Peace, Power and Resistance in Cambodia: Global Governance and the Failure of International Conflict Resolution (International political economy series)

Peace, Power and Resistance in Cambodia Global Governance and the Failure of International Conflict Resolution

Pierre P. Lizée

International Political Economy Series General Editor: Timothy M. Shaw, Professor of Political Science and International Development Studies, and Director of the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia Titles include: Pradeep Agrawal, Subir V. Gokarn, Veena Mishra, Kirit S. Parikh and Kunal Sen POLICY REGIMES AND INDUSTRIAL COMPETITIVENESS A Comparative Study of East Asia and India Roderic Alley THE UNITED NATIONS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC Dick Beason and Jason James THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF JAPANESE FINANCIAL MARKETS Myths versus Reality Mark Beeson COMPETING CAPITALISMS Australia, Japan and Economic Competition in Asia-Pacific Deborah Bräutigam CHINESE AID AND AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT Exporting Green Revolution Steve Chan, Cal Clark and Danny Lam (editors) BEYOND THE DEVELOPMENTAL STATE East Asia’s Political Economies Reconsidered Dong-Sook Shin Gills RURAL WOMEN AND TRIPLE EXPLOITATION IN KOREAN DEVELOPMENT Jeffrey Henderson (editor) INDUSTRIAL TRANSFORMATION IN EASTERN EUROPE IN THE LIGHT OF THE EAST ASIAN EXPERIENCE Pierre P. Lizée PEACE, POWER AND RESISTANCE IN CAMBODIA Global Governance and the Failure of International Conflict Resolution Cecilia Ng POSITIONING WOMEN IN MALAYSIA Class and Gender in an Industrializing State Ian Scott (editor) INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE AND THE POLITICAL TRANSITION IN HONG KONG

Mark Turner (editor) CENTRAL–LOCAL RELATIONS IN ASIA–PACIFIC Convergence or Divergence? Fei-Ling Wang INSTITUTIONS AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE IN CHINA Premodernity and Modernization

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Peace, Power and Resistance in Cambodia Global Governance and the Failure of International Conflict Resolution Pierre P. Lizée Assistant Professor of Politics Brock University St Catharines Ontario

First published in Great Britain 2000 by

MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0–333–73204–9 First published in the United States of America 2000 by ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 0–312–22406–0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lizée, Pierre. Peace, power and resistance in Cambodia : global governance and the failure of international conflict resolution / Pierre P. Lizée. p. cm. — (International political economy series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–312–22406–0 (cloth) 1. Cambodia—Politics and government—1979– I. Title. II. Series. DS554.8.L59 1999 959.604'2—dc21 99–15386 CIP © Pierre P. Lizée 2000 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 09

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

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Contents List of Figures

vii

Acknowledgements

viii

List of Abbreviations

ix

Maps

x

Introduction

1

PART I

THEORETICAL REMARKS: THE NATURE OF CONFLICT AND PEACE

1

The Paris Plan and Its Failure

2

Towards a New Explanation of the Collapse of the Paris Plan Peace as social encounter Peace and violence in the Western tradition Peace and violence in the Cambodian tradition The Paris Plan as encounter between the Western and Cambodian traditions

3

Peace in the Post-Cold War Order

PART II 4

9 13 13 19 30 43 46

THE 1993 ELECTIONS: PEACE AS NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT

Tous les chemins mènent à Paris Towards the first Paris Conference Towards the second Paris Conference Interests, objectives, and approaches to peace on the road to Paris

53 53 60 80

5

The Paris Plan The Paris agreement Peace as social engineering The failure of the Paris Plan

90 90 99 107

6

L’Après-UNTAC

124 v

vi

Contents

PART III BEYOND THE 1993 ELECTIONS: TOWARDS A NEW MODEL OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION 17

A New Explanation of the Failure of the Paris Plan

133

18

The Lessons of the Cambodian Peace Process

139

19

Thinking about Peace in the Emerging Global Order

149

PART IV THE 1998 ELECTIONS: GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND THE FAILURE OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION 10

The Dynamics of the 1998 Elections

153

11

Global Governance and the Nature of International Conflict Resolution

163

Notes

176

Bibliography

192

Index

204

List of Figures 2.1

The social basis of the concept of peace

14

2.2

Transfer of a concept of peace

17

2.3

Cox’s representation of the social situation of ideas

18

2.4

The social basis of the concept of peace as democracy

25

2.5

The social basis of the Cambodian conception of peace

42

2.6

The social transformations entailed by the Paris Plan

43

vii

Acknowledgements Funding for the research involved in this book was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Military and Strategic Studies Program of the Department of National Defense of Canada, and the Barton Program in International Peace and Security of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada. I also received travel grants from the Canada-ASEAN Centre and from the Cooperative Security Program of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Paul Evans and David Dewitt of York University, who throughout the writing of this book have been both mentors and friends. I also wish to thank Joyce Kallgren, from the University of California at Berkeley, and Michel Fortmann, of the Université de Montréal, for the support they have given me during that period. Alan James, from the University of Keele, commented extensively on an earlier draft of this text. Kusuma Snitwongse, from Chulalongkorn University, in Bangkok, was especially supportive during the time I spent doing research in Southeast Asia. I also want to acknowledge the help of Sorpong Peou, a colleague from the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, in Singapore, who is originally from Cambodia. Sorpong is a friend and he has given me information on Cambodian society which I could never have found anywhere else. I was humbled by the fact that he remained one of the kindest people I have met even though he lived through the inhumanity of Cambodia under Pol Pot. In this, perhaps, I found the greatest lesson about the Cambodian people. Finally, I need to express my gratitude to my wife, Erin, and my daughter, Megan. I doubt that I will ever find a better definition of love than seeing Erin wait patiently for me to be finished with this text so I could spend more time with Megan and her. Megan has grown up with this text. She was born as I was writing the first sections, and each subsequent one is now associated in my mind with the memory of seeing her start to crawl or say her first words. I sat her down on my knees to write these few lines, which I hope she will read when she can. Ethan Patrick has just recently joined our family and it is to the three of them that this book is dedicated, with all my love. PIERRE P. LIZÉE

viii

List of Abbreviations ASEAN CGDK CPP FUNCINPEC GUNC ICM P-5 PICC UNAMIC UNTAC SNC

Association of Southeast Asian Nations Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea Cambodian People’s Party Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendant, Neutre, Pacifique et Coopératif Gouvernement d’Union Nationale du Cambodge International Control Mechanism Permanent Five Members of the United Nations Security Council Paris International Conference on Cambodia United Nations Advance Mission in Cambodia United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia Supreme National Council (of Cambodia)

ix

x

xi

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Introduction

To grasp the contemporary problem of violence, we need a somewhat unorthodox starting point. Instead of visualizing the problem as one whereby violence is directed at society, it might be more fruitful to ask: Do the social and political forms of any given age constitute a particular method for adjusting to violence? Sheldon S. Wolin Violence and the Western Political Tradition Definitions … of violence vary from society to society and even from individual to individual. And the definition accepted by a particular social group or a single individual is often unstable: it can be partially contradictory, and change according to particular cases. It works as if several different forces were driving concrete phenomena into the area of what is called violence, driving them out of it, no single force having the absolute power to decide alone what violence is. Jean-Pierre Derriennic Theory and Ideologies of Violence This book echoes the logic of these two epigraphs and assumes that indeed understandings of what constitutes violence and conflict are socially constructed in processes coextensive with the constitution of society itself. From that standpoint, a question is raised: to what extent do the globalizing dynamics which are now shaping the constitution and reconstitution of social and political spaces on a global scale also entail the globalization of a specific understanding of what constitutes conflict and conflict resolution? The implications of this line of inquiry 1

2 Introduction

for the discourse and practice of international conflict resolution, as well as for the character and structure of emerging dynamics of globalization and global governance, are then mapped out in this context. A study of the involvement of the international community in the elections held in Cambodia in May 1993 and July 1998 serves to bring these issues into greater relief. Four major contentions structure the argument presented here: 1. Non-violent forms of politics are predicated upon the emergence of very specific configurations of state, economic, and social forces. 2. Current international efforts to resolve long-standing conflicts in peripheral regions essentially revolve around attempts to impose on elites in these regions, through concerted diplomatic pressures, a reconstruction of society duplicating these structures. It is at this level that the reason for the failure of such international initiatives can be found. 3. The literature on conflict resolution has yet to explain fully the lack of success of these operations, or to offer an alternative, because it has so far failed to integrate an analysis of the nature of the social changes which these operations require. 4. Emerging mechanisms of globalization and global governance rest on a specific organization of violence at the domestic and international level which in fact prevents a reformulation of the current literature on conflict resolution along the lines suggested here. Part I of the book outlines the theoretical grounds upon which are built the ideas that non-violent politics are coextensive with particular social developments and that the attempt to impose and telescope these developments in peripheral regions has led to the failure of recent international peace initiatives aimed at fostering a movement towards peace in certain peripheral regions. The nature of the intervention of the international community in Cambodia between 1991 and 1993 serves as the focus of inquiry. Part II is a case-study of the diplomatic developments of that period aimed at validating the theoretical propositions put forward in the first part of the study. Part III examines the impact of these findings on the literature on conflict resolution and suggests a reformulation of some of the main problematic of that literature. Part IV of the book, finally, considers the role of the international community in the elections held in Cambodia in July 1998 and asks a blunt question: why were the lessons of the 1991–3 international intervention in Cambodia not applied in 1998? It is in that context that emerging mechanisms of global governance are examined

Introduction 3

in order to show how they act as an impediment to a reformulation of the main tenets of conflict resolution according to the suggestions made here.

Part I The theoretical remarks present the self-reinforcing aspects of the social realignments introduced in Cambodia within the framework of the Paris Peace Plan, the agreement which led to the intervention of the United Nations in that country between 1991 and 1993. These remarks show that the plausibility of a movement from violent to non-violent politics in Cambodia was to be anchored in the impetus given to the emergence of a strengthened state structure, a cohesive administrative apparatus, and a capitalist economy. This three-tiered reorganization of Cambodian society was also meant to allow the emergence of social groupings whose power and interests would coincide with its objectives. These groups were thus expected to maintain the momentum of this broad restructuration of Cambodian society and to endorse the concept of a non-violent political order linked to it. These different goals are then contrasted with the complex of structural relationships which underlies conceptions of conflict and peace in Cambodia. It is explained that these institutions and practices which shape the Cambodian social space have never allowed the evacuation of violence from political interaction and that they have determined understandings of peace based instead upon (1) attempts to achieve a balance of power between factional forces, or (2) attempts, rooted in the Buddhist cosmology, to give impetus to a moral reordering of society enabling it to move beyond violence. It is also shown that the dominant groups in Cambodia endorse these concepts of peace because they justify and legitimize the social order from which they draw their power. The precise material, political, and ideational character of the tensions between the new social contract which the international community intended to create in Cambodia in 1991–3 and the nature of the political space in that country are then outlined.

Part II The study next attempts to evaluate the degree to which it is indeed possible to ascribe the failure of the 1991–3 international intervention in Cambodia to these factors. These chapters are based on an analysis of the Paris Agreement and of the events and diplomatic overtures

4 Introduction

which followed the signature of the Agreement. They confirm that the causal relationship assumed here to exist between, on the one hand, the very attempt to reconstruct Cambodian society so that non-violent politics could emerge there, and, on the other hand, the failure of this type of international effort, does in fact correspond to the evolution of events in Cambodia in the wake of the signature of the Paris Agreement. This study of the implementation of the Paris Agreement is preceded by an analysis of the diplomatic process which led to the Agreement. It is also followed by a briefer examination of the events which took place in Cambodia immediately after the May 1993 elections. These chapters bring to light a pattern of correlation which adds weight to the notion that the very nature of the social changes set in motion by the international community during the 1991–3 period can be linked to the collapse of these efforts.

Part III These chapters examine the implication of these findings for the literature on conflict resolution. It is submitted that, at the moment, this literature revolves around two principal poles. There is the idea, in the first place, that conflict can be resolved through mechanisms, such as negotiations, which allow the parties involved in a conflict to lessen to a certain extent the incompatibility between their respective goals and strategies. There is also, however, the notion that it is the character of the social environment in which different actors evolve that generates conflicts between them. Conflict resolution initiatives, in this perspective, thus need to be articulated at the level of this environment. They should consist of broad socio-economic and institutional reforms aimed at modifying the nature of the structural constraints it imposes on the actors it encompasses so that relations among them become less prone to conflict. It is argued that envisioning the methods of promotion of a non-violent political environment in peripheral regions in terms of this dichotomy between, in a word, international diplomatic pressure on political actors and assistance to deeper processes of social change, does not allow for the consideration of the interplay between these two processes which is necessary if indeed a movement towards peace is to occur in those regions. It is in fact put forward that the intervention of the international community in Cambodia in 1991–3 illustrates the need not only for a modification of the grammar of conflict resolution, but also for an expansion of its vocabulary: bringing in line political actors and political environment in peripheral

Introduction 5

regions so that non-violent politics can emerge in these regions very much requires in reality a new understanding of the nature of conflict resolution.

Part IV The role of the international community in the elections held in Cambodia in July 1998 was much more modest than what it had been in May 1993. These international initiatives, however circumscribed, nonetheless reveal a pattern of conflict settlement mechanisms similar to the main dichotomy which animates the literature on conflict resolution. What is troubling with the 1998 international intervention in Cambodia, therefore, is this sense of almost reflex-like recourse to traditional approaches to conflict resolution, even if these had been proven patently inefficient by the eventual failure of the 1991–3 operation. It is proposed here that the very nature of the current international environment, and more particularly the character of the dynamics now leading towards global governance arrangements, limit the concepts and methods available to conflict resolution to such a degree that a movement away from these traditional approaches to conflict resolution is extremely difficult to engineer. The text suggests in conclusion that it is only through an opening up of the discourse and practice of global governance that this issue will be resolved.

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Part I Theoretical Remarks: The Nature of Conflict and Peace

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1 The Paris Plan and Its Failure

In 1989, as he surveyed the Cambodian peace process, ‘that seemingly endless travail to mark finis on decades of warfare,’ Douglas Pike noted that the central issue in that process had always been ‘governance, the institutionalization of political power’: Who is to govern and under what arrangements; how is power to be divided, and how are the divisions to be maintained; who will adjudicate disputes; which element takes the leading role, or should the role of each faction be determined with the establishment of a multiparty electoral system? Pike then added that the ‘opposite of war in Cambodia is not peace; it is government. To reverse this, if there is government there can be peace; without government continued warfare is inevitable.’1 Pike thus viewed the prolongation of the Cambodian conflict as the corollary of the inability of the different factions involved in this conflict to settle disputes about ‘who is to govern’ without the use of violence. And, he suggested, only if politics became institutionalized through the development of credible means of ‘governance’ – only if, in other words, the instauration of a stable government allowed the expression of political conflict in a non-violent rather than violent fashion – could peace be possible in Cambodia. The international diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving the Cambodian conflict focused in early 1990 on a peace plan, put forward by the Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs, which was designed explicitly to deal with this issue. The Australian plan argued that the Cambodian factions were incapable of arriving at the type of powersharing arrangement which would permit the formation of a government 9

10

Theoretical Remarks

recognized by all of them and in turn provide the basis of the institutionalization of political conflict in Cambodia. It proposed that under these circumstances the international community should take upon itself the responsibility of setting in motion the social and institutional processes necessary to create a governing authority able to bring to a non-violent level the political disputes in that country. The plan suggested that a large contingent of United Nations peacekeepers first be sent to Cambodia in order to establish a ‘neutral political environment.’ This would then lead to the organization of ‘free and fair elections’ which would bring to power a government whose stability would be ensured by the recognition and the support it would obtain from the international community. Consequently, the Cambodian factions could only accept the authority of this new government. Political infighting in Cambodia would then be reduced to the exercise of the democratic process by the Cambodian factions and the violent conflict in which they had been involved for years would end.2 The logic of the Australian plan served as the cornerstone of the peace agreement concluded in Paris on 23 October 1991.3 The Paris Peace Agreement, as it became known, represented an unprecedentedly broad settlement. It contained ‘military arrangements [whose objectives were] to stabilize the security situation and build confidence among the parties to the conflict,’4 a massive rehabilitation and reconstruction program, a set of measures placing the major ‘administrative agencies, bodies and offices [in Cambodia] under the direct control of the [United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC)],’5 a concern with ‘fostering an environment in which respect for human rights shall be ensured,’6 and provisions on the creation of a ‘neutral political environment conducive to free and fair general elections.’7 The agreement resulted in the largest peacekeeping operation ever mounted by the United Nations. UNTAC deployed 15 900 peacekeeping troops, 3600 civilian police, and approximately 3000 administrators and election officials. The UN personnel was supported by tens of thousands of Cambodians, recruited mainly to help organize the elections.8 The very nature of UNTAC’s mission also gave it an unprecedented dimension: for the first time in its history, the United Nations had committed itself to taking complete control of a sovereign state in order to create, ex nihilo, what amounted to a new social contract for its citizens.9 For all the means put at its disposal and all the support it received from the international community, the Paris Peace Agreement nevertheless faltered as soon as it was implemented. Political alliances were

The Paris Plan and Its Failure 11

concluded between the partisans of then Prince Sihanouk, one of the main opposition groups, and prominent figures in the Phnom Penh government. These rendered the Cambodian Supreme National Council (SNC), the body set up by the Paris Agreement to become the guarantor of a ‘neutral political environment’ in Cambodia, meaningless. Subsequently, the refusal of the Khmer Rouge, the other major opposition group, to participate in the disarmament phase of the peace plan and the unwillingness of the Phnom Penh government to cede control of many of its components to the UN personnel kept UNTAC from establishing the conditions necessary to ‘free and fair elections.’ The fact that the elections on which the whole peace plan was based did go ahead brought only mild comfort to those championing the idea that the international community had been successful in its attempt to resolve the Cambodian conflict. The high level of participation at the polls owed much more to the courage of numerous Cambodians when confronted with repeated threats on their lives than it did to the ability of UNTAC to bring peace to Cambodia. Furthermore, the elections ultimately ushered in a new era of instability in Cambodian politics. The Sihanoukist Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendant, Neutre, Pacifique et Coopératif (FUNCINPEC), the winner of the elections, was in effect forced to share power with the leaders of the Phnom Penh government, controlled by the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), who did not want to forego the hold they maintained over most of Cambodia. Enormous tensions thus still remained. Members of the FUNCINPEC argued that the letter of the Paris Agreement had to be followed and that, therefore, power should be held by their party since it had won the elections. Others within the party claimed that a coalition with the leaders of the Phnom Penh government had to be preserved in order to placate them and avert a new civil war. The option of having Prince Sihanouk form a coalition government to fend off the possibility of renewed hostilities had been broached by the backers of the Paris Plan and the coalition could therefore be given some measure of legitimacy by being placed under the tutelage of the Prince. In this sense, UNTAC had failed to achieve its principal objective: the distribution of power in Cambodia was still determined to a large extent by factional infighting rather than by democratic processes. The instauration and strengthening of liberal democratic institutions which had been seen in the Paris Agreement as the only basis for a durable settlement of the Cambodian conflict had still not been realized.

12

Theoretical Remarks

A review of the political situation in Cambodia conducted a few months after the elections could thus conclude that: despite the verdict of the people, the political and power struggles among the Cambodian factions are still highly intense and potentially explosive. Instead of reconciling their differences, there is a strong impression that the Cambodian elites seem unable to break away from previous practice of pursuing the narrow political interests of their own factions.10 The Paris Peace Agreement, and, indeed, the largest peacekeeping operation ever mounted by the United Nations, had thus failed to modify in any substantial way the problem they were supposed to resolve. Why? Much writing on this issue now seems to concentrate on the implementation of the Paris Agreement. Questions regarding the speed at which the UN contingent was deployed, weak and uncertain attempts to deal with the different dilemmas which emerged during the operation, or deficiencies in the unfolding of the reconstruction and rehabilitation program, are thus often blamed for the difficulties encountered by UNTAC in Cambodia. Is it possible to contend, however, that the very nature of the Paris Agreement caused its failure?

2 Towards a New Explanation of the Collapse of the Paris Plan

Peace as social encounter It is assumed here that the failure of the Paris Plan in 1993 is due to the fact that its logic – the establishment of peace in Cambodia through the instauration of a democratic process in that country – entailed the development of a set of institutions and a form of politics which did not appertain to Cambodian society. It is also assumed that attempting to outline the contours of a properly Cambodian notion of peace might provide some insights as to the objectives which were pursued by the Cambodian factions in conjunction with their opposition to UNTAC’s action. Before confronting these assumptions with the evolution of events in Cambodia, it is necessary, however, to explain the exact nature of the concepts they introduce and of the correlations which they infer between these concepts. It might be appropriate to begin by clarifying the logic of the structural relationships involved in this line of thinking. Its basic postulates hold that a given concept of peace will prevail in a society because of the interaction of two factors: the social structures in place in that society and the political forces which coincide with these social structures. These interrelations can be represented as: 1. Social structures determine the nature of the concept of peace predominant in a given society in that they have a direct influence on the degree to which it is possible to consider eliminating the use of organized violence as a means of pursuing political objectives. 2. The concept of peace extends the mechanisms through which social structures reproduce themselves over time. 3. Social structures are associated with a political order – who is in power? – and with the dynamics of reproduction of that political 13

14

Theoretical Remarks

order – to what extent can violence be used to exercise political power? 4. Political forces attempt to reproduce the social structures which give them power. 5. The nature of the concept of peace which prevails in a society is also determined by political forces in that these forces advocate a notion of peace which adds legitimacy to the political order in place and to the role of violence in helping preserve this political order. 6. The concept of peace extends the mechanisms through which political forces reproduce themselves over time. Figure 2.1 also makes it possible to represent schematically two of the fundamental postulates underlying the assumptions presented above. First, the sequence (v)–(ii)–(iii) and the sequence (v)–(ii)–(i) indicate how political forces will want to promote a concept of peace which facilitates the reproduction of the social structures on which their power rests and that of the concept of peace which they favor. Second, the sequence (i)–(vi)–(iv) and the sequence (i)–(vi)–(v), show, in turn, how social structures, through their influence in circumscribing the range of possible concepts of peace, define the degree to which it will be possible for political forces to use violence in order to maintain in place certain social structures and to further the adoption of a given concept of peace. Concepts of peace thus stand in tension with the dynamics emerging from the tendency of political forces and social structures to reproduce themselves over time. They are the product of a dialectical relation

Political forces

Social structures

(iii)

(iv)

(v)

(vi)

(i)

Concept of peace Figure 2.1 The social basis of the concept of peace

(ii)

Towards a New Explanation 15

whereby, on the one hand, political forces foster the development of social representations which allow the reproduction of the structures underpinning their power, and, on the other hand, social structures delimit the range of plausible concepts of peace and, as a result, the array of ways in which it is possible for political forces to consider using violence to exercise the power they hold over the evolution of social structures. It can be noted, parenthetically, that these postulates run parallel to those of writers associated with the ‘Italian school’ centered around the work of Antonio Gramsci. This research, aimed at elaborating a ‘historicist, reflexive and dynamic form of political economy explanation’, in the words of Stephen Gill,1 shows how, in the words this time of another student of Gramsci, Robert Cox, ideas and material conditions are always bound together, mutually influencing one another, and not reducible one to the other. Ideas have to be understood in relation to material circumstances. Material circumstances include both the social relations and the physical means of production. Superstructures of ideology and political organisation shape the development of both aspects of production and are shaped by them. An historic bloc [a social formation where ideological, political, and production elements are related to one another in a coherent fashion] cannot exist without a hegemonic social class. The hegemonic class … maintains cohesion and identity within the bloc through the propagation of a common culture.2 Here as in the assumptions which will be evaluated below, the configuration of structures which exists in a given society determines the character of the ‘superstructure of ideology’ and, as the ‘hegemonic social classes’ endeavor to maintain the integrity of the ‘historical bloc,’ that of the power put in the hands of those classes. Conversely, hegemonic classes sustain the ‘cohesion’ of the social structures which give them power ‘through the propagation of a common culture.’ A fundamental distinction remains, however. The Gramscian school reduces social structures to modes of production. For their part, the suppositions studied here are based on the idea that social structures stem from broader processes which revolve at different levels with the issue of violence. They also assume, in turn, that the power which both underlies the political order and acts as its instrument cannot be characterized by criteria linked solely to modes of production, as the Gramscian approach is wont to do, but that it should be defined in

16

Theoretical Remarks

much more varied terms related to one another by the question of the political use of violence. This distinction will be examined in greater detail below. The parallel with the Gramscian school constitutes an interesting heuristic device, though, since it suggests a conceptual framework with which to consider the logic of peace plans such as the one emanating from the Paris Agreement. The Gramscian school is concerned with the notion of change and its relation with the ‘common culture’. As Stephen Gill remarks, A change in thinking is a change in the social totality and thus has an impact on other social processes; a change in the social totality will provoke change in the process of thought. Hence, the process of thinking is part of a ceaseless dialectic of social being.3 The complex interactions which give rise to particular social structures are ever-changing and, if the leading classes are to maintain their position, they have to fashion a social discourse which still legitimizes the existing political order and at the same time conforms to new configurations of social structures and minimizes the further transformation of those structures. It is in that sense that changes in the ‘social totality’ and changes in ideology are tied in a dialectical relation and that, yet, a social formation remains homeostatic. The parallel with the framework presented here implies that political forces will react in much the same way when changes in the ‘social totality’ threaten to create contradictions between the concept of peace and the social structures of a given society: they will attempt to cope by recasting the notion of peace in ways that leave intact the political order, reduce the likelihood of further social transformations, and simultaneously link the social transformations under way and the new concept of peace in such a manner that the latter can appear legitimate. What happens, though, in cases such as the Paris Peace Plan, where an outside intervention with the avowed objective of fracturing the ‘social totality’ in order to establish new social structures seen as more propitious to peace is set in motion? As Figure 2.2 indicates, the process of restructuration of the society where such a peace plan is to be implemented will be linked to the establishment of a new concept of peace and also to the reorganization of the political order. The different elements of this society will respond, however, according to the logic just enunciated. First, a radical break with the social structures of the past will be difficult to engineer. Second, there will

Towards a New Explanation 17

Political forces

Social structures

Concept of peace

Political forces

Social structures

Concept of peace Figure 2.2 Transfer of a concept of peace

also be a conceptual vacuum, as it were: the movement from the concept of peace associated with the former social structures to the concept linked to the structures established by the peace plan will be difficult to implement. Third, since a transformation of basic social configurations will modify both the location of power and the means of its exercise, the political forces in place will resist this transformation with the type of power at their disposal. Fourth, as they realize that the imposition of an extraneous concept of peace renders them unable to fashion a concept which would coincide with the social transformations underway and yet leave the political order unaltered, political forces will try to undermine that concept of peace. Simultaneously, political forces will also attempt to modify the concept of peace which prevailed in their society so that it conforms to the modifications already introduced in the social structures while preserving the

18

Theoretical Remarks

existing political order. They will then present this type of peace as an alternative to the one proposed by the peace plan. This analytical approach to mechanisms of conflict management, it can be noted here, places the study of such mechanisms within the intellectual perspective often called critical theory. Like many of the writings in the critical tradition, it assumes that concepts – such as, in this case, the very notion of peace – should be understood as social constructions shaped by a particular material and political context which, in turn, they themselves influence. Robert Cox, in his classic essay on Social Forces, States and World Order, notes how ideas, in such a critical perspective which ‘stands apart from the prevailing order of the world and asks how that order came about,’4 should be seen as interrelated to material capabilities and institutions. He proposes the scheme shown in Figure 2.3 to explain this notion.5 According to this figure, ideas ‘consist of intersubjective meanings, or those shared notions of the nature of social relations which tend to perpetuate habits and expectations of behavior.’ They can also represent ‘collective images of social order held by different groups of people.’ Material capabilities, ‘in their dynamic form exist as technological and organizational capabilities, and in their accumulated forms as natural resources which technology can transform, stocks of equipment […] and the wealth which command these.’ Finally, ‘institutionalization is a means of stabilizing and perpetuating a particular order.’6 The language and the logic are remarkably similar to what is proposed in this text. The remarks made about the Gramscian literature are also appropriate here, however, since the two models are analogous. It will be demonstrated below that a critical perspective on peace should reformulate the definition of material capabilities involved in

Ideas

Material capablities

Institutions5

Figure 2.3 Cox’s representation of the social situation of ideas

Towards a New Explanation 19

the fundamental assumptions of writers like Cox. State institutions, for example, should be integrated to this category. This in turn would reduce the scope of social realities covered by the concept of ‘institutionalization’ and make that concept much more dynamic, a notion rendered here by the expression ‘political forces’. It will also be demonstrated that, by adding to the social transformations studied by critical theory the type of intervention linked to peace plans such as the one implemented in Cambodia, the approach put forward in this text enlarges the social developments which should be considered by critical theory. For the moment, however, it is necessary to complete the exposition of the logic underlying the set of assumptions presented earlier by describing the actual social phenomena which it involves.

Peace and violence in the Western tradition The nature of the concept of peace as democracy and of its relationship with specific configurations of social structures and political forces will be examined first. To gain some insight on these issues, it is useful to begin by recalling Anthony Giddens’ argument in The Nation-State and Violence.7 Giddens describes his book as part of an ‘attempt to explore the contours of a post-Marxist analysis of contemporary society and politics.’8 According to him, such an analysis has to rest upon a reassessment of the impact of capitalism in light of the role played by the three other ‘institutional clusters’ found in modern societies: industrialism, surveillance and centralized control of the means of violence. The value of his text for the present study resides in the fact that he endeavors to isolate the development of social behavior about violence and conflict resolution, and then situates these evolutionary patterns within the development of the broader social dynamics which have shaped the unfolding of the modern Western liberal democracies.9 The nation-state is of foremost importance in the articulation of the ‘institutional clusters’ studied by Giddens. He traces the transformations marking the passage from the traditional state to the absolutist state, and then to the modern state, in order to explain how the contemporary social order emerged. The traditional state is according to him a very loose entity where ‘[t]he agrarian communities that form the basis of the production system are in substantial degree autonomous in their day-to-day operation, not only from the state but from each other.’20 The traditional state, in other words, does not actually control what are in fact very different communities situated within its territory. This slowly changes with the rise of absolutist states.

20

Theoretical Remarks

The character of these states rest on ‘the explicit acknowledgement [by each of them] of the legitimacy of other states, none of which has the right to universalize its own elements of administration or law at the expense of others.’ This is, Giddens points out, their ‘formula for organization.’21 The absolutist state is forced to constitute itself as a coherent unit, capable of defending its territory, because the ‘acknowledgement of the legitimacy of other states’ leads to constant wars between states. Furthermore, the idea of sovereignty ‘juxtapose[s] the assertion of the supreme authority of an individual to a more generalized interpretation of state power, in which there [is] in fact no necessary role for kings or monarchs all.’ The way is thus open for the imposition of a ‘coordinated [and impersonal] system of administrative rule’ which in turn allows the redefinition of the ‘principle[s] of government’ necessary to the crystallization of the concept of citizenship.22 The emergence of the nationstate, which will articulate the four ‘institutional clusters’ associated with modernity, is at this point on the horizon. It is important here to stress the originality of the thesis put forward by Giddens. The development of an international realm, through ‘the explicit acknowledgement of the legitimacy of other states’, is central to the transitions associated with the absolutist state. Thus, as Bob Jessop remarks, [i]n discussing absolutism, Giddens reverses normal accounts by first focusing on the emergence of a reflexively monitored international system of states (whose energising force was changes in the organisation of war rather than in that of production) as a key indicator of the modernity of absolutism.23 The focus on a ‘reflexively monitored international system of states’ whose ‘energising force’ is found in the ‘organisation of war’ still underpins the analysis of the modern state. The ever increasing destructiveness of war is linked to the development of formidable military capacities in a dynamic reminiscent of the ‘security dilemma’ outlined in the contemporary literature on international relations.24 A state will feel secure if it acquires the military means necessary to defeat its neighbours but, in doing so, it will compel those states to see themselves as vulnerable and thus it will induce them to obtain the weapons that ultimately will make it feel insecure; an arms race and a ‘war system’ are consequently set up. They lead to a concentration of the control over the means of violence in the hands of the military.

Towards a New Explanation 21

This all means, however, that large-scale, organized violence is to be used, it should be emphasized, outside the state. The counterpoint of that process is the internal pacification of the state. Martin Shaw says that Giddens expresses there one of his ‘most radical ideas.’25 The administrative reach essential to the management of resources needed if the state is going to survive in the ‘war system’ permits the integration of all segments of the population living on its territory. In turn, this integration produces an ‘internal order’ which is maintained through the ‘surveillance’ that the state is now able to exercise, and not through violence. Surveillance, explains Giddens, refers to two related sorts of phenomena: one is the accumulation of ‘coded information’ which can be used to administer the activities of individuals about whom it is gathered … The other sense of surveillance is that of the direct supervision of the activities of some individuals by others in positions of authority over them. The concentration of activities within clearly bounded settings [in factories or offices, for instance] greatly enlarges the degree to which those activities can be ‘watched over’, and thus controlled, by superordinates.26 The two other ‘institutional clusters’ considered by Giddens – capitalism and industrialism – interact with the centralization of the control of the means of violence and the intensification of surveillance. Industrialism must be differentiated from capitalism because, even if it refers to a ‘highly effective form of productive activity, [it does not carry an] inner dynamic of the sort associated with capitalist enterprise.’27 Those two clusters remain closely linked to one another and to the processes associated with the rise of the modern state, however, ‘[f]or there has been no capitalist society which has not also been industrialized and which has not been a nation-state.’28 The labour arrangement is such, in ‘industrial capitalism’, that it consolidates the administrative reach inherent to the surveillance exercised by the state. The ‘heightened surveillance’ found in modern states in turn permits a non-violent coercion which provides capitalism with mechanisms of control, such as the gathering of information, leading to greater economic efficiency. The control of the means of violence and the use of violence in war are also linked to ‘industrial capitalism.’ ‘The material wealth produced in the industrialized countries is so immense’, Giddens argues, ‘that even the use of a small proportion of available resources can generate prodigious military strength.’29 War, for its part, demands, and indeed rests upon, a high degree of economic organization.30

22

Theoretical Remarks

An element that is not part of Giddens’ argument but which can be added here is that the development of capitalism ushered in the emergence of a political class concerned with establishing centers of power aside from those controlled by the monarchies and, in so doing, created barriers to the exercise of violence. By demanding the creation of a more democratic political process, the bourgeoisie developed practices and institutions which erected around the individual a set of rights that violence, so to speak, could not cross and which led to the complex of institutions understood today to represent the basis of representative democratic politics. As Sheldon Wolin notes, The theory and practice of constitutional democracy have signified a concerted effort to restrict the application of violence by setting defined limits to power, by insisting on the observance of regularized procedures and by establishing strict methods for rendering those in power accountable for their actions. The paraphernalia of constitutionalism – the rule of law, due process, the separation of powers, checks and balances, and the system of individual rights, with its significant emphasis on privileges and ‘immunities’ – have not eliminated power, but they have contributed to its regularization, to eradicating that unpredictable, sheerly destructive quality that epitomizes all violence.31 The focus of such studies – the development of the social dynamics pertaining to violence considered against the backdrop of the other dynamics which have given rise to the modern nation-state – thus allows one to underscore social phenomena which, as Jessop and Shaw remark, throw a particular light on the evolution of Western societies. It then becomes possible to argue that these societies were transformed by the ‘intersection’ of two fundamental dynamics: the state system, based on the localisation of the control of the means of violence in the state structures, and the capitalist system, based for its part of the logic of the accumulation of capital in the context of an industrial infrastructure. As Giddens shows, arrangements and preparations for war first displaced large-scale, direct violence to what could be termed by then an ‘international structure.’ The creation of democratic institutions buttressed by the development of citizenship rights, a counterpart to the need for the state to enrol the masses in modern warfare, created the social cohesion necessary to a centralization of administrative structures. These structures, in turn, permitted the control over resources and the elaboration of an ‘impersonal administrative power’, a power of ‘surveillance’ necessary to the expansion of capitalism.

