September 1989 – late

In Phase 2, the interaction between the PRK and the US became much more dynamic. The US adopted stronger and more varied strategies, such as promoting the UN peace proposals and providing diplomatic and economic incentives, and the PRK became more flexible towards the demands of the external interveners.

There were two reasons for the intensified involvement of the international actors. First, the series of efforts to provide good offices had resulted in failure. Second, the behaviour of the CGDK after Vietnam’s withdrawal from Cambodian territory had disappointed the

international community. Rather than promoting enhanced peace talks, the resistance groups had undertaken nationwide military operations against a PRK army weakened by Vietnamese withdrawal (Haas, 1991: 213-4). This caused the interveners to believe that the Cambodian negotiations needed to be supported by stronger and more varied measures (Richardson,

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2009: 147-8; Song, 1997: 68-9).

Thus, while Indonesia, France, Japan, and China contributed to the Cambodian peace negotiations by providing good offices and applying diplomatic pressure on the national factions, Australia and the United States produced comprehensive peace proposals (Lizée, 1999: 60). The USA employed three main methods to bring about a successful peace resolution. First, the country prepared detailed UN-centred peace proposals after the end of the PCC in August 1989 (Solomon, 2000: 34). Based on ideas suggested by Australia, the US’s peace proposals formed the UN Security Council’s peace initiatives, which comprised a ‘Framework Document’ (August 1990) and an ‘Implementation Plan’ (November 1990). Second, the US made various diplomatic efforts to bring the parties to the negotiation table. The US demonstrated its strong support for the non-communist groups by appointing US congressmen to visit their refugee camps. In addition, the US made official calls urging the non-communist resistance groups to pursue negotiation more seriously (Haas, 1991: 254-5) and officially withdrew its support for the PDK (Solomon, 2000: 34; Brown & Zasloff, 1998: 70; Richardson, 2009: 149). Third, the US applied economic pressure by restricting its aid to non-military support of the two non-communist resistance factions. In addition, American economic cooperation with Vietnam became more direct and active. For instance,

approximately $11 million of US aid went to Vietnam through private organisations in 1990 (Haas, 1991: 256-7).

However, as the interplay between the Cambodian national factions and the international interveners intensified, tension between the two sides exacerbated. The Australian and UN peace proposals, which were based on a liberal peace model, failed to reflect the national factions’ fundamental interests. Both proposals aimed at producing a free and neutral political environment in which the Cambodian people’s will could be expressed. The UN Security

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Council’s ‘Framework Document’ in August 1990, which the US supported with

recommendations and coordination, is a good example of the interveners’ misreading of the national factions’ aims and interests. The document made four recommendations on the transitional authority issue: (1) UNTAC would control the processes of a national election;60 (2) a Supreme National Council (SNC) would be established in order to represent Cambodian sovereignty; (3) the composition of the SNC would be decided by the national factions; and (4) although the bureaucratic structure of the SOC would remain, all military forces would be dissolved (UN Security Council, 1990a; Appendix, Section I, Article 1, 2, & 3; Lizée, 1999: 68; Haas, 1991: 287).61 The document also declared that UNTAC would be the central governing body during the transitional period and that the SNC would play only a nominal role. Although its detailed suggestions differed, ‘Cambodia: An Australian Peace Proposal’, released in early 1990, and the UN’s follow-up ‘Implementation Plan’ of November 1990 were based on the same liberal peace principle (Lizée, 1999: 64. 69; Haas, 1991: 217; UN Security Council, 1990b, Annex 1, Section I, Article 8 and 10).

These recommendations were inconsistent with the fundamental assumption of the warring factions that the character and composition of the transitional authority would determine their political survival. However, the interveners did not try to reconcile these contradictions, convince the factions that a completely neutral authority could emerge, or formulate a concrete plan to enforce their ideas. Rather, the UN P-5, including the US, paid more attention to avoiding the controversies that the documents were anticipated to arouse within the Western community, such as their pronouncement on the inclusion of the PDK in the

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The idea UNTAC’s central role was developed in this period. Until the first Paris Conference on Cambodia in 1989, it was widely accepted that the transitional government should consist of Cambodians. The controversial issue was whether it would be a quadripartite government that would grant the four factions an equal number of seats or a bipartite body that would give 50% of the seats to the PRK and the CGDK.

