End of 1990 – October

During Phase 3, the PRK challenged the external intervention, while the international community, including the UN, exhibited much less enthusiasm in promoting the progress of the conflict resolution process in Cambodia. Thus, many of the UN proposals that had gained the agreement of the Cambodian national factions were reversed or significantly modified. Recognising that the international community had become less enthusiastic about

involvement in the Cambodian peace process and acknowledging the increased Chinese support for more independent roles for the national factions (Lizée, 1999: 72)63, the SOC tried to exclude external actors from involvement in the Cambodian factions’ discussions on

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the peace processes. The SOC’s first goal in this period was resisting the UNTAC

arrangement (Solomon, 2000: 74). Since there was much less pressure being applied by the Western interveners, Hun Sen’s only de facto obstacle was the strong resistance of the PDK against any compromise.

In pursuing his goals, Hun Sen used two strategies: developing a good relationship with China and convincing other CGDK leaders to agree to his proposals, with the aim of minimising the negotiating power of the PDK. First, he utilised China’s willingness to support the peace negotiation. For instance, when the PDK refused to accept the proposal on Sihanouk’s role as SNC chairman and the composition of the SNC (7:7), which the other factions had agreed at the meeting in Jakarta in early June 1991, Hun Sen ignored the opposition while securing continued PDK participation in the negotiations by taking

advantage of the improving relationship between Vietnam and China to apply pressure on the PDK (Lizée, 1999: 73). As a result, this meeting became ‘the beginning of a major

breakthrough’ in the negotiation process (Brown, 1992: 90).

Second, he tried to gain unanimous agreement for his proposals from the other two CGDK groups. For example, when UNTAC’s proposed role was on the table in Pattaya in August 1991, the SOC succeeded in reversing the decisions of the UN’s P-5 on the transitional authority. In the discussions, the SOC claimed that direct control by UNTAC merely

amounted to further governance by a foreign power, and little more than a continuation of the one hundred-year long French colonisation, but the strong regional influence of the US was relatively successful in persuading the other factions to agree to UNTAC control.64

Furthermore, it persuaded other Cambodian factions to reverse a number of international

64 _{For instance, Lu Lay Sreng, the first vice-president of FUNCINPEC, said, “It was ridiculous that the PRK, the}

puppet of Vietnam, talked about Cambodians’ rule. However, although I didn’t trust the words much, we couldn’t say it was wrong that Cambodia should be ruled by Cambodians” (Lu Lay Sreng, 2009, Author’s Interview).

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interveners’ decisions on the transitional authority.

A number of important decisions related to the transitional authority were made in this period and included the following: (1) resolution of all disagreements within the SNC should occur through its internal conflict resolution mechanism rather than by simply complying with the decisions of UNTAC; (2) the SNC should assume greater legitimacy than a nominal

representative of Cambodian sovereignty and should play an increased role in the peace process; (3) and each factions’ military capacity should be reduced by 70 per cent rather than undergoing complete dissolution (Final Communiqué of the Supreme National Council of Cambodia, 29 August 1991, U.N. document A/46/494 and S/23066, 24 September 1991; PCC Co-Chairs report, A/46/418 and S/23011, 4 September 1991).

These decisions were clearly beneficial to the SOC’s pursuit of its interests and ran contrary to the proposals suggested by the UN. The first two decisions provided the SOC with grounds to intervene and refuse to accept UNTAC’s implementation policies. The last decision

enabled the SOC to possess a military capability, which it considered essential in order to defend itself against possible attacks by the PDK. In short, the SOC was able to maintain its superior status in terms of administrative and military organisation during the transitional period.

However, the decisions would make realisation of the UN P-5’s ideas very difficult, if not impossible. First, establishing a neutral political environment for the election by eliminating the existing political powers would be difficult because the UN had consented to the retention of the SOC’s administration in its ‘Framework Document’ of August 1990, and the SOC could exploit its position as the de facto government by drawing on the relatively autonomous power of the SNC. Second, although the SOC’s preservation of 30 per cent of its military forces was crucially important to the pursuit of its interests, this decision made UNTAC’s

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verification of the demilitarisation process very difficult. Thus, the Cambodian national factions were able to keep military forces in reserve in order to resist UNTAC’s

implementation with force if necessary.