Towards a New Explanation 23

The intersection of these dynamics had an enormous influence on the way Western societies perceive violence and conflict. The individual, in a sense, surrendered the control of the means of violence to the state as it gained political rights. The means of organized violence were monopolized by components of the state apparatus, such as the army and the police, but their use was constrained and to a large extent defined by the diverse institutions which came to embody political legitimacy and representative politics. Nation-states were thus, as Giddens puts it, ‘internally pacified, such that monopoly of the means of violence [was] normally only indirectly the resource whereby those who rule sustain[ed] their “government”.’32 Finally, a new ‘medium of power’ was put in place: the surveillance capability linked to the ‘administrative consolidation’ of the nation-states.33 Within this social context, it then becomes possible to think that peace can mean the absence of large-scale, organized violence. In other words, it is because a particular set of social ‘intersections’ has displaced violence out of nation-states towards their outer layer – the international system – that social interactions and social conflicts are conducted within the confines of democratic and representative institutions, of economic interplay, of administrative structures, and not through the use of violence; and it is because of this situation that it is possible to conceive of peace as the absence of violence in a society. The concept of ‘peace as democracy’ depicts this idea that social conflict amounts to what can indeed be characterized as the normal functioning of the political, economic and social institutions found in Western liberal democracies. It refers to the struggle of political parties to win electoral contests and lead a government, therefore, but also to the struggles for power which occur in the economic and bureaucratic realms in these societies. The concept rests, again, on social structures revolving around the emergence of the nation-state, of broad administrative capabilities, and of capitalist and industrial formations. These social structures also determine the nature of the political forces present in Western liberal democracies and that of the power at the disposal of these forces: state, capitalist, and bureaucratic forces cannot employ violence to further their aims and instead must articulate their action through democratic institutions, economic structures, and surveillance mechanisms. It is then possible to characterize the social basis of the concept of peace as democracy in the following fashion: (i) The emergence of the nation-state, of the capitalist–industrial complex, and of surveillance mechanisms entail the displacement of

24

i(ii)

(iii)

(iv)

i(v)

(vi)

Theoretical Remarks

large-scale, organized violence to the inter-state realm. Power within the state is then articulated through liberal democratic institutions, patterns of economic development, and mechanisms of surveillance. Under these conditions, it is possible to think of intra-state peace as the absence of political violence. This concept coincides with the social structures in place in liberal democracies and it thus integrates itself with the social representations which allow the reproduction over time of these structures. The spaces where political power is generated and the extent to which violence is taken away from the exercise of that power is determined by the social structures prevailing in liberal democracies: forces associated with government and political parties (political forces, here understood in a stricter sense), and with capitalist, and bureaucratic formations perpetuate their position of power through democratic institutions and economic and surveillance mechanisms. Political, capitalist, and bureaucratic forces use the means of power at their command to maintain in place the social structures which give them a dominant position in the intra-state social order. The idea that the exercise of political power should be reduced to political, economic, and bureaucratic processes is also promoted by political, capitalist, and bureaucratic forces since it constitutes a representation of the social order which legitimizes the position of these forces and the nature of the power under their control. Because it coincides with the configuration of political forces (here used in the broader sense adopted previously) in place, the concept of peace as democracy adds legitimacy to that political order.

Figure 2.4 illustrates the tensions which are built into the concept of peace as democracy. The sequence (v)–(ii)–(iii) and the sequence (v), (ii), (i) show how all the political forces in place in liberal democracies use the concept of peace as democracy to further legitimize the social structures which produce the political order they dominate and the concept of peace that lends credence to their position and their activities. The sequence (i)–(vi)–(iv) and the sequence (i)–(vi)–(v) illustrate, for their part, how it is the social structures underlying liberal democracies which render plausible and legitimate the idea of peace as the institutionalization of violence. As they determine such a representation of the social order, these structures, in turn, delimit the parameters within which political forces are able to use their power to, first,

Towards a New Explanation 25 Political forces

Nation-state

(iii)

Capitalism/industrialism

Capltalist forces

Surveillance

Bureaucratic forces (iv)

(v)

(vi)

(i)

(ii)

Peace as democracy Figure 2.4 The social basis of the concept of peace as democracy

influence them and, second, define the nature of the concept of peace prevailing in the social order. Essentially, then, the concept of democracy stands at the center of two countervailing tensions. On the one hand, the social structures involved in the development of liberal democratic societies establish the belief that violence is to be excluded from political conflict, and, consequently, influence to a great degree the type of behavior which political forces can portray as legitimate within these societies. On the other hand, all political forces attempt to emphasize in the social discourse a commitment to non-violent politics since it adds to the legitimacy of the structures which provide the foundation of their power. It is possible at this point to expand further on the failings of the Gramscian and critical literature considered earlier. Both approaches entail, as Giddens puts it in a text written subsequently to the publication of The Nation-State and Violence, ‘not just class reductionism, but ‘capitalist reductionism’ also.’34 The Marxist preoccupation with the role played by capitalism in setting constraints which are then seen as determining the evolution of political institutions and ideological superstructures represents indeed a fundamental aspect of both sets of writings. Missing from such writings, however, is a coherent account of ‘what happens,’ to quote Giddens again, this time in The Nation-State and Violence, ‘to the means of violence ‘extruded’ from the labour contact.’35 In other words, the unfolding of the capitalist system and the ramification of this phenomenon in the broader social sphere on which the Gramscian and critical writers concentrate their attention are in fact a function of the ‘intersections’ outlined by Giddens: it is

26

Theoretical Remarks

because a particular arrangement about violence is in place in certain societies that it then becomes possible for these societies to have the type of phenomena which Gramscian and critical writers take as their point of departure or to which they ascribe a determining role dominating all other social realities. For instance, it is when capitalism is placed within the context of the arrangement of violence allowed by the nation-state – the displacement of violence to the international structure and the pacification of the social realm contained within its borders – that it is possible to grasp how emerged the non-violent means of social compulsion and control on which the extension of capitalist economic relations rests. Conversely, if the structural framework underlying the development of Western societies needs to be considered in terms of an intricate set of interactions between the growth of the nation-state, of the capitalist system, and of surveillance mechanisms then the political dynamics generated by these structures cannot be reduced to activities solely related to economic processes. A common assumption among Gramscian and critical writers is the notion that the state represents the institutionalization of class structures and that the paramount factor in its evolution lies in its close relationship with these structures. On the contrary, as was argued above, the state must itself be seen as a key structure, in the sense that it determines the pattern of capitalist developments as much as it is determined by them. In this sense, conceptions of the nature of power must not be imparted with economic determinism, as is the case in too many Gramscian and critical writings. Power must be analyzed, instead, in terms of its relation to violence and of the spaces opened up for its exercise by this particular position vis-à-vis violence. Finally, ideology must not be regarded, as Gramscian and critical writers are wont to do, as embedded in capitalist processes and as a means of legitimization of these processes. Social representations of peace are much more than mere adjuncts to the system of beliefs and norms which allow the perpetuation of a historic bloc, to use the expression favored by Gramscian writers: they deepen the power of the structural framework which generates, inter alia, it must be noted again, capitalist formations, and they stand at the very center of the ideological complex necessary to the reproduction over time of that structural framework. Therefore, it is only by situating their study of political economic factors within the interrelationships outlined above by Giddens that Gramscian and critical theorists can hope to engage in a convincing

Towards a New Explanation 27

analysis of these factors. It is under these conditions that a meaningful critical study of the economy can become feasible, echoing the type of critical study of violence which is proposed here. This remark also applies to much of the work of writers presently involved in what they themselves term a critical study of war and violence. These writers usually attempt to demonstrate that social groups which are able to exploit other groups or segments of a given society are, as well, in a position to use mechanisms of war and violence in order to maintain the social hierarchies that they dominate and the systems of beliefs and ideas that legitimize their power. It is in that sense that such work propounds what can indeed be construed as a critical study of war and violence: it shows that war and violence should not be studied as sui generis phenomena by revealing how they are in fact constructed by a series of social interrelationships which stand aside from them. A writer who adopts this approach, Thom Workman, notes for instance that the critical science of war conceptualizes society in terms of the evolutionary and dynamic struggle between social groups relationally identified as dominant and subaltern, as more powerful and less powerful, or between groups with considerable social latitude and groups that are relatively oppressed. This understanding of society is the conceptual screen through which the analysis of war must be filtered. The relationship between warfare and the dynamic relations among social classes and groups, in other words, is the principal concern.36 This type of study is most often concerned to show the impact that social configurations related to class, gender, or race can have on the nature of warfare and violence in a given society. Practices and roles associated with conceptions of masculinity and femininity are examined in this literature, for instance, in order to explain the development of particular modes of social behavior underlying the prosecution of war.37 The textual deconstructivism of writers associated, de près ou de loin, with the post-structuralist movement can also be mentioned in this context. By bringing into relief the procedure whereby meaning is constituted through discursive practices, these writers provide a standpoint from which to consider, here again, the process of construction of the prevailing social order. The ‘textual strategies’, to borrow an expression put forward by a proponent of this approach, Bradley Klein,38 used to

28

Theoretical Remarks

invest with meaning the categorizations on which the social discourse about war is articulated are thus studied in this perspective, for example, in order to reveal how they are embedded in a specific political order and serve to secure that order. The problem with this type of attempt to define a critical theory of war and violence, from the perspective proposed in this text, is that its focus on the way certain social groups use issues of war and violence to justify and legitimize their position of power obscures the processes whereby war and violence are constituted initially. The notion of class, which, parenthetically, is often reduced to a discourse about oppression that thus neglects the emphasis on material conditions of earlier Marxist approaches, can serve as a case in point. This literature highlights how class power is reproduced through the prosecution of war but it does not explore the fact that the very nature of the power put in the hands of class forces and of the spaces where it is possible to exercise that power is in reality a function of an arrangement about violence allowed by broader processes related to the development of capitalism, of course, but also to that of the nation-state and surveillance mechanisms. This failing is more acute with gender, race, or deconstructivist analyses. These analyses do not take into account, in other words, the fact that tensions between the development of the nation-state and of capitalist and surveillance mechanisms form a structural framework which delineates the spaces where violence can and cannot be used and defines as well the actors who will be able to employ violent forms of power (state forces) and those who will not (capitalist and bureaucratic forces). Such analyses endeavor to demonstrate that political forces influence the social structures underlying conceptions of violence and war, to go back to the schema presented earlier, but they do not incorporate the way in which such structures shape the nature of political power, its relation to violence, and its amalgamation in very precise locations centered around state, capitalist, and bureaucratic forces. It remains to be proven, therefore, that social configurations of gender, race, or discourse, have the power to fashion patterns of violence that these analyses ascribe to them. This misconception probably comes from the fact that such analyses demonstrate that war and violence are socially constructed first by assuming that there is such a thing as phenomena of violence as violence and then by situating these phenomena within processes of social oppression which mould them one way or the other: violence and war are in fact already socially

Towards a New Explanation 29

constructed when they are incorporated into this type of study, and they are indeed constructed by structural constraints which permit little of the leeway that such analyses think possible. The same holds for the emphasis put in these writings on questions of ideology. They often contain the claim that social representations of war and violence are manipulated by social groups intent on securing their position of power within configurations of class, gender, race, or systems of meaning and knowledge. They fail to see, however, that such conceptions, if they are to be plausible, have to remain consonant with conceptions of peace, war, and violence, already determined by the structural relationships brought about by the development of the nation-state, of the capitalist system, and of surveillance mechanisms. Since they seem to overdetermine the role of other factors and, at least, to circumscribe to a great extent the influence of these factors, it thus appears appropriate to argue that a critical theory of violence has to be based on the series of factors introduced here. A counterclaim which is not found in the type of literature just discussed but could nonetheless be put forward is that the very development of the nationstate and that of capitalist and surveillance mechanisms can be reduced to dynamics pertaining to determinants such as gender or race. The burden of the proof, however, still rests at this point with the proponents of such an hypothesis. For all intents and purposes, it can therefore be considered that it is the ‘intersection’ as Anthony Giddens puts it, of very particular dynamics, such as the growth of state institutions, the increasing importance of inter-state relations, or the development of the political demands of the bourgeoisie, itself a function of the social transformations caused by the extension of industrialization and capitalism, that produced the twin processes on which the idea of defining and delimiting the role of violence is based: centralization of the means of organized violence in the hands of the state and pacification through the elaboration of a framework of rules and laws regulating the use of these means of violence. Cambodia’s development, however, has not encompassed all the same social processes nor has it produced similar ‘intersections’ between them. If we are now to move away from the ‘Western traditions’ on violence, to echo Sheldon Wolin’s expression,39 in order to delineate a Cambodian tradition on violence, it is necessary to study the trajectory of state and capitalist development in Cambodia, but also the interaction of these phenomena with the Cambodian social structures proper.

30

Theoretical Remarks

Peace and violence in the Cambodian tradition It is perhaps necessary to first outline the nature of the factors that will be considered here. The state, as an institutional framework, has always been extremely weak in Cambodia. The constant pressures exercised by Cambodia’s two powerful neighbours, Thailand and Vietnam, have added to the frailty of Cambodian state institutions. There has never been in Cambodia, in this sense, a process whereby violence would have been extirpated from society and displaced at the international level while being replaced at the domestic level by surveillance mechanisms. Nor have economic developments caused in Cambodia transformations similar to the ones which took place in Western societies. Business activities have been concentrated in the hands of the royal entourage and in those of the Chinese community. There has never been, therefore, a Cambodian bourgeoisie powerful enough to challenge traditional patterns of authority and violence through demands for an extension of the political franchise. These factors were compounded by the influence of Brahmanism and Buddhism in Cambodia. Both religions posit that the social order is a reflection of a much broader cosmic order which stands outside human intervention and human comprehension. These religions have propounded in Cambodia the values of ‘pyramidal social order’, to use Abdulgaffar Pean-Meth’s expression,40 whereby the king, who is situated at the top of this pyramidal structure, draws his power from the position he occupies in the cosmic order and not in any measure from a concern for popular representation within the political hierarchy. In this context also, the notion of the individual does not receive the preeminence it enjoys in other societies and does not stand at the center of a web of institutions and rules intended to safeguard the rights attached to it. Finally, the ceaseless wars of the post-colonial era, and, most notably, the desolation that befell Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge period, have also provided innumerable social dislocations which have weakened Cambodian political institutions. Therefore, social interactions in Cambodia have tended to be conceptualized in terms of personalized and localized relationships. Individuals find in them a measure of control over the uncertainty of the world. The importance of family life, for instance, is central. So is the role of the numerous networks of personal connections which represent the main point of contact between the individual and society, and which, together with the superior/inferior framework linked to the Brahmanic influence, form the basis of the patronage structure essential to the Cambodian mode de vie.

Towards a New Explanation 31

This means, then, that violence has not been constrained by a framework of political, democratic, and representative institutions, as is the case in the West. The individual, essentially, is not seen as protected from violence by implicit rules and rights. As Niels Mulder remarks: ‘The highly personalized world of “connections” is an impediment of the development of a wider, institutional sphere based on abstractions such as “the rule of law”[…].’41 ‘In other words,’ Mulder continues, ‘there is no competing moral construct to influence the ordering of non-familial relationships, to guide impersonalized relationships with an abstract “generalized other”, in brief, to shape the public sphere.’42 Politics then, in a word, remains the domain of factionalism and does not allow the growth of the wide social structures which would be able to regulate the use of violence. A more detailed account of these arguments can now be provided. Students of the history of political institutions in the Indochinese peninsula are well acquainted with what S.J. Tambiah has called ‘galactic’43 polities. The traditional kingdoms of the region have indeed often been regarded more as a group of locales held together, as it were, by the centripetal attraction exercised by the court through a system of tributary relationships than as a territorial entity where all regions were integrated in a single community. As Donald G. McCloud notes in his System and Process in Southeast Asia: ‘the traditional state in Southeast Asia was not a concrete or fixed territorial unit but, instead, was structured in several concentric zones around the nucleus of the capital.’44 These kingdoms were quite unstable since each attempted to attract in its orbit, to continue with Tambiah’s metaphor, the peripheral regions of the others. If the Cambodian kingdom of the Angkorian period prevailed over much of what is today Indochina during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries of our era, in the following years the kingdoms which were to constitute present-day Thailand and Vietnam thus managed to encroach gradually upon the Cambodian mouvance and reduced greatly its power. Most notably, the Nam Tien, the march towards the South of the Viet people, wrestled from the Cambodian kingdom the control of the Mekong delta and deprived it of the agricultural and piscatorial resources of that region.45 In this sense, the French colonization interrupted a long-term process of disaggregation of the Khmer kingdom. It did not, however, reverse that process. The colonial enterprise in Cambodia was, as Alain Forest has noted in his seminal study of the period, a colonisation sans heurts, concerned primarily with the collection of taxes and thus conducted without the introduction of the type of resources and reforms

32

Theoretical Remarks

witnessed in other parts of Indochina.46 As Forest puts it, ‘because one of the functions of Cambodia in the colonial context was to bring in revenues through the imposition of taxes and because it was possible to collect these taxes without too many problems, the colonial enterprise was limited.’47 The French thus did not attempt to integrate Cambodia in a coherent territorial and political unit and instead superimposed their administration on the set of tributary relations to the court which existed before their arrival. This means, then, that when the Cambodian state appeared after the departure of the French – it is from that point on that one can speak with any consistency of the notion of the state in Cambodia – it did not follow from the incorporation of the fragmented social order which preceded it but rather stood by the side of that social order. Cambodian state institutions could not, therefore, reproduce the processes associated in the West with the emergence of the state. The dichotomy between a pacified domestic society and an international façade where the use of large-scale violence is concentrated did not develop in Cambodia. Beyond the pretense of cohesion offered by the emergence of state institutions proper, violence remained the sole purveyor of power in what still constituted a fractious social order. Nationalism, the means whereby the Western state was able to consolidate the integration of society within its structures and to further the extirpation of large-scale violence from inside its borders, did not provide in Cambodia a counterpoint to the ‘galactic state’ which could have increased its control over political violence in that country. As was argued above, the development of social practices centered around the idea of citizenship and that of the nation-state played a fundamental role in helping Western states marginalize violence within their confines and concentrate into the space created by their juxtaposition. The idea of nation, in this context, helped the state promote the disparity between those who were its citizens and those who were not, a distinction essential to the mobilization of people and resources on which, in turn, the growth of its capacity to wage war was founded. Indeed, as the rise of capitalism led to demands for an enlargement of the political franchise and thus to an atomization of power within society, nationalism supplied the means through which mobilization of the masses in Western societies remained feasible. In his brilliant analysis of phenomena of nationalism, Benedict Anderson shows how this process of popular mobilization rested upon the production of mechanisms which made it possible to ‘imagine political communities.’48 The mass production of books and newspapers

Towards a New Explanation 33

allowed by industrialization and stimulated by the extension of political power to the masses was in this sense central to the diffusion of representations through which it became possible for individuals to ‘imagine’ a close connection between them and people they had never even encountered. Anderson describes how the ‘map-as-logo’ made the state seem ‘like a detachable piece of a jigsaw puzzle’ which could be ‘wholly detached from its geographic context’ and, in turn, duplicated in ‘infinitely reproducible series, available for transfer to … official seals, letterheads, magazine and textbook covers.’49 In that setting, the representation of the state became less the depiction of geographical parameters than the emblem of a fictitious space encompassing all the individuals bound together by virtue of their situation within that space. If conceptions of space were therefore one of the principal means used to generate the ideas through which a collective identity could be conceived, so were conceptions of time. The promotion of the nationalist project could have some measure of legitimacy only if it was perceived as standing above the political machinations of the day and as rooted in deeper historical trends. This meant, however, that some mechanism had to be devised whereby people could feel closely associated with large groups of individuals long dead or not yet born. Historical representations and narrative recounting what could be termed the story of the nation were therefore put forward. Against this backdrop, nationalist efforts appeared as the consequence of the previous advancements of the nation and the prefiguration of subsequent ones. A historical space, as it were, was therefore constructed in this manner. Individuals could then locate their existence within that space, as a moment in a broader historical development, and could thus establish the basis of a common identity with those who had preceded them and those who would eventually follow them in that process. How did the idea of nation evolve in Cambodia? Giddens’ suggestion that the trajectory of nationalism in colonial spheres can be characterized by the term ‘state-nation’, opposed to the concept of nation-state familiar to the West, is particularly pertinent in this case.50 The nationalist project was literally imported to Cambodia by the French as they attempted to emulate the Western model of the state: if this model called for the nation as a counterpart to the development of state institutions, then it had to find its parallel in Cambodia as incipient state institutions were being established there. In a passage that can be applied directly to the French colonial period,

34

Theoretical Remarks

Anderson notes for instance that through ‘the census, the map, and the museum’, the nineteenth-century colonial state (and policies that its mindset encouraged) dialectically engendered the grammar of the nationalisms that eventually arose to combat it. Indeed, one might go so far as to say that the state imagined its local adversaries, as in an ominous prophetic dream, well before they came into historical existence. To the forming of this imagining, the census’ abstract, quantification/serialization of persons, the map’s eventual logoization of political space, and the museum’s ‘ecumenical’ profane genealogizing made interlinked contributions.51 The principal theme of the nationalist project in Cambodia followed in this perspective from the rediscovery of Angkor Wat by French archaeologists. As many researchers associated with the École Française d’Extrême-Orient, for instance, exalted in their wake in the glory and the affluence of the Angkorian kingdom, the vocabulary which would be adopted later on by Cambodian nationalism took shape. The consideration of the vast territory once controlled by the kingdom provided the mythic space which, in turn, could be used to evoke and represent the interface between all Cambodians which were hence bound together. The institutions and the rituals of Angkor, for their part, were made to appear as the initial expression of an identity which could still find an echo in contemporary times. A history of the Cambodian nation was thus brought to bear in the nationalist process whereby Cambodians were given a way of thinking of themselves as part of a process which united them with past and future members of a distinct collectivity. Following Forest’s suggestion that it is the ‘notion of tradition which sets apart the Cambodian identity,’52 it is therefore fitting to propose that Cambodia experienced during the colonial period the emergence of a nationalism of tradition. The nationalist discourse which different Cambodian elites propounded in the last years of the French presence in Cambodia built on this idea by promoting nationalism essentially as a retour aux sources, allowing modern Cambodia to participate in, if not duplicate, the prestige of the Angkorian heritage. Furthermore, it is possible to argue that this nationalism of tradition was compounded by the fact that the groups promoting it were themselves part of the traditional elites of Cambodia, for instance those gravitating around King Sihanouk, which would benefit from the popularization of such a point of entry into the nationalist project to the exclusion of all others.

Towards a New Explanation 35

Since it did not refer explicitly to concrete realities but to a mythical past meant to be reconstituted, Cambodian nationalism could be submitted to different interpretations. In the context of the failure of Cambodian state institutions to bring about an integration of Cambodia’s fractured social order, it was thus recuperated by different segments of the Cambodian political elite in their struggle with one another. Nationalism thus became an inflationary discourse, often expressing divergence more than unity. It was therefore prevented from contributing even the beginnings of a national entity whose delineation could then have provided points of contact with other states where violence would eventually have been concentrated. Contrary to what happened in the West, therefore, Cambodia never witnessed the development of a nation-state potent enough to establish a measure of control over organized violence. Failure to insulate a space for non-violent politics within its borders in turn prevented the Cambodian state from acquiring the capacity to impose its rule through non-violent means. The movement from a type of state power rooted in the exercise of violence to one articulated on mechanisms of bureaucratic surveillance thus never took place in Cambodia. The administrative organization fostered by the French presence, though it provided the first rudiments of a bureaucratic ethos in Cambodia, could not create this movement either. The French attempts at establishing a bureaucracy remained too timid because, as was argued above, the Cambodian protectorate provided France with considerable revenues without much effort on its part and without any substantial modification of Cambodia’s traditional social formations. It can be noted, in this regard, that Alain Forest concludes his extensive study of the French administrative apparatus in Cambodia by remarking that the French authorities have occupied all the terrain of initiative and public action, have asked of the Cambodians, at whatever level, only approbation, obedience, and submission, and have confined Cambodian authority within the realm of the traditional and, more precisely, of the religious … From this has resulted a complete loss of a sense of responsibility and the non-emergence of a sense of duty to the state [non-émergence d’un certain sens de l’État] in a civil service which has escaped all form of sanction from those thus administered; which has meant, in concrete terms, the continuation, in a more discrete way however, of peculation and arbitrary practices.53

36

Theoretical Remarks

In a fractured social order where violence constituted the means of exercising power, the state has therefore been perceived not as the arbitrator or the adjudicator of social conflict, but as one pole of power among many, prone to violence like its counterpart when put in a situation of conflict. Conversely, the military in Cambodia has constituted an instrument of state power within the state’s borders much more than outside of them. If, therefore, the means of control of violence associated with the rise of the state in the West did not appear in Cambodia, neither did those associated with the rise of industrial capitalism: the lack of a capitalist class precluded the emergence of the type of demands for political reorganization which would have, in turn, allowed the elaboration of a system of individual and social rights able to restrict and regulate the use of violence. Cambodia’s economy has been based traditionally upon what Nayan Chanda describes in his study of the country’s political economy as ‘family-based agriculture and trade.’54 The French, content to obtain the revenues afforded by these forms of economic production, did not endeavour to industrialize Cambodia. A slow movement towards the development of some industries was then abruptly interrupted by the overspilling of the Vietnam War in the country and the politico-economic programme of the Khmer Rouge. The economic liberalization which took place in the last years of the regime installed in Phnom Penh by Vietnam and in those that led to the present period brought about, after that, a capitalisme sauvage more concerned with insuring a return on short-term investments than with fostering a durable industrialization in Cambodia. The only group which has been able to accumulate capital in Cambodia is the Chinese community, through its involvement with all channels of trade in the country. The Chinese, however, have been reluctant to invest in the industrial sector, most notably because of sustained political uncertainty. Nayan Chanda, for instance, remarks that ‘although a growing number of traders – mostly of Chinese origin – [have grown] very wealthy from … trade there [has been] no incentive, nor security for them to invest in productive enterprises.’55 Throughout Cambodian history, therefore, there has never been the emergence of an industrialization process which could have led to the rise of a capitalist class proper. The one group with economic clout, the Chinese, has not been integrated in Cambodian society to the point where it could have constituted a distinct center of power within the political institutions of that society. Again, then, the absence of a bourgeoisie in Cambodia has not permitted the type of developments

Towards a New Explanation 37

towards the control of social violence linked to the rise of a classe bourgeoise in Western societies. State, nationalist, bureaucratic, and economic developments have thus created in Cambodia a polity characterized by the absence, rather than the presence as is the case in Western societies, of institutions able to control organized violence and of a complex of rights accorded the individual and the group able to hinder the exercise of violence against them. Furthermore, it is possible to suggest that the conditions brought about by these developments have paralleled tendencies which were present in Cambodia before their occurrence. It can be noted first, for instance, that what Forest calls the ‘sacred mode of power’ in Cambodia (‘le mode sacré du pouvoir’)56 has contributed by itself to the absence of a system of rights capable of protecting the individual from violence. The Cambodian political order was moulded initially by elements of Hinduized practices which provided it with a ‘vocabulary of social hierarchies,’ to use a phrase put forward by one of Cambodia’s foremost historians, David P. Chandler, in his A History of Cambodia.57 This ‘vocabulary of hierarchies’ was focused on Brahmanist beliefs which gave a preponderant place in the political order to the king and to a priestly class and was thought to reflect a deeper cosmic order standing outside of human reality and comprehension. The individual, therefore, could only invest itself in the political realm by participating in that cosmic order, that is by consenting to the hierarchical practices in place as a way of mediating between the cosmic and the political orders and of allowing the reproduction of the former through the latter. The political order was thus not perceived as a site of contestation where the individual had to carve out a system of rights if they were to guarantee themselves a significant status in political practices. In this sense, one can note, then, that barriers erected in other societies to protect the individual from the exercise of violence were lacking here. The conversion of Jayavarman VII to Buddhism, in the twelfth century of our era, substituted, as it were, a vocabulary of harmony to the hierarchical order of the previous period. His adherence to Buddhist principles – the interdependence of ruler and ruled in the process of instauration of a moral political order, the need to anticipate the creation of this order through the interiorization of moral prescriptions – led him to emphasize the reciprocal nature of the roles played by the ruling class and by the masses. As Chandler notes in a pithy passage: the difference between a Buddhist king and a Hindu one resembles the difference between a monologue that no one overhears and

38

Theoretical Remarks

a soliloquy addressed to an audience of paid or invited guests. A ‘Hindu’ king’s rule was an aggregation of statements – rituals, temples, poems, marriages, inscriptions and the like – and his grandeur and godliness. A Buddhist king made similar statements, but he addressed them, specifically, to an audience consisting of his people. This made the people less an ingredient of the king’s magnificence (as his thousands of slaves had always been) than objects of his overwhelming compassion, an audience for his merit-making and participants in his redemption.58 In the next century, the expansion of Theravada Buddhism, with its strong focus on the political implication of efforts at personal salvation, added to these changes. It instilled in the Cambodian population at large a sense of the need to strive for the harmonization of all of society and of the impetus which could be given to such an endeavor by the adoption, at a personal level, of Buddhist ethical prescriptions. The monarchy, however, retained in this set of beliefs a fundamental role as the symbol and the guarantee of the link between the metaphysical and the social. It was in fact fundamental that the ruler rule, by violence if necessary, so that the different roles which had to be assumed for the community to be in order could be filled, and so that, then, a higher level of social harmonization could be envisioned. This attempt to establish harmony both at the social and individual level, it can be argued, entailed the conclusion that society, if faced with violence, should first seek to restore the measure of harmonization already achieved and then seek to attain an even further degree of harmony. There was in this, then, the idea that society should attempt to move beyond violence, rather than try to deal with it in a more direct and concrete fashion. This logic of the fuite en avant, then, can be seen as having prevented the elaboration of the type of mechanisms aimed at securing the individual from political violence. Buddhism, also, is rooted in the idea of the impermanence of all things human; the progress towards social harmony and personal salvation is to and fro, because it is embedded in cosmic processes which sometimes support, sometimes hinder, human endeavors. It is possible to argue that, because of the influence of such a context, the logic of political relationships have been marked similarly by the notion of impermanence. Outside the family, which provides a stable core environment, political associations in Cambodia have indeed tended to be characterized by the search for a patron able to dispense means of protection against the aléas of life, and also by the understanding that the

Towards a New Explanation 39

relation to a particular patron will last as long as circumstances render it profitable. These patron–client affiliations, and even more so the factional dynamics which they generate, can in turn be seen as having prevented the emergence of broader bonds of loyalty.59 The weakness of state institutions in Cambodia, the difficulty of articulating a Cambodian nationalist discourse articulated on contemporary realities, can certainly be interpreted in these terms. The lack of a framework extensive enough to encompass Cambodian society as a whole and thus provide the opportunity to develop mechanisms of the type necessary to extirpate violence from that society in a series of processes comparable to those observed in the West can, in this regard, be explained at this level also. All these different patterns of development have therefore created in Cambodia a polity where organized violence is not, so to speak, concentrated at the outer edge and where the exercise of organized violence is not restricted by an array of social and political rights. What concept of peace can be plausible in this context? It is possible to suggest that the absence in Cambodia of actors able to establish boundaries to the use of organized violence and practices and rules concerning its control leads to a situation where violence is not perceived in instrumental terms, as the means whereby certain actors attempt to attain certain objectives within the range of options offered to them by the restrictions linked to a particular social order. Rather, violence is seen, in these circumstances, as contextual, in that it is defined as an autonomous part of the social order, standing outside of all agency and determining by its presence the very nature of that social order. It is also appropriate to suggest here that such a vision of violence as contextual, combined with the social structures present in Cambodian society, will entail a concept of peace calling into play factional dynamics since political factions constitute the only mode of affiliation able to provide some measure of protection from violence and to control to a degree the means of organized violence. Peace, then, would involve a situation where violence is diminished temporarily because there is some form of balance in the means of violence available to the different factions in place, or because one is able to dominate the others. Peace, according to that logic, would therefore not rest on the absence of violence since the political factions confronted to one another could not claim a monopoly over violence. Residual violence, as it were, would remain. Peace would also be temporary, because the lack of

40

Theoretical Remarks

complete command over the means of violence added to the intrinsic instability of factional allegiances would prevent peaceful factional configurations from sustaining themselves over time. These concepts of peace would also stand in tension with the idea of peace as restored harmony which is inherent in Cambodian Buddhist beliefs. Those beliefs call for a profound mobilization of the community, at both the individual and social levels, in the event of large-scale violence in order to bring about a more moral social order better able to lessen the role of violence in society. By promoting a logic whereby social transformations interact with the broader order from which violence emerges so that it can then be diminished, the idea of peace as restored harmony thus appears to provide a more fitting resolution to the problem of violence than does the solution de pis-aller offered by a recourse to factional dynamics. This approach to peace, however, seems less circuitous and would thus prove more appealing. These remarks thus entail an oscillation between two fundamental approaches to peace: one, somewhat limited in its aims, which rests on the attempt to circumscribe violence through certain factional configurations, and one, much more comprehensive, based on the idea that it is only contextual transformations that can get, indeed, at the contextual nature of violence and limit its use. With its short intervals of peace defined by the ebb and flow of power among rival factions and played against the background of the monarchy’s efforts to draw on religious beliefs to bolster its rule and counter factional machinations, Cambodia’s history certainly seems to lend credence to this assumption.60 If it is accepted, following the earlier development on Cambodia’s evolution, that the two principal political forces in the country gravitate around the politics of factionalism and those related to the monarchy, it is then possible to represent the social basis of the Cambodian conception of peace in this manner: 1. Cambodia’s socio-institutional development does not entail the evacuation of violence from social intercourse through the processes at work in Western societies: the instauration of rights able to impede the exercise of violence, the centralization of the means of violence in state-regulated institutions, and the creation of alternate means of power. Consequently, violence is perceived as contextual, in the sense that it is seen as being part of the very nature of social aggregation and as escaping the control of any one actor. It is understood, in other words, as inexorably linked to all social life, rather than as something which can be reduced solely to one among many

Towards a New Explanation 41

instruments of power. Its use is not determined, in other words, by the objectives pursued by actors enabled by a certain vision of what constitutes social order to articulate their action through violent means. (i) Two concepts of peace are plausible given this view of violence: one which builds on the strongest poles of political affiliation in Cambodian society in order to devise concentrations and arrangements of power able to diminish the prevalence of violence (peace as factional balance/hegemony); one, rooted in Buddhist beliefs, which holds that in order to move beyond the problem posed by violence in society it is necessary to transform the prevailing social order (peace as restored social harmony). 2. These concepts coincide with the modes of socio-institutional developments which have shaped Cambodian society and the legitimacy accorded them helps sustain this socio-institutional configuration over time. 3. Political factionalism and monarchism represent the two fundamental modes of political affiliation generated by Cambodia’s socioinstitutional development. These patterns of development have rendered other political forces too weak to develop more than a small measure of autonomy and their behavior is thus governed principally by these two sets of forces. The fact that violence has not been removed from social interaction in Cambodia, in turn, means that factional and monarchic forces can rely on the channels opened to them by their control over other political forces in order to exercise power, but also that violence remains the principal means of power available to them. 4. Factional and monarchic forces use violence, as well as the other means of power at their disposal, to maintain in place the prevailing social order. There are tensions between these two groups as each tries to protect and develop the elements of Cambodian society from which it draws its power. 5. Factional and monarchic forces promote concepts of peace which add legitimacy to their position of power and their use of violence to further their objectives. A concept of peace articulated on the need to institute a form of political hegemony or what amounts to a system of balance of power gives weight to the position of power of the Cambodian political factions and to the way in which they exercise their power since it favors those in Cambodian society who are able to establish such political arrangements and legitimizes the central

42

Theoretical Remarks

role accorded violence in justifying and creating these arrangements. A vision of peace premised on a renewed social order dictates that the monarch be given a central role in the Cambodian political order and that he exercise his power, through violence if so required. Also, there are tensions between factional and monarchic forces as each group attempts to legitimize the concept of peace from which it can draw some benefit. 6. Because they coincide with a political order dominated by factional and monarchic forces and marked by a constant recourse to violence, the concepts of peace as factional balance/hegemony and peace as restored social harmony, as they become legitimate, add to the legitimacy of that political order. In Figure 2.5, again, concepts of peace stand at the center of countervailing tendencies: factional and monarchic forces attempt to promote conceptions of peace which add to the legitimacy of the social configuration underlying their power and, conversely, that social configuration determines the plausibility of the concepts of peace which in turn legitimize the power put in the hands of factional and monarchic forces. The sequence (v)–(ii)–(iii) and the sequence (v)–(ii)–(i) show how factional and monarchic forces endeavor to legitimize conceptions of peace that coincide and reinforce social features which, on the one hand, provide them with positions and means of power, and, on the other hand, generate approaches to peace favoring them. Factional forces

Weak state institutions (iii)

Monarchic forces

Nationalism of traditions

State forces

Weak bureaucracy

Nationalist forces

Armed forces autonomous from the state (iv)

Bureaucratic forces

Lack of industrial/capitalist development

Military forces

(v)

Sacred mode of power (Kinghip)

(vi)

(i)

(ii)

Peace as factional balance/hegemony Peace as restored social harmony Figure 2.5 The social basis of the Cambodian conception of peace

Towards a New Explanation 43

The sequence (i)–(vi)–(iv), and the sequence (i)–(vi)–(v), for their part, demonstrate that it is these features of Cambodian society that render possible and credible the concepts of peace, which, in turn, legitimize the use of violence and the positions of power allowing factional and monarchic forces to influence Cambodia’s socio-institutional development and the conceptions of peace prevailing in Cambodian society. What will happen, then, when the Paris Plan attempts to impose in that context the idea that peace is to rest on the instauration of democratic institutions and endeavor, furthermore, to create the social structures which are seen as linked with that conception of peace?

