Khmer Rouge Seeks Role In Government

KHMER Rouge guerrillas are prepared to abandon their decades-old effort to seize control of Cambodia if they are given an advisory role in the newly elected government, their leader said July 13.

Khieu Samphan said Cambodian leaders told him interim head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk was prepared to offer the Khmer Rouge a ministerial post in the new government.

The Khmer Rouge, blamed for the deaths of at least 1 million Cambodians during its rule in the mid-1970s, signed a 1991 peace accord to end their 13-year war with the Vietnamese-installed government. The guerrilla group boycotted United Nations-organized elections, claiming they were rigged to favor the government.

When the party led by Prince Sihanouk's son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, won the poll, the guerrilla group did an about-face, approving the election results and making overtures to be included in the new government.

The United States has vowed to withhold aid if the group is given a post in the administration. Tokyo prepares for `big one'

Watching televised scenes of wreckage from a devastating earthquake 500 miles to the north, Tokyo residents expressed their worries about "daijishin" - a great earthquake. In the world's most quake-prone nation, all are concerned about "the big one."

The July 12 quake off the island of Hokkaido, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, spawned tidal waves, sparked fires, and wiped out whole neighborhoods in coastal communities. Dozens of people were killed and more than 100 missing.

The quake, Japan's strongest in nearly a generation, was not felt in Tokyo. But officials and residents alike know a comparable quake centered near this city of 12 million people would dwarf the damage caused by the northern temblor.

The Japanese archipelago is in the world's most active seismic zone, a meeting place of four tectonic plates. The country experiences more than 1,000 quakes a year.