Dear Sir,

T hailand deserves an international award for peace for opposing

a protracted war in Cambodia. The recent appeal of the Royal Government for

military assistance must be rejected. It is the case that American, Australian,

French, ASEAN or any other outside support to the Royal Government will only

serve to weaken the Maoist Khmer Rouge guerrillas. It will prolong the threat to

the multimillion dollar gem, timber and other flourishing economic partnerships

between the Khmer Rouge and the Thai business-military complex. The

international community must instead put pressure on the Royal Government to

settle its conflict with the KR in a non-violent way. We must recall between

1979-1992, to the disgrace of the established government in Phnom Penh, the KR

or Democratic Kampuchea occupied the seat for Cambodia in the United Nations

Assembly. Thailand stood as one pristinely dignified party to that international

ingenuity at granting honor to the kindly and humane authors of the famous

killing fields, namely, the Khmer Rouge. For Thailand, the millions of

Cambodians that the Khmer Rouge has either killed, cause to routinely die in

sickness and hunger for sheer widespread lack of food or health services whilst

on forced labor, or simply disappeared during the 1975-1978 Democratic Kampuchea

years, were necessary crumbs towards peace in Cambodia. It was consistent with

the strong tradition of the Thais, as above, namely, peaceful and non-violent

resolutions of conflict. Why, to emphasize the integrity of that tradition, the

Thai military would even go as far as serially killing its own people,

particularly the students and youth, between September 1973 and May 1992 since

they, these some misguided Thais that marched for democracy, were truly anathema

to the peace and quiet of Thailand. Thailand also reminds the international

community to adhere to the Paris Peace Agreements of October 1991 affecting the

settlement of the war in Cambodia> In other words, Thailand, in its really

unique vigilance to end the war in Cambodia wants the world to understand that,

among others, one, the peace agreements provided that the KR maintain, as they

did and still does, their army, two, the KR merits heaps upon heaps of praise

since they threatened to attack the proceedings of the United Nation's organized

elections during May 1993 that chose and installed the present coalition

government in Phnom Penh, which elections the KR boycotted. That duly elected

government in Phnom Penh now, according to Thailand, the world must, please,

deprive of deterrent capacities against, Thailand says, the internationally

unsupported, peace-loving, non-violent and peace-seeking KR. Is it too much to

ask the world, the Thais are appealing, to leave Cambodia alone so that the KR

are able to soon solely govern and preside once more upon sure dread and terror

and shame and death to our Cambodian people? Thailand, the true advocate of

peace?

- Adnarim Sarrin, Phnom Penh