The Paris Plan as encounter between the Western and Cambodian traditions What will occur if the following process is initiated by the Paris plan?

Political forces Capitalist forces Bureaucratic forces

Nation-state Capitalism/industrialism Surveillance

Peace as democracy

Factional forces Monarchic forces State forces Nationalist forces Bureaucratic forces Military forces

Weak state institutions Nationalism of traditions Weak bureaucracy Armed forces autonomous from the state Lack of industrial/capitalist development Sacred mode of power (kingship)

Peace as factional balance/hegemony Peace as restored social harmony Figure 2.6 The social transformations entailed by the Paris Plan

44

Theoretical Remarks

According to the logic presented earlier, four phenomena will follow, which will in turn signify the failure of the Paris Plan. First, the total reorganization of the Cambodia’s social features so that they can accommodate strong state and democratic institutions, capitalist development, as well as the instauration of bureaucratic processes, will be difficult to engineer, given the weakness or the absence of the corresponding social structures in Cambodian society and the prevalence of other modes of social organization. This idea, parenthetically, parallels the predictions made by many observers of Cambodian politics before the Paris Plan got under way. Serge Thion, for instance, in a text written in 1986 which foreshadowed by years even that type of prediction, noted that ‘factionalism is the most recurrent tendency’ in Cambodia, that ‘political integration had not been completely achieved’, and that the ‘state appear[ed] even weaker than it used to be’, and then added that these continuities should be the basis of any projection of a political future for the country. They are certainly bounds within which a political reorganization is thinkable. Any proposal going beyond these bounds, calling for some kind of modern representative system, had better be forgotten as unrealistic and probably dangerous.61 The three other phenomena posited at this point by the assumptions outlined here, conversely, highlight their originality. The second supposition of the framework of inquiry introduced here is that there will emerge what was described above as a conceptual vacuum around the idea of what should constitute peace in Cambodia. The concept of peace as democracy will not have any resonance because the social structures which underlie that concept will still not be in place. Simultaneously, the promotion of that concept will discredit approaches to peace which would be more consonant with the features of Cambodian society. It will be difficult, in other words, to defend the notion that peace can entail the absence of violence and the reduction of conflict to political processes in a social environment which does not allow the evacuation of violence from social interaction, while the emphasis nonetheless put on that concept will obfuscate the approaches to peace generated by this type of social environment. It is speculated here that groups associated with Cambodia’s political factions and with that country’s monarchy will all attempt to use the difficulties with the implementation of the peace plan to further impede its progress so that the social structures on which their power

Towards a New Explanation 45

rests can be preserved. To the extent that social transformations have already been achieved, these groups will then use the misgivings about the peace plan’s core concept to promote alternative approaches to peace which, while drawing on the transformations of Cambodian society already under way, will also leave intact Cambodia’s political hierarchies. The framework of inquiry adopted here thus posits, thirdly, that international attempts to strengthen state and representative institutions, to foster the development of a capitalist class, and to develop a capable bureaucracy in Cambodia will be perceived by the leadership of the different political factions and by groups associated with the monarchy as threatening the position they occupy in Cambodian society and as precipitating a movement towards non-violent forms of power which escape them. They will thus use the means of power at their disposal – violence – to attempt to stop, and possibly reverse, international efforts at social transformation. Fourthly, it is posited that factional and monarchic forces will not endorse the concept of peace as democracy because they know they will not be able to manipulate that concept so that it coincides with the social transformations promoted in Cambodia by the international community and yet allows the preservation of their power. It is therefore assumed that factional and monarchic forces will try to modify the conceptions of peace which legitimize their position so that these conceptions take into account the changes underway in Cambodian society. They will thus integrate in the idea of peace as factional balance/ hegemony or as restored social harmony a concern with the development of representative, economic, and bureaucratic structures, and they will present the former as a condition for the latter. They will then, it is posited here, argue that the difficulty of establishing the concept of peace as democracy in Cambodia demonstrates the need to accept the approach to peace which they are promoting.

3 Peace in the Post-Cold War Order

It is important here to underscore the implications of this type of analysis. As was stated earlier, most explanations of the failure of the Paris Peace Plan revolve around an examination of the implementation of the plan. The framework of inquiry presented above, it is first possible to argue, brings into relief factors ignored by these explanations and which undermine their logic. The great majority of these explanations focus on UNTAC’s inability to act in a determined fashion on the mandate it received in Paris. The Paris Agreement enabled the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Cambodia to ‘make the final decision’ if the SNC could not arrive at a consensus or if its ‘advice or action’ was incompatible with the agreement.1 According to the proponents of these explanations, UNTAC should have availed itself of this prerogative to require the different factions to sit at the negotiation table once tensions between them had emerged, to adjudicate their quarrels, and indeed to use force in order to ensure that each Cambodian faction respected the conditions it had accepted in Paris.2 The arguments advanced above, however, show how the fact that these procedures were intended to move the Cambodian factions away from open hostilities and to thus provide the beginning of an institutionalization of violence in Cambodia could only render them ineffectual. Attempting to mediate between the different factions or to negotiate with them reduced the dynamics of the Cambodian conflict to a confrontation between these factions and overlooked completely the socio-political conditions which made a movement beyond violence impossible. In other words, to think that bringing the actors of the conflict to the negotiation table could end the conflict rested on the assumption that these actors needed only to resolve their differences 46

Peace in the Post-Cold War Order 47

for the conflict to be resolved. This assumption did not take into account that these actors were placed in a society which did not provide them with the institutions and the social structures on which it would have been possible to articulate the type of peace proposed by UNTAC. The assumptions presented above, if proven right, could thus demonstrate that arguing that UNTAC should have entered more earnestly into negotiation and mediation processes or that it should have used force to pressure the factions into respecting the commitments made in Paris is nonsensical. The question can only be: even if negotiations had taken place, would peace have been possible in Cambodia? Indeed, could the commitments made in Paris have been kept at all, even if the UNTAC military had been used to pressure the different Cambodian leaders, because the nature of Cambodian politics represented a force of inertia which forestalled the realization of these commitments? In addition, a corroboration of the assumptions introduced earlier would prove that it is improper to even think that meaningful negotiation processes could have been initiated by UNTAC since such processes were perceived by the faction leaders as ushering in the institutionalization of Cambodian politics and therefore as threatening the social structures on which their power is based. Finally, a systematic study of the implications of the attempt by UNTAC to introduce in Cambodia what constituted a new model of peace dissimilar from approaches to conflict resolution rooted in the traditional Cambodian political patterns would show that the different factions felt they needed to undermine even this very conception of peace if the legitimacy of the traditional politics from which they derived their power were to be preserved. The necessity of introducing an ideological element highlighting the role of different concepts of peace in the explanations of the behavior of the Cambodian factions would thus be established here. The literature on the failure of the Paris Plan also includes a smaller cluster of interpretations which revolves around what could be termed the ‘peace through development’ perspective. Analysts associated with this approach acknowledge that the movement towards non-violent politics in Cambodia was possible only through the setting in motion of broad social transformations and they argue that the potential for such transformations was incorporated in the Paris Agreement. They suggest that many components of the rehabilitation and reconstruction program dealing with socio-economic development which were indeed part of the document signed in Paris in October 1991 could

48

Theoretical Remarks

have put in place the social and economic institutions which were in fact necessary to the establishment of peace in Cambodia. Had the implementation of the reconstruction and rehabilitation components of the Paris Plan been properly implemented, they therefore contend, the outcome of the Paris Peace Plan could have been different.3 The assumptions presented earlier, if supported by an examination of the implementation of the Paris Plan, would show how such a position could be counterproductive in that it would entail a backlash from leaders afraid of seeing any modification in the social structures on which their power rests. The present study, therefore, could demonstrate the need to introduce in that approach to conflict resolution in Cambodia the ability, first, to gauge the level of resistance of the leaders threatened by the social transformations it advocates, and, second, the ability to integrate these considerations in its strategy about the exact nature of the transformations it should promote and the pace at which these transformations should proceed. It would also show the need to integrate ideological elements in these considerations. It would highlight how a modification of Cambodia’s political terrain would entail a redefinition of the approaches to peace pertaining to Cambodian society and, in turn, a marginalization of the social representation on which the traditional political leadership of the country has hitherto relied to justify its position of power. It would show, then, how Cambodia’s leaders can be expected to resist any modification of Cambodian political patterns at this level also, and perhaps seek to articulate this resistance through an attempt to justify anew the traditional concepts of peace prevailing in their society. These points should be considered within the context of the interest of the international community in the notion of peace-building prompted by the publication of An Agenda for Peace, a report of the SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations on the expansion of peacekeeping operations beyond their traditional scope.4 One of the aspects of the Agenda for Peace which sparked the most interest is indeed its emphasis on peace-building, the attempt to ‘identify and support structures which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse into conflict.’5 ‘To be truly successful,’ the report argued, ‘peacemaking and peacekeeping operations must come to include comprehensive efforts to identify and support structures which will … consolidate peace.’6 The Paris Agreement concentrated on a massive rehabilitation and reconstruction program,7 and an array of measure intended to bring about in Cambodia a ‘neutral political environment conducive to free and fair general elections.’8 All these measures, it was hoped, would

Peace in the Post-Cold War Order 49

transform Cambodia’s socio-cultural environment in order to make it more conducive to the attainment of peace. In a word, they would, to borrow from the Agenda for Peace, ‘support structures which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace.’ This was well understood by the UN. For instance, Dennis McNamara, the head of the human rights component of UNTAC, argued that: Crucially, [peace-building as part of the Cambodian peace process] involves, as well as changes in attitudes and approaches, the reconstruction of civic institutions – the legal system, the courts, religious and educational bodies, and importantly – in Cambodia at least – traditional conflict mechanisms, essential to replace an automatic recourse to violence.9 The difficulties encountered by the Cambodian peace process, therefore, represents a fundamental problem for the UN as it considers what could be termed expanded peace operations since they imply that some issues were overlooked in the formulation of the notion of peace-building.10 The literature of the failure of the Cambodian peace process presented above is often concerned with presenting its conclusions about the collapse of the peace process as so many lessons which should inform such a reevaluation of peace-building. By proving that these writings are often wrong, this study could show that the development of peacebuilding should in fact proceed from a different basis. Conversely, it could itself provide valuable lessons for peace-building. These remarks would in turn have ramifications for scholarly research on conflict resolution. Most of the attempts to interpret the processes which can lead to an institutionalization of conflict, a notion defined by C. R. Mitchell in his review of the literature on ‘Conflict, War and Conflict Mangement’ as ‘efforts to place the conduct of a conflict and the resultant search for some minimally satisfactory settlement within a framework of norms or rules which parties recognize and which, in favourable circumstances, result in the establishment of some accepted legal system,’11 revolve around a basic dichotomy. A large segment of these writings posits that the sources of conflict and the means of resolving it lie with individual actors. Conflicts emanate from the fact that different actors strive to achieve incompatible goals, and their resolution is possible if institutional mechanisms can be established to conciliate these goals or to create conditions in which they can be pursued in a non-violent manner. The majority of

50

Theoretical Remarks

writings linked to this perspective see negotiation, but also mediation and arbitration, as the most important of these mechanisms.12 According to the other major approach found in the literature on the institutionalization of conflict, conflict arises out of what is considered to be objective conditions. Hence, according to the proponents of this approach, it is not because actors attempt to achieve incompatible objectives that conflicts break out; rather, it is because the structural properties of certain situations force conflictual relationships on the actors involved in them. Many authors associated with this school of thought then argue that conflict resolution must focus on a complete and radical transformation of society aimed at orchestrating a movement beyond these structural conflicts. The work of Johan Galtung, for instance, is prototypical of this tendency.13 Others, however, remain more circumspect in their recommendations for conflict resolution and propose instead that the ‘infrastructure [of what would constitute] intractable conflict(s)’, in the words of the writer who most often exemplifies that theoretical outlook, Edward E. Azar, be modified by processes of social change so that can emerge the conditions whereby structural sources of conflict will be addressed and managed through institutional mechanisms.14 The recommendations on peace-building associated with the literature on the failure of the Paris Peace Plan parallel the two principal approaches found in the literature on conflict resolution and undoubtedly stem from the application of the postulates of these two theoretical approaches in the context of the Cambodian debacle. Demonstrating that these recommendations are misguided could thus offer interesting insights in the literature on conflict resolution per se.

Part II The 1993 Elections: Peace as New Social Contract

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4 Tous les chemins mènent à Paris

Towards the first Paris Conference According to Nicolas Regaud, the Cambodian conflict before the conclusion of the Paris Agreement can be divided into three periods.1 The first of these phases began with the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, in December 1978, and ended in 1986. A complete stalemate prevailed at the extra-regional, regional and local levels of the conflict during those years. The speech given by Gorbachev in Vladivostock on 28 July, 1986, inaugurated a second phase characterized by movement at the extra-regional and regional levels of the conflict. The diplomatic talks which took place at this point culminated at the Paris Peace Conference on Cambodia held in August 1989. The failure of the Cambodian factions to reach a power-sharing agreement in Paris then created the dynamic which defined the third phase of the war. A ‘phenomenon of relocalization of the Cambodian conflict’2 became apparent in that phase, whereby the extra-regional and regional actors of the conflict settled their differences and cooperated formally or informally to pressure the Cambodians into accepting some form of power-sharing. The negotiation process within each of these periods, it can be added, reflected the strategic equations which prevailed at the time. The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in late 1978 and the ‘lesson’ the Chinese tried to teach to the Vietnamese in February and March of the following year created in the first phase of the war a multi-level conflict. The conflict taking place in Cambodia indeed, by then, opposed the different Cambodian factions to one another, but also Vietnam to the countries of ASEAN, China to Vietnam, and, finally, the Soviet Union to China and the United States. An ‘interlocking structure’ of conflict, to use an expression put forward by Michael Leifer in an 53

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article on the ‘Obstacles to a Political Settlement in Indochina,’3 was thus created: any marked intensification of the fighting would have entailed risks of escalation and regional destabilization which were unacceptable to the extra-regional and regional actors of the conflict. Because of this ‘interlocking structure’ and of the risks of escalation it involved, strategies based on low-intensity warfare were devised. Their logic rested on a long-term approach to the conflict. The Phnom Penh-Hanoi-Moscow coalition thought that over time it could impose a fait accompli in Cambodia. As the months and years would go by, Phnom Penh would, in this view, slowly establish its control over the Cambodian countryside and convince the international community of its legitimacy. For its part, the alliance formed by the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK), itself the result of a compact between the followers of Prince Sihanouk, a republican group led by Son San, and the Khmer Rouge, and by the countries of ASEAN, China and the United States, wanted to ‘bleed Vietnam white’, as went the expression favored by the Chinese. This strategy revolved around the international economic embargo imposed against Vietnam in the wake of its invasion of Cambodia: as the conflict went on, it was hoped, the Vietnamese economy would be so weakened that Hanoi would have to pull its troops out. The dynamic of the negotiations which occurred during this period was a function of these strategies. Hanoi insisted that atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge and numerous attacks against its territory had led to its presence in Cambodia. For these same reasons, the installation of the Heng Samrin regime was deemed ‘irreversible’. In this perspective, the Cambodian conflict resulted from the attempts of the CGDK to challenge the authority of this regime. It was in effect a civil war, the argument went on, in which Vietnam played only an indirect role. For the CGDK and its partners, on the contrary, the war in Cambodia was clearly an international conflict since its cause was Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia. Michael Leifer, this time in his Cambodian Conflict – The Final Phase?, noted at the end of this period, that The diplomatic stalemate over Cambodia appeared to have become entrenched, with neither Vietnam nor ASEAN apparently prepared to compromise over how the conflict should be represented, and, therefore, on the terms on which negotiations might begin to resolve it. At that juncture, compromise seemed impossible because of the stark alternative representations of the Cambodian conflict.4

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It must be noted that the two coalitions put forward these contradicting definitions of the conflict in diverse negotiation fora and in their pronouncements knowing full well that they would lead to an impasse which in turn would give them the time they needed to realize their respective objectives. In this sense, the diplomatic stalemate of the 1979–86 period, whereby much more time was spent arguing about the nature of the Cambodian conflict than trying to resolve it, was in fact a function of the strategies followed by each coalition on the ground and at the negotiation table.5 The changes which marked the extra-regional and regional levels of the conflict during the 1986–9 period transformed the dynamics of the negotiation process. The speech given by Gorbachev in Vladivostock, in July 1986, outlined Moscow’s new perspective on the Asia-Pacific region as well as its desire for a resolution of the regional conflicts in which it had been embroiled for a number of years. In October of the same year, the Soviet Union also signalled its willingness to discuss the Cambodian situation with China. This reversal of position – Moscow had only wanted to discuss bilateral issues with China before – permitted movement on the one issue that Beijing had always regarded as the most important ‘obstacle’ to the normalization of its relations with the Soviets. The possibility of a Sino-Soviet rapprochement forced the Vietnamese to reassess the consequences of their commitment to a continued presence in Cambodia. Moreover, the success of its offensive in Western Cambodia during the 1984 –5 dry season had buoyed Hanoi up and had already led it to state on many occasions that it would withdraw its troops from Cambodia in the near future. Also, the Sixth Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party, held at the end of 1986, brought to power reformers intent on redressing the Vietnamese economy, by now extremely weakened by the international embargo imposed on Vietnam. Many observers thus concluded that Vietnam would take the steps necessary to relax this international economic stranglehold. These signs of movement on Vietnam’s part created the conditions for a reformulation of the negotiation agenda. The turning point came at the Jakarta Informal Meeting, held in July 1988. For the first time, the Cambodian factions sat at the same table. These discussions, held in the context of Vietnam’s repeated promises of imminent withdrawal from Cambodia, put the dissensions among the Cambodians at the center of the search for a political solution to the Cambodian conflict. Movement at the extra-regional and regional levels of the conflict did not, however, translate into concessions on the Cambodian factions’ part. Both the Phnom Penh authorities and the

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members of the CGDK continued to present themselves as the legitimate government in Cambodia. This situation effectively destroyed all hopes of finding a formula for ‘national reconciliation’ acceptable to the two sides. The negotiation stalemate, however, now was centered on a different issue: who was entitled to organize the elections which would bring about peace and national reconciliation? The Phnom Penh regime argued that it represented the legitimate government of Cambodia and that elections should be organized while its main structures were still in place. It was only after these elections that a quadripartite entity, including the four Cambodian factions, would be formed. The CGDK wanted on the contrary to reverse the sequence: first, a quadripartite authority should be created and the Phnom Penh regime dismantled, then elections would be held under the supervision of that new authority. Both sides, evidently, wanted to be able to influence the result of eventual elections by controlling their organization. Further improvement in the relations among the extra-regional and regional actors of the conflict persuaded France to organize an international conference where, it thought, enough pressure could be applied on the four factions to force a breakthrough on the issue of national reconciliation.6 However, the conference, held in Paris in August 1989, was a failure. The main point of the initial allocution of each of the four Cambodian faction leaders at the Conference was to yet again attempt to promote a definition of the situation in Cambodia which would favor the realization of their objectives at the negotiation table. Hun Sen said at the beginning of his speech: Up to now, and it is something I deplore, a certain number of people have attempted to mislead world public opinion [s’efforcent d’induire l’opinion publique mondiale en erreur], by saying that the war in Cambodia has been provoked by the presence of Vietnamese troops in that country, and that the Cambodian problem is a problem between Vietnam and Cambodia, while keeping silent about the crimes of genocide of Pol Pot, from which have originated the revolt and the popular struggle that have benefited from the assistance of troops of Vietnamese volunteers to liberate the Cambodian nation.7 Sihanouk, for his part, put forward a position which was directly opposed to that of Hun Sen: It is my duty to present, respectfully, to this august assembly, certain realities concerning the ‘problem’ so-called ‘of Kampuchea,’ realities

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whose failure to appreciate would risk inducing certain delegations to formulate proposals of a ‘partial’ or ‘global’ settlement which would be inapplicable on Cambodian soil [a partial settlement referred to the possibility of a peace settlement among the international and regional actors of the Cambodian conflict, a global settlement, to the possibility of a settlement which would also involve all the Cambodian factions]. These realities are as follows: … what is known as the ‘problem of Kampuchea’ comprises, in reality, only one aspect, that of the aggression (since 1978), military occupation, colonization, the Vietnamization of Cambodia, full member of the United Nations since 1955, by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Contrary to what has been said or written by certain governments, personalities, journalists, etc … around the world, there has not been and there is not ‘civil war’ in Cambodia. The war in Cambodia only exists and will be pursued between Vietnam, the aggressor, and Cambodia, the aggressed party.8 Khieu Samphan, the Khmer Rouge representative, and Son Sann added to the point made by Sihanouk. Khieu Samphan talked about the ‘true nature’ of the situation in Cambodia and put forth to the Conference that ‘the so-called problem of Cambodia has only one aspect, that of the Vietnamese invasion and occupation. The Phnom Penh regime is only the result of this invasion and occupation.’9 Son San also said that ‘the Paris International Conference on Cambodia must not be led astray from its object which is the aggression and occupation of Cambodia by foreign forces with all the consequences that this implies.’10 Hun Sen knew that negotiations based on the need to bring an end to what he portrayed as a civil war would lead to a recognition of his government as a discussant in such talks. The Phnom Penh government could thus assure its presence in the political structures resulting from an eventual agreement. The three factions opposed to that of Hun Sen, for their part, could assume that negotiating the end of an international conflict would depict the Phnom Penh government as Hanoi’s vassal. Consequently, negotiations would assure the three factions of a prevalent role in any post-settlement structure. The notion of national reconciliation, the focus of the diplomatic efforts aimed at elaborating a framework able to provide the beginnings of a rapprochement between the four Cambodian factions, was used by the two opposing camps according to this logic. Hun Sen argued that

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national reconciliation would essentially be a movement of the CGDK towards his government: to realize national reconciliation on the basis of the right to autodetermination of the Cambodian people and to ensure a just political solution, we propose that the political and military status quo be maintained until general elections have been completed.11 National reconciliation was thus portrayed as taking place after elections organized by the Phnom Penh government. Hun Sen therefore assured himself of control over the transition leading to a new political structure and of a dominant presence within that structure. Sihanouk, on the contrary, argued that national reconciliation should be based on the dismantlement of the Phnom Penh government. Such an action, a de facto recognition of the link between this government and Hanoi, would leave the members of his group, the Khmer Rouge, and Son San’s followers in a far stronger position than that of Hun Sen’s group. In light of this, Sihanouk proposed the simultaneous dismantlement of the CGDK and the Phnom Penh government: We even accept to dismantle our Democratic Kampuchea, full member of the United Nations, on condition that the illegal ‘State of Cambodia’ otherwise known as ‘People’s Republic of Kampuchea’ be simultaneously dismantled. Together our four parties, within the National Union of Cambodia [Gouvernement d’Union Nationale du Cambodge, GUNC], could organize general elections under the control of the ICM [International Control Mechanism].12 National reconciliation was thus described here as taking place before elections. Given the disappearance of the Phnom Penh authorities, control over the elections would be in the hands of the four Cambodian groups as such. This in turn would lead to a situation where the Hun Sen group could not guarantee a pre-eminent position for itself. After the initial addresses, the Conference continued its work in ‘Working Committees’ devoted to different issues pertaining to an eventual settlement of the Cambodian conflict, though it was well understood by all the participants that the negotiations undertaken in the ‘Ad Hoc Committee’ on ‘questions regarding the implementation of national reconciliation and the setting-up of a quadripartite interim authority under the leadership of Prince Norodom Sihanouk with, among others, responsibility of organizing, within a reasonable period

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of time, internationally supervised free elections’13 would be central to the Conference. As one observer has noted, ‘the Ad Hoc Committee was by far the most important [of the working committees]. Failure on its part to arrive at an agreement on the internal aspects of the Cambodian conflict would doom the conference itself to failure.’14 A month later, at the end of the period assigned for negotiation in committees, a total impasse in the Ad Hoc Committee had indeed led the Paris Conference itself towards failure. The Cambodian faction had not modified substantially their initial stance, an attitude which guaranteed a stalemate and rendered moot all progress accomplished in the other working committees. Furthermore, many pronouncements by Hanoi to the effect that its troops would be withdrawn from Cambodia in a matter of weeks by then created a situation where the opponents of the Phnom Penh regime were bound to test its strength militarily: in these conditions, both Cambodian camps, and indeed their respective sponsors, recognized that their counterpart would try to gain an advantage on the ground before engaging in any meaningful discussion at the negotiation table. In that context, France could only seek to put on a brave face as it arranged the publication of a final communiqué which stated that ‘the Conference noted … that it [was] not yet possible to achieve a comprehensive settlement [one which would involve the Cambodian factions] … [and that] it was therefore decided to suspend the Conference.’ The document added that ‘the Conference urge[d] all parties concerned to intensify their efforts to achieve a comprehensive settlement’ and that ‘the French Government expressed its readiness to make the appropriate arrangements to reconvene the Conference in due time in Paris.’15 The Paris Conference was followed by a period which, as was mentioned above, Nicolas Regaud described as one of ‘relocalization’ of the Cambodian conflict. First, the Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia, in September 1989, ‘pushed the Cambodian civil war at the forefront of the conflict.’16 In the wake of Hanoi’s withdrawal, the CGDK, with the full support of China, launched new offensives against the Phnom Penh regime in the hope of toppling it. The Phnom Penh regime’s forces, however, proved themselves strong enough on their own to resist those offensives. The realization that a stalemate on the ground could continue for years then persuaded many regional and extraregional actors to renew their efforts to find a political settlement to the Cambodian conflict. These efforts thus represented the second aspect of the ‘relocalization’ of the conflict. It is with the consideration

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of these diplomatic initiatives that it is possible to begin assessing the framework of inquiry underlying the present research.

Towards the second Paris Conference It will be possible, below, to attempt to establish the type of correlation posited by this framework: does an examination of the implementation of the Paris Peace Plan in fact link, on the one hand, tensions between the model of peace at the heart of the plan and the sort of approach to peace which can have some resonance in Cambodia, and, on the other hand, the failure of the Paris Plan, characterized by the difficulty of transforming Cambodia’s social structures, by confusion as to the appropriateness of its core conception of peace, by the resistance of the Cambodian leaders to the social changes entailed by the plan, and, finally, by the efforts of these leaders to introduce in the peace process a concept of peace more beneficial to their interests? It would appear, however, that the demonstration of such correlation would be more forceful if a sustained covariation of these two phenomena could be highlighted. Throughout the diplomatic process initiated in the wake of the failure of the first Paris Conference, in other words, when a peace proposal parallel to what would later become the Paris Plan is put forward to the Cambodian factions, do phenomena associated here with the failure of the plan occur, and conversely, when a peace initiative of a different nature is set in motion, does it meet with a certain measure of success? Indeed, the period which starts after the widespread realization that renewed fighting on the ground would only lead to a persistent stalemate allows this inquiry. From that moment on, regional and international actors of the Cambodian conflict are examining and proposing detailed frameworks for peace in Cambodia. It is also appropriate to posit that the Cambodian factions at one point understand that they are cornered. Peace in Cambodia is now at the top of the international agenda and they are thus bound to appreciate that they can merely endeavour to influence its form rather than to prevent its advent any longer. It is also possible, finally, to follow the chronology of the successes and failures of the peace initiatives proposed by the different international and regional actors involved in the Cambodian peace process. It is feasible, then, to confront the nature of the different peace proposals put forward to the Cambodian factions and the patterns of success or failure of these proposals in order to verify if there is a correlation between the instances where the Cambodian leaders encountered models

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of peace similar to that contained in the Paris Plan and the instances where the peace process faltered. This, again, will subsequently add to the explanatory value of the assumptions advanced earlier by establishing the accuracy of the structure of inferences they entail throughout the totality of the diplomatic process started after the failure of the first Paris talks. An account of the peace initiatives put forward to the Cambodian factions in that period and of the successes or failures of these initiatives will thus be given here, to be followed by the type of analysis just outlined. Essentially three dynamics were at play in the diplomatic arena at the time of the signature of the Paris Agreement. They reflected the pre-eminent role played by the United States and China at that juncture, a development which marginalized the efforts of the other regional and international actors involved in the peace process. Briefly: (1) The profound foreign policy reorientation inaugurated with the Vladivostock speech and the upheavals brought about by perestroika and glasnost progressively caused the Soviet Union to disengage itself from the Cambodian peace process. When it became apparent that the Khmer Rouge would be prevented from coming back to power in Phnom Penh, Moscow basically withdrew from the negotiations on post-settlement Cambodia. (2) Moscow’s changing attitude, followed by the collapse of communism elsewhere in the world, contributed to a closer relationship between Vietnam and China. China slowly modified its demands on the role which should be played by the Khmer Rouge in a national reconciliation government. Once it sanctioned the idea that the group should be confined to a limited role in future Cambodian governments, an understanding was worked out with Hanoi: pressures would be applied by China and Vietnam on the Khmer Rouge and the Phnom Penh government to compel them to come to terms with one another. Viewed from Hanoi and Beijing, the negotiation process was thus essentially aimed at keeping a Communist regime in power in the Cambodian capital, one which would result from a balance of power framework between the Khmer Rouge and the Hun Sen government, an option termed the ‘Red Solution’ by its opponents. In this perspective, the extent of the democratization process in Cambodia as a way to bring peace to the country was to remain quite limited and was meant to serve more as the guarantee of an eventual sanction of the post-settlement government by the international community than as the means of

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introducing democratic reforms in what had been hitherto a process geared towards inter-factional arrangements. Simultaneously, the American and Chinese positions on Cambodia grew apart. The United States feared that a Sino Vietnamese collusion could shift the center of gravity of the peace negotiations towards a compromise between the two communist Cambodian factions, the Khmer Rouge and the Phnom Penh government, which would in effect completely exclude from power in Phnom Penh the two non-communist factions, the Sihanoukists and Son San’s group. Washington wanted, on the contrary, to see these two groups assume a large share of the power in Cambodia so that the influence of the Communist groups in the country could remain limited and so that, in turn, a centrist government, more attuned to the need for regional order and integration, could emerge in the wake of a peace settlement. (2In order to promote this option, the Americans pushed forward on the negotiation agenda the peace proposal advanced earlier by Australia. This proposal claimed that the question of power in Cambodia should ultimately be settled by democratic elections, and it could thus ensure in their view that the two non-communist factions, whose strength rested more on their popularity among certain segments of the Cambodian population than on their military effectiveness in the field or their weight at the negotiation table, would obtain a certain measure of power in a post-settlement government. (3) While both the peace initiatives promoted by the United States and China added up to a recognition of the need for elections in Cambodia to solve the Cambodian conflict, the two communist factions, as well as their two counterparts, managed to play Beijing against Washington in order to redesign the Australian peace formula so that each could remain in control of its respective political and military structures. In June, July, and August 1991, they devised a series of accords and arrangements which, most notably, modified the positions on the dismantling of existing political structures and on the need to disarm their different armies advocated by Washington. The resulting provisions left in the factions’ hands the means of influencing the electoral process, which guaranteed in their perspective that the distribution of power in Cambodia would remain a function of inter-factional agreements whatever the results of eventual elections and that, therefore, their own position of power would be preserved. They then used Washington’s fear that an arrangement similar to the ‘Red Solution’ might emerge in time among them to convince the

