Cambodians Get Ready for Return of ‘Savior’ : Peace pact: Sihanouk is due Thursday. Many people were children when he was ousted in 1970.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia —  Wa Thong, a 28-year-old shopkeeper in central Phnom Penh, was a child when Prince Norodom Sihanouk was overthrown. But his father remembers Sihanouk fondly as Cambodia’s “God King,” so Wa Thong is looking forward to a prosperous life under a new Sihanouk reign.

“Sihanouk is good for business, Sihanouk is good for tourists, Sihanouk is good for peace,” he said, standing at a counter filled with beer and whiskey for sale to the foreigners now thronging Cambodia’s capital.

Wa Thong’s optimism reflects the generally upbeat mood in Cambodia as the nation prepares to welcome Sihanouk home Thursday after an absence of a dozen years. Under a peace agreement signed in Paris last month, Sihanouk will head a four-party coalition government until the United Nations can arrange and supervise free elections in 1993.

Government officials said that an estimated 160,000 people, nearly a third of the population of Phnom Penh, are expected to turn out to welcome Sihanouk, though many of the people were children when Sihanouk was overthrown in 1970 by a U.S.-backed coup led by Defense Minister Lon Nol. Sihanouk returned to Phnom Penh under the Khmer Rouge Communists in the late 1970s, but he was held under virtual house arrest until the Vietnamese invaded the country in late 1978.

Workers, ironically many of them ethnic Vietnamese craftsmen, are working round the clock to restore Sihanouk’s Khemarin Palace, which was blighted by years of neglect and covered in black mildew.

The enormous palace complex, near the banks of the rain-swollen Mekong River, was given a fresh coat of beige paint with white trim. A Cambodian architect who lives in France, Supin Pon, is supervising the reconstruction of the private quarters for Sihanouk, who has a well-deserved reputation for high living.

Furniture for the palace has been imported from France and China, while chandeliers from Thailand have just arrived. It is a painful contrast to the way many poor Cambodians live, without money for food or medicine.

A U.N. official complained to the press Friday that he had witnessed Cambodians dying of tuberculosis because there were no drugs to treat them, while some foreign governments were giving assistance to rehabilitate the palace complex or businesses with commercial potential.

Carpenters have erected a small pavilion with the traditional Cambodian peaked roof along the banks of the Mekong for Sihanouk to preside over boat races marking the end of the annual monsoon season Nov. 21.

Sihanouk will also preside at the first meeting in Cambodia of the coalition government known as the Supreme National Council, which includes six representatives from the Phnom Penh government and two members from each of the three guerrilla factions that fought a 12-year civil war against the Vietnamese-backed government.

Government officials said they are still unclear when members of the guerrilla groups would arrive in Phnom Penh. The two Khmer Rouge representatives are said to be concerned about their safety after so much bitterness. More than 1 million Cambodians died during the Khmer Rouge rule from 1975 until its ouster by Vietnamese troops in early 1979.

A land mine exploded Saturday outside the French Embassy, causing a 21-year-old Cambodian woman to lose a leg, according to relief workers. The origin of the mine was unclear. The French only recently took back the building and no diplomats are there.

In recent weeks, the Phnom Penh government has relaxed security controls in the city, including the lifting of a nighttime curfew. There have been only sporadic acts of violence reported, mostly involving robberies.

“The people are very much against the Khmer Rouge; we hate them,” said Sok Kam, a 20-year-old motorcycle taxi driver. “We are for Sihanouk because he will bring peace.”

Evidence of the renewed confidence in the country is everywhere, from the number of new cars now crowding the once deserted streets of the capital to the rehabilitation of once decrepit hotels. Although until recently they were virtually clear of foreigners except for Soviet workers, the streets of Phnom Penh are filled with foreign tourists from places like Switzerland and Japan.

“When I was a businessman under Sihanouk, I had three cars and five houses,” said one merchant in Phnom Penh’s gold market. “Now I have only one house. I hope things will get better again.”

One Western diplomat said, “They think Sihanouk is some kind of savior, that when he comes back they will be able to send their kids to school and there will be other major economic changes. It’s a bit naive.”

Khieu Kanarith, a political commentator who was editor of the Communist Party newspaper until he was ousted by hard-liners last year, said there is some pessimism in official circles about whether Sihanouk will be able to keep his promises to remain neutral after he is installed in the royal palace.

“If Sihanouk gets involved in politics again, it will be a mess,” Kanarith said. “That’s why we are hoping for a long role by the United Nations.”

Sihanouk announced recently that he wants to become an elected president, which would give him more authority than if he were appointed by the four factions. But it also stirred fears that Sihanouk is seeking an active political role.

Kanarith said Sihanouk remains an unknown quantity to most Cambodians under 30 years of age, but “for all Cambodians, Sihanouk symbolizes peace.”

“People think that when Sihanouk returns they will have electricity, they will have water,” Kanarith said. “Their expectations are very high.”

The U.N. Security Council agreed to send a large team of troops and civilian administrators to the country to supervise a cease-fire and run the administration before the elections.

Leaders of the first contingent of peacekeeping troops, known as the U.N. Advance Mission in Cambodia, or UNAMIC, arrived Saturday. The multinational force will include troops from 23 countries, among them Australia, France, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

The small UNAMIC force is designed as a stopgap until the Security Council authorizes the creation of a much larger force known as UNTAC, or U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia, which is expected to arrive by the end of the year and will include several thousand troops.

Under last month’s peace agreement, each of the four factions must demobilize 70% of its troops and place the remainder in a special camp controlled by the U.N. troops. But there are no official figures about how many troops each side has and unofficial figures are considered wildly exaggerated.

Military officials said Saturday that despite the accord there was shelling between government troops and guerrillas in the northern province of Kompong Thom.