U.N. Rescue Helicopter Fired on in Cambodia

SINGAPORE —  A U.N. helicopter--sent to seek six unarmed peacekeepers detained by Khmer Rouge forces in Cambodia--was fired on, with one French officer aboard suffering a back wound, officials said Wednesday. The incident was part of escalating tensions that threaten an accord on ending Cambodia’s 13-year civil war.

Khmer Rouge fighters captured the six U.N. peacekeeping soldiers in Cambodia only 48 hours after the United Nations imposed sanctions against the group.

A U.N. spokesman said the Khmer Rouge seized the six soldiers in Kompong Thom province because they believed the men were spying for the Phnom Penh government.

They are reportedly being held at a Khmer Rouge base camp in the province.

The six were identified as three Britons, two Filipinos and a New Zealand soldier attached to the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia. The spokesman said the six had been in contact with U.N. headquarters by radio and are safe.

The spokesman said that the United Nations had asked the Khmer Rouge headquarters in Pailin to order the men’s release but that the Khmer Rouge command responded by saying the decision must be made by a local commander. Negotiations were reportedly under way to obtain the men’s release.

A French colonel, identified by the Paris Defense Ministry as Thierry Monet, 39, who is chief of operations for the U.N. force in Cambodia, was shot and wounded Wednesday while flying in a helicopter to Kompong Thom province to assist in negotiations for the men’s release. Officials said Monet’s helicopter was hit by several bullets. He was flown to a U.N. hospital in Phnom Penh, where he was reported in good condition.

His wounding and the seizure of the soldiers followed an incident Wednesday morning in which five U.N. peacekeepers were injured in northwestern Siem Reap province, which adjoins Kompong Thom, when their vehicles hit a land mine. The five, two Tunisians and three Indonesians, are members of the U.N. authority’s civilian police component.

The seizure of the six soldiers posed the most serious threat to the U.N. operation since a peace agreement was signed last October. The United Nations has 22,000 personnel in the country who could become easy targets if the Khmer Rouge seeks a test of strength with the world body.

The Kompong Thom region is controlled by a veteran Khmer Rouge commander who uses the nom de guerre Ta Mok, a one-legged confidant of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot who has a reputation for extreme brutality.

The six men were arrested as they floated down a river in a dinghy in an effort to police the cease-fire. They reportedly passed several Khmer Rouge checkpoints before being placed under arrest at gunpoint.

The Khmer Rouge guerrillas, who were responsible for the deaths of more than 1 million Cambodians in the 1970s, were infuriated by the decision of the U.N. Security Council to impose trade sanctions against them. The council banned imports of petroleum into Khmer Rouge-held areas and exports of felled timber.

The measures were adopted following the failure of the Khmer Rouge to fulfill the second stage of the international peace agreement on Cambodia, which called on the country’s four military factions to send their troops to special camps and demobilize 70% of those forces.