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Americans that these modifications to the Australian approach represented the best possible framework for peace in Cambodia and to gain their support. The nature of the peace initiative which was to be put forward to the Cambodians changed again, however, as the participants of the second Paris Conference then assembled in the French capital. Though, ostensibly, the framework of these discussions could be presumed to follow from the different agreements reached in Pattaya, the ambiguity of certain provisions of the accords signed in Paris, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the decision by the United Nations to consider the Cambodian peace operation as a test case of its ability to act in the New World Order as a catalyst for the development of democratic approaches to conflict resolution, created the conditions for a movement back towards the plan originally promoted by the Permanent Five Members of the United Nations Security Council, known in this context as the P-5. Such a reorientation of the diplomatic process was bound, however, to bring about eventually a rejection by the Cambodian factions of the type of peace agreement it would produce. The negotiation dynamics of the 1989–91 period can now be examined in more detail. First, the reorientation of Soviet foreign policy undertaken at Vladivostock prompted Moscow to broaden its contacts with the countries of Southeast Asia in the hope of participating in the economic dynamism of the region. As the focus of Soviet interest in the region shifted from politico-military to economic concerns, relations with Hanoi were readjusted accordingly: military aid was discontinued while economic assistance was reorganized in order to eventually permit more autonomy on Vietnam’s part. This compelled Hanoi to continue to improve its relations with China. The main corollary of the Soviet foreign policy reorientation, the amelioration of relations with Beijing, also required Hanoi to move somewhat towards China. The collapse of Eastern Europe, the unfolding of massive economic and political reforms, and, finally, the disintegration of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union after the abortive coup of August 1991 and the rise of Yelstin, then greatly reduced the influence Moscow could exercise in the Cambodian peace process. These events, though, helped bring Vietnam and China together since both countries feared the type of political liberalization which had engulfed the communist governments of Europe. As Carlyle Thayer has noted, ‘an element of realpolitik … influenced the normalization process [between Vietnam and China],’ but this normalization was also the consequence of a ‘nascent Asian socialist community [linked by] a commonality of

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interests based on ideology which [made] their relations with each other qualitatively different from relations with non-socialist states.’17 The Cambodian ‘end-game,’ to use an expression suggested by Kelvin Rowley,18 was thus played within the context of an increased SinoVietnamese collaboration which took the form of high-level meetings in 1990. It became apparent, at talks held in September of that year that ‘[a]gainst the backdrop of the collapse of communism, the war in Cambodia [had] lost its usefulness and the Khmer Rouge lost its value to China as a knife in Vietnam’s side,’ as Thayer has put it.19 From that point on, both Hanoi and Beijing exercised pressures on their respective Cambodian protégés to bring them to a settlement on the Cambodian question. This created some sense that a ‘Red Solution’ might be brought about, whereby China and Vietnam ‘would encourage or induce’, in the words of Frank Frost, ‘an agreement between the Khmer Rouge and the Phnom Penh regime, excluding the non-communist resistance and obviating the feasibility of an open election.’20 The Americans, in particular, saw the possibility of a ‘Red Solution’ as running counter to the type of approach they were advocating in the search for peace in Cambodia. This approach was based on a complex and detailed peace initiative which had been put forward by Australia in February 1990. The plan attempted to outline ways in which government might be structured during the transitional period so as to ensure that the functions of civil administration, electoral organisation and military security are carried out in such a way that the people of Cambodia can freely determine their future and choose their own leaders in an environment secure from intimidation or coercion and in which no Party is advantaged or disadvantaged.21 The Australian plan thus argued that the way out of the stalemate created by the incompatibility of the positions of the CGDK and the Phnom Penh government on the issue of national reconciliation – who had the right to organize elections and would these elections be fair? – could be solved by being, in a sense, pushed aside. It was the United Nations, the document suggested, which should organize and supervise the electoral process. No claims would be made by the United Nations about the legitimacy of one party or the other, and all would be invited to participate equally in the electoral process so that the Cambodian people could ‘freely determine their future and choose their own leaders.’ Under such circumstances, furthermore, neither side could contest

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the legitimacy of the government which would be brought to power by these elections. The conflict would thus end at that point. The promoter of the plan, the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Gareth Evans, explained further that: The central concept of the Australian proposal to reinvigorate the peace process [is] very simple. So as to sidestep the power-sharing issue which [has] bedeviled the Paris conference, and constrain the role of the Khmer Rouge in the transitional arrangements, we propose that the United Nations be directly involved in the civil administration of Cambodia during the transitional period. Along with a U.N. military presence to monitor the cease-fire and cessation of external military assistance, and a U.N. role in organising and conducting elections, U.N. involvement in the transitional administration arrangements would ensure a neutral political environment conducive to free and fair elections.22 In a previous series of meetings on Cambodia, the P-5 had discussed the pertinence of a peace framework based on the provisions contained within the Australian proposal. In a meeting in Paris, on 15 and 16 January 1990, they had agreed that ‘they would be guided by [such] principles in working for a resolution of the Cambodian problem’ as the ideas that ‘the goal should be self-determination for the Cambodian people through free, fair, and democratic elections’, that ‘free and fair elections [should] be conducted under direct UN administration’, and that ‘all Cambodians should enjoy the same rights, freedoms and opportunities to participate in the elections process.’23 They had then ‘reaffirmed their adherence to the principles agreed upon [in] January 1990’ in subsequent talks held in February, March, May, and July of 199024 in which Washington had reaffirmed its position. The United States believed that democratic elections in Cambodia could achieve two objectives. First, elections could guarantee a certain measure of power to the two non-communist Cambodian factions, Son San’s and Prince Sihanouk’s groups, which were much weaker than their communist counterparts. Elections, secondly, would also undermine the two communist factions. The Phnom Penh government, an interlocuteur obligé since it controlled most of the Cambodian territory, would nonetheless see its power greatly reduced once the electoral process got under way. The Khmer Rouge, for which Washington had withdrawn its support in July 1990, would be forced out of the jungle and into the political arena where the group, it was hoped in the American capital, would wither away.

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In a text published in the Spring 1990 issue of Foreign Affairs and widely seen as representing a clear expression of American policy on the matter at the time, Washington’s point man on the Cambodian peace process, Congressman Stephen Solarz, had indeed noted that ‘the only way to avoid the difficult choice between the Khmer Rouge and [the Phnom Penh government] and the best way to achieve U.S. objectives – the most important of which is to prevent the Khmer Rouge from returning to power – is to secure a sound political settlement in Cambodia.’ He explained that: current U.S. objectives in Cambodia [were] to secure a verified withdrawal of Vietnamese forces, bring an end to the fighting, prevent the Khmer Rouge from returning to power, and encourage Cambodian self-determination. In pursuit of those goals and in the wake of the positive response to Foreign Minister Evans’ initiative regarding interim political arrangements, the United States [had] undertaken to build consensus among the permanent members of the Security Council on all the elements of a U.N.-based comprehensive settlement … Presumably, U.S. officials [would] attempt to forge consensus around some variant of the Evans initiative, in part because they [knew] that it [was] probably the only idea left for cutting the Gordian knot of power-sharing.25 In August 1990, the United States thus pushed for the adoption by the P-5 of a ‘Framework Document’ for peace which followed quite closely the principles of the Australian peace plan. Essentially, this document elaborated upon the various principles on which the P-5 had agreed in their five previous meetings by providing a much broader settlement framework for the Cambodian conflict. It therefore first reiterated that: the basic principle behind the Five’s approach [was] to enable the Cambodian people to determine their own political future through free and fair elections organized and conducted by the United Nations in a neutral political environment with full respect for the national sovereignty of Cambodia.26 The process whereby this idea was to become reality stemmed from the logic of the Australian peace plan. First, the ‘full respect for the national sovereignty of Cambodia’ had to be insured. The P-5 thus argued that ‘it [was] essential to establish a unique legitimate body and

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source of authority in which, throughout the transitional period, national sovereignty and unity would be enshrined.’ To this end, the ‘Five believed it [was] appropriate to establish at an early date a Supreme National Council (SNC) of Cambodia.’27 The creation of an SNC able to carry out the task of governing Cambodia during the transitional period leading up to democratic elections had in fact been considered for months by the four Cambodia factions. Their discussions, however, had only led to a stalemate rooted in their respective objectives at the negotiation table. The Hun Sen government, basing its position on its claim as the legitimate authority in Cambodia, had held that it should be able to exercise a power of veto in the SNC, and thus that at least half the members of the Council should be drawn from its ranks. The three groups in the opposing coalition, for their part, had insisted upon formulae which would have given each faction an equal number of representatives within the SNC, thus curtailing the weight of the Phnom Penh government within the Council’s deliberations by reducing its presence to one fourth of the total membership. In talks held in Tokyo at the beginning of June, for instance, Hun Sen had defended the need for a twelve member SNC divided equally between his government and the three other factions, the so-called 62 formula, while the Khmer Rouge, who had boycotted the meeting, responded subsequently to this position by insisting on a 34 formula granting equal participation to each of the four Cambodian factions.28 The P-5, for its part, basically attempted to remain faithful to the spirit of inclusion of the Australian peace plan in the Framework document and thus proposed that ‘the composition of the SNC, including the selection and number of its members, should be decided by the Cambodian parties through consultations, [but that] no party should be dominant in this process.’29 Once the SNC was created, it would then be possible to set in motion the type of broad United Nations operations envisaged by the Evans approach. The P-5 Framework thus stated that: being the unique legitimate body and source of authority in Cambodia during the transitional period, the SNC, at the time the comprehensive political settlement is signed, will delegate to the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) all powers necessary to ensure the implementation of the comprehensive agreement, including those relating to the conduct of free and fair elections and the relevant aspects of the administration of Cambodia … In order to ensure a neutral political environment

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conducive to free and fair general elections, administrative agencies, bodies and offices which could directly influence the outcome of elections should be placed under direct UN supervision or control. In that context special attention will be given to foreign affairs, national defense, finance, public security and information. To reflect the importance of these subjects, UNTAC needs to exercise such control as is necessary to ensure the strict neutrality of the bodies responsible for them.30 The ‘Framework Document’ set forth by the P-5 thus gave further impetus to the principles contained within the Australian peace initiative and to the American bid aimed at gaining international support for a series of conflict settlement procedures which would reflect these principles. The logic of the Australian plan, in that sense, was now at the center of the diplomatic effort of the P-5. It was accepted that the way out of the Cambodian conflict was for the United Nations, through UNTAC, to institute a ‘neutral political environment’ which would allow ‘free and fair elections’, a situation that would then bring to power in Cambodia a government which would have to be recognized as legitimate by all four factions since it would be brought into existence through a thoroughly democratic process. And, similarly to the Evans approach, the P-5 document followed from the assumption that attempting to resolve the dissensions among the Cambodian factions on their terms represented a dead-end, and that, therefore, they should simply move aside so that the UN-supervised process designed to finally bring peace to Cambodia could be set in motion. The Cambodians were thus asked only to establish a Supreme National Council in which ‘no party would be dominant’ and whose essential task would be to represent a Cambodian authority able to immediately ‘delegate to UNTAC all powers necessary to ensure the implementation of the comprehensive plan.’ If the ‘Framework Document’ provided the logic of an eventual settlement strategy, it remained unclear, however, on its details. Peace would result from democratic elections, but what was exactly the ‘neutral political environment’ necessary to the organization of these elections? What was the precise nature of ‘all the powers to be given to UNTAC to ensure the implementation of the comprehensive agreement?’ What was to be the character and the extent of ‘direct UN supervision or control’ of key ‘administrative agencies, bodies and offices?’ And that of the ‘special attention’ given to five designated governmental sectors? And, finally, how was the need for ‘such control

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as is necessary to ensure the strict neutrality’ of these sectors to be defined? These questions were fundamental because they addressed the issue of the seriousness of the P-5’s intentions. The logic of their peace initiative rested on the idea that a truly democratic process would produce a government whose legitimacy could not be contested by any of the four Cambodian factions. A ‘neutral political environment,’ in this sense, had to be carved out of the factional politics which had fashioned the Cambodian political landscape, an undertaking which would necessitate a United Nations operation of unprecedented dimensions but also a commitment to the development of a whole new social contract in Cambodia rooted this time in the workings of democracy. Were the P-5 ready to devote the political and financial resources necessary to such an endeavor, and, perhaps more importantly, would they maintain their consensus on the idea that broad democratic reforms represented the best way to achieve peace in Cambodia? The following November, as the P-5 endorsed an ‘Implementation Plan’ aimed at filling in the details left out by the ‘Framework Document,’ it seemed that an affirmative answer had to be given to both aspects of that question. The document first acknowledged that the logic of the peace approach agreed upon in August entailed a marginalization of the Cambodian factions, to be realized through a reduction of the role of the SNC and an immediate recourse to UNTAC in case of intractable disputes within the Council: The Supreme National Council (SNC) will offer advice to UNTAC, which will comply with this advice provided there is a consensus among the members of the SNC and provided this advice is consistent with the objectives of this Agreement. The Secretary-General’s Special Representative will determine whether such advice is consistent with this Agreement. If there is no consensus on any given matter among the members of the SNC, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative should make every endeavour to reach a consensus on such a matter. In case it is unattainable, the SecretaryGeneral’s Special Representative is entitled to make the final decision, taking fully into account views expressed in the SNC. This mechanism will be used to resolve all issues relating to the implementation of this Agreement which may arise between the Secretary- General’s Special Representative and the SNC.31 The document then expanded upon the precise ways in which it would be possible for UNTAC to establish a neutral political environment in

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Cambodia. In addition to the military measures contained in the ‘Framework Document’ which now amounted to a series of measures aimed at disbanding over the electoral period all Cambodian military forces,32 the document stated: All administrative agencies, bodies and offices acting in the field of foreign affairs, national defense, finance, public security and information will be placed under the direct control of UNTAC, which will exercise it as necessary to ensure strict neutrality. In this respect, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative will determine what is necessary and may issue directives to the above-mentioned administrative agencies, bodies and offices. Such directives may be issued to and will bind all Cambodian Parties. The Secretary-General’s Special Representative, in consultation with the SNC, will determine which other administrative agencies, bodies and offices could directly influence the outcome of elections. These administrative agencies, bodies and offices will be placed under direct supervision or control of UNTAC and will comply with any guidance provided by it. The authority of the Secretary-General’s Special Representative will include the power to: – install in administrative agencies, bodies and office of all the Cambodian Parties, United Nations personnel who will have unrestricted access to all administrative operations and informations; and – require the reassignment or removal of any personnel of such administrative agencies, bodies and offices. In consultation with the SNC, UNTAC will supervise law enforcement processes throughout Cambodia to the extent necessary to ensure that law and order are maintained effectively and impartially, and that human rights and fundamental freedoms are fully protected.33 The document finally provided some ‘Principles for a New Constitution for Cambodia’ intended to sustain after the UN-supervised elections the democratic reforms which they would set in motion. One of these principles, for instance, stated that: The constitution will provide for periodic and genuine elections. It will provide for the right to vote and to be elected by universal and equal suffrage. It will provide for voting by secret ballot, with a requirement that electoral procedures provide a full and fair opportunity to organize and participate in the electoral process.34

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Washington’s insistence on the instauration of democratic institutions in Cambodia and its ability to involve the P-5 in a process which reflected its priorities, however, put it at odds with Beijing’s goals in the region: a movement towards democracy in Cambodia would indeed probably enmesh the country in the incipient regional bloc dominated by ASEAN and strongly committed to economic liberalism, while China, in the wake of the realignments brought about by the end of the Cold War, hoped to see governments dedicated to politicoeconomic centralism remain in power in the Indochinese peninsula so that the type of compact already envisaged with Vietnam could be extended to its entirety. In that context, it was difficult to see if Beijing’s endorsement of the P-5’s approach rested more on a dedication to its objectives or on the belief that these could be used to further its long-term strategy for Cambodia. Certainly, the ‘Framework Document’ was vague enough to be taken to mean that the Phnom Penh government would lose all effective power as the United Nations took control of its structures and as it was possibly reduced to one among four parties within the SNC. This situation would leave its allies, the Khmer Rouge, in a much stronger position to stake a claim to a share of power in Cambodia. The ‘Implementation Plan’, if it rendered the SNC powerless and thus eliminated the instrument that the Khmer Rouge could have used to gain considerable influence during the transitional period, nonetheless amounted to the eventual dismantlement of the Phnom Penh regime. This, in turn, would bring about a more open electoral process where the Khmer Rouge had, therefore, more chances of acquiring popular support or of coercing some segments of the Cambodian population and of then achieving perhaps considerable electoral gains. Some form of balance between the Khmer Rouge and the Hun Sen group, which would in effect isolate the two non-communist factions, could then conceivably come about. The idea that Beijing was effectively exploiting the P-5 peace initiative gained momentum the following December. Faced with the reticence of the Phnom Penh government to accept the ‘Implementation Plan’ because, in its view, it would precisely lead to an unacceptable weakening of its structures during the electoral process, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Cambodia, Rafeeuddin Ahmed, issued an ‘Explanatory Note’ specifying that: the interaction [between UNTAC and the governmental structures in place] will be limited to those functions and activities of the

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existing administrative structures, be they at the national, provincial, district or village level, which could directly influence the holding of free and fair elections. Other functions and activities will remain unaffected.35 Beijing and the Khmer Rouge, however, insisted repeatedly that the ‘Implementation Plan’ had to be accepted without any modification. They thus gave the impression that they were more intent on exploiting an eventual United Nations peacekeeping operation in order to bring about a de facto destruction of the Phnom Penh governmental structures than on promoting the type of agreement intended to permit the creation of a ‘neutral political environment’ in the interval leading to democratic elections in Cambodia.36 It is only after continued fighting in the following months had demonstrated the risk of a prolonged stalemate that the Chinese reversed their position. By this time also, relations between Vietnam and the United States, for a time improving when Washington had put forward a ‘road map’ whose outcome was supposed to be the normalization of the contacts between the two countries, were much more acerbic because the Americans held the Vietnamese partly responsible for the failure of the Phnom Penh government to come to an agreement with the other Cambodian factions. Beijing could thus further its rapprochement with Hanoi, a situation which in turn entailed the possibility of both capitals pressuring their respective clients in Cambodia so that a peace agreement might finally be concluded. When China’s Foreign Minister, Qian Qichen, declared in June that it was time for ‘Khmer chefs to make Khmer food,’37 Beijing was therefore seen as sincere in its desire for peace in Cambodia and in its pledge of support for a conflict settlement procedure which might diverge from the mechanisms put forward by the P-5: letting the Cambodian factions devise among themselves a peace agreement, ‘make Khmer food’ as it were, would most probably, by now, lead to an arrangement dominated by the Khmer Rouge and the Hun Sen group which would resemble the ‘Red Solution’ already envisaged by China to safeguard its influence in Indochina. From that time on, therefore, the Cambodian factions were finally faced with concerted efforts to bring them to a peace agreement, in the sense that the Chinese were now attempting to find a framework for peace among them instead of using the peace process to force the Phnom Penh government to accede to concessions which it had so far refused to make. Two different approaches to peace, however, were

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being put forward to the four Cambodian factions. On the one hand, the initiative promoted by the P-5 and encapsulated in the ‘Framework Document’ and the ‘Implementation Plan’ approved by the Five in the last part of 1990 linked peace to the instauration of a ‘neutral political environment’ in Cambodia and the organization of democratic elections. The approach tacitly supported by the Chinese through their exhortations to the Cambodian factions to ‘make Khmer food’, on the other hand, viewed peace as emerging out of an agreement among the four factions to arrive at some type of balance of power arrangement between the two more powerful ones. And what did the Cambodians do? Four sets of important talks among the four Cambodian factions were held in the months of June, July, and August 1991. The initial encounter took place the first week of June in Jakarta. In the first stages of the conference, Prince Sihanouk and Hun Sen agreed that the Prince would become chairman and Hun Sen vice-chairman of a 72 SNC.38 This agreement, however, was immediately denounced by the Khmer Rouge, who then refused all other concessions to the Hun Sen government. Khieu Samphan, the nominal leader of the Khmer Rouge, declared to the Bangkok Post, a few days after the end of the Jakarta conference, that ‘the Cambodian war is not a civil war but a war of aggression by Vietnam … [and] it is a great concession on [the Khmer Rouge’s] part to accept the Phnom Penh group in the framework of the SNC.’ He added that ‘as long as Vietnam and Phnom Penh continue to oppose the Permanent Five documents, [the] SNC cannot be functioning in any way since the SNC must work on the basis of the P-5 documents.’39 In other words, the Khmer Rouge still signalled their intention to cling to a position recognized as unrealistic, and indeed abandoned, by their principal backer, China: the Hun Sen government was described as lacking all legitimacy and asked to conform to a peace framework which, in its assessment, would lead to its complete eradication, a view which guaranteed the failure of all negotiations with Phnom Penh. China then responded to the collapse of the Jakarta talks by distancing itself from the Khmer Rouge. Qian Qichen, notably, declared that it was ‘time now for the parties concerned in Cambodia to put the national interests above all and realise national reconciliation.’40 When the four factions met again in Pattaya, Thailand, from 24 to 26 June, there was thus a sense that the lone party which had so far refused to budge was being pressured to do so, and that some form of movement at the negotiation table could therefore be expected.

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And, in fact, the factions found common ground on many points. Primarily, they agreed, first, to give Prince Sihanouk ‘the task of convoking the SNC of Cambodia and presiding over its future meetings’, though the question of the exact composition of the SNC and that of a formula able to resolve the issues of the Chairmanship and ViceChairmanship were left unresolved; second, ‘to implement [an] unlimited cease-fire and to undertake to stop receiving foreign military aids’; third, ‘to set up the Headquarters of the SNC in Phnom Penh, with the following facilities and guarantees: [among others] Members of the SNC from each party have their own residence protected by that party’s forces. The forces of members of the SNC ensure the security within the compound of their residence, while the forces of the host party [the Phnom Penh government] ensure the security outside the compound. … The representatives of countries participating in the PICC [Paris International Conference on Cambodia] or their representatives of the Perm-Five as well as the representatives of the ASEAN countries have their permanent missions accredited to the SNC’; fourth, lastly, ‘to set up Working Groups to study … rules of procedures of the SNC, electoral laws, and principles of the new Constitution of Cambodia.’41 The rancor of the past years was thus still present in Pattaya, as witnessed in the final communiqué by the distrust underlying the security arrangements intended to allow the installation of the SNC in Phnom Penh. However, there was also at the meeting a common movement towards the creation of the conditions which could eventually permit a settlement centered on the SNC: the Council was given life through the agreements granting Prince Sihanouk the right to ‘convoke the SNC and preside over its future meetings’ and setting the provisions for its functioning, and it was endowed with a certain degree of legitimacy by its positioning as the interlocutor of the P-5 and of the countries involved in the PICC process. Conversely, the creation of a neutral political climate and the organization of democratic elections in Cambodia, which was supposed to constitute in the perspective of the P-5 the counterpoint of the establishment of the SNC and, indeed, the central aspect of the Cambodian peace plan, was not even broached. Issues related to the role of UNTAC and to its relation with the SNC, for instance, were completely avoided in the meeting. To that extent, the Cambodians were thus enacting a distinction between the direction of their diplomatic efforts and the nature of the peace initiative put forward by the Five. Furthermore, they were also taking the first steps towards an essentially intra-Cambodian

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approach to peace intended to foster the prerequisites necessary to the emergence of some form of arrangement between the leadership of the four Cambodian factions and similar to the negotiation framework tacitly promoted by China. This ambiguity of the Cambodians’ actions within the context of the diplomatic pressures exercised by the P-5 was present again at their following meeting, held this time in Beijing on 16 and 17 July. At the same time, in the Chinese capital, the four factions reached one agreement, designed to set the composition of the SNC and to ratify Prince Sihanouk’s role as its de facto Chairman. Hun Sen gave up his claim to the vice-chairmanship of the Council and Prince Sihanouk, for his part, agreed to become a ‘neutral’ chairman. As the final communiqué of the meeting stated, the Prince had ‘decided to resign from all [h]is positions [of leadership within the coalition opposed to the Hun Sen government] … [and had] decided from [then] on to stand neutral acting as a conciliator, without belonging to any faction or political party.’42 A twelve-member SNC composed of six representatives of the Phnom Penh government, five from the three other factions, and Prince Sihanouk, was thus devised, its creation made possible by concessions on both sides of the negotiation table. Hun Sen was relinquishing all demands for a leadership role within the Council, though he could nonetheless count on the influence which a majority of representatives would give him over its decisions, and the three other factions, if they were reduced to a minority on the Council, could however rely on the position of Prince Sihanouk as its head to curtail Hun Sen’s ascendancy within its deliberations. The four factions were therefore apparently more intent on pursuing their previous efforts aimed at setting the conditions allowing the SNC to become an effective framework for negotiations among themselves than on formulating agreements which could have then set in motion the type of peacekeeping operation envisaged by the P-5. This trend did not escape the Five. At a meeting held in Beijing to coincide with the one held by the Cambodians, they stated that while they noted that ‘the Supreme National Council had made significant progress towards a comprehensive political settlement’, they ‘urge[d] the now operational SNC to accelerate efforts to overcome the remaining difficulties and to reach consensus, in a continuing spirit of national reconciliation, on a comprehensive political settlement based on [the Implementation Plan of November 1990].’43 Indeed, when the four factions met again, this time in Pattaya from 26 to 29 August, the P-5 plan was at the heart of their discussions. The

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agreements they reached modified many of its provisions, however. The factions first decided that dissensions within the SNC would be resolved by Prince Sihanouk, rather than by the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Representative as was specified in the Implementation Plan adopted by the Five in November 1990: If there is no consensus on any given matter among the members of the SNC, His Royal Highness Samdech Norodom Sihanouk, President of the SNC should make every endeavour to reach a consensus on such a matter. In case it is still unattainable, His Royal Highness Samdech Norodom Sihanouk, President of the SNC, shall be entitled to make the final decision, taking fully into account views expressed in the SNC.44 Creating a conflict resolution mechanism within the SNC instead of relying on the Secretary-General’s Special Representative to solve eventual altercations among the Cambodian factions held implications, though, for the logic of the Five’s peace initiative. The approach of the Five posited that it was by setting aside, first, all attempts at resolving hostilities among the Cambodians on their terms that a neutral political climate conducive to democratic elections could be established in Cambodia, and that it was, then, by relocating, so to speak, the Cambodian conflict within that new context, that peace could be brought to Cambodia. By deciding that they would not let the representative of the United Nations settle their differences, the Cambodians were in fact, however, creating a second center of political gravity in Cambodia. Of course, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative would have the last word in cases of unresolved conflicts within the SNC. As the final communiqué of the meeting duly noted, The Supreme National Council will offer advice to UNTAC, which will comply with this advice provided there is a consensus among the members of the SNC and provided this advice is consistent with the objectives of the Agreement on a comprehensive political settlement. The Secretary-General’s Special Representative will determine whether such advice is consistent with this Agreement.45 The SNC would now nonetheless remain an entity which existed on its own since it would no longer simply come into existence to legitimize

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UNTAC’s presence in Cambodia and to then immediately lose all relevance. It could provide an arena for negotiations among Cambodians outside the peace process sponsored by the P-5 and, in that sense, could ultimately place all the actions undertaken in that process against the background provided by a series of other peace negotiations, these ones resolutely aimed at developing political arrangements acceptable to all four Cambodian factions and able for that reason to confer varying degrees of legitimacy to the arrangements worked out by UNTAC. The logical sequence which went in the P-5’s perspective from the establishment of a neutral political climate to the instauration of peace in Cambodia was thus being directly challenged by the Cambodians. In effect, they contended that peace had a better chance of emerging out of a political environment still marked by attempts to resolve among themselves the issues which they considered to be at the center of their disputes with one another. Another one of the agreements reached at Pattaya in August 1991 challenged the logic of the peace plan promoted by the P-5. The four factions decided that All forces of all Cambodian parties shall be reduced by 70 per cent. Arms, ammunitions and equipments of these forces shall be reduced by 70 per cent as well. The remaining 30 per cent of these forces will be regrouped and relocated to specifically designated cantonment areas under the supervision of UNTAC. While these forces are in the cantonments, their arms, ammunition and equipments will be stored on site under UNTAC supervision. These remaining arms, ammunition and equipments should not be allowed out of cantonment areas.46 A vital element of the instauration of a neutral political climate during the transitional period leading to democratic elections, the demobilization of all Cambodian troops so that UNTAC could possess a monopoly of force in Cambodia, was thus being recast here. The Cambodians were asserting, for all intents and purposes, that a partial reduction of their troops which would nonetheless produce a balance of military forces on the ground would entail less risks of destabilization than the total demobilization considered by the P-5 and it would thus have more chances of allowing the establishment of a political environment propitious to peace in Cambodia. Conversely, however, partial rather than total demobilization made it more difficult for the United Nations to verify if indeed a sizeable

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demobilization had occurred since any troops encountered in the field could pretend they were not part of the contingents required by the peace agreements to disband. Such a provision also left the two strongest factions with enough troops and weaponry to exercise some form of leverage over the implementation of the UNTAC’s mandate. This provision, coupled with the Explanatory Note of December 1990 leaving the main structures of the Phnom Penh government and those of the coalition government opposed to it intact and simply putting them under the supervision of UNTAC inasmuch as they had some sway over the electoral process, thus meant that even if a peace agreement based on the P-5 plan was signed by the four Cambodian factions, the leadership of these factions could maintain a great degree of autonomy vis-à-vis each other and the United Nations peacekeeping force. In that context, it was difficult to perceive if elections would take place in a truly neutral political climate or if they would merely serve to legitimize in the eyes of the international community a political contest which the Cambodian factions would ultimately be able to locate at the level of institutional and military mechanisms which they could still dominate. In any case, the discussions held in Pattaya on the nature of the electoral system which was to be used by UNTAC certainly gave the impression that each side in Cambodia was seeking to use this process to strengthen its position. Hun Sen argued in these discussions that the elections should be held on the basis of constituencies electing by a simple majority a member of the National Assembly. Evidently, his logic was that the Khmer Rouge, the strongest threat to the power of his government, would not be able to gain a majority of votes in a great number of constituencies because of their dispersion over vast territories. They would thus not have a large share of influence in the National Assembly which was supposed to take power after UNTAC’s departure. This went against the proposal made in the Australian plan, and promoted in particular by Son San at the Pattaya talks, suggesting that the elections should be organized on the basis of a nation-wide proportional representation. For the factions opposed to the Phnom Penh government, this form of electoral process had the advantage of guaranteeing a share of power to parties not able to command a majority of votes. It thus offered them a strong chance of electing enough members of the National Assembly to gain the authority necessary to influence its decisions and perhaps demand a role in the government which it would bring to power. The Pattaya meeting ended, however,

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without a decision on this issue. The four factions agreed the following September, though, that the proportional representation model would be adopted, but on the basis of provincial constituencies.47 In response to the agreements reached among the Cambodian factions in Pattaya, the P-5 stated that ‘the outcome of [the] meeting demonstrate[d] the significant progress that [was] being made towards national reconciliation.’ They noted that they consider[ed] of great importance the decision of the SNC to give the final word to Prince Sihanouk on determining the advice, relevant to the implementation of the comprehensive settlement agreement, to be rendered to UNTAC when consensus [was] unattainable within the SNC, and they [would] consider further the implications of this decision for the relationship between UNTAC and the SNC. On the matter of demobilization of Cambodian troops, though ‘they urge[d] the SNC to reflect further on the question of total demobilization, preferably prior to the elections,’ they also stated that they were ‘prepared to support the formula devised by the SNC which provide[d] for the demobilization before the elections of 70 per cent of all forces and their arms.’ As a compromise had not been reached in Pattaya, they ‘urge[d] the SNC to reach a common position as soon as possible on the issue of the [nature of the] electoral system.’ But finally, ‘in the light of the very positive progress achieved in Pattaya,’ they consider[ed] that the time [had then] come to accelerate efforts to complete the comprehensive political agreement for submission to the Coordinating Committee of the Paris Conference on Cambodia. They consider[ed] it most desirable that the [Paris Conference] be reconvened at Ministerial level by late October [1991] and that the comprehensive political settlement be signed before the SNC, under Prince Sihanouk’s chairmanship, establishe[d] itself in Phnom Penh in mid-November.48 The parties were thus heading back to Paris to formulate the agreements which would become the basis of the peace process to be undertaken in Cambodia. What can be learned, however, from the portion of the Cambodian peace process studied so far? Is there indeed, as the framework of inquiry underlying the present research would suggest, a correlation between the instances where diplomatic initiatives

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offered to the different Cambodian factions a model of peace similar in nature to the one contained in the accord signed in October 1991 and the instances where this peace process failed to produce any movement towards conflict resolution? Conversely, is there in the events examined up to this point the first indication of a pattern which would link the promotion of peace plans different in their nature from the one adopted in October 1991 and instances of movement towards reconciliation among the four Cambodian factions? It would seem that in fact these correlations are present in the diplomatic activity just surveyed.

