Editorials
Wednesday, April 1, 1998THE United Nations' attempt to bring peace and democracy to war-ravaged Cambodia was undone last year by a coup executed by a pro-Hanoi faction. The coup ousted one of the nation's two co-premiers, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, and left his rival, Hun Sen, in full control. Return of an exiled
leader to CambodiaRanariddh had led the winning party in the 1993 elections, held under United Nations sponsorship. Despite previous assurances, the Khmer Rouge rebels boycotted the elections and continued armed resistance.
Hun Sen, whose forces were left in control of Phnom Penh when the Vietnamese Communists withdrew their occupying army, demanded a share of power as the price for accepting the election results. That was the reason for the awkward and unworkable solution of two premiers, which ended with the coup last July.
Ranariddh had called Hun Sen a dictator and blamed his party for drug trafficking, corruption and assassinations. After the coup, fighting erupted. Ranariddh fled into exile.
Last month Ranariddh was found guilty in absentia of arms smuggling and plotting a coup and was sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment. He was also ordered to pay more than $50 million in damages.
Under a peace pact brokered by Japan, the ousted leader was permitted to return this week for the first time since the coup. The peace plan is aimed at ensuring that the prince can take part in elections scheduled for July.
As part of the Japanese plan, Ranariddh was pardoned by his father, King Norodom Sihanouk, with Hun Sen's approval. Ranariddh is insisting that two of his generals also be pardoned, but Hun Sen is balking at that.
Sihanouk said in a statement from Beijing that the way forward could be for Ranariddh's forces to give up their strongholds and rejoin the government army -- as the Japanese plan stipulates. But Ranariddh is holding out for his generals' pardons.
Despite the remaining difficulties, the peace plan offers Cambodia hope for the restoration of democratic government and a measure of stability. But Hun Sen's good faith remains in doubt. Washington should support efforts to ensure that the election is honest and the opposition's rights are respected.
MUCH scientific progress has been made in the 75 years since the U.S. Supreme Court refused to admit into evidence results of a blood-pressure test to measure a defendant's truthfulness. Although modern polygraphic tests measure a combination of blood pressure, respiration, heartbeat and skin temperature, the court has ruled it still is not reliable enough to earn its stamp of approval. But continuing the polygraph ban is desirable for reasons beyond that of unreliability. Lie-detector tests
The ban was challenged by a California airman who wanted to tell a court-martial jury that he passed a lie-detector test. The test indicated he answered truthfully when he denied taking drugs, although a urine test, which was admitted, was positive for methamphetamine.
The argument by the airman's attorney that polygraph tests are as reliable as evidence presently admissible is understandable. Studies have shown that handwriting analysis, eyewitness identification testimony, even fingerprint identification, are less than 100 percent reliable. If the polygraph was so unreliable, the attorney asked, why did the military conduct nearly 35,000 lie-detector tests in 1992?
However, unlike other potential trial evidence, lie-detector test results would come to be expected by juries if they were allowed. Jurors may wonder why the defense in a case chose not to present such results if the defendant were innocent.
The prosecution would benefit unfairly in other ways from the admissibility of lie-detector tests. For example, prosecutors could have their own witnesses polygraphed in hopes of bolstering their credibility. As in other areas, the ability to produce more information in a case makes the prosecution's burden of proof easier to achieve.
The Supreme Court decision came short of banning the admissibility of lie-detector tests, but it ruled that a ban on such tests does not violate a defendant's constitutional rights. Although not prohibited in Hawaii by statute, lie-detector test results have been rejected by the state's courts on the basis of unreliability, a policy that should continue.
AFTER weeks of battling in court and on the ocean off the Kona coast of the Big Island over Navy tests of the effects of sound transmissions on whales, both the Navy and its opponents are claiming victory. The Navy said the experiment was successful despite the loss of some experiments as the result of protesters jumping into the water. The opponents said they are pleased because they made the public more aware of the need to protect the whales. Battle over whales
The point of the experiment was to determine whether whales would be harmed by sonar transmissions to detect submarines. The protesters maintained that the experiment itself would harm the whales. Their attempts to obtain a court order to stop the tests failed, but they succeeded in disrupting the operation by direct action -- not enough, however, to spoil it.
Kurt Fristrup, a biologist working on the tests, said the humpback whales showed no overt reaction to the transmissions, but that doesn't mean there was no reaction. Scientists will now analyze the data before drawing conclusions.
Both the researchers and their opponents seemed to want to protect the whales but couldn't agree on how to do it. Analysis of the test data may settle the argument.
Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
