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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (174
notes).

Note 170 by UMNS on June 20, 1997 at 15:47 Eastern (3705 characters).

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT: Linda Bloom                           358(10-21-71B){170}
          New York (212) 870-3803                    June 20, 1997

Pol Pot factor puts Cambodians
on edge, relief worker says

     NEW YORK (UMNS) -- The re-emergence of Pol Pot as a factor in
the political process in Cambodia has promoted a feeling of panic,
according to a relief worker who has just left that country.
     "Everyone, including our own staff, is on edge," said Mieke
Weeda, who has worked in Cambodia for Church World Service (CWS),
the National Council of Churches' aid agency, since March, 1993.
She spoke at a June 19 CWS-sponsored briefing here.
     At a time when political rivalry has prompted the worst
street fighting in the capital of Phnom Penh since 1979, according
to the New York Times, continuing rumors of Pol Pot's capture or
surrender have added to the uncertainty.
     Whatever the outcome, according to Weeda, the fact that his
Khmer Rouge movement is falling apart "already has a big impact on
Cambodia."
     In 1975, Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge, described as a radical
Maoist movement, in the overthrow of the Cambodian government.
During his four years as prime minister, an estimated 2 million
Cambodians were executed or died from imprisonment, torture,
starvation or overwork.
     Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were driven into the jungle after
Vietnam invaded in 1979, but have remained at large. Despite a
1991 peace treaty, the group has continued to be a factor in the
political situation there.
     CWS and it's ecumenical partners -- including the United
Methodist Committee on Relief -- have worked to help Cambodians
rebuild their country since 1979. When the horror of Cambodia's
"killing fields" became public, United Methodists donated more
than $5 million to relief efforts, one of their largest emergency
appeals at the time.
     The nature of the ecumenical response has changed through the
years from emergency relief to rehabilitation and community
organization, according to Weeda, who was loaned to CWS by Dutch
Interchurch Aid.
     Since 1992, for example, the agency and other organizations
have worked with the internally displaced -- Cambodians who were
victims of the ongoing fight between the Khmer Rouge and the
government.
     Church World Service has taken the lead, Weeda said, in a
longer-term resettlement process in Kompong Thom, an isolated
province where people initially were afraid to venture because of
the Khmer Rouge threat. "We also had to look at the surrounding
villages, where people were just as poor," she added. Today, the
project covers 34 villages and 2 districts.
     But reintegration of a society nearly destroyed by genocide
is far from complete. "My own common sense says this will take
several generations to heal," said Weeda, who observed that
Cambodians seem to want just to forget the past rather than deal
with its impact. "Basically, at this moment, reconciliation means
.. let's not talk about it."

     The Rev. Lonnie Turnipseed, a United Methodist who had
directed Church World Service work in Cambodia before his
retirement from that agency, noted that "many of us in this
country don't fully appreciate the depth of this kind of trauma to
a people."
     He called the current apparent attempt by one of Cambodia's
co-prime ministers to bring the Khmer Rouge back into the
political mix a "dangerous situation."
     "It overlooks the genocide and all the cruelties they
perpetuated," he explained.
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