Interests, objectives, and approaches to peace on the road to Paris The contours of the diplomatic efforts orchestrated by the P-5 were defined by the series of initiatives stretching from the Australian plan of February 1990 to the Implementation Plan adopted in November of the same year and which would later on provide the basis of the October 1991 Cambodian peace accords. The Five did not want to promote a framework for peace which would settle the question of political power in Cambodia by designating which, if any, of the four factions was to form a post-settlement government. They wanted, rather, to advance a plan which would leave unresolved the struggle for power dividing the different Cambodian factions and attempt to relocate this struggle from the battlefield to a non-violent arena. All the efforts intended to marginalize the polemics on which the Cambodians had hitherto articulated their fights against each other and to then establish the neutral political climate allowing the democratic elections seen as the embodiment of the movement towards a non-violent contest for power in Cambodia stemmed from this logic. If this logic, in turn, followed from Washington’s desire to further the cause of the two weakest Cambodian factions on the ground by moving the struggle for power in Cambodia to an arena where popular appeal mattered more than military might, it was nonetheless embraced by the P-5 as a whole. When outside pressures finally forced the Cambodian factions to come to an agreement with one another in the weeks following the Jakarta meeting of June 1991, the proposal for peace which coincided with these pressures was quite different from the one promoted by the Five. China, in its efforts to bring about some form of the ‘Red Solution’ in Cambodia, was tacitly endorsing any peace settlement

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which would result from an arrangement between the two stronger of the four Cambodian factions. This approach thus diverged from the one espoused by the P-5 in the sense that it thwarted all hopes of establishing in Cambodia new political processes which would have permitted the relocalization of the Cambodian conflict in a new arena: an accord of the type suggested by Beijing would prevent the marginalization of the Cambodian leadership advocated by the Five and the establishment of a neutral political climate which was supposed to flow from it. The negotiation agenda fostered by China did manage, however, to bring the Cambodians closer together. By allowing a durable cease-fire and creating a functional SNC, the Pattaya meeting of June 1991 and the one that took place in Beijing a few weeks later put in place precisely the type of political arrangements, and most importantly the configuration of forces, which the Chinese approach to peace in Cambodia entailed. The agreements reached at these two meetings meant that the question of power in Cambodia would be solved by establishing a leadership structure in Cambodia which would stand in equilibrium between the Phnom Penh government and the coalition opposed to it, a situation which, given the respective strengths of the four Cambodian factions, would translate into an arrangement much resembling the ‘Red Solution’. And this indeed corresponded to considerable movement towards reconciliation on the part of the four Cambodian factions. For years, by then, each had put forward negotiating positions which denied all political legitimacy to its adversaries and proscribed any post-settlement formula which would allow them to influence substantially future political developments. All four factions were now accepting, instead, an accord taking them beyond these positions and actually enacting an arrangement whereby each side recognized that the other had a right to a share of power. What happened, though, when the P-5 insisted that the four Cambodian factions should attempt to formulate a peace agreement on the basis of their own plan? This would have entailed, again, a settlement procedure based on a three-step process. First, diplomatic initiatives aimed at finding or imposing a power-sharing agreement among the four Cambodian factions were to end. The Cambodians were simply to agree to a mechanism which would defer all political authority in Cambodia to UNTAC. Second, UNTAC, to all intents and purposes, was to become the central authority in Cambodia. It would control the key Cambodian ministries and thus supervise the core

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administrative apparatus of the country. The demobilization of all Cambodian troops would also allow it to institute a monopoly of military force in Cambodia. A neutral political environment would therefore be established at that point: where the four factions’ domination of the administrative and military structures in Cambodia had generated a political landscape dominated by violence and factional aggrandizement, UNTAC would substitute a non-violent social order based on the rule of law. Third, this new political climate would permit the organization of democratic elections in Cambodia. Since its authority would clearly be linked to the popular will rather than to the victory of any one of them, all four factions would have no choice but to recognize the legitimacy of the government put in power by these elections. Peace would finally emerge in Cambodia as this non-violent means of settling questions of power took hold. To that extent, the P-5 initiative demanded of the Cambodians that they submit themselves to the type of social metamorphosis outlined in the framework of inquiry which serves as the basis of the present research. The formation in Cambodia of an institutional complex akin to the nation-state was to be one of UNTAC’s central objectives. The deployment of the United Nations personnel was meant, fundamentally, to create an authority able to superimpose upon the factional fragmentation characteristic of past political life in Cambodia a centralization of political power and an articulation of that power through the rule of law. The development of a neutral bureaucracy in the country was to lay the foundations of a capacity for administrative surveillance throughout all segments of its population. This, in turn, would provide a counterpart to the evacuation of violence from Cambodian society allowed by the aggregation of all military power under the control of UNTAC. The changes associated with the advent of capitalism in Western societies were also to be part of UNTAC’s impact on Cambodian society. The Five had always argued that a broad aid program aimed at an increased marketization of Cambodia’s economy and at the elaboration of mechanisms able to further its development should be part of any peace initiative in Cambodia, the thinking being that creation and dissemination of wealth were necessary components of social stability. A Declaration on Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia founded on these objectives, for instance, had been added to the ‘Implementation Plan’ adopted in November 1990.49 An international peace operation based on the Five’s plan would thus most probably give a strong impetus to the formation of a properly

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Cambodian bourgeoisie capable of demanding, over time, the expansion of the means of political representation and of a system of individual rights and freedoms in Cambodia. The crystallization of such demands through an institutional complex able to protect the individual from organized violence and thus redirect the exercise of state power through structures of administrative surveillance would then bolster the process of evacuation of violence from Cambodian society. In parallel, this process would deepen the roots of the representative mechanisms to which the Five were trying to give impetus by organizing the first genuine electoral contest in recent Cambodian history. Furthermore, the nature of the concept of peace on which the P-5 were basing their diplomatic efforts and the link between this concept and the transformations which they wanted to implement in Cambodia were quite similar to the concept of peace as democracy and the social roots of that concept as described in the theoretical remarks presented earlier. These remarks suggested that it was the social developments associated with the advent of the nation-state, with the elaboration of various forms of large-scale administrative capacities, and with the expansion of market mechanisms, which marginalized organized violence in Western societies. The theoretical remarks further argued that it was precisely because violence was pushed, as it were, to the external envelope of Western societies by these developments that it became plausible to think of peace as the reduction of social conflict to the normal functioning of the institutions which existed within these societies. If the P-5 plan did not include such an explanatory framework, and if, most probably, the cause and effect process entailed by its logic was not fully understood by its promoters, it nonetheless was meant to recreate the same situation in Cambodia. The Five wanted to push aside the Cambodians to then be able to transpose in the space thus opened up the institutions which were seen as allowing in the West non-violent interaction: a centralized state authority, the elaboration of administrative structures able to substitute surveillance mechanisms to the exercise of power as violence, and, finally, the development, through the political pluralization brought about by the expansion of capitalism, of democratic and representative institutions symbolized by the ‘free and fair elections’ which were to take place in Cambodia. And peace was simply to follow, then, from the establishment and the normal functioning of these institutions and practices. Lastly, the P-5 plan was intended to bring about in Cambodia the unfolding of the same broad political forces, in addition to the same

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set of relations between these forces and the social structures and the concept of peace which were to be established in the country by UNTAC, that were highlighted in the previous exposition of the social roots of the concept of peace as democracy. Indeed, the passage in Cambodia to social patterns marked by the presence of state, representative, bureaucratic, and capitalist institutions and formations would certainly result in the constitution of new centers of power: in a word, a new ruling class ensconced in democratic political parties, in the appareil d’Etat, in the bureaucracy, and in the incipient capitalist order, would emerge in the country. This new class would then, in all probability, want to defend its privileges. Its power being directly linked to the structures created in Cambodia by UNTAC, it would thus endeavor to protect and expand them. As the model proposed earlier suggested, it would also probably attempt to do so by emphasizing the suitability of the concept of peace as democracy for post-settlement Cambodia. First, this would enable it to further legitimize the social structures created by UNTAC in order to support this concept, the ones, precisely, from which it would draw its influence and its authority. Second, promoting the concept of peace as democracy would help it legitimize the idea that power is to be nonviolent and exercised through representative, administrative, and economic mechanisms, an idea which would in effect concurrently legitimize its own position of power and the means of power at its disposal. How did the Cambodians react, then, when faced with a peace initiative which involved the same profound reorientation of their society contained later in the Paris Plan? Essentially, they refused all movement on the basis of this initiative, and this exactly in the fashion envisaged by the assumptions presented above. At the Pattaya meeting of August 1991, the first among the four factions after the Five’s attempt to redirect their talks, the factions put forward a communiqué emphasizing three points: first, the SNC was to be self-regulatory, a position denoted by the capacity given to Prince Sihanouk to settle its conflicts; second, the relation between the SNC and UNTAC, and in fact UNTAC’s eventual role and activities in Cambodia, remained imprecise; third, the factions were not prepared to accept a total demobilization of their troops and wished instead for a balance of military forces among themselves based on a partial demobilization of their respective armies. Additionally, the four factions’ discussions on the nature of the electoral system to be used in the peace plan considered by the Five, if they did not lead to a compromise, demonstrated that

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each one of them wanted to organize the electoral process in a way which would let it capitalize on the different resources under its control in Cambodia. This corresponded to the behavior anticipated earlier. The framework of inquiry introduced above predicted that the Cambodian factions would refuse to permit the introduction in their country of a new institutional complex which could undermine over time the social patterns on which their authority rests, and this is in effect what they were doing in Pattaya. Creating a SNC much more autonomous than the type of Supreme Council envisaged by the Five implied that the Council was no longer meant to simply surrender Cambodian sovereignty to UNTAC and that it would, therefore, exist in parallel with the institutions established by the United Nations operations. This, in turn, signified that power in Cambodia would remain a function of factional dynamics and not flow exclusively from the set of institutions which UNTAC was mandated to establish in the country. Indeed, it can be inferred from the fact that the final communiqué of the Pattaya meeting did not elaborate at all on UNTAC’s eventual role in Cambodia that the factions were more intent on guaranteeing a central role to the SNC in the transitional period leading to democratic elections than on permitting the setting up of the institutions which the Five understood to be a prerequisite to these elections. Perhaps at a more concrete level, the factions also wanted to prevent UNTAC from establishing the monopoly of force which constituted in the analysis of the P-5 a fundamental component of the instauration of a neutral political climate in Cambodia and probably a necessary condition of the development of the other elements of that climate. The factions’ position on the issue of demobilization in effect left them with the means of influencing the evolution of events during the transitional period through the threat or the actual use of violence. It also allowed them to maintain the role of violence in Cambodian politics. This meant that UNTAC’s objective of marginalizing the exercise of power through violence and fostering the development of other means of social compulsion, a situation which would have taken away from the factions much of their power, could only prove futile. The theoretical remarks presented above also stated that in all likelihood the Cambodian factions, when confronted with a concerted international diplomatic initiative aimed at transforming patterns of power in Cambodia, would not so much oppose a fin de non-recevoir to these diplomatic efforts as they would seek to recast them so as to

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make the achievement of peace in their country contingent upon, on the one hand, the preservation of most of the Cambodian traditional political structures, and, on the other hand, the sustained legitimization of their position within the social hierarchy and of the means of power at their disposal. It was further argued that the factions would attempt to do so by altering slightly the concepts of peace as factional balance/hegemony and peace as restored social harmony in order to make them more palatable to the different international actors pressuring them to come to a peace agreement. Again, all of this is exactly what happened in Pattaya. The four factions tried at the meeting to reformulate the international diplomatic efforts pertaining to Cambodia as fundamentally a search for possible agreements among themselves. The establishment of an operational SNC and the pacts it had already made possible let them believe that, indeed, the Five would from then on endeavor to pursue what had already been a successful approach instead of insisting that all talks focus on the plan they had promoted so far. The prospect of peace in Cambodia would follow, in this logic, from the possibility of finding an arrangement acceptable to the leadership of all four Cambodian factions. It would revolve, in other words, around some formulation of the concept of peace as factional balance. This situation would in turn minimize the need for the broad social transformations envisaged by the Five and, conversely, the risk for the factions of having to face the disruption of the social practices on which their power rests. Furthermore, this approach to peace would also justify and legitimize to a great degree a continued position of power within Cambodian society for them. It was then to the advantage of the factions to acquiesce to the organization of elections in Cambodia. A movement away from the instauration of a neutral political climate by UNTAC, in addition to the way in which these elections were to be organized if the talks held on the issue in Pattaya led to a compromise, would empty them of much of their potential impact on future Cambodian politics. In a political environment still dominated by the factions, in fact, elections would help preserve the status quo much more than they would usher in a new political era. Nonetheless, they could serve the factions’ ambitions by legitimizing in the eyes of the international community their accession to power in a post-settlement government. There thus appears to be here the type of correlation envisioned by the theoretical development introduced earlier. The movement towards a negotiation framework similar in nature to the Paris Plan did produce

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a refusal on the Cambodians’ part to negotiate on such a basis and a further attempt to reformulate the initiative put to them in order to make it coincide with a series of social phenomena which they could control. This demonstration is underscored by the fact that all four factions acted this way. One would indeed have anticipated that the two factions which in appearance had the most to gain from the instauration of a neutral political climate and the organization of truly democratic elections in Cambodia because of the balance of forces on the ground, the Sihanoukists and the group led by Son San, would reject the accords reached in Pattaya. Instead, and undoubtedly this paralleled the wishes of Washington, it could be predicted that they would capitalize on the pressures exercised by the United States to force some movement towards the scenario envisaged by the Five in order to bring about an electoral contest from which both could expect to benefit to the disadvantage of the two other factions. They behaved differently, however, and in a way consistent with the assumptions presented above. As had been foreseen, they preferred to participate in a series of negotiations which, if it did not include the possibility for them of an influential participation in a post-settlement government, allowed them nonetheless to remain, in the language of the model proposed earlier, political forces in Cambodia and maintained in place the practices and the institutions which gave them that status. Accepting the Pattaya agreement, in other words, led to a situation where they were not conferred a share of power instantly but where nevertheless they also knew that the rules of the political game would not change in Cambodia, and that they would therefore remain players in that game. The alternative would have implied submitting themselves to a negotiation framework which entailed a radical transformation of the traditional social structures from which they have always drawn their power. A greater share of power might then have been forthcoming on a short-time basis, but it would have rested on social phenomena they did not control and which could therefore prove in their perspective to be more ominous than favourable. Two other points should be noted here. First, the framework of inquiry underlying the present research could not be fully assessed in the context of the diplomatic process studied so far. Two elements linked with the anticipated failure of peace initiatives similar to the Paris Plan, the difficulty of imposing a new set of social structures in Cambodia and the confusion about the approach to peace likely to

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remain reasonable amidst such problems, could not be highlighted since the actual implementation of these initiatives had not begun. Second, an element supposed to be part of the Cambodian factions’ refusal to participate in such initiatives was missing. It was posited that there existed in Cambodia tensions between factional and monarchic forces and that these tensions would become part of the different stratagems employed by the Cambodians as they attempted to recast peace initiatives such as the Paris Plan in a direction more favorable to their long-term interests. Monarchic forces, according to this logic, were expected to support the conservation of the social structures which sustained their power to the disadvantage of those which provided an impetus to factional dynamics in Cambodian society in the context of the reformulation of the social changes entailed by a broad international peace operation in Cambodia. Furthermore, it was assumed that they would introduce and support the concept of peace as restored social harmony in the negotiation process concerning the approach to peace which the international community should promote in Cambodia. Following this reasoning, one would therefore have predicted that Prince Sihanouk would insist that he was the only political figure able to bring about national reconciliation in Cambodia and would then use this argument to claim that a viable post-settlement arrangement should grant to him and to royal institutions a special status. This did not happen. Attention will thus have to be paid to this miscalculation as the study of the Cambodia peace process progresses in order to see if it necessitates a modification of the analytical framework proposed here. This caveat aside, it does seem that the correlations anticipated earlier were in fact present in the segment of the peace process examined up to this point. This adds weight, then, to the values of the assumptions studied here. Do the events which followed those considered so far, however, also support these assumptions? As was explained above, the first event in the ensuing diplomatic process was the reaction of the P-5 to the Pattaya meeting. The Five, essentially, indicated that the agreements reached in Thailand, if they did not constitute a plan which they could wholeheartedly accept, nonetheless represented enough movement to authorize a second session of the Paris Conference. At the center of the diplomatic process thus stood at that time the peace settlement outlined in Pattaya. It rested on a movement away from the original P-5 plan and was based, as Thaddée In has put it succinctly, ‘on a pact between the Chinese and

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the Vietnamese for the fundamentals, and between the Khmer for the details.’50 Parenthetically, it can be noted that the evolution of events in this context also supported the assumptions presented above. Faced with a negotiation formula different from the one later contained in the Paris Plan, the four factions did come to a further agreement on the basis of that framework: the issue of the organization of the electoral process which had been entangled in a stalemate in Pattaya was settled a few weeks later in New York.

5 The Paris Plan

The Paris agreement What was the exact nature of the peace accord concluded in Paris in October 1991 and how did it generate the evolution of events which took place in Cambodia in the wake of its signature? Furthermore, does the framework of inquiry presented above provide an adequate explanation of these events? To answer both these questions, it is necessary to first examine in detail the documents which were signed at the second Paris Conference. Four agreements were reached at the Conference: a Final Act of the Paris Conference on Cambodia,1 an Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict,2 an Agreement Concerning the Sovereignty, Independence, Territorial Integrity and Inviolability, Neutrality and National Unity of Cambodia,3 and a Declaration on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia.4 The Final Act of the Conference traced the developments which had marked the first Paris meeting and the subsequent diplomatic process. It then noted that the three other documents adopted at the Conference represent[ed] an elaboration of the Framework for a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict adopted by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council on 28 August 1990, and of elements of work accomplished at the first session of the Conference. The Act then stated that these documents entail[ed] a continuing process of national reconciliation and an enhanced role for the United Nations, thus enabling the Cambodian 90

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people to determine their own political future through free and fair elections organized and conducted by the United Nations in a neutral political environment with full respect for the national sovereignty of Cambodia. Finally, the Act also affirmed that these documents would be signed by the members of the SNC, ‘the unique legitimate body and source of authority enshrining the sovereignty, independence and unity of Cambodia.’5 Evidently, the Agreement on a Comprehensive Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict represented the cardinal text adopted by the participants of the Conference. Part I of the Agreement dealt with the ‘arrangements during the transitional period.’ The transitional period, the document stated, would commence with the entry into force of this Agreement and terminate when the constituent assembly elected through free and fair elections, organized and certified by the United Nations, has approved the constitution and transformed itself into a legislative assembly, and thereafter a new government has been created.6 The crux of the agreement reached in Paris was also apparent in the latter sections of this first part of the document. The formula asserting that the SNC constituted the ‘unique legitimate body and source of authority in which, throughout the transitional period, the sovereignty, independence and unity of Cambodia are enshrined’ was repeated here. The document stated, however, that the ‘members of the SNC [would] be committed to the holding of free and fair elections organized and conducted by the United Nations as a basis for forming a new and legitimate Government.’ It was also noted that the SNC … delegate[d] to the United Nations all powers necessary to ensure the implementation of [the] Agreement … In order to ensure a neutral political environment conducive to free and fair elections, administrative agencies, bodies and offices which could directly influence the outcome of the elections will be placed under direct United Nations supervision or control. In that context, special attention will be given to foreign affairs, national defense, finance, public security, and information. To reflect the importance of these subjects, UNTAC needs to exercise such control as is necessary to ensure the strict neutrality of the bodies responsible for them. The

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United Nations, in consultation with the SNC will identify which agencies, bodies and offices could continue to operate in order to ensure normal day-to-day life in the country.7 The prerogatives of the SNC and those of UNTAC were then specified in an annex on the ‘UNTAC Mandate’. In a language reminiscent of the communiqué made public by the four Cambodian factions after their second meeting in Pattaya two months before, the document stated that the following mechanism [would] be used to resolve all issues relating to the implementation of [the] Agreement which may arise between the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and the Supreme National Council (SNC): The SNC offers advice to UNTAC, which will comply with this advice provided there is a consensus among the members of the SNC and provided this advice is consistent with the objectives of [the] Agreement. If there is no consensus among the members of the SNC despite every endeavor of its President, [His Royal Highness] Samdech Norodom Sihanouk, the President will be entitled to make the decision on what advice to offer to UNTAC, taking fully into account the views expressed by the SNC. UNTAC will comply with this advice provided it is consistent with the objectives of [the] Agreement … In all cases, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative will determine whether advice or action of the SNC is consistent with [the] Agreement.8 Conversely, and this time in a language which paralleled the provisions contained within the ‘Implementation Plan’ adopted by the P-5 in November 1990, the document stated that: all administrative agencies, bodies and offices acting in the field of foreign affairs, national defense, finance, public security and information [would] be placed under the direct control of UNTAC, which [would] exercise it as necessary to ensure strict neutrality. In this respect, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative [would] determine what is necessary and may issue directives to the above-mentioned administrative agencies, bodies and offices. Such directives [could] be issued to and [would] bind all Cambodian Parties.

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The Secretary-General’s Special Representative, in consultation with the SNC, [would] determine which other administrative agencies, bodies and offices could directly influence the outcome of elections. These administrative agencies, bodies and offices [would] be placed under direct supervision or control of UNTAC and [would] comply with any guidance provided by it. The Secretary-General’s Special Representative, in consultation with the SNC, [would] identify which administrative agencies, bodies, and offices could continue to operate in order to ensure normal dayto-day life in Cambodia, if necessary, under such supervision by UNTAC as it considers necessary. The authority of the Secretary-General’s Special Representative [would] include the power to: Install in administrative agencies, bodies and offices of all the Cambodian Parties, United Nations personnel who will have unrestricted access to all administrative operations and information require the reassignment or removal of any personnel of such administrative agencies, bodies and offices.9 It was thus apparent that the va-et-vient between the two different peace formulae they had championed in the preceding months had led the Cambodian factions and the P-5 to come to terms on an arrangement which was meant to be ambiguous enough to accommodate each of their respective positions. On the one hand, the peace agreement signed in Paris marked the acquiescence of the participants of the Conference to the movement away from the P-5 plan that the Cambodian factions had orchestrated at their second Pattaya meeting. It recognized that the SNC would constitute the ‘unique legitimate body and source of authority in which, throughout the transitional period, the sovereignty of Cambodia would be enshrined’ and, furthermore, ratified the decision-making process within the Council put forward by the Cambodians in Pattaya. By doing so, the Conference recognized that the SNC would represent a pole of power independent of UNTAC and in fact gave to the four factions what they had attempted to achieve in their discussions in Thailand. The SNC could thus be seen as having the upper hand in the arrangements worked out in Paris. Steven R. Ratner, in a text which undoubtedly remains the best legal analysis of the documents signed in October 1991, noted in that regard that the scheme for the interaction between [UNTAC’s head] and the existing governmental structures does not override the procedures

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governing his relationship with the SNC. He must … [therefore] follow the guidance of the SNC, when unanimously given and consistent with the settlement, even if it derogates from his powers with respect to the existing structures. For example, if the SNC unanimously directed [him] to cease his supervision of a certain agency of the State of Cambodia, he would have to comply unless he judged the situation to be incompatible with the settlement, e.g., by threatening the impartiality of the elections. This legal hierarchy reflects political reality: if the factions concur upon a course of action, including a limitation of the [power of UNTAC’s head], he can only veto that decision by challenging it as inconsistent with the settlement. Ratner then concluded that: The extent to which [UNTAC’s head] exercises his authority [should] depend upon the SNC’s success in achieving consensus [and] the risk to the credibility of UNTAC from noncompliance with its directives … [The Head of UNTAC] may find that forging a consensus within the SNC advances the settlement more than any unilateral action.10 In addition, defining UNTAC’s role as a series of prerogatives intended to ‘ensure a neutral political environment conducive to free and fair general elections’ presupposed that each faction would retain control of all of its structures not directly involved in the electoral process. This thus entailed, in turn, a situation on the ground where the four factions would be left with the political and military resources enabling them to influence the evolution of events during the transitional period. For all these reasons, then, a recourse to the model of peace put forward by the four Cambodian factions, an interfactional balance of power centered on the SNC, seemed possible within the parameters set by the Paris Peace Agreement. On the other hand, however, the Five could see in the accord a series of provisions which could shift its emphasis back towards the framework for peace they wanted to see implemented in Cambodia. The SNC, if it could manage according to the document signed in Paris a certain degree of self-reliance, was nonetheless restricted in its activity by the prerogative of the Secretary-General’s Special Representative to ‘determine in all cases whether advice or action of the SNC is consistent with [the] Agreement.’ It was thus indeed given a voice but, in a sense, one which would quickly be muffled unless it echoed the key

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decisions of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General. There was thus in the spirit of the Paris Agreement an ‘assumed impotence’ of the SNC, as Ratner has put it,11 which paralleled the marginalization of the factions’ deliberations that the Five had always seen as the very basis of their peace initiative. The two other objectives on which the Five had always grounded their approach to a settlement of the Cambodian conflict, the creation of a neutral political environment in Cambodia and the organization of meaningful elections, could also, in their eyes, be realized within the context of the Paris Agreement. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General was given powers so broad that they would in all probability result in the establishment of a neutral political climate in Cambodia even if they were formally limited to the supervision of the electoral process per se. The instauration of a new practice of politics would then prevent the factions from exercising any undue influence during the transitional period and therefore allow the organization of elections truly representative of the popular will. In order to offer a rapprochement between approaches to peace which remained in reality totally dissimilar because of their opposing stance on the question of the extent and nature of the roles to be given to the SNC and to UNTAC during the transitional period leading to the organization of democratic elections, the Paris Agreement thus essentially left this question to be addressed on the ground through the pragmatics of its implementation and the future behavior of its signatories. However, this prudent ambiguity which seemed in Paris to be the prerequisite of peace in Cambodia turned out to be, as it will be demonstrated below, its main obstacle. The other provisions of the Agreement, in turn, could be considered to support one or the other of the positions adopted previously by the Cambodians and by the P-5. Besides the elements just described, Part I of the Agreement contained provisions on ‘military arrangements during the transitional period [aimed at] stabiliz[ing] the security situation and build confidence among the parties to the conflict’ which then referred to a document in annex similar in nature to the agreement reached by the Cambodians the preceding August about ‘a phased and balanced process of demobilization of at least 70 per cent of [the factions’] military forces.’12 Part II of the document dealt with the organization of the elections envisioned in the peace accord and alluded to an annex stating that these elections would be ‘held throughout Cambodia on a provincial

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basis in accordance with a system of proportional representation on the basis of lists of candidates put forward by political parties.’13 The agreement reached by the Cambodians in New York a few weeks earlier was therefore also present here. Provisions which were important in the perspective of the objectives pursued by the P-5 were also part of the peace agreement signed in Paris, however. Part III of the Agreement, for instance, buttressed the efforts at a democratization of Cambodian politics which were essential to the logic of the Five’s plan by stating that ‘Cambodia [would] undertake to ensure respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms [and] to support the right of all Cambodian citizens to undertake activities which would promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms.’14 Part VII also furthered this concern with the democratization of Cambodian politics by putting forth ‘basic principles [for a new Constitution for Cambodia], including those regarding human rights and fundamental freedoms,’ which included, this time by referring to an annex, a provision on the fact that Cambodia’s future Constitution should state that Cambodia [would] follow a system of liberal democracy, on the basis of pluralism. It [would] provide for periodic and genuine elections. It [would] provide for the right to vote and to be elected by universal and equal suffrage. It [would] provide for voting by secret ballot, with a requirement that electoral procedures provide a full and fair opportunity to organize and participate in the electoral process.15 The language here was thus the same that had been used by the Five in their ‘Implementation Plan’ of November 1990. Lastly, the Declaration on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia, which was not legally binding on its signatories, enjoined the international community to participate in the ‘launching of an international reconstruction plan’ of Cambodia, and further noted that this reconstruction … should promote Cambodian entrepreneurship and make use of the private sector, among other sectors, to help advance self-sustaining economic growth. It would also benefit from regional approaches, involving, inter alia, institutions such as the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the Mekong Committee, and Governments within the region; and from participation from non-governmental organizations.16

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The marketization of the Cambodian economy and its integration within regional mechanisms of economic development which the Five had consistently perceived to be indispensable to the development of political pluralism in Cambodia was thus also present here. For its part, the fourth document signed in Paris, the Agreement Concerning the Sovereignty, Independence, Territorial Integrity and Inviolability, Neutrality and National Unity of Cambodia, simply sought to facilitate the implementation of the peace agreement reached in Paris by asking ‘Cambodia’ to ‘refrain from entering into any military alliances or other military agreements with other States that would be inconsistent with its neutrality’, and ‘the other parties to [the] Agreement’ to ‘refrain from interference in any form whatsoever, whether direct or indirect, in the internal affairs of Cambodia’ and to ‘refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Cambodia, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purpose of the United Nations.’17 Evidently, these provisions were for all intents and purposes meant to sever the links which might still exist between the Cambodian factions and their respective patrons in order to minimize any outside interference in the implementation of the peace process set in motion in Paris. It can be inferred, then, that the peace accord signed in Paris did not represent an attempt to settle the contest between the different approaches to peace in Cambodia promoted by the Cambodian factions and the P-5 so much as an agreement between these two groups to proceed with this debate during the implementation of the accord. This, in turn, was undoubtedly motivated by the belief harbored by each of these groups that it could turn this implementation phase to its advantage. The Cambodians could readily sign the accord since all the provisions upon which they had built the agreement reached at Pattaya the previous August were indeed part of it. Their goal of moving away from the P-5 peace plan and towards a model of peace based on an interfactional balance of power could be achieved within the parameters set by the documents signed in Paris given the ambiguity of these documents on the question of the relation to be established between the SNC and UNTAC. And, furthermore, the demobilization procedures and the electoral process set in motion by the Paris Conference could be integrated in this logic, according to the Cambodians, just as had been envisaged in Pattaya. The P-5 could also endorse the Paris Agreement since their own peace initiative, the very one for which the Cambodian factions had

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substituted the framework formulated in Pattaya and mimicked in Paris, was in reality also present in the pages of this accord. Its implementation could just as equally give place to a marginalization of the Cambodian factions, to be followed by a complete realignment of Cambodian politics and crowned by the organization of democratic elections. Additionally, the P-5 could think of many provisions included in the Paris Agreement, the ones concerning the structural transformations that were to be imposed on the Cambodian economy, for instance, as ultimately serving their objectives. Clearly the strategies of both the Cambodian factions and the P-5, in this context, were bound to center on the hierarchy which was to be established between the SNC and UNTAC during the transitional period. If the Cambodian factions succeeded in putting the SNC at the forefront of the peace process at the outset of the implementation phase of the Paris Agreement, they would create a dynamic whereby, on the one hand, the center of political gravity in Cambodia would shift towards the Council, and, on the other hand, its members would be able to act in concert in order to limit the role of UNTAC to electoral matters per se and consequently to minimize the disruptions of the social practices which they wanted to remain in place. This would force the articulation of the peace process around the idea that peace would result from an interfactional balance of power and, in this context, the Cambodians would be able to capitalize on the provisions on demobilization and electoral organization contained in the Paris Agreement to further the movement towards this model of peace. On the contrary, if UNTAC established in Cambodia a presence strong enough to put into effect on the ground a broad interpretation of its mandate as formulated in Paris, or indeed if the Cambodians were unable to achieve the type of sustained cohesion necessary to curtail its role during the transitional period, the marginalization of the SNC and the transformation of Cambodian social structures on which the P-5 plan was based would follow. And, in this situation, provisions of the peace accord such as the ones concerning economic development would help to further the development of this approach to peace in Cambodia. Conversely, the provisions which would be advantageous to the Cambodians in the context of an interfactional balance of power, the arrangements leaving in their hands certain military resources, for example, would not be of great significance on the evolution of events. The question of peace in Cambodia revolved at that point, therefore, around what would happen once the different protagonists of the

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Cambodian conflict had left Paris and the implementation of the peace accord that they had signed in the French capital was underway. What happened once the implementation phase of the Paris Agreement had begun?

Peace as social engineering The emphasis was squarely on the Cambodians in the initial stages of this implementation phase as the United Nations remained quite passive until the first months of 1992. The UN Security Council simply adopted a few days after the signature of the Paris Agreement a resolution endorsing the document and asking the Secretary-General to put forward a detailed blueprint for its realization.18 The activities of the UN were then concentrated around the United Nations Advance Mission in Cambodia (UNAMIC), a body established in the weeks preceding the Paris Agreement as a way of dealing with the ‘necessity of a [UN] presence in Cambodia immediately after the signing of the agreements for a comprehensive political settlement, pending the implementation of the arrangements set out in those agreements.’19 UNAMIC, essentially a small team of United Nations personnel charged with establishing mechanisms of liaison between the four Cambodian factions, thus began operating in early November and was to remain in place until it was absorbed by UNTAC at the beginning of the latter’s presence in Cambodia. The Cambodian factions, meanwhile, occupied center stage. Two events, however, threw doubt on their capacity to give momentum to the SNC. Shortly after his return to Phnom Penh, in the middle of November, Prince Sihanouk announced that his party, the FUNCINPEC, would ally itself with the members of the Phnom Penh regime. The alliance strengthened both parties: Hun Sen could expect to increase his regime’s legitimacy in the eyes of the international community by associating it with the widely respected figure of the Prince, who in turn could get from Hun Sen a military leverage which he did not possess himself. If it was then possible to see this alliance as a bid on both parties’ parts to influence to a greater degree than previously possible the deliberations of the SNC, it was also reasonable to think of it as an attempt to set up a Cambodian political power parallel to the Council and able, because of its repudiation of the Khmer Rouge, to garner more international support than a political entity including Pol Pot’s group.

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Another development augured the potential breakdown of the rapprochement between the Khmer Rouge and the Hun Sen group which had been central to the creation of the SNC. On 27 November, two days after the alliance between the Sihanoukists and Hun Sen had been made public, Khieu Samphan, in his capacity as the leader of the Khmer Rouge, arrived in Phnom Penh. Violent demonstrations which were widely believed to have been organized by the Phnom Penh regime forced him back to Thailand, though, and raised dire questions about the feasibility of a peace process articulated around the Council.20 However, both matters seemed to be addressed by the Cambodians at the beginning of December. The SNC met on the 3rd in Pattaya to formulate a series of security measures which were intended to allow the Khmer Rouge to establish themselves in the Cambodian capital as had been previously agreed.21 Two days later, Prince Sihanouk called off the alliance between his partisans and Hun Sen. There was thus, in sum, a jockeying for position within the SNC but also a visible concern with the need to ensure that the fundamental political framework which the four factions wanted to see adopted during the transitional period remained viable. This is not to say, though, that the SNC as a structure must have been free of deep-seated tensions. It was demonstrated earlier that a model of peace based on an interfactional balance of power cannot be stable. It is reasonable to think, then, that the Cambodian factions regarded the series of events just described as the precursor of the development of a broad realignment within the SNC which would in turn destroy the balance on which peace in Cambodia was, in their view, to be based. In that context, it is interesting to note the behavior of the factions at that time. At the second post-settlement meeting of the SNC, held this time in Phnom Penh on the 30th of December, the discussion centered on the Council’s desire to issue an appeal to the UN Secretary-General proposing the rapid dispatch to Cambodia of: 1. The UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative, and 2. The first group of troops from the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), starting from the beginning of 1992.22 It looks as though the Cambodian factions were attempting to get the United Nations to deploy their peacekeeping troops quickly in

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order to freeze the configuration of forces in place so that the stability which eluded them could nonetheless be established and that, in turn, the SNC could remain the central focus of the peace process. This would certainly correspond with the type of dynamics which were anticipated here. In any case, the United Nations did not start deploying the troops attached to UNTAC until the following March, and large-scale fighting between the forces of the Phnom Penh regime and those of the Khmer Rouge did begin again in January.23 This would suggest that the two more powerful of the four Cambodian factions were trying to change the rapport de force on the ground before UNTAC’s arrival, a fact indicating indeed that the balance of power arrangement they had struck in mid-1991 was unable to sustain itself over time even if it represented the pivotal component of the strategy they had pursued for months now and constituted, furthermore, the principal means at their disposal to force the peace process getting under way in a direction which favored them. If the Paris Agreement represented a gigantic game of poker between the Cambodian factions and the P-5, then the hand of the factions had been called and they had lost. They had proved incapable of giving to the SNC the dynamism necessary to place it at the center of the peace process for a sustained period of time and now the political center of gravity in Cambodia during the transitional period was bound to shift towards UNTAC, bringing with it a movement from the interfactional balance of power sought by the leadership of the four Cambodian factions to a peace process aimed at broad democratization of Cambodia. Also, the fact that the Cambodian peace process was considered at this time against the backdrop provided by the idea that an incipient ‘new world order’ was emerging in international affairs provided an added dimension to this movement towards a peace process articulated around the idea that peace could only follow from the democratization of Cambodian society. The United Nations, now at the center of the negotiation process because of its planned role in the implementation phase of the peace settlement, seized upon its involvement in what was to be, it was recognized by now, the largest peacekeeping operation in history to attempt to generate an international consensus around its role in the post-Cold war era as the principal institutional mechanism for regional conflict resolution. This increased the scrutiny to which the operation was bound to be submitted in terms of its faithfulness to the democratic principles supposed to guide, in the developing international consensus, post-Cold War conflict resolution efforts.