Nevertheless, the US did not pay sufficient attention to the issues that lay behind the

Cambodian national factions’ modification of the UN’s proposals. The country in this period displayed an ambivalent posture. In early 1991, American domestic outrage against the PDK, boosted by mass media coverage of its disastrous rule (by ABC in particular), dampened the Bush administration’s enthusiasm for coordinating the Cambodian resistance groups’

behaviour (Solomon, 2000: 66-9). Therefore, the United States distanced itself from the PDK and began to establish a closer relationship with Vietnam and the SOC by enhancing

economic cooperation and by opening talks on the return of American MIAs still held in Vietnam (Haas, 1991: 286). However, this strategy did not produce the expected outcomes because the PRK gradually tried to be more independent from Vietnam as the PRK believed Vietnam became more selfish (Ieng Mouly, 2009: Author’s Interview). Moreover, the Bush government became increasingly uncomfortable with the unpredictable and independent attitude of Sihanouk and considered supporting General Sak Sutsakhan as an alternative candidate to head a democratic government in Cambodia (Haas, 1991: 257).

Hence, the US and other international interveners did not play an active role. Rather, they left the decisions on the detailed issues of the proposal to the factions themselves rather than making sustained efforts to develop a blueprint for the transitional authority (Brown & Zasloff, 1998: 92). For instance, although the US had chances to raise its concerns about the Pattaya agreements at the P-5 session on the last day of the Pattaya meeting, at a final SNC meeting convened by the P-5 in late September, and at the meeting between President Bush and Sihanouk in September, it failed to do so (Solomon, 2000: 76-7).

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As a result, the second PCC in October 1991 produced four agreements. The transitional authorities consisted of three main organisations: UNTAC, a UN body supervising the implementation process; the SNC, a council representing Cambodian sovereignty; and the PRK government. Moreover, with regard to demilitarisation, at least 70 per cent of all existing factions were supposed to be demobilised (Political Settlement Agreement Annex 2 Article V).

The agreements were the hybrid of the UN P-5’s proposal and the national factions’ modifications. However, the hybrids were a simple mixture of the ideas that had been

moulded by the actors’ differing perceptions rather than a compromise between them.65 First, some basic themes of liberal peace, such as free and fair elections and freedom from human rights abuse, were incorporated into the agreements. Furthermore, the agreements generally heeded the P-5’s call for UNTAC’s central role in administrative issues. The governmental sectors, particularly the ones dealing with foreign affairs, national defence, finance, public security, and information were to be directly controlled by UNTAC (Political Settlement Agreement, Part I, Section II, Article 2).

Second, however, the SNC became a nationalist authority that would not permit a foreign power (UNTAC) to become the dominant force in Cambodia. The Paris agreements accepted that the SNC, a ‘unique legitimate body and source of authority’, ‘offers advice to UNTAC, which will comply with this advice’ (Political Settlement Agreement, Part I, Section III & Annex 1, Section A, Article 2-b). In fact, the power of the SNC expanded beyond the level that the UN had envisioned in its original proposal, which had limited the role of the SNC to

65

In fact, the conference in Paris was a process to aggregate pre-consented agreements rather than another forum for discussion.

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mere ‘consultation’ (Implementation Plan, November 1991, cited in Lizée, 1999: 92).66 Moreover, the UN P-5’s decision to entrust administration to the SOC structure during the transitional period should have been reconsidered. Since the intention had been for the UN to wield absolute power during the transitional period, preservation of the SOC structure did not appear to be a serious problem. However, once the SNC was allowed to play a relatively independent role, and since the SOC controlled the majority of seats in the SNC, it should have been foreseen that the SOC would attempt to dominate the election process. However, believing that the SOC would ‘tolerate without giving away their preelection advantage’, international interveners simply accepted the UN’s proposal, a proposal that had been made under completely different assumptions of the role that the UN would take during the transitional period (Brown, 1992: 92; Brown & Zasloff, 1998: 102).

In short, the reduced enthusiasm of the US and other external third parties allowed the PRK to renegotiate and modify the pre-agreed provisions in Phase 3. As the interveners simply adopted these changed ideas without considering their outcomes at the PCC, the final peace agreements became a poorly coordinated mixture of Western ideas of peace and the

Cambodian national factions’ decision to resist the ideas.