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In fact, many ideas in the UN’s peace proposals for Cambodia were referenced from the peace process in Namibia (Brown & Zasloff, 1998: 132; Heininger, 1994: 6).

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transitional authority (Solomon, 1999: 307).

In order to bring the SOC on board, the US began to provide economic and diplomatic

incentives to Hun Sen. Diplomatically, the US officially withdrew its support for the CGDK’s representation of Cambodia in the UN and accepted direct talks with the Hun Sen

government in July 1990 (Solomon, 2000: 45-6). Economically, in addition to the lifting of economic sanctions against the SOC, the US decided to provide approximately $10 million of humanitarian aid to the de facto Cambodian government (Haas, 1991: 237, 286; Richardson, 2009: 149).

Nevertheless, the SOC viewed the Framework Document’s proposals, especially the

proposals on the transitional authority, as harmful to its goals. Although the preservation of its organisation was good news for the SOC, UNTAC’s control over electoral processes would remove the privileges that the SOC’s governmental status had afforded. Moreover, since the PDK’s guerrilla forces were more easily able to avoid UNTAC verification of their

demobilisation, the dissolution of all military forces was likely to benefit the PDK. These views were reflected in their responses toward the US’s increased pressure.

Despite the SOC’s reservations, the strengthened incentives and pressure from the US, together with the transformation in its advocate state’s diplomatic position62, convinced the SOC to adopt more a flexible attitude in the peace negotiations (Solomon, 1999: 311). Pointing to this, Son Soubert, a core leader of the KPNLF and a son of Son Sann, explains:

The international community, especially the UN and the US, applied strong pressure on us (the four national factions) to accept their peace proposals.

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Vietnam, which had developed a closer relationship with China, withdrew its demands for a minimal role for UNTAC in this period.

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However, their goals were different from ours. Nonetheless, for all of us, it was very difficult to escape their pressure. We saw Hun Sen announce that the SOC would accept most of the UN’s proposals, but we did not take the announcement as reflecting his true intention (Son Soubert, 2009: Author’s Interview).

Accepting the SNC as an unavoidable reality, the SOC changed its main strategy from claiming legitimacy as the sole government to maximising its interest in the council. For example, two weeks after the announcement of the UN’s ‘Framework Document,’ the Cambodian national factions agreed to form a twelve-member Supreme National Council (Solomon, 2000: 73) and endorsed the Framework Document (Accord, 1998: 19; Doyle, 1995: 17).

Under pressure from the international community, the negotiations between the Cambodian national factions on the composition of the SNC progressed throughout 1990. The CGDK initially demanded that each faction should hold 25 per cent of the SNC membership,

whereas the SOC insisted on a membership formula comprising a 50:50 distribution between the SOC and the CGDK (Haas, 1991: 203-5). The breakthrough came in April 1990, when Prince Sihanouk accepted a 6:6 distribution of seats between the SOC (Haas, 1991: 232). Two weeks later, in exchange of these developments, the SOC accepted the PDK as part of the authority. These proposals were reconfirmed when Sihanouk and Hun Sen met in Japan in June 1990 (Lizée, 1999: 66-67; Haas, 1991: 282). In short, Hun Sen gained a concession from the CGDK on the composition of the SNC’s membership while acquiescing to the inclusion of the PDK (Solomon, 1999: 312).

The SOC continued to exhibit a relatively flexible attitude in the subsequent period. For instance, when the foreign ministers of the UN P-5 and the UN Secretary-General urged the

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SOC to accept Sihanouk as the chairman of the SNC in September 1990, the faction revised its adamant adherence to the ‘no leader’ idea and proposed ‘some compromise formulae such as co-chairs and rotation patterns’ (Brown & Zasloff, 1998: 77). As the PRK’s attitudes became more receptive, the internal confrontation on Hun Sen’s reformist ideas against traditional socialist stance exacerbated in mid 1990. The hardliners in the PRK/SOC pressed the prime minister to be tougher in the negotiation; nevertheless, Hun Sen continued its policies (Haas, 1991: 235-7). Ultimately, the Cambodian parties proclaimed the first ceasefire in April 1991 (Accord, 1998: 19).

In short, the US and other third-party interveners succeeded in pressurising the PRK to consent to their core demands on demilitarisation and the transitional authority. However, the national factions’ collaboration on ending the conflict, based as it was on diplomatic and economic incentives and pressure from the US and other impartial interveners, would not last long.