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The idea that the Cambodian operation was meant to be, in the words of one commentator, a ‘brave-new-world-order kind of arrangement’24 was also in evidence in the implementation framework drawn up by the United Nations Secretary-General in February. The document, leading to the establishment of UNTAC by the Security Council on the 28th of the month,25 set in motion a peacekeeping operation of unmatched proportions which would thus entail a degree of international cooperation rarely seen before. For instance, the expected cost of the operation was to be above $US2 billion, and its personnel was to be supplied by more than forty countries. The strength of this personnel was to vary but could be expected to go over 22 000, with approximately 16 000 peacekeeping troops, 3600 civilian police and an almost equal number of administrators and election officials. In addition, tens of thousands of Cambodians were expected to be recruited by UNTAC, mainly to help during the elections.26 It thus became apparent from that moment on that it was around the logic which had been pushed by the P-5 that the implementation of the peace process engaged in Paris would be organized. The failure of the Cambodian factions to establish the SNC as a distinct sphere of power during the transitional period and, indeed, the probable dissolution of the Council likely to be caused by the centrifugal forces exercised on it by the start of large-scale fighting between its two principal members, signified the bankruptcy of the efforts to base the search for peace in Cambodia on an interfactional balance of power. UNTAC would now constitute the locus of Cambodian politics during the transitional period, a situation which would at once marginalize the Cambodians and allow the movement towards the creation of the neutral political environment thought to foreshadow the instauration of a durable peace in Cambodia. It was this settlement procedure, then, as outlined in broad strokes at the outset of the present research, which represented the fulcrum upon which the set of structural relationships and tensions highlighted in the framework of inquiry advanced here to explain the transformations expected of Cambodian society within the Paris peace process were articulated. The discredit of the SNC having achieved the marginalization of the Cambodian leadership which the Five had always considered a precondition of the implementation of their peace plan, they were now to get the freedom of movement necessary to attempt the social telescoping which would bring Cambodian society in line with the framework of institutions and practices shown in this study to be directly linked to the idea that peace follows from the development of democracy.

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Most prominently, UNTAC’s mandate entailed the creation in Cambodia of state institutions presumed to be able, as had been the case in the West, to centralize authority and to force its expression through the rule of law. The thousands of United Nations troops and personnel about to descend on the Cambodian state apparatus in order to ‘place administrative agencies, bodies and offices under the direct control of UNTAC,’ in the language of the Paris Agreement, were going to accomplish these two tasks. First, they would substitute to the control exercised in the past by factions or sub-factions over these different institutions and to the fragmentation of the state which it had produced a centralization of the means of governance under a replenished state apparatus. Second, they would ensure that state power was exercised according to the tenets of democratic rule. This movement towards a non-violent political order was going to be generated, as had been the case in Western societies, by two complementary processes. At one level, UNTAC would permit a transition aimed at the creation of a system of political power articulated on what Giddens described as mechanisms of surveillance. Where before the state represented a disorganized coterie able to enforce its authority only through the use or threat of violence, UNTAC would establish instead a centralized and far-reaching managerial apparatus which would allow an administrative supervision, and indeed regulation, of Cambodian society without any resort to force. At another level, UNTAC would oversee the development of a series of political rights intended to erect barriers, so to speak, requiring the expression of state power through such administrative mechanisms. The provisions on the advancement of human rights in Cambodia contained in the Paris Agreement, firstly, would shield individuals from the arbitrary use of violence by state agencies. Secondly, the extensive reconstruction of the Cambodian economy linked to the Declaration on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia, with its emphasis on the ‘promotion of Cambodian entrepreneurship and of the private sector’, would serve to instill in broad segments of the country’s population the notion of freedom of economic choice and, in all probability, ultimately that of freedom of political choice. In consequence, it was presumed that the economic reconstruction taking place within the transitional period managed by UNTAC would contribute to the elaboration of a conception of the individual as endowed with a right to intervention in the public sphere and, in turn, also help protect it from being silenced by the state through violence.

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Yet an element of the evolutionary patterns of Western societies which UNTAC wanted to reproduce in Cambodia appeared to be missing from its mandate. The evacuation of the means of organized violence from society achieved through their centralization within the purview of the state simply could not take place here since the Paris Conference had accepted a partial, rather than total, demobilization of the four Cambodian factions during the transitional period. The fact that the United Nations personnel was nonetheless set to put in motion a wide range of reforms which would establish the other elements of the development patterns witnessed in Western societies meant, though, that violence would become an illegitimate component of the social contract that was to take shape in Cambodia under UNTAC’s guidance. Most certainly, then, no Cambodian faction would avail itself of the military means left at its disposal since such action, within the new political context ushered in by UNTAC, would not allow it to exercise any power so much as lead it to be ostracized from the peace process. In a word, as UNTAC changed the rules of the political game in Cambodia, force, perhaps the only decisive factor in past Cambodia politics, would now not give an advantage to those who used it but exclude them from the game altogether. Violence would in that sense, ceteris paribus, be shut out of Cambodian society. A situation parallel to the Western model UNTAC wanted to emulate in Cambodia would thus in fact prevail on the ground. The core component, finally, of the different processes and institutions which UNTAC wanted to integrate in the Cambodian social fabric during the transitional period was what had been deemed in the Paris Agreement ‘free and fair elections’. It was indeed on the organization of ‘fair’ elections truly representative of the popular will in Cambodia that, most of all, the peace process was to be based. The never-ending struggle between the four Cambodian factions on the matter of who among them represented the legitimate authority in Cambodia would only cease, the logic of this approach went, if they were all faced with a government whose legitimacy could not be questioned because it had been put in power by an irrefutably democratic electoral contest. In turn, and as has been noted before, such elections were thought to be possible only within the ‘neutral political context’ that was meant to be established by UNTAC through the set of reforms just considered. The Cambodian peace process, in this sense, was again intended to mimic a progression witnessed in Western societies. As was argued earlier, mechanisms of popular representation emerged in the West

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because of the confluence of two dynamics. First, the concentration of violence within state structures and its exclusion from what could be termed from then on a civil society allowed a non-violent political arena to take shape within that specific realm. Second, a sequence going from the growth of capitalism to the pluralisation and then the atomization of power at the level of the individual, and finally to widespread demands for an expansion of the political franchise, led to the elaboration of a series of political rights which, on the one hand, further obstructed the use of violence in political affairs, and, on the other hand, provided the impetus for the unfolding of mechanisms of popular representation able to hold authorities in place accountable to the principles of individual determination spawned by the development of capitalism. This represented the blueprint of UNTAC’s actions in Cambodia. Its mandate called in the initial stage of its mission for the creation of a ‘neutral environment’ whose characteristics paralleled the amalgam of the two dynamics just described: a state structure able to establish a non-violent society was to be created, to then be accompanied by the development of individual rights and the type of economic headway permitting the further advancement of these rights. Only once these particular conditions were in place would democratic elections be organized in what was to become the second phase of the peace operation. It was thus understood by the United Nations that it was necessary to convert the violent environment marked by factional infighting which had characterized Cambodian politics in the past to a climate grounded instead in the absence of violence and a concern with the promotion and the expression of the popular will within the political sphere before a genuinely representative and democratic electoral process could take place. Since such an electoral exercise was the only effective means of bringing the Cambodian conflict to its conclusion, UNTAC’s chances of attaining its fundamental objective thus rested in fact on a close duplication of all these developments in Cambodia. Parenthetically, it could be feared that the provisions of the Paris Agreement on the organizational framework of the elections that were to be orchestrated by UNTAC would allow the different Cambodian factions to wield undue influence on the progression of the electoral process. These provisions, creating a proportional system of vote on a provincial basis, did, after all, represent a balance between the efforts of both the Phnom Penh government and those of the coalition opposed to it to shape the elections in ways which would permit to a large extent

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the control of its result, for instance through the intimidation of the voters in certain regions of the country. Given the train of social reforms it intended to carry out in Cambodia, however, UNTAC could hope to establish a political climate which would prevent the factions from resorting to these tactics by linking them to a reduction of legitimacy and of actual influence within the peace process. Ultimately, then, elections with an acceptable standard of representativity could be expected to take place in Cambodia at the end of the transitional period supervised by UNTAC. The plausibility of the notion that non-violent politics was to emerge in Cambodia in the transitional period was linked, in UNTAC’s perspective, to the concrete transformations in Cambodian traditional institutions and social practices which were just described. There was thus in this approach the belief that material arrangements about violence determined if a particular conception of peace could be believable in a given social context: it was because a series of social and institutional transformations were to exclude violence from the political arena in Cambodia that the idea of peace as a non-violent struggle was to become plausible in that country. In addition, UNTAC’s mission was to allow the emergence of the political forces and of the structural relationships involving these forces which were discussed in the theoretical remarks regarding the social basis of the concept of peace as democracy. Here also, the establishment of a democratic electoral process would lead to the formation of political parties attempting to gain power by portraying themselves as representing the popular will rather than by maintaining a strict allegiance to a particular faction. The vast program of economic reconstruction undertaken under UNTAC’s direction would favor what would undoubtedly become an expanding Cambodian capitalist class. And, finally, the unification and growth of administrative capacities in Cambodia would give rise to a certain fonctionnarisme entrenched within these bureaucratic structures. Conversely, as noted earlier, these different groups would certainly defend and, moreover, seek to sustain over time the reforms set forth by UNTAC, since it is from them that they would draw their power. As the theoretical remarks also suggested, the very notion of peace championed by UNTAC was bound to strengthen the position of these different groups. Focusing UNTAC’s efforts on the idea that a nonviolent social order represented an objective within reach in Cambodia would indeed marginalize the political groupings associated with the violent politics of the past. So too would it increase the legitimacy of

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the specific groups embodying the new forms of power meant to be substituted to the exercise of power through violence. And, as the structural relationships highlighted earlier also showed, these groups would undeniably endeavour to build a consensus as broad as possible around the notion of peace promoted by UNTAC since it would lend legitimacy to the reforms undertaken during the transitional period and, consequently, to the power given them by these reforms. To conclude, it was thus apparent that the conception of peace guiding UNTAC’s conflict resolution efforts in Cambodia would also allow the formation of the structural relationships studied earlier. This concept would encapsulate the trust of the social contract intended to replace the traditional patterns of Cambodian politics. By so representing the dominant expression of the purpose of politics in Cambodia, it would grant legitimacy to the political forces conforming their agenda to the train of reforms under way in the country. The concept of peace advanced by UNTAC would also represent the means whereby these political forces, by attempting to generate a consensus around its validity and its pertinence in the context of a broad social movement beyond the endless violence associated with the traditional patterns and representations of Cambodian politics, would endeavor to justify the reforms corresponding with it and from which they would derive their position of power. If the set of structural relationships outlined in the study of the concept of peace as democracy represented, therefore, the essence of the transformations which were to be imposed on the Cambodian factions, and, indeed, on all segments of Cambodia’s population, during the implementation of the Paris Peace Agreement, what happened once the implementation of this agreement got under way? Did the evolution of events from that point substantiate the assumptions guiding the present study?

The failure of the Paris Plan Two of the foremost observers of Cambodia in recent years, Jacques Bekaert, then of the Bangkok Post, and Sukhumbandh Paribatra, then teaching at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, concurred in mid1992 that the principal challenge facing UNTAC at the time was proving to be the difficulty of ‘creating a government of institutions out of political traditions based on deep-rooted networks of personal relationships, and love or fear of forceful leaders,’ to use the words of Jacques Bekaert.27 Indeed, it seemed then that the historical absence in

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Cambodia of anything remotely resembling a central structure of authority was preventing the international force assembled in that country from merely adding to a core of key institutions, perhaps the sort of process envisaged by many of the participants of the second Paris Conference. Instead, UNTAC was compelled to ground its efforts to build neutral state institutions in political infrastructures firmly devoted to one or the other of the four Cambodian factions. Consequently, it was not so much putting in place a new impartial state sector as constantly attempting to render non-partisan political structures which could never be because of the continual pull exercised on them by ingrained factional allegiances. Nowhere was this futile fuite en avant more clearly apparent, according to many interlocutors, than in UNTAC’s bid to build a well-defined administrative apparatus in Cambodia. The peace operation was centered to a great extent on UNTAC personnel taking control of the ministries of foreign affairs, national defense, finance, public security, and information so that a neutral bureaucratic infrastructure could emerge in Cambodia. This would permit, in turn, the development of the managerial capacities necessary to the supervision of the broad social transformations that were to be implemented during the transitional period. It was becoming evident in mid-1992 that UNTAC, however, would be unable to take effective control of these ministries. Their logic of operation was underpinned by the fact that they were shaped more by the superposition of factional and sub-factional fiefs than by any concern with administrative efficiency: many sections of key ministries, for instance, had clandestine components intended to respond to, and indeed defend, the interests of certain factional leaders. Jacques Bekaert gave the example of the ‘structure byzantine’ of the ministries of security and defense which belied any organizational flow-chart that might have been provided to UNTAC.28 Often, then, UNTAC found itself attempting to uncover the exact nature of the operations under the control of a given ministry and the identity of those who commanded them rather than exercising any form of meaningful supervision of this ministry. The result was a total inability to give concrete form to what was supposed to be a new appareil d’État. Another component of UNTAC’s effort to establish a neutral and democratic polity in Cambodia prior to the elections which would mark the end of the transitional period was the reorganization and reconstruction of the Cambodian economy. A massive aid program was intended to develop markets and industries in Cambodia. This, in turn,

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would help alter the framework of Cambodian politics away from factional infighting and towards greater representativity since the multiplication of poles of power in Cambodia brought about by the emergence of a cohesive bourgeoisie would lead to a powerful challenge to the monopoly on political power exercised by the leadership of the four factions. Here again, however, it seemed by the middle of 1992 that UNTAC would fail. Four phenomena were at play. First, the aid program could not redress the structural weaknesses of the Cambodian economic machinery. Cambodia’s economy still experienced a massive deficit, with exports in the first six months of 1992 totalling $US35 million and imports, US$200 million.29 This situation, due to the lack of advanced production infrastructures in Cambodia, could not be reversed in as short a time as UNTAC had to implement broad economic changes. It prevented all governmental departments from having at their disposal the means necessary to stabilize the economy and initiate some form of economic development. It was also compounded by the fact that the black market constituted the principal beneficiary of the economic activity generated by the rehabilitation program supervised by UNTAC and that, as such, this economic activity escaped fiscal measures which could have filled up the state’s coffers. To respond to this problem, the Phnom Penh authorities simply printed money, which in turn caused the second obstacle to economic reconstruction in Cambodia: hyperinflation. From January to June 1992, cash in circulation in Cambodia increased by more than 160 per cent, while consumer prices rose in the same period by approximately 130 per cent. In September, UNTAC officials warned that the inflation rate for the year could top 300 per cent.30 Inflationary pressures were themselves compounded by the fact that most UN personnel received a salary of between US$150 and US$300 per day in a country where the annual salary of the greater part of the population hovers around US$250. To stem the continued hyperinflation experienced by Cambodia during the transitional period, UNTAC finally took control of the country’s central bank in September, but this was largely to no avail. Third, international aid produced economic activity mainly in Phnom Penh and in other urban centers. This accentuated the traditional polarization between city and countryside in Cambodia and created an exodus from rural regions. Phnom Penh and the other urban centers were therefore flooded with groups of people who ultimately could not find the means of sustaining themselves, while

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the social networks on which agricultural production was based in the countryside were dislocated. Finally, UNTAC was confronted with corruption, a problem endemic in Cambodia’s governmental sector. Many of the funds put at the disposal of the different ministries involved in the rehabilitation of the Cambodian economy were thus diverted for personal use.31 It was therefore difficult to see how the transformations which were to marginalize the traditional factional dynamics of Cambodian politics and allow the emergence of a more neutral political environment in order to permit the organization of truly representative elections could take place at all. Matters were not helped when the other central element of the transitional period, the attempt to minimize violence in Cambodia through a demobilization of the armed forces of the different Cambodian factions, also faltered. The demobilization process had been left in the hands of the Cambodian factions and there were now signs that they would obstruct it. Indeed, when the demobilization phase of the peace process began, on 13 June, the Phnom Penh authorities, the Sihanoukists, and the forces loyal to Son Sann complied with the provisions of the Paris Agreement, though they surrendered antiquated military equipment which they had already replaced in the field by newer ones.32 The Khmer Rouge, for their part, refused to observe the conditions to which they had agreed in Paris, arguing repeatedly that UNTAC was favoring the Phnom Penh regime by exercising only a dispirited and impassive control over its structure and by concealing the fact that thousands of Vietnamese, thought to be sympathetic to the authorities in place in the Cambodian capital, were in Cambodia and would be allowed to skew the election results by voting as Cambodians. What the Far Eastern Economic Review termed the ‘pretext-a-week strategy’ of refusal to disarm followed by the Khmer Rouge,33 forced UNTAC, the following September, to suspend the demobilization process in order to avoid creating a military imbalance which would have disadvantaged the three other factions.34 Patterns of systematic obstruction to the provisions of the Paris Agreement were also visible at other levels. Attacks on UNTAC contingents became frequent, as did the kidnapping by Khmer Rouge forces of UNTAC personnel. Most notably, there was widespread intimidation of voters, as well as acts of violence against the supporters of the Sihanoukist party and those of the party led by Son San, by the Phnom Penh authorities within the regions under their rule. In an interview conducted in July 1992, one of the journalists with the best

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knowledge of the evolution of the situation on the ground, Mary Kay Magistad, confirmed for instance that the A3 forces, a clandestine group controlled by the Phnom Penh government and numbering in the thousands, had been ordered to wage a ‘campaign of dirty tricks’ against its opponents in the electoral campaign.35 This coincided with the observations of five prominent American scholars who visited Cambodia as this information was collected. Richard Betts, John Bresnan, Frederick Z. Brown, James W. Morley, and Donald Zagoria, visited the Cambodian countryside in August 1992 and described being told that the Phnom Penh government ‘showed little tolerance for the legitimate organizational efforts’ of the Sihanoukist party and of that of Son San, and that ‘their organizers [had] been harassed and [had been] reported to have been killed while attempting to open offices [outside of the Cambodian capital].’36 The principal problem remained, however, the obstinate refusal of the Khmer Rouge to abide by the most basic provisions of the Paris Agreement. On 5 June, Yasushi Akashi, the Special Representative of the UN’s Secretary-General and the head of UNTAC, had declared that without the demobilization of troops which the group was preventing, there could not be a neutral political environment in Cambodia and the organization of democratic elections could thus only be compromised.37 By September, as Akashi was insisting that elections would be held with or without the Khmer Rouge, he was in fact acknowledging that a complete reassessment of the logic which had presided over the redaction of the text adopted in Paris the preceding year was unavoidable. In the absence of a neutral political environment, elections would indeed most probably entail a return to open warfare. If the refusal of the Khmer Rouge to participate in the disarmament process and the ensuing suspension of that entire aspect of the peace process signified that the hope of establishing a neutral political climate in Cambodia prior to the elections was being abandoned altogether, then these elections would not bring to power a government whose authority would be assured by its irrefutable legitimacy. A victory for the candidates of the Phnom Penh government, for instance, would bring accusations from the three other factions that it was the result of political intimidation more than that of due electoral procedure. Warfare would then most probably occur since the legitimacy of the faction in power in Phnom Penh would be contested by the three others, a return to precisely the situation which UNTAC was trying to remedy. And yet the Paris Agreement, and in fact by now, it seemed, the reputation of the

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United Nations, demanded that elections be held to bring about a logical end to UNTAC’s presence in Cambodia. The way out of this dilemma began to take shape in the following weeks. The last week of September, China’s Vice Foreign Minister, Xu Dunxin, visited Phnom Penh and declared that national reconciliation could now be reached by ‘giving full scope to Prince Sihanouk’s leadership’ and that this could be done by organizing elections for a Cambodian chief of state in parallel with the legislative elections envisaged by the Paris Agreement.38 France also attempted at this point to convince the other members of the P-5 to reformulate the goals of the Paris Agreement. Paris proposed that presidential elections in which only Prince Sihanouk would run be held in addition to the elections to a legislative assembly: the Prince, once in power, would endeavor to form a government of national reconciliation which would include all the Cambodian factions. This formula was seen by its proponents as a way out of the uncertainty produced by the Khmer Rouge’s defiances, though it denoted a marked departure from the logic of the agreement signed in the French capital in October 1991. Peace, should this formula be adopted by UNTAC, would not be based on the instauration of democratic institutions in Cambodia. It would rest instead on the stability brought about by a situation where the factional leaders capable of disrupting the electoral process were assured of staying in power after the elections whatever their results, a fact underscored by the role reserved to the Khmer Rouge in an eventual government of national reconciliation even though the group had repeatedly disavowed the electoral process under way in Cambodia. In this sense, the proposed formula did sanction a return to the type of factional politics which the Paris Agreement had sought to eliminate, but it could nonetheless allow a certain measure of political stability in Cambodia. Elections would indeed be held under this formula, and the United Nations would therefore be able to claim a degree of success in its largest-ever peace operation, but in this context the electoral process would simply serve to usher in a new conflict resolution procedure based this time on the respect Prince Sihanouk enjoyed among all four Cambodian factions and on his ability to use this respect to entice each of them to come to a compromise with the others. The steady rise of violence on the ground then forced the P-5 to accentuate its effort to reintegrate the Khmer Rouge in the peace process, but also to consider this new arrangement as an alternative in case these efforts failed. The clearest indication of this movement came

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at the end of November when the Security Council adopted a resolution which, on the one hand, ‘demanded that the [Khmer Rouge] fulfill its obligations under the Paris Agreements’ and imposed a series of sanctions on the group, but, on the other hand, confirmed that ‘elections for a constituent assembly would be held not later than May 1993’ and gave instructions to UNTAC ‘to make contingency plans for a presidential election at the same time.’39 Prince Sihanouk himself started at that time defending the alternate formula considered by the P-5,40 while both the Australian Foreign Minister, Gareth Evans, who had championed the peace framework which would eventually become enshrined in the Paris Agreement, and the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Ali Alatas, expressed qualified support for the organization of presidential elections while on visits to Phnom Penh in January 1993.41 On January 22, the Khmer Rouge indicated that they still insisted on the conditions they had presented before, but that, if these were met, they ‘would like to express immense joy and offer the presidential candidacy to Prince Sihanouk’, while at the same time the Phnom Penh authorities voiced their support for the organization of presidential elections.42 On January 28, the SNC met in Beijing and agreed in principle to reconsider the peace agreement in order to permit presidential elections, the latest in a series of developments which the Phnom Penh Post described as an ‘adroitly manoeuvred bloodless coup against UNTAC.’43 Prince Sihanouk then went ahead with a public plea for the organization of presidential elections which would bring him to power. In an exclusive interview with the Far Eastern Economic Review which appeared at the beginning of February as a cover story under the title ‘Give Me a Chance’, the Prince declared that he could ‘prevent a tragic derailment of the peace plan’ and added that ‘modern medicine of Akashi [had] not worked [and that it was up to] old doctor Sihanouk to try saving Cambodia once again with his traditional medicine.’44 Washington, however, was set against the organization of presidential elections. Its thinking was that a plebiscite in favor of Prince Sihanouk and the formation of a government guaranteeing a position of power to the Khmer Rouge would contradict the democratic principles which the international community was attempting to establish in Cambodia since the distribution of power after the elections would not be decided by their results, but by an arrangement among factional leaders more concerned with protecting their interests than representing the popular will. The campaign of opposition led by the Americans

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finally induced Prince Sihanouk to withdraw his support for the formula he had defended in the preceding weeks. In a declaration made public on February 14, he asserted that Because of the controversies and political manoeuvring concerning the issue of presidential elections, I am forced to forswear my participation in these elections. He immediately added, however, that The validity of the results of the UNTAC elections [‘elections untacistes’] of May 1993 is totally rejected and severely condemned by [the Khmer Rouge] and will be rejected (this is easy to foresee) by the majority of Parties of Factions defeated in these elections, which Parties and Factions will say that they have lost the electoral contest because of UNTAC’s partiality, because of the vote of Vietnamese disguised as Khmers, because of the non-participation of overseas Khmers … , etc. In these conditions, I am afraid that, after the elections [‘après les fameuses élections’] of May 1993, there is a risk of grave disorders in Cambodia, of instability and even war. In my quality as President of the SNC, I will recognize officially the validity of the legislative elections of May 1993 and their results as officially confirmed by UNTAC. But I will not participate in presidential elections, whatever their date, because my country, Cambodia, and the Cambodian people, after May–June 1993, will need a Norodom Sihanouk neutral and non-involved (in elections opposed by many Khmers) to stop the fatal progression of Kampuchea towards an irreversible partition and a civil war fatal to the Khmer nation and race. It is only by placing myself clearly above faction and political parties and outside the UNTAC elections [‘élections untacistes’] that I will be able, when the time comes, to rescue the shipwreck of the Kampuchea ship [‘assurer le sauvetage du navire Kampuchéa naufragé.’]45 The Prince was thus circumventing the opposition of the United States to the idea of a government of national reconciliation under his leadership much more than abandoning it. He was letting the legislative elections proceed as had been planned in the Paris Agreement, but he

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was also arguing that these elections could only entail a return to civil war in Cambodia which, in turn, would require him to assume the position which the Americans were denying him. Violence was by then a daily occurrence, with Khmer Rouge troops regularly attacking UNTAC personnel and clandestine agents of the Phnom Penh government exercising a regime of terror against their adversaries in the electoral contest. UNTAC was thus displaying the futility of its objectives while the violence itself was demonstrating, a contrario, the need for an alternative approach to peace. The weeks between March and the elections, now scheduled for the last week of May, were therefore spent waiting for the peace operation supervised by UNTAC to be over, so that a new peace framework, articulated this time around attempts by Prince Sihanouk to reintegrate the Khmer Rouge in the national reconciliation process, could begin to unfold. In a particularly candid exchange about the events he had recently witnessed around him, Chanserey Mum, a French judge of Cambodian origin who was then the assistant-director of the Civil Administration component of UNTAC, confided in May 1993 that during this period it was decided in UNTAC’s highest spheres that the peace operation under way in Cambodia would be strictly limited to the organization of elections. All hopes of establishing a neutral political environment before the electoral period began had therefore been forsaken. UNTAC wanted instead to concentrate all its resources into the creation of safe enclaves within which the vote would be allowed to proceed safe from the risk of overt violence. It would then be able to claim the conclusion of the electoral process as evidence of the success of its mission. UNTAC’s overseers were doing this, however, knowing that the conditions for a democratic vote were not in place and that a return to violence was more than likely after the departure of the United Nations personnel. Chanserey Mum called ‘UNTAC II’ this reorientation of the original UNTAC mission intended, as he put it, ‘to save face for the United Nations more than to help Cambodia.’46 A series of four progress reports on UNTAC’s mission were prepared by the Secretary-General of the United Nations between May 1992 and May 1993. They represent the best way of gauging the official position of the UN on the problems just described, and, indeed, they seem to corroborate this sense of a movement away from the original objectives pursued by UNTAC.

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The first progress report was made public at the beginning of May 1992. It noted that ‘UNTAC [had] begun to establish itself both politically and militarily in Cambodia’, though it had ‘faced difficulty and delays in deployment.’ It emphasized, in light of ‘reports of violent incidents involving political figures, … UNTAC’s determination … to foster an environment in which human rights would be assured so as to permit the exercise of fundamental freedoms, including the right to participate in free and fair elections.’47 The second progress report on UNTAC’s activities, made public in the third week of September 1992, was more circumspect. It noted that the ‘uncertainty over the intentions [of the Khmer Rouge] was having an adverse effect on the electoral component’s planning.’ It also remarked that officials of the [National Defense component of UNTAC] had inspected the Phnom Penh administrative structure dealing with defense [and that] their inspections and inquiries [had] revealed a high level of political activity by the Cambodian People’s Party [the official political arm of the group in power in the capital] within the armed forces of the Phnom Penh authorities. The report also commented that the role of the Information/Education Division of UNTAC [was] to explain to Cambodians throughout the country the essence of the Paris Agreements and UNTAC’s nature, objectives and activities … Many [Cambodians] are sceptical about the applicability in Cambodia of basic concepts of human rights, including free and fair elections and multiparty political campaigning. Finally, the report acknowledged that the electoral component of UNTAC was: examining a proposal to hold a presidential election simultaneously with the election for a constituent assembly. Much support for this idea has been voiced by the Cambodian parties and by Prince Sihanouk himself, who take the view that such an election would have a stabilizing effect in the period after the elections. However, a presidential election is not provided for in the Paris Agreements or the implementation plan. It would therefore require Security Council authorization, as well as the provision of additional resources.48

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The third progress report was made public at the end of January 1993. It noted, ‘on the positive side, … that the voter registration exercise [had] been a remarkable success [and the Secretary-General was] encouraged by the progress of the repatriation process.’ It also remarked that ‘on the other hand, there [had] been a number of negative developments that [had] created obstacles to the full implementation of the Paris Agreements.’ In this regard, it alluded to the refusal of the Khmer Rouge to disarm, which ‘made it impossible to carry out the cantonment, disarmament and demobilization of the factions’ armed forces.’ It mentioned that there had been ‘a number of attacks on UNTAC personnel and helicopters.’ Two other elements were emphasized: another disturbing feature of the present situation is the growing climate of violence resulting from politically motivated acts of intimidation and attacks against party offices and party workers … There also seems to be a growing reluctance on the part of some of the existing administrative structures to accept the control of UNTAC. The document then stated that ‘these developments [had] seriously hampered UNTAC’s efforts to create and maintain the neutral political environment needed for the holding of free and fair elections.’ It went on to remark that, ‘at this critical juncture, [Prince Sihanouk’s] leadership and moral authority [were] more than ever needed.’ The SecretaryGeneral stated that he was convinced that ‘the holding of a presidential election, in conjunction with the planned election for a constituent assembly, could contribute to national reconciliation and that it could provide an essential element of stability during the rest of the transitional period.’49 The last progress report of the Secretary-General was presented three weeks before the elections, at the very beginning of May 1993. The idea of a presidential plebiscite able to offer a framework for national reconciliation had been abandoned at this time because of the position adopted by Washington. The elections due to be held at the end of the month were therefore seen as a prelude to increased instability in Cambodia. The remarks of the Secretary-General reflected this dilemma. He noted that ‘conditions [of political resistance] have naturally given rise to serious concerns as to whether of not the election could or should proceed, and to what extent its results could be said to reflect

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the free expression of the will of the Cambodian people.’ He added that it had ‘become quite evident that some of the Cambodian parties that signed the Paris Agreements [had] been less than consistent in applying those Agreements and [had] not given UNTAC the cooperation required under them.’ He then remarked that under the circumstances, the United Nations [faced] a difficult decision. One alternative [was] to proceed with the best possible election under imperfect conditions, in the knowledge that this is what the majority of Cambodians desire and in the hope that the authentic voice of Cambodia will be heard and obeyed. The other choice [would have been] to declare that the basic acceptable conditions for free and fair elections [did] not exist in Cambodia because of the climate of violence and hostility, and because violence [could] worsen further after the elections, whatever the results. The Secretary-General then concluded that, ‘taking all these circumstances into consideration, there was no doubt [in his] mind that UNTAC [had to] continue to carry out its mandate as well as it [could].’ He added that ‘in the last analysis, it [was] on the shoulders of the Cambodian people and the Cambodian parties … that responsibility for Cambodia’s future rested.’50 There was thus in these lines an acknowledgement of a movement towards what Chanserey Mum had described as ‘UNTAC II.’ All pretense of having created a neutral political environment had been forsaken by that time by UNTAC. Elections without the conditions seen as the prerequisite for their legitimacy were thus going to be held, a decision which would allow UNTAC to claim some measure of success but which would also bring about an unstable post-election situation. This would indeed ‘put the responsibility of Cambodia’s future on the shoulders of the Cambodian people and the Cambodian parties’ and, given the role played by Prince Sihanouk in the last months, would more than likely result in a search for peace articulated this time around him. Did this evolution towards ‘UNTAC II’ correspond to the failure of the Paris peace process as defined in the set of assumptions underlying this research? It would appear that this is the case, and that, therefore, these assumptions were corroborated by these events. It was first assumed in this framework of inquiry that it would be extremely laborious to generate in the Cambodian context the social transformations required by the Paris Peace Plan since these transformations entailed

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the creation de toutes pièces of certain institutions in Cambodia and the radical reconfiguration of others already in place there. As was stated earlier, this was in fact a concern shared by other observers of the Paris Peace Plan who also believed that a conflict resolution procedure based on the objective of giving a totally new form to Cambodian society in roughly eighteen months rested more on good intentions than on a sensible assessment of the reality of the situation on the ground in Cambodia. Undoubtedly, the obstacles encountered by UNTAC in its efforts to establish a central structure of authority in Cambodia illustrated in this regard the difficulties linked to such an objective in a society devoid of all similar structures. The aberrations marking the implementation of the program of economic development, for instance the lack of all economic take-off due to the structural problems of the Cambodian economy, demonstrated, for their part, the complicated challenge of reshaping established practices and social patterns. Moreover, it could be argued that an additional dimension of the difficulty of transposing the elements of the political framework found in Western societies in the Cambodian context would center on the numerous linkages between each of these elements: the incomplete or faulty activation of one component of UNTAC’s mandate was bound, in this sense, to render the completion of the others impossible. This was exemplified in the events considered here at two levels. The failure of the economic renewal program to foster the development of anything even remotely akin to a Cambodian bourgeoisie capable of formulating demands for an increase in the modes of political representation must have hindered, first, the efforts aimed at wresting state structures away from factional allegiances. The processes whereby, in the West, the constitution of political rights through the expansion of market-related dynamics forced a movement towards legitimacy on the part of state actors could not happen here, in other words, since the element which gave impetus to these processes, the unfolding of capitalism, was absent. Second, and perhaps more prominently because it highlighted deficiencies in the very logic of the peace plan followed by UNTAC, the series of shortcomings just mentioned made it absurd to think about organizing democratic elections in Cambodia at the end of the transitional period: the lack of a neutral political environment, the consequence of these shortcomings, meant that the essential prerequisite for such an exercise was missing. What certainly was not anticipated by the proponents of the Paris Plan, and appeared to be a fundamental miscalculation in light of the

