of dollars for the Khmer Rouge, most of it obtained from selling concessions to Thai lumber barons and gem traders, and that Thai bankers act as a go-between for the rebels' accounts in Switzerland and the Caribbean.

A classified 1992 report prepared by Thai intelligence estimated that the Khmer Rouge could earn more than $1 billion from concessions already granted to Thai logging companies.

With the United Nations peacekeeping operation all but over, traders along the border say that Thai businessmen are moving quickly to resume the enormous cross-border trade in gems and lumber from areas under the control of the Khmer Rouge.

Some Thai military commanders have earned fortunes by demanding kickbacks -- known along the border as "taxes" -- on shipments of lumber and gems. Traders along the border say that as recently as last year, loggers had to pay officers of Task Force 838, the unit that served as a liaison with the Khmer Rouge and other rebel groups, $1.50 for every cubic meter of timber brought across the border from guerrilla-held areas of Cambodia.

Rapacious logging by Thai companies has turned once lush stretches of western Cambodia into a "moonscape," said a United Nations official who has seen recent aerial surveillance pictures of the Khmer Rouge territory.

A United Nations report last May said the Thai military maintained a "Mafia-like control" on the border and suggested that some Thai soldiers and border-control officers were involved in the smuggling of cars stolen in Thailand. The border has been a gold mine for them," the report said.