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assumptions underlying the present research, was the likely resistance of the leadership of the four Cambodian factions to the implementation of the plan. The United Nations believed that the Cambodian leaders wanted the elections supervised by UNTAC to go ahead since, it was assumed, they estimated that they would acquire in a popular vote the legitimacy in the international recognition which in turn would guarantee them a certain measure of power in the future. A complete transformation of the Cambodian political environment implied however, in the perspective adopted here, that the social structure on which these different leaders have always relied to stay in power were going to be eroded or destroyed. They were bound, therefore, to resist all attempts at democratization in Cambodia. It is indeed this latter supposition which became reality. The Khmer Rouge refused to comply with the Paris Plan altogether. The Phnom Penh government, though outwardly cooperating with UNTAC in essential components of the peace plan such as its disarmament phase and the organization of elections, seemed in reality to be more intent on keeping the political struggle at the level of factional infighting, and indeed on gaining an advantageous position within that context, than on allowing a genuine movement towards democratization in Cambodia. The feigned disarmament of its vast army and clandestine forces conducted by Phnom Penh ensured that military might would remain the arbiter of Cambodian politics, a situation which would give it a clear edge over the forces of Son San and those of Prince Sihanouk, if not over the Khmer Rouge. The campaign of intimidation and violence carried out by Phnom Penh in the regions it controlled under the guise of the electoral campaign supervised by UNTAC, for its part, guaranteed that elections would not represent the expression of the popular will so much as they would constitute a plebiscite in favor of the status quo. Similarly, the participation of the two smaller factions, the Sihanoukists and Son San’s group, in the electoral process can be understood as a bid to strengthen their position vis-à-vis the two other factions through an appeal to the population more than an attempt to participate in the project of social reorganization pursued by UNTAC, an endeavour which in any case they certainly considered futile given the behavior of the other factions and their comparatively weak resources. Thirdly, the framework of inquiry adopted here stipulated that the validity of the core concept on which UNTAC based its action, the idea that peace in Cambodia could follow from the establishment in that country of the institutions which in the Western democracies

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comprise the political space, would be questioned over time as it became apparent that the social transformations necessary to its adoption in the Cambodian context were not to be. This also happened during the period studied here. By mid-1992, it was evident that UNTAC would not be capable of superimposing upon the traditional Cambodian landscape marked by factionalism and violence a political space defined by the rule of law, much less of organizing free and fair elections. The idea that peace as the functioning of democracy was a credible objective in Cambodia could only appear doubtful in this context. This was brought to light by the French proposal, put forward in the following weeks, to hold presidential elections in conjunction with the legislative elections which were to take place at the end of the transitional period. The logical sequence going from the creation of a neutral political environment to the establishment of peace in Cambodia was no longer relevant given the situation on the ground, and the French were thus attempting to enact a new logic of the search for peace in this context. Prince Sihanouk still wielded the power afforded him by his international status and by the devout respect he still enjoyed among broad segments of the Cambodian population, and Paris thought he could use this type of influence to foster some rapprochement between the four factions which in turn would bring peace to Cambodia. Undoubtedly, Paris was motivated in its efforts by its close relationship with the Prince as well as by its desire to exploit this relationship to establish a foothold from which greater economic contacts with the rest of the Indochinese peninsula could be developed, but the French proposal did provide a timely solution to the dilemma associated with the absence of the conditions necessary to the full implementation of the peace plan. The Americans of course insisted at the beginning of 1993 that UNTAC’s action should be redirected towards the initial objectives of that plan but, even more so in the context of increased violence which prevailed at that time, this was nonsensical. UNTAC, by then caught between Washington’s position and the impossibility of implementing it on the ground, was thus reduced to acquiescing, sotto voce, to the French proposal while waiting for its mandate to be over. Lastly, the framework of inquiry guiding this research claimed that the resistance of the Cambodians to the Paris Plan would take the form of a concerted attempt to use the difficulties encountered by UNTAC in its efforts to promote the idea that peace would follow from democracy in Cambodia in order to modify this model of peace to make it more

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consonant with the preservation of the social structures on which their power rests. The factional leaders were thus expected to argue that the failure of UNTAC’s original mission necessitated a reevaluation of its objectives, allowing a movement in the search for peace in Cambodia towards mechanisms involving some form of arrangement among them. Conversely, it was assumed that Prince Sihanouk would contend that the impossibility of moving beyond the traditional patterns of Cambodian politics entailed the need to build peace upon these patterns. The idea of peace has always been linked in Cambodia to the development of a social order articulated on a transcendently determined political hierarchy, it was anticipated he would say, and, if he was given back his rightful place at the top of this hierarchy, traditional modes of governance would be restored and the country would experience a certain stability upon which the search for peace could then be based. Again, this is precisely what took place in the period considered here. Prince Sihanouk decried the situation brought about by the ‘modern medicine of democracy’ and championed his ‘traditional medicine,’ thus expressing the need to return to the stability allowed by more historically conventional forms of government as well as to the leadership he exercised for years within these modes of government if peace was to prevail in Cambodia. In this setting, he argued, his first duty would be to establish a government of national reconciliation comprising the four Cambodian factions regardless of the results of the legislative elections organized by UNTAC, and the four factions did indeed agree to this proposal. The open promotion of these ideas ceased in the context of the pressures exercised by Washington on UNTAC and the Prince, but the decision by the United Nations to move towards ‘UNTAC II’ had by that time ensured that they would remain at the very center of the search for peace in Cambodia. The validity of this component of the demonstration is in this case again underscored by certain aspects of the factions’ behavior. Though they had been fighting overtly or in a more secretive fashion for months, they did accept the proposal of Prince Sihanouk suggesting that all of them be brought in a government of national reconciliation. The openness of the factions towards the Prince’s proposal, then, makes the hostilities between them appear more like a jockeying aimed at securing an advantage if such an arrangement were to emerge than a complete refusal to move towards peace. And, in turn, this accredits the idea associated with the assumptions guiding this research that the hostilities between the factions would not take them beyond the

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common denominator of the need for all of them to articulate the search for peace in Cambodia on inter-factional arrangements. Conversely, the conclusion of many observers to the effect that the Cambodian factions did not want peace is proven in this regard to be erroneous: it is not the case that the factions did not want peace; rather, they wanted an approach to peace different from the one adopted by UNTAC. A weakness of the framework of inquiry linked to this research which came to light before is still present here, though. It was assumed that there would be tensions between factional and monarchic forces in the events under consideration as each group was expected to defend a model of peace preserving its own specific interests. This has again proven to be inexact, in this case because both groups appeared to work in tandem rather than one against the other. A reevaluation of this particular element of the theoretical framework presented at the outset of the present study thus seems necessary. On the whole, however, it would seem that the failure of the Paris Peace Plan did happen in the way predicted and that, therefore, the assumptions underlying this research have been shown to be accurate as the set of likely consequences it ascribed to this peace plan did come about.

6 L’Après-UNTAC

As this analysis of the Paris Peace Plan reaches this period, it loses its object of study. The core component of the Paris Plan, the attempt to assemble a new framework of democratic institutions in that country, was reaching its end point as the 1993 elections began. In the logic of the Plan, the international community was by then to put an end to its involvement in the search for a peaceful solution to the Cambodian conflict, and the Cambodian people were to take over as they made their way to the polls. UNTAC was to disband a few months afterwards, but its presence from the elections on was essentially to be limited to the mechanics of winding down the gigantic deployment of personnel and resources needed for its efforts in the preceding months. By the time the polls opened in a context far from the neutral political environment which the United Nations were supposed to have established in Cambodia by that date, the failure of UNTAC’s original mission was patent. The international sponsors of the Paris Plan were essentially interested in ‘declaring peace and getting out of there as fast as possible,’ as one interlocutor put it: elections would be held, the United Nations would define this as proof of the success of its mission in Cambodia, and UNTAC would depart before the situation could deteriorate further. From that perspective too, then, the analytical approach adopted here is no longer pertinent from that point on since the attempt to create peace in Cambodia through the imposition of a new social contract, the focus of the present research, had by then given way to the idea that the Cambodians would define their future, and the place peace would occupy in it, all by themselves. Is it possible, though, to find in the events which immediately followed the May 1993 elections some trends supporting the assumptions 124

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assessed in this study? A brief examination of these events is first necessary to answer that question. When the polls opened, on 23 May, the major concern was the risk of violence. Special Representative Akashi, in a press conference held the day before, in fact conceded that UNTAC could only ‘organize and not supervise’ the vote, an oblique statement which many in the room took to mean that he was indeed expecting violence, whether in the form of open attacks from the Khmer Rouge on polling stations or intimidation of voters from forces linked to the Phnom Penh government, and that the personnel under his command would not be able to do much to stop it.1 An unexpected factor in the electoral equation, however, was the popularity of the FUNCINPEC, the Sihanoukist party. Rallies of the party were popular and, most surprisingly given the campaign of terror waged against its workers and its candidate, its chances of garnering a strong share of the vote seemed quite high. Many Cambodians interviewed in the last days of the electoral campaign confided, for instance, that they intended to vote for the party. Their logic was that a FUNCINPEC victory would mean that Prince Sihanouk would return to power and that he would then bring peace to Cambodia by initiating a rapprochement between the four Cambodian factions. As had been largely anticipated, events then forced a movement towards a peace formula based upon the conferral of a central political role to Prince Sihanouk and the acceptance of the power structures already in place in Cambodia. The threat of large-scale attack from the Khmer Rouge did not materialize during the elections as some of them even went to the polls and voted. Interviews with voters indicated, though, that the Phnom Penh government did carry out a certain level of intimidation, for example by organizing convoys from remote villages to polling stations and then pressuring the people they were transporting to the polls. When the first results of the vote were made public, it became apparent that the FUNCINPEC would win. The Phnom Penh government then immediately asked for a review of what it termed ‘improprieties’ in the electoral process and indicated that it would not respect its results.2 Simultaneously, negotiations were taking place between the leaders of the FUNCINPEC and those of the Phnom Penh government, on the one hand, and between these leaders and representative of the P-5. Many diplomats interviewed at the time confided that the two political parties were attempting to work out a modus vivendi for after the elections. A recurring theme in the discussions held with these diplomats

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was the idea that international pressure was necessary to ensure that the power-sharing arrangements negotiated at the time by these two parties reflected the result of the vote. There was a sense, in other words, that many among the factional leaders then engaged in secret negotiations, did not understand that the elections were intended to usher in new rules of the game and that the distribution of power in Cambodia could no longer reflect the ambitions of feuding warlords.3 The official vote tally was released at the beginning of June. FUNCINPEC had won 45 per cent of the vote, the Phnom Penh government 38 per cent.4 Further resistance on the part of the Phnom Penh government to accept the outcome of the elections prompted Prince Sihanouk to assume the type of leadership which had been considered repeatedly in the preceding months and to form, at the beginning of June 1993, a government of national reconciliation regrouping under him members of the Phnom Penh government and of FUNCINPEC. Prince Ranariddh, the leader of FUNCINPEC and the son of Prince Sihanouk, echoed an international outcry dominated by Washington and immediately denounced his father’s action as a ‘constitutional coup’ taking Cambodia away from the democratic principles on which hopes for a durable peace had been pinned in October 1991.5 The Prince abandoned his initiative at this point. The following days, however, were marked by events which returned the debate on Prince Sihanouk’s role to the forefront of political developments in Cambodia. On 12 June, Prince Chakrapong, another of Sihanouk’s sons and a Deputy Prime Minister in the Phnom Penh government, announced the formation of an autonomous zone in Cambodia’s eastern provinces. The move was described in the Phnom Penh Post as receiving the ‘sanction’ of the Phnom Penh government and representing ‘little more than a political ploy using military leverage to force a power-sharing agreement that would give [the principal figures of the government] more power than accorded by the elections.’6 It illustrated the extent to which many elements in the Phnom Penh government were ready to go to stay in power even if they had lost the elections. Two days later, the constituent assembly appointed Prince Sihanouk as Head of State and granted him ‘full and special powers inherent in his capacity and duties as Head of State in order that he may save [the Cambodian] nation.’7 The following day, the secessionist movement led by Prince Chakrapong collapsed. This sequence of events implied that it would be necessary to rely on the formation of some form of

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national reconciliation government under Prince Sihanouk if immediate risks to peace were to be avoided. It is in that context that the Prime Minister of the Phnom Penh government, Hun Sen, and Prince Ranariddh arrived at a compromise whereby they were both named Co-Prime Ministers, though Prince Ranariddh was considered ‘First Co-Premier’. The promulgation of a new Constitution, in September 1993, formalized the ambiguous political reality already in place. The document, described by Raoul Jennar, one of Cambodia’s most renowned observers, as ‘fraught with contradictions,’8 stated that ‘Cambodia is a Kingdom whose King shall comply with the Constitution and a multi-party, liberal democratic system,’9 while it also restored the monarchy and claimed that the ‘King shall hold the supreme role as referee to guarantee the normal functioning of public authorities.’10 It also endorsed the formula which, for all intents and purposes, had given power to both the winners and the losers of the elections, by declaring that ‘the King can appoint a first Prime Minister and a second Prime Minister to form the Royal Government.’11 When the last remaining UNTAC personnel left Cambodia, in November 1993, it thus seemed that the peace operation in which they had participated had accomplished little. The Khmer Rouge controlled the exact amount of territory it commanded when UNTAC first arrived in Cambodia and sporadic fights with the armies of the other factions were still taking place. FUNCINPEC, while formally in power, was attempting to maintain some measure of authority as the factional leaders associated with Hun Sen and the Phnom Penh government remained in charge in most of the country’s military and political structures. Attempts at national reconciliation were carried out by Prince Sihanouk, but they came to naught. As large-scale attacks involving the Khmer Rouge and violent political manoeuvring in Phnom Penh became the norm, it seemed indeed that Cambodia was abandoning the hopes created by the peace efforts of the last few years and beginning a new chapter in the long saga of inter-factional rivalry which has brought war to it for decades. Is it possible to find in these events a pattern of correlations similar to the one posited by the framework of inquiry guiding this research? In the measure that certain pressures in the direction of a democratization of Cambodia were exercised on the Cambodian leadership, was there the type of reaction which was expected in the present analysis? Conversely, when there was something akin to a movement away from these pressures, were conflict resolution efforts more likely to be successful?

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It would seem indeed that the sequence of events which were just described does conform with what was anticipated earlier in the theoretical framework presented at the beginning of the present research. This framework provides an explanation, first, of the change of heart of the Khmer Rouge: why is it that the group, after having condemned UNTAC and the electoral process, did not make good on its threats of violence and instead participated in the vote? While many observers were perplexed by this reversal of position, it is possible to argue that it is the likely emergence after the elections of a government of national reconciliation including the four Cambodian factions, a prospect rendered even more credible by the probable victory of FUNCINPEC and the commitment of the party to support the Sihanoukist proposal for an all inclusive government, which prompted the Khmer Rouge to lend their support to the peace plan at that point. Conversely, when American pressures were exercised in order to base future political developments in Cambodia on the popular will as expressed through the vote, rather than on the inter-factional arrangements which were being worked out at the time, there was immediate non-compliance. The secessionist episode led by Prince Chakrapong demonstrated that this represented a dead-end, while the immediate aftermath of this episode indicated that a government emanating from an arrangement between the factions rather than from the result of the elections presented the surest way towards stability in Cambodia. The behavior of Prince Ranariddh might create a few doubts here, however. He did oppose his father’s action when he established a government of national reconciliation immediately after the elections, something which does not accord with the set of theoretical arguments presented in this research, though Ranariddh reversed his position later when it became obvious that it would be untenable. Was he genuinely convinced, at first, that a movement towards democracy was possible in Cambodia? It can be surmised perhaps, and this would square with the present analysis, that he knew that it could not be and he was exploiting the results of the electoral process to add to the weight his group would carry when a balance of power arrangement emerged. When the tepid resistance of the international community gave tacit approval to the inter-factional arrangements which were then elaborated in Cambodia, in turn, these were expanded and consolidated by the factions and by Prince Sihanouk. Here again, though, two remarks made previously still apply. There seemed to be, first, a common effort on the part of the Prince and of the factions to establish a form of

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government which would serve the interests of both monarchical and factional forces rather than an outright competition between these two groups. Second, once the model towards which the Cambodians were working did come about, it quickly led to renewed hostilities, a further proof of its instability.

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Part III Beyond the 1993 Elections: Towards a New Model of International Conflict Resolution

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7 A New Explanation of the Failure of the Paris Plan

What has been learned in the course of this analysis? The Cambodian peace process which unfolded between 1991 and 1993 was of a distinct nature. Its stated objective was not the implementation of a settlement of the inter-factional hostilities which had by that time ravaged Cambodia for decades so much as the recasting of this conflict from the military to the electoral arena. The goal, in a word, was not peace as the installation of a new government borne out of compromises between the parties to the conflict, but peace as the creation of a political framework which would render the contest for power under way in Cambodia non-violent. The fundamental premise of this conflict settlement procedure centered on the idea that the government which would emerge from a ‘free and fair’ electoral arena would be imbued with an indisputable legitimacy putting it beyond the recriminations of the leadership of the four Cambodian factions as to who among them represented the legitimate authority in Cambodia. In the context of that logic, peace in Cambodia constituted not so much a political as a technical problem. If democratic elections were bound to settle the struggle for power in Cambodia, then the issue of peace in that country revolved simply around the means necessary to organize such elections. It is in that spirit that the international community put forward a commitment of personnel and resources of unprecedented proportions. The billions of dollars and the thousands of United Nations personnel, in such a perspective, were supposed to help administer or oversee every possible aspect of the organization of democratic elections, and, by dint of the sheer weight they would bring to bear on that endeavor, were presumed to guarantee its success. It is most probably because they also accepted this logic that many analysts have focused their research on the collapse of the peace 133

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process on the technical aspects of its implementation and, consequently, have put forward explanations concentrating on these aspects. Much of the literature produced in the wake of UNTAC’s departure from Cambodia has thus considered in turn the weakness of its action in regard to this or that provision of the Paris Agreement, the two principal segments of these writings having converged, as was mentioned at the outset of this study, on two issues: the failure of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to avail himself of the resources at his disposal to carry on with the peace plan when faced by the opposition of the Cambodian factions, and the lack of decisive movement in the components of the plan concerned with the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Cambodia. It was argued here, though, that the most coherent and insightful way to get at the source of the failure of the Paris Plan was to question its very logic rather than the various problems which surfaced during its implementation. It was put forward that the idea that peace could amount to the reduction of political conflict to the functioning of liberal democratic institutions, the basis of UNTAC’s different undertakings in Cambodia, stood in tension with a series of social practices and institutions, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, with a particular configuration of political power. It was then hypothesized that UNTAC’s mission would consist, in this light, of an attempt to transpose in Cambodia this set of structural relationships. The presence of dissimilar endogenous patterns of social and political organization could then be expected, in this logic, to obstruct this process and to lead eventually to the collapse of the UN peace operation. In that sense, what was held as self-evident in numerous policy and academic circles, the notion that a democratic electoral process would bring to power a government whose unquestioned legitimacy could then put an end to the Cambodian conflict, was shown here to be self-evident only because it was part of a specific understanding of the nature of society and politics. When placed in the relief of another political terrain, the soundness of this notion was bound to become problematic, and with it the whole raison d’être of the United Nations action in Cambodia. Were these assumptions corroborated here? The analysis of the Paris Peace Plan and of its implementation demonstrated that the relationship posited between the tensions entailed by the imposition in Cambodia of a extraneous concept of peace and the failure of the Paris Plan did conform to the actual evolution of events during the period 1991–3. In view of this evidence only, though, it is not possible to state

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with assurance that the explanatory factors considered constituted in fact the cause of the breakdown of the peace plan: the explanation proposed here does make sense, but it is possible to think that other explanations would also make sense and provide a coherent analytical framework of the events which unfolded during this period. The assumptions put forward in this study gain in value, however, when the other events analyzed here are taken into account. It has been demonstrated that it is possible to discern in the diplomatic process preceding and following the 1991–3 period a recurrent pattern. In every instance where the type of structural incompatibility assumed here to have precipitated the failure of the Paris Plan took place, the peace process did indeed falter. The repeated occurrence of this pattern thus seems to indicate that it is appropriate to infer that the structural incongruities outlined in this study did cause the series of developments associated here with the failure of the Paris Plan. Some additional observations strengthen this conclusion. To have some validity, other explanations of the failure of the Paris Plan would have to offer a coherent account of its implementation establishing one of two points. The presence of distinct explanatory factors upon which the developments associated with the collapse of the Paris Plan would be causally dependent would have to be proven in all the different instances when the correlations outlined here occurred. Alternatively, these explanations would have to show how different variables intervened in these instances to produce, in each case, the same results. It is hard to see either of these points being made successfully. Certainly the literature on the breakdown of the Cambodian peace process fails to provide arguments which could be used in this context. If that literature is used to attempt to prove the first point, the idea that alternative factors from the ones considered here were present in all the cases studied in this analysis and thus invalidate its conclusion, a contradiction emerges. The contention that international pressures could have averted a movement away from the Paris Plan, while logically acceptable within the context of the events of the 1991–3 period, cannot be sustained when the events of the preceding period are examined. The analysis of this period presented here in fact refuted this argument by showing that it is precisely the strong international pressures intended to force the Cambodian factions to accept the democratization of their society which led to moves away from, and not towards, this approach to conflict resolution. Conversely, an explanation of the evolution of the Cambodian peace process aiming to demonstrate that different sets of variables caused each time the developments associated

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with the breakdown of the plan in the periods preceding and following its implementation is logically possible, but there is nothing in these writings which could be construed even as the beginnings of such an explanation since their focus rests entirely on the events of the 1991–3 period. For all these reasons, then, it is possible to consider that the assumptions which guided the present study have been corroborated to a great degree of certainty. This conclusion should be tempered with some remarks, however. It was assumed here that the attempt to bring peace in Cambodia through the democratization of Cambodian society would lead the monarchic and factional forces present in that society to oppose that project and attempt to substitute for it a conflict resolution procedure more responsive to the protection of their power. This was shown to be the case in the events studied here. The framework of inquiry adopted in the present study further stated, though, that the factional and monarchic forces would each attempt to capitalize on this redefinition of the objectives pursued by the international community in Cambodia in order to create political alignments in which they would have the upper hand over their counterparts. As has been seen in all the cases studied here, this added nuance was wrong. The logic of the framework of inquiry tested in this research is not weakened, though, by these results. The resistance of all Cambodian political forces to social transformations bound to threaten their power which was assumed to have caused the failure of the Paris Plan did take place. And, in a sense, this logic is reinforced by these observations since it is most probably because they were most concerned with the preservation of the traditional Cambodian political structures that both factional and monarchic forces acted collusively rather than against each other, thinking maybe that it was only once this traditional order was secured that they could attempt to dominate it. Still, eventual refinements of the explanatory framework presented here will have to integrate the politics of cooperation which seem to be prevalent in such instances and endeavor to systemize it. The theoretical remarks underlying this study also contended that the factional forces in Cambodia would articulate their resistance to the Paris Peace Plan around the notion that peace could preferably entail a balance of power between them or the installation of one of them in a position of clear pre-eminence over the others. While a logical possibility in the context of traditional Cambodian politics per se, the idea of peace as hegemony, however, was unrealistic in the circumstances considered here given the alignments of factional forces.

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The rapport de forces between the faction in power in Phnom Penh and the Khmer Rouge was such in the period analyzed in this research that neither could hope to bring about an end to the Cambodian conflict by completely surpassing its adversary on the battlefield. This aspect of the framework of inquiry as advanced here, therefore, simply could not be evaluated and remains to be proven. All these finding have implications for the literature on the collapse of the Paris Agreement. To the extent that the conclusions reached here are assumed to be valid, the two alternative explanations presented in those writings are flawed, if not entirely incorrect. Most probably, it is not because UNTAC failed to exercise pressures on the four Cambodian factions that the Paris Plan floundered. As was explained earlier, this explanation focused on the behavior of the different Cambodian factions and proceeded from the assumption that it would have been possible to force them to resolve, or at least suspend, their fighting so that the implementation of the Paris Plan could be carried through. However, it has been shown here that, to put it starkly, the Cambodian factions could not have stopped outbreaks of violence in Cambodia had they wanted to. The type of social structures necessary to allow a movement towards non-violent politics did not exist in Cambodian society, and the difficulties attendant to their creation by UNTAC were formidable. Furthermore, this explanation did not take into account that the conflict resolution procedure enacted by UNTAC would entail for the Cambodian factions their exclusion from the political arena and that it was thus absurd to believe that any amount of pressure could lead them to participate in negotiations aimed at facilitating the implementation of this procedure. In all probability, again, it is not because the components of the Paris Plan concerned with the reconstruction of Cambodia’s infrastructures and institutions were not implemented properly that the plan collapsed. This explanation is rooted in the idea that social developments similar to those associated in the West with the rise of the modern state could have led to the emergence in Cambodia of the model of peace envisaged by the international signatories of the Paris Agreement, a theoretical position valid in itself but which fails to integrate the political resistance to these developments shown here to constitute an essential aspect of a proper account of the breakdown of the Paris Plan. Also, neither of these explanations includes an analysis of the ideological factors which help explain the failure of the Paris Plan. The relation between the social transformations undertaken by UNTAC and the ideological vacuum, so to speak, which was to follow from a fluid

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social context where both the traditional Cambodian conceptions of peace and the one which the international community was attempting to impose in Cambodia were untenable because they did not coincide with any identifiable socio-institutional complex, is not examined here. Nor is the impossibility for the United Nations of maintaining a clear understanding of its mission in such an ideological vacuum. The proponents of a forceful approach aimed at bringing about some form of rapprochement among the factions cannot see, in these conditions, that their position lacks an understanding of the difficulty of even defining the end point of any such exercise in a context where UNTAC itself is unsure of the validity of the core concept of peace guiding its action in Cambodia. An analysis of the way in which the Cambodian leaders used this conceptual uncertainty to resist further the implementation of the Paris Plan is also completely absent from this theoretical position. And the position adopted by the proponents of an increased emphasis on the reconstruction of Cambodia comprises a similar weakness in that it does not incorporate an account of this form of resistance on the set of social transformations it advocates in the evaluation of their potential for conflict resolution. What, then? If the explanation of the collapse of the Paris Plan presented here undermines the validity of these other analyses and, in turn, that of the recommendations which they suggest could have averted a breakdown of the United Nations’ mission in Cambodia, it also calls for a set of alternative guidelines based this time upon the problems it has brought into relief. How should UNTAC’s efforts have been fashioned differently so that they could have taken into account, and indeed have addressed, the structural clashes shown here to have caused their failure?

8 The Lessons of the Cambodian Peace Process

As was stated earlier, it is by adopting the vocabulary of the current reevaluation of peacekeeping operations under United Nations auspices that these guidelines can have the most impact since it is within that framework that operations similar to the one undertaken in Cambodia are presently considered by the international community. Furthermore, these guidelines would represent in this regard alternatives to the recommendations on the future development of expanded peacekeeping operations now being drawn from analyses which have been discredited here. The first structural resistance to be addressed should perhaps be the defiance of the Cambodian factional leaders when faced with the prospect of a concerted international attempt to bring peace to their country. It certainly constitutes the most visible of the obstacles to the implementation of the Paris Plan studied in the present research. For that reason, it could become emblematic of the problems which would eventually justify in the eyes of policy-makers abandoning all hopes of bringing operations of the type conducted in Cambodia to a successful conclusion. In a word, if the reasons behind the refusal of the Cambodian leaders to participate fully in the Paris Plan are not brought to light, the international community could disinterest itself from operations which it would consider unlikely to succeed because of what would be regarded, in light of a superficial analysis, as ingratitude and inflexibility on the part of people fortunate enough to benefit from this sort of international assistance. The strategies which are identified in the literature on peacekeeping and peace-building as able to resolve these problems follow from the conclusions reached by the scholars concerned with the lack of

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sustained attempts to push the Cambodian factional leaders towards a situation where their only option would be to settle their differences and allow the further implementation of the Paris Plan. If UNTAC had been more forceful in establishing an environment where it was impossible for the different factions to carry on with their quarrels and to shun the conflict resolution framework created by the international peacekeeping force deployed in Cambodia, it is argued, they would have had no choice but to indeed come to terms with each other and honor their signatures on the Paris Agreement. Consequently, it is then proposed that future peacekeeping and peace-building operations should commit a large part of the personnel and resources devoted to them to arrangements aimed at preventing all forms of internecine violence in the societies in which they take place. The different protagonists of the conflicts which the United Nations would be trying to end through such operations would be compelled under these conditions to comply with the peace agreements which set in motion these operations and to articulate their action at the level of the political institutions created in this context. In what constitutes the best and most elaborate post-mortem of the Cambodian operation from a peacekeeping perspective, International Peacekeeping. Building on the Cambodian Experience, a collection of texts edited by Hugh Smith of the Australian Defense Force Academy,1 this idea is defended time and again. Lyndall McLean, for instance, who obviously speaks from experience since she occupied some of the higher echelons of the Civil Administration component of UNTAC, contends that a strong military presence but also a ‘politically neutral’ and yet ‘interventionist’ police force would have been essential to the completion of the transition towards a more democratic order in Cambodia.2 Mark Plunkett, who was the UN Special Prosecutor in Cambodia, also argues that the Cambodian experience demonstrated the need for a ‘successful justice package’ which would allow a ‘social compact by which the populace agree [sic] to resolve their [sic] disputes through words rather than violence.’ This would involve ‘confidence in the impartiality and professionalism of [the] police and … above all, confidence in an independent, fair and competent judiciary.’3 As he summarizes these texts, Hugh Smith notes for his part that, in light of the events which unfolded in Cambodia, it is imperative for the United Nations that ‘as well as maintaining basic security, it … learn how to create legal systems in conditions of anarchy’ so that the movement away from this anarchy and towards the institutionalization of politics can be made possible and in fact encouraged.4

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As was shown earlier, this strategy is nonsensical because it asks the impossible. The Cambodian factions could not be pressured into transposing their struggle in a political arena since, on the one hand, the complex of institutions necessary to such a movement was absent in Cambodia, and, on the other hand, the leaders of the different factions knew that doing so would take away from them all their power. To put it starkly, it is absurd to think that someone like Pol Pot would consider that he could have any chance of political, if physical, survival in a democratic environment and that he would enter in substantial negotiations aimed at bringing about such an environment, no matter the amount of pressure put on him. The proponents of this strategy argue that taking away from him all recourse to violence would force him into non-violent politics, but they fail to see that making one option impossible did not make the other one possible. Using this strategy as the basis for recommendations on the reconfiguration of expanded peacekeeping operations can thus only lead to further miscalculations. The search for a solution to the problems posed by the behavior of the Cambodian leaders must therefore be taken in another direction. Creating a secure environment in Cambodia would have been important, it seems in light of the account of UNTAC’s actions given here, not because it could have pushed the leadership of the different factions towards some form of non-violent political interaction with one another, but instead because it could have paralyzed them long enough to allow the social transformations ushered in by UNTAC to gain enough momentum to have some chance of success. Thinking in terms of a stronger military and police presence would have made sense, in other words, not because it could have generated a movement towards the institutionalization of politics, but because it could have prevented the disruption of the social dynamics which would have led to institutionalized politics. It is probably here that lessons for future peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations should be found. The issue of the commitment of the United Nations to a certain level of force in such operations is now brought into relief by certain scholars studying the Cambodian operation. Sorpong Peou, for instance, in a recent publication, emphasized the need for ‘conflict neutralization’ to ward off in future expanded peacekeeping operations the type of destabilization which ultimately jeopardized the UN mission in Cambodia.5 This has to be put in the context of a broader redefinition of the relation between peacekeeping and peace-building, though. Again, the application of a stronger force by peacekeeping personnel cannot elicit peace, it can only allow the

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development of peace-building efforts from which peace, in turn, will follow. Peacekeeping should not precede peace-building and diminish as the latter develops. It is concurrently that the two kinds of operations should be undertaken, and the greater use of force by peacekeeping personnel should simply be understood as shifting the search for peace towards the peace-building components of such operations. What are the lessons which can be drawn from the Cambodian operation in this respect? There is in the literature on the Cambodian operation a concern with the inadequacy of its peace-building components which parallels the opinion put forward by writers convinced that a stronger effort at institution-building in Cambodia could have had a significant impact on the chances of success of that operation. This concern revolves principally around the issue of what LieutenantGeneral John Sanderson, who was the commander of the military forces attached to UNTAC, calls the ‘military–civilian interface.’6 In this perspective, the difficulties encountered by UNTAC in its attempt to establish new social dynamics in Cambodia are due to the fact that such a project entailed the amalgamation of distinct civilian and military mandates. The lack of experience of the military at operating in such an environment, according to this argument, led to a poor level of overall coordination which in turn hampered the undertakings of UNTAC’s civilian personnel.7 On the basis of this interpretation of the breakdown of the Paris Plan, these texts then advocate the development of a more integrated approach to the interaction between the military and civilians within the continuum connecting peacekeeping and peace-building in order to allow a better execution of the latter. It has been demonstrated here, however, that an explanation of the failure of the Paris Plan focusing exclusively on the complications which hindered the development of democratic institutions in Cambodia without incorporating the impact of the political resistance to these institutions on the implementation of the plan can only be incomplete. By the same logic, recommendations on peace-building which do not integrate guidance on how it is possible to deal with the political resistance that it is bound to generate can only be fragmentary. As has just been argued, it is perhaps possible to move beyond this problem by formulating a peacekeeping doctrine which insists on the importance of neutralizing political resistance if peace-building is to proceed successfully. The question remains, though, as to how it is possible to improve on the dismal record of institution-building by UNTAC in Cambodia. It was shown here that UNTAC was unable to substitute a centralized and

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institutionalized authority in place of the fractionalized and violent order which has always prevailed in that country. The project of a broad economic take-off of the country also never materialized. These difficulties, in turn, prevented the emergence of the social phenomena which arose in the West in tension with the evacuation of violence from society and the rise of capitalism. Alternate centers of power able to force an expansion of the political franchise never developed, and neither did the retrenchment of state power within mechanisms of administrative surveillance which in Western societies was brought about by this phenomenon. It seems that the first issue which is raised by this account of the breakdown of the Paris Plan is one of coordination. Certain developments had to take place in Cambodia before others because they constituted prerequisites for them. Essentially, the danger of political violence had to be neutralized and the pluralization of power linked to a capitalist economy had to emerge before proponents of democracy in Cambodia could organize themselves without being silenced through violence and before these could insist upon the development of nonpartisan governmental structures in their country. It does not follow from this that a rigid sequence going from one development to the next had to be obeyed, but that resources and efforts had to be apportioned according to the logic of the relationship between these developments. Simply, the implementation of the Paris Plan should have been devised so that these points could be taken into account. This then speaks to the issue of division of responsibilities. Establishing a secure environment in Cambodia could only be the charge of UNTAC’s peacekeeping troops and, as has been said earlier, it should have been considered imperative that it be done in a more efficient manner. It seems, though, that the cause of broad economic development in Cambodia would have been better served if it had been linked to the economic dynamism of the ASEAN bloc. If ASEAN had put forward a regionally focused blueprint for the revitalization of the Cambodian economy outlining, for instance, commitments to the development of certain sectors and mechanisms allowing the integration of these sectors in Southeast Asia’s trade networks, the international recovery program associated with the Paris Plan could have been articulated on a coherent, long-term framework which would have reduced the problems of absorption of international aid and investments that threatened this program from its very beginning and led to its subsequent difficulties. The main problem of the economic program put in place in October 1991 was that, given Cambodia’s decrepit trade

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and industrial structures, it provided the country with too much, too quickly. ASEAN could have increased the chances of success of this program by formulating and supporting a long-term recovery strategy which would have allowed a better articulation of its provisions on the reality of the Cambodian economic situation. It seems, therefore, that the United Nations should have sought ASEAN’s engagement in the Paris Plan at this level. The lesson for peace-building learned here thus appears to be twofold. First, it is fundamental that the logic which presides over the social changes which allow the institutionalization of conflict be understood and incorporated in the design of the peace-building operation. It is perhaps here that the political scientist has the most to say to the peacekeeper. Traditional social configurations have to be studied, and the developments likely to emerge from an encounter with the values and institutions promoted by peace-building understood, before any operation of that type can be undertaken. Second, peace-building must have at its disposal the resources and the time necessary to guide this encounter towards a successful conclusion. Creating a situation where the peacekeeping troops involved in those operations possess a monopoly of force and where the development of a sound economy is possible seems essential in that regard. This might well require, in matters related to economic recovery, the involvement of regional states since their proximity allows them to coordinate the integration in broader economic circuits necessary to such recovery. This then leaves the question of how the last two sites of structural friction identified in this study should be eliminated. How is it possible, first, to deal with the fact that the very concept of peace as democracy cannot be presented as legitimate, or even as plausible, in a society which lacks the institutions and practices that coincide with that concept and give it resonance in tangible realities? How is it possible, then, to counter the efforts of groups opposed to the concept of peace as democracy to capitalize on this contradiction and to promote more traditional concepts of peace as an alternative? Though their influence has been demonstrated here, the literature on peacekeeping and peace-building does not presently incorporate a study of the ideological factors which can have an impact on conflict resolution. It is difficult to see, however, how recommendations about the need to force recalcitrant groups into a non-violent political framework can have any coherence in a context where the very concept of non-violent politics appears uncharacteristic of all usual social and

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political practices. Similarly, it might well be pointless to promote broad institutional and social changes as a means of attaining peace in a context where the dominant social representations of peace militate against such changes. The two sets of tensions identified here as the way in which these issues manifested themselves in Cambodia have to be resolved so that pertinent recommendations can be incorporated in this literature. In a sense, they can be resolved in large part through the course of action suggested earlier. Steps able to bring about a visible movement towards the institutionalization of conflict in Cambodia would also certainly have diminished the distance between the concept of peace promoted by UNTAC and the reality of the conditions on the ground in Cambodia. It would then have been much more difficult for the leadership of the different Cambodian factions to argue that UNTAC could complete its mission only if it resorted to more traditional concepts of peace. It also appears, however, that a way of dealing with these problems should have revolved around an effort to be more explicit about the sequence of social changes which had to take place before the idea of peace as democracy could be coherent within the Cambodian context. Situating in this fashion each step in the series of social transformations which the United Nations wanted to implement in Cambodia vis-à-vis their overall objective would have allowed UNTAC, it seems, to maintain a clear conceptual link between the situation existing at each of these steps and the idea that peace in Cambodia could be achieved through the instauration of democracy in that country. The groups opposed to UNTAC’s mission would then have had less opportunity to question its logic. It is here that lessons for peacekeeping and peace-building should be drawn. If the UN has the responsibility to formulate coherent and realistic peace-building formulae allowing the institutionalization of conflict in specific social contexts, it must also establish how each development in these peace-building operations helps to, indeed, build peace. It is only if this is done that it will be able to defend with consistency its goal of linking peace and democracy in societies where such an idea cannot as yet be grounded in the concrete conditions which prevail there. This should also prevent any challenge of the appropriateness of the objectives pursued by the international community in these operations by groups whose basis of power is threatened by them. It is in this context that the idea of negotiations could have some resonance. It was claimed repeatedly in the present study that negotiations

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between the factions were futile in an environment devoid of the complex of social relations associated in the West with the emergence of non-violent politics. If the institutions underpinning a non-violent political order were missing in Cambodia, it was argued, the Cambodian factions could not be expected to arrive at a non-violent post-conflict settlement. And if the very concepts on which initiatives to force the Cambodians to the negotiation table appeared disconnected from their political universe, it was claimed, these initiatives could only be shortlived. The recommendations just put forward would have allowed the instauration of a non-violent political order in Cambodia and they would have resolved these contradictions. Efforts to get the factions to negotiate with one another would have made sense, consequently, only if they had been situated in a sequence of developments which focused first on the guidelines just outlined. In essence, if UNTAC had managed to create the beginnings of a non-violent political order in Cambodia, with all the difficulties that this entailed, and only then had applied pressure on the Cambodian factions to come to terms with one another within the framework devised in October 1991, it probably could have had some chance of success. The leaders of the different factions would have seen that the traditional order which they had dominated for so long had waned. They would also have realized, therefore, that the only way for them to retain some measure of power was to integrate themselves in the new political order being established by UNTAC and to play by its rules. One of the lessons about getting the parties in conflict to engage in negotiations during an expanded peacekeeping operation which can be learned from the Cambodian experience is thus, it seems, that these negotiations should be considered only once the series of social changes linked to such operations are underway. The literature on cross-cultural negotiations suggests that one last problem needs to be addressed. Raymond Cohen, among others, draws on an analysis of ‘intercultural dissonance’ in order to argue that many international negotiation fora involving a cross-cultural component have to be understood in terms of a confrontation between ‘low-context and high-context negotiating styles.’8 Based on Edward T. Hall’s ‘famous dichotomy,’9 his work claims that there is a ‘liberal disposition’ in the nature of international diplomatic initiatives, to use this time a phrase coined by Maurice Keens-Soper,10 in the sense that these diplomatic efforts posit an ability on the part of rational actors to reduce conflict to a series of finite variables which can then be maneuvered at the negotiation table in such a fashion that each party to the talks accepts their outcome. Such a viewpoint determines, according to

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Cohen, a ‘low-context’ approach to negotiations. This approach revolves around attempts to focus on a precise list of issues to be resolved, and to then arrive at an agreement on the most important ones. This contrasts with the ‘high-context’ negotiation style of many non-Western societies. This style presumes that conflicts arise between different parties because of the very nature of their relationship and that the context provided by that relationship should thus be at the center of the negotiations which endeavor to resolve these conflicts. The notion of a rational actor able to discern the cause of the conflicts in which it is involved and the best way of resolving them is thus absent here. It is posited instead that conflicts emerge in the environment in which an actor evolves and that, for this reason, it can only have a limited measure of control over them. Certainly, in this view, it cannot transform or manipulate them at the negotiation table in the way assumed by the low-context negotiation style. According to this view, therefore, negotiations should not focus on a particular series of issues in contention but rather on the broad setting of the relationship between the parties involved in these talks in order to bring about a change in the nature of that relationship. Moreover, since negotiators are understood as inherently having little control over the conflicts which bring them to the negotiation table, these talks should be quite limited in their objectives and intended essentially to offer a framework whereby better interaction between the parties to the negotiations can emerge in due course.11 It can be conjectured that this type of difference in negotiation style would have come into play if UNTAC had tried to organize negotiations in the conditions recommended above. The literature on crosscultural negotiations does not relate the low-context and high-context dichotomy of negotiation approaches to the structural relationships outlined in the present study to explain the behavior of UNTAC and that of the Cambodians, but certain links are evident. It is because of a series of phenomena associated in this study with the evacuation of violence from Western societies that the idea of the individual as an agent capable of advancing political goals through rational appeals rather than through a constant resort to violence became plausible. And it is precisely that idea which the low-context style of negotiation takes as its premise. It has been shown, however, that a contextual view of violence prevails in Cambodia, in the sense that Cambodian society does not comprise the mechanisms necessary to constrain violence and to allow the emergence of a notion of the individual as exercising control over it. This does coincide, though, with the basic premise of the high-context negotiation style. The negotiations through

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final communiqués which took place before UNTAC was set up, and, indeed, the lack of negotiations once the United Nations operation was under way does not really permit the substantiation of such an assumption, but it is nonetheless possible to think in that perspective that the structural tensions studied here would have translated into a low-context/high-context dissonance once meaningful negotiations were under way in the context advocated here. What could have been done to deal with such a problem? Stephen Weiss proposes the adoption of ‘culturally-responsive strategies.’12 One of these, the strategy of ‘coordinating adjustment, … involves both parties’ development, either tacitly or explicitly, of an approach (or set of approaches) for their discussions, [which revolves around] negotiating the [process of] negotiation.’13 Such a ‘negotiation of the negotiation’ during the Cambodian operation would undoubtedly have favored a low-context style of negotiation. The leadership of the Cambodian factions, by then cornered, would not have been in a position enabling them to define the type of interaction taking place at the negotiation table. The low-context approach to negotiation would also have appeared to correspond with the social transformations under way in Cambodia: a society where violence was more restrained and more regulated would have lent credence to the notion that a style of negotiation aimed at arriving at a rapid series of peace agreements was indeed appropriate. It is possible to think, though, that a certain force of inertia would have led the Cambodians to adopt a different style of negotiations involving, for instance, a long-term horizon. This failure to adopt a negotiation approach coinciding with that of UNTAC might have appeared to the international community as an attempt to obstruct the talks or cause them to fail. This might well have been the case, but differences between style and intentions should nonetheless have been clear in that situation so that the international community did not insist on putting pressure on parties which were in fact prepared to collaborate with its efforts. A last lesson to be learned form the Cambodian experience is thus that the structural basis of the conceptions of peace which might be opposed to one another in the implementation of a peace-building operation might well lead to differences in negotiation style. As diplomatic pressures are exercised on the parties in conflict in order to bring them to negotiate with one another, these should be understood and assessed so that pressures can be modulated according to what is an attempt to collaborate in a different language and what is in fact resistance.

9 Thinking about Peace in the Emerging Global Order

Behind the guidelines, the principles. And beyond recommendations about what is required, questions about what is feasible. It was claimed earlier that the present study could offer a window on transformations needed in the literature on conflict resolution as such. This literature, it was argued, is divided into two principal poles: one which explores ways in which parties to a conflict can be encouraged to come to terms with one another, and one which highlights social change as the best way of resolving many conflicts. Inasmuch as these two different approaches underlie the alternative explanations of the failure of Paris Plan examined here, it has been shown that they fail to incorporate fundamental problématiques. Negotiations in a milieu devoid of the social structures allowing institutionalized forms of conflict are futile. The character of the organization of politics in such an environment does not allow the movement away from violence which underlies efforts to bring about negotiations nor does it offer the concepts able to canalize and guide these efforts. In fact, the attempt to organize negotiations in this context has precisely the contrary effect to that desired since it appears to the parties in conflict as the beginnings of a movement towards a nonviolent social order which would shatter the traditional patterns of power which they dominate. And seeking to foster the social developments which will permit the institutionalization of conflict without taking into account the political resistance and the conceptual vacuum with which this endeavor has to contend can lead only to its failure. The logic upon which a movement towards institutionalized politics can be organized by the international community therefore has to go beyond the established ways of thinking about conflict resolution. This logic has to allow the emergence of the type of orchestration of 149

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procedures, including those following from the established language of conflict resolution, that was outlined here as a way of dealing with the structural frictions associated with the promotion of non-violent forms of political interaction in a society whose basic paradigm does not follow from this conception of politics. This can only be achieved if the promotion of institutionalized forms of conflict by the international community proceeds from an acknowledgement, first, of the role of specific historical developments in providing the impetus for the unfolding of these non-violent forms of conflict, and, second, of the need to learn to manage the encounter between what amounts to a particular historical experience of the nature of politics and a totally different one so that the series of social transformations necessary to align the latter with the former can indeed take place. This is precisely what conflict resolution strategies centred solely on negotiations or on social change fail to do. They neglect to incorporate these considerations and how they dictate ways in which certain adaptations are imperative in a social environment like that of Cambodia. In that sense, they are ignorant of the conditions necessary to their success in such an environment. This then speaks to the need for the international community to be much more circumspect in the way it articulates its efforts to bring about an institutionalization of politics in certain countries as part of the emerging global order. The desire to foster the development of less violent forms of politics in these countries must remain, obviously. It must be associated, however, with an acknowledgement of the historical situation of this project and tempered with the realization of the difficulties of implementing it in social terrains dissimilar whence it sprang. It remains to be seen, of course, if the post-Cold War order will allow such circumspection.

Part IV The 1998 Elections: Global Governance and the Failure of International Conflict Resolution

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10 The Dynamics of the 1998 Elections

The years which have passed since the conclusion of the 1991–3 UN operation in Cambodia have not seen, it seems, any movement towards the kind of reassessment of the very nature of peace-building proposed here. The most extensive exercise of revision of the conceptual edifice put forward in the Agenda for Peace, for instance, the Position Paper delivered by the Secretary-General of the UN in January 1995,1 in the end only echoed the idea that the failures of peacekeeping and peace-building operations experienced by the UN in Somalia, Bosnia, or indeed Cambodia, were due in essence only to deficiencies in the implementation of the mandates set in the Agenda for Peace. In its analysis of peacekeeping, for instance, the document first acknowledged that international problems cannot be solved quickly or within a limited time. Conflicts the United Nations is asked to resolve usually have deep roots and have defied the peacemaking efforts of others. Their resolution requires patient diplomacy and the establishment of a political process that permits, over a period of time, the building of confidence and negotiated solutions to long-standing differences. Such processes often encounter frustrations and set-backs and almost invariably take longer than hoped. It is necessary to resist the temptation to use military power to speed them up.2 This argument immediately gave way, however, to a discussion of the ‘practical difficulties’ encountered by peacekeeping operations, which the document divided into three categories having to do with ‘command and control, the availability of troops and equipments, and … the information capacity of peacekeeping operations.’3 153

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The issue of command and control entailed in the perspective of the document, for example, the need to better define the areas of responsibilities which would be in the hands of the Secretary-General or of the Security Council, and those which would be put under the supervision of the chief of mission. The availability of troops and equipments raised problems of speed of deployment, of donor fatigue, and of disparities in training between contributing countries. With regards to the issue of the information capacity of UN peacekeeping operations, the Secretary-General noted that the United Nations should be able during these operations to ‘explain their mandate to the population and [to provide] a credible and impartial source of information, to counter misinformation … In all operations where an information capacity, including radio, has been provided, [it was suggested, for example], it has been recognized to have made an invaluable contribution to the operation’s success.’4 With regard to the concept of peace-building, the document did note the complexities of the project itself by insisting that it ‘requires integrated action and delicate dealings between the United Nations and the parties to the conflict in respect of which peace-building activities are to be undertaken.’5 When it discussed the pragmatics of this call for ‘integrated action’ and an understanding of the ‘delicate dealings’ involved in peace-building, however, the document reduced them to issues of coordination and organization, for instance when it argued for a better apportionment of the responsibilities of the ‘various programmes, funds, offices and agencies of the United Nations system with responsibilities in the economic, social, humanitarian and human rights field’ involved in peace-building operations.6 Though the difficulties of setting in motion the social changes required by the peacebuilding project was to a certain extent recognized, there was not at all, therefore, an attempt to theorize these changes and to integrated them in the very discourse of peace-building, as has been proposed here. To that extent, the understanding of conflict resolution underlying the Position Paper thus remained limited to the type of discourse on conflict resolution which has been denounced here. There was clearly a conflict resolution project centred on the actors involved in a conflict, for instance when the document talked about the need for ‘patient diplomacy and the establishment of a political process that permits, over a period of time, the building of confidence and negotiated solutions to long-standing differences,’ and when it put emphasis on the way in which the resorption of violence associated with peacekeeping can facilitate this process. There was also a concern for the aspects of

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conflict resolution which are more contextual, for example with the emphasis on the need, through peace-building, to reconstruct societies so that they can become less prone to violent conflict. Nowhere was there in the thinking of the UN, however, an attempt to bridge these two levels of conflict resolution initiatives, something which, as it has been demonstrated here, is very much a prerequisite if peace-building is to have any measure of success. And, furthermore, if the nature of the efforts of the international community to bring peace to Cambodia in 1998 is any indication, this situation is indeed not likely to change. What, in fact, happened in 1998? Why is it, in a word, that the lessons of the 1991–3 period were not applied in that context and that the formula for conflict resolution adopted by the international community remained what it had been five years before even if those years had demonstrated the flagrant failure of that approach? The nature of the political processes at play within the 1998 electoral process of course needs to be understood, first, against the background of the dynamics set in motion by the 1993 elections if they are to be understood properly. The basic thrust of the 1993 electoral exercise, as has been argued here, was to fundamentally realign the forces which in the past had defined the Cambodian political universe so that it could then allow the emergence of democratic forms of rule. As was also explained above, this attempt to bring about a new social contract in Cambodia was met with utmost resistance by the different elites which stood to lose power in that process. This resistance to democratization then extended much beyond the 1991–3 UN operation and in fact came to define the political setting in Cambodia in the following years. The two Co-Prime Ministers, Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh, were thus in that context accomplices as well as tacit adversaries: they cooperated on matters of government allowing them to marginalize proponents of a more open political order in Cambodia, while at the same time they fought for control of that order. Their cooperation was evident on issues pertaining to the spheres of freedom opened to social forces in Cambodia, for instance with regards to the draconian press law adopted in mid-1995 which severely limited freedom of expression in the country. It was also at the root of sustained efforts to discredit those members of the ruling elite which expressed pro-democratic positions. The two most manifest cases were those involving Sam Rainsy and Prince Norodom Sirivudh. Sam Rainsy was, as the Finance Minister in the Cambodian Government, extremely vocal in his criticism of the way in which the two Co-Prime Ministers were mishandling

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the democratization process in Cambodia: he lost his portfolio in 1994 and, the following year, he was expelled from the National Assembly. Prince Norodom Sirivudh, half-brother of King Sihanouk and secretarygeneral of FUNCINPEC was actually arrested on trumped-up charges in 1995 and later forced into exile.7 Rainsy responded to the situation, however, with the creation of his own political party. Tensions between the two Co-Prime Ministers were not less apparent for all these common efforts, however, something which in fact had been expected in the logic of the remarks presented earlier about the nature of the Cambodian political space. The principal pomme de discorde between the two was the issue of control of governmental and administrative structures, particularly in the countryside. Negotiations between the FUNCINPEC and the CPP on power-sharing arrangements within these structures only served to highlight the distrust and paranoia with which the officials of each party regarded those of the other. By mid-1996, both Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh questioned the potential longevity of the governmental coalition and, in April, rumours of troop movements made violence between the two sides of the coalition seem quite plausible. In that context, FUNCINPEC looked in following months for allies which could provide it with military resources and strength, and indeed found both in the Khmer Rouge. Strains within the guerilla group had led to a major scission in August 1996: Ieng Sary, who had been a top-ranking official in the Pol Pot regime and had served as intermediary with the Chinese government since the group had fled to the jungle in 1979, had broken with it and been joined in that rebellion by his military commanders in the regions of Pailin and Phnom Malai. These regions, abundant in gems and timber and open to trade through Thailand, had always been at the centre of the revenue-generating operations of the Khmer Rouge. Therein the explanation of the break-up could in fact be found: Ieng Sary had amassed a personal fortune and level of comfort from the trade taking place in the territory under his control which he did not want to compromise by participating in the renewed fighting urged by the more radical and ideologically driven faction of the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot. An alliance with Ieng Sary, who had taken with him and his military commanders upwards of 3000 troops, could thus provide access to financial and military resources which would completely transform the configuration of political forces in Cambodia. When it was revealed, at the time of the rebellion, that Nhek Bun Chay, the top FUNCINPEC military commander, had been in contact with Ieng Sary for months, Hun Sen faced the prospect of a re-emergence

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of the alliance between Khmer Rouge and royalist forces which had been his adversary for a decade before the elections of 1993. Ieng Sary did not in fact immediately commit himself to any alliance, and he quite clearly played one Co-Prime Minister against the other in an attempt to secure from the government guarantees that he would remain in control of the territories under his rule at that point. He represented, however, an unknown in the relationship between Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh which profoundly destabilized it.8 Deprived of the resources needed to sustain a large-scale guerrilla movement, some of the Khmer Rouge groups stationed in Cambodia’s northwestern regions also decided in that context to enter into negotiations aimed at ending hostilities with the Phnom Penh government. Contacts were established with emissaries from the FUNCINPEC. These contacts, however, quickly led to a schism within the group. Pol Pot, who opposed any agreement with the government, attempted to eliminate its proponents and set in motion a purge whose most prominent victim was Son Sen, his deputy. A counterattack was led by Ta Mok, the top military commander of the Khmer Rouge, and led to the arrest of Pol Pot. In that context, at the beginning of July 1997, Prince Ranariddh concluded an agreement with moderate elements within the guerrilla group whereby it agreed to end its insurgency and integrate its forces within those of the government. Sensing that he could lose control of the situation, Hun Sen launched in that context a coup de force which saw a great number of casualties.9 Numerous FUNCINPEC officials were tortured or killed outright. While Prince Ranariddh, from outside Cambodia, called for a condemnation of what he termed a coup d’état, Ung Huot, a high-ranking member of FUNCINPEC who was Minister of Foreign Affairs in the coalition government, was named first Co-Prime Minister in his place. The move, if it allowed Hun Sen to claim that his action did not constitute a coup since the coalition government set up after the 1993 elections was still in place, did not appease the international community. Reactions, however, differed quite substantially. ASEAN, as perhaps the international grouping with the most at stake in sustained stability in Cambodia, established its position in the days following the coup de force. Its foreign ministers first reaffirmed the commitment to noninterference which has been the cornerstone of the Association, but argued that the use of violence was ‘unfortunate.’10 The integration of Cambodia within the Association, which was to have occurred at the end of July, was also delayed indefinitely. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Malaysia’s foreign minister, declared at the time that the Association

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still recognized Prince Ranariddh as the First Co-Prime Minister, though it would not insist on his return to power if Hun Sen maintained, as he had done, the coalition arrangement which had been set up in 1993.11 The foreign ministers of Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines were appointed as mediators between ASEAN and Hun Sen, with the objective of conveying to the Cambodian leader the desire of the Association to see elections held in 1998 as planned, and according to the Constitution. The international community echoed ASEAN’s insistence that Hun Sen should respect the coalition arrangement which had been established in 1993, though it did not demand that he reintegrate Prince Ranariddh as First Co-Premier. It also asked that he abide by the constitutional arrangements which called for elections by 1998. There were substantial discrepancies, however, in perceptions of the best way to compel Hun Sen to accept these conditions. Calls were made in the United States, for instance, to the effect that the international community should be extremely forceful in that regard. The Senate voted in the days after the coup to stop all American aid to Cambodia and, at the end of July, the Senate passed a resolution which deemed the events of the beginning of the month a ‘violent military coup d’état.’12 For its part, however, Japan, the most important provider of aid to Cambodia, vowed to maintain in place its assistance program and justified its position by arguing that Hun Sen had promised to preserve the democratic institutions and coalition government set up in 1993. Australia essentially took a similar position.13 Canada also adopted a softer stance, basically expressing its concern with the situation and asking that it be resolved through political dialogue.14 France and China made it known on numerous occasions that they saw Hun Sen as the only guarantor of stability in Cambodia and that they could therefore endorse the type of position put forward by the Japanese government. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, demanded that ‘all parties’ attempt to resolve the conflict, but admitted that the world body could not do much beyond calling for the respect of the coalition agreement of 1993 and the organization of elections in 1998.15 Two dynamics thus seemed to emerge in that context. At one level, a consensus appeared to take form within the international community as to the idea that the fate of Cambodia was now in the hands of the Cambodians: a concerted and forceful international campaign to reinstate Prince Ranariddh and to bring about a return to the status quo ante was, in the opinion of all, an impossibility. All that was possible,

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indeed, under these circumstances, was to insist that Hun Sen would be accorded international legitimacy only if he abided by the conditions set in 1993 and agreed to organize elections in 1998 in which Prince Ranariddh would be allowed to run. Another dynamic, however, concerned the striking difference in the nature of the international initiatives seen as most likely to succeed in this setting. One approach, typified by the American position, held that political pressure on Hun Sen was the only way towards the organization of somewhat democratic elections. Another approach, exemplified by the Japanese position, was based on the idea that Hun Sen should be engaged rather than confronted. This would make for a certain level of stability and development in Cambodia: out of that stability, peace and democracy, over time, could arise. There was therefore, to that extent, a tension similar to the one previously decried here between the approaches to conflict resolution based on diplomatic pressure on political actors and those rooted in the idea that it is slow processes of economic and political development, rather than direct pressure on actors, which offer the best route to peace. What was also apparent, conversely, was the lack of any effort to bring together these two philosophies, certainly in any way comparable to the method advocated here earlier. These two dynamics then persisted throughout the entire period which eventually led to the July 1998 elections. The position of most countries involved in the series of diplomatic pressures exercised against Hun Sen during that period seemed to coalesce around four demands: declaration of an immediate cease-fire between governmental troops and those aligned with Prince Ranariddh; peaceful return of the FUNCINPEC members which had left Cambodia during and after the violence of the preceding year; establishment and respect of a legal framework for the upcoming elections; and participation of Prince Ranariddh, who was at the time threatened with arrest if he set foot in Cambodia, in the elections. Taken together, these demands formed the gist of a plan put forward by Japan which became the basis of discussions between the international community and the Cambodian government.16 In that context, the CPP enshrined at a congress in October 1997 a promise to respect the results of elections to be held in 1998. Prince Ranariddh and Hun Sen also both agreed in the same period that the UN and the international community should have observers on the ground during these elections.17 When protracted haggling led to a show-trial in absentia for Prince Ranariddh, then an amnesty, the way was paved for a return of the Prince to Phnom Penh and the

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organization of elections which would be recognized as legitimate by the international community. Though the electoral campaign opposed nearly forty different political parties, the contest between the CPP and FUNCINPEC, as well as the emergence of Sam Rainsy’s Party as a viable political force in Cambodia politics, established the tenor of the elections. The CPP campaign focused on the stability and the potential for development it could bring to Cambodia.18 FUNCINPEC invoked its royalist heritage and put forward a strong anti-Vietnamese message in order to undermine the legitimacy of the CPP.19 Rainsy, for his part, echoed the antiVietnamese message of the FUNCINPEC and presented himself as the lone champion of true democracy in Cambodian politics.20 Both Prince Ranariddh and Rainsy emphasized, however, that the CPP, through its control of the governmental and electoral apparatus, as well as through violence and intimidation, was in fact stacking the electoral deck in its favor.21 Indeed the recoupment of many sources of information seemed to indicate an attempt on the part of the CPP to seize control of the electoral process, for instance through the placement of sympathizers in key positions of the electoral machinery,22 and certainly to engage in a widespread campaign of intimidation of its opponents.23 The reaction of the international community to this atmosphere of intimidation and violence was again most ambivalent. Certainly forceful denunciations of the CPP’s behavior were made. The United Nations Special Representatives for Human Rights in Cambodia, for instance, issued some reports on matters ranging from human rights abuses to the government’s domination of the media which were unquestionably aimed at putting pressure on Hun Sen.24 The United States also remained extremely critical of the political climate in Cambodia. Washington felt, however, that it had to counterbalance in that context the views put forward by countries like Japan, and in fact pledged funds intended to help the elections as a way of offsetting the money Tokyo had made available at the outset of the electoral process to finance its organization.25 There was in fact very much at that stage a dichotomy between the approach championed by Washington and intended to put as much pressure as possible on Hun Sen in order to, in a word, force him to embrace democracy, and the approach, exemplified by the countries which sided with the Japanese position, which was much less critical of Hun Sen and was indeed rooted in the belief that the Second Co-Prime Minister offered the best chance for long-term stability in Cambodia and, hence, for peace in the country. A group of international observers, for instance, was created

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with the explicit goal of counteracting the American position on Hun Sen.26 Doubts were also raised about the degree to which the foreign observers present in Cambodia during the elections could be critical of Hun Sen when it was learned that the European Community which, with Japan, was the main provider of funds for the organization of the electoral process, was also paying the salary of the spokesman for the group.27 It is thus in that somewhat equivocal international context that the elections were held. The preliminary results indicated that the CPP would get 64 of the 122 seats of the National Assembly, FUNCINPEC, 43, and Sam Rainsy’s Party, 15.28 These results, however, were immediately the object of much controversy. The formula used to calculate the number of seats obtained by each party under the proportional representation system set up for the elections was denounced by Prince Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy as having been configured so that it would produce the best possible results for the CPP.29 After the protests they had lodged with the National Election Committee failed to generate a reassessment of the results of the elections, the two opposition leaders took to the streets and organized a series of demonstrations which were also unsuccessful in bringing about a revision of the results.30 King Sihanouk chose at that point to call, from his residence in Siem Reap, for some coalition arrangement between Hun Sen, Prince Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy, and invited them in turn to meet with him so that the conditions allowing such an arrangement could be determined.31 Cambodian politics was thus again at that point reduced to coalition arrangements orchestrated or facilitated by the King. Meanwhile, the only political grouping which in the recent past had provided another centre of gravity in Cambodian politics, the Khmer Rouge, was by that time withering towards extinction after the death of Pol Pot in April 1998. At the conclusion of the 1998 elections, Cambodians were therefore back to a situation they had so much hoped to escape. Calls for a revision of the election results in view of the violence and intimidation of the electoral period and with regard to the questions raised by the allocation of seats in the National Assembly had failed, and indeed served only to underscore the control of the CPP over Cambodia’s political and electoral machinery. Manifestations in the streets had only had the same effect. The elections had not generated, therefore, a redistribution of power in Cambodia or an increase in the power of the Cambodian people itself to determine its destiny in a free and willful manner. Indeed, the most striking feature of the period beginning with the

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July 1998 elections was how it brought to mind the traditional patterns of Cambodian politics: yet again, what seemed to be emerging was a coalition arrangement set in motion by the King, somewhat unstable, and very much rooted in the power of the gun rather than in that of the popular will. There was thus a certain symmetry between the events of 1998 and those of 1993. In both cases, the international community had chosen a certain objective in Cambodia – the promotion of democracy – and had thought in that context that two principal mechanisms could help it achieve its aim: international diplomatic pressures and processes of social change in Cambodia. In both cases, also, the result had been a return to the traditional patterns of Cambodian politics. If it thus validates the study done here of the 1991–3 period, the 1998 involvement of the international community also raises a central question: if the objectives and methods of 1991–3 had failed, why a return to exactly the same thinking five years later? Indeed, the very lack of reflection which accompanied the movement of the international community towards well-worn themes and methods in 1998 gives more the sense of something akin to a reflex, a somewhat automatic response which did not, or perhaps could not, take into account the failure of the 1991–3 period. This suggests, in fact, that conceivably something in contemporary international politics shapes, and indeed, defines, international conflict resolution initiatives in such a way that alternative approaches are marginalized or precluded from being considered with some seriousness by the international community.

11 Global Governance and the Nature of International Conflict Resolution

The concept of global governance represents one of the most fertile intellectual ferments with which attempts have been made to rethink the nature of the international environment in the context of the changes brought about by the end of the Cold War. A new journal, Global Governance, has begun publication in the last few years,1 and a growing body of literature attests both to the utility of the concept for describing emerging international conditions and to the scope of the interrogations to which it is now giving rise.2 The movement towards global governance is rooted in the weakening of territorially based social arrangements centered around the state, a phenomenon summed up under the rubric of globalization. Globalization, Robert Cox tells us, has two principal components: ‘global organisations of production,’ involving ‘complex transnational networks of production which source the various components of the product in places offering the most advantage on costs, markets, taxes, and access to suitable labour, and also the advantages of political security and suitability,’ and ‘global finance,’ emerging from ‘a very largely unregulated system of transactions in money, credit and equities.’3 These two phenomena create a ‘global economy,’ an ‘economic space transcending all country borders.’4 In turn, the globalization of the economy has two consequences. One is the ‘internationalisation of the state,’ the widespread belief that ‘states must become the instruments for adjusting national economic activities to the exigencies of the global economy, [and indeed that] adjustment to global competitiveness is the new categorical imperative.’5 The other is the ‘restructuring of national societies and the emergence of a global social structure’: a ‘transnational managerial class’ is in effect giving impetus to ‘economies of flexibility’ which rest on the 163

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decentralization of production and call into question previous modes of labour and social organization.6 As he attempts to situate the political and social consequences of these dynamics, Cox calls upon the ‘double movement’ to which Karl Polanyi refers in order to describe the social ramifications of the emergence of market mechanisms.7 The first aspect of this movement was, in Cox’s words, the ‘imposition upon society of the concept of the selfregulating market,’ as a process, therefore, ‘disembedded from society and set over and above society.’8 The ‘disintegrating effects that the attempt to impose the self-regulating market had upon society,’ Cox continues, set in motion the second aspect of the double movement: ‘a self-protective response from society through the political system reasserting the primacy of the social,’9 which was articulated, for instance, through the elaboration of a social safety net and, in the last analysis, in the ‘recognition of government’s responsibility to maintain satisfactory levels of employment and welfare.’10 Should we then think, Cox enquires, that the trend towards a globalized economics will lead to a similar counter-effect? One can well hypothesise today that the present trend of deregulation and privatisation which appears to carry all before it in global economics will encounter a global response. This response will endeavor once again to bring economic process under social control, to re-embed the economy, now at the global level, in society and to subordinate enhanced economic capacities to globally endorsed social purposes.11 It is in that context that issues of governance arise. If the structures and institutions which have hitherto provided the framework of politics are now discredited, or are at least proving to be unable to provide forms of social organization and affiliation with some resonance in the contemporary social and economic environment, by what means and in which arena will the type of political debate suggested by Cox take place? James N. Rosenau, who talks pithily of the question of the ‘relocation of authority’12 brought about by unfolding economic and politics processes, uses the rubric of ‘governance’ to denote what he terms the ‘purposive behavior [and] goal-oriented activities’ which must take place in that setting without the support of formal institutions13 – ‘governance without government,’ as he puts it.14 Nowhere is this line of enquiry more pertinent than at the global level: will a globalized economics, as it undermines territorially based

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political institutions, force as a reaction the emergence of a globalized politics? And, indeed, in this perspective one would obviously have to talk under the present conditions of the possibility of the emergence of some form of global governance: an attempt by political actors to construct mechanisms of organization and decision-making with the global dimensions dictated by the rise of globalizing economic and social dynamics, and this, though, without yet the support of institutions and formal structures. According to Rosenau, the movement towards global governance is acquiring some momentum at three levels – ideational, behavioral, and institutional – which are related one to the other in an ‘interactive’ fashion.15 The institutional level corresponds to ‘rule-oriented institutions and regimes … where governance occurs,’ and which ‘shape the arrangements through which global politics moves through time.’16 As the power of the state to control the economic and social dynamics developing within its borders wanes irremediably, supra-state level institutions appear in this context as possible arenas of political debate and action. The growth of what can properly be called technologies of globalization, like the worldwide web, add another dimension to this process by creating something perhaps best described as a deterritorialized space where novel forms of political mobilization and affiliation can be debated and launched. The political level, for its part, then involves ‘what people regularly and routinely do, often unknowingly, to maintain the prevailing global arrangements … [through] a whole range of recurrent behaviors that are so salient as to shape and reinforce the prevailing conceptions of the underlying global order.’17 If new platforms of political action emerge in the post-cold-war era, as can be surmised from current trends, so will new configurations of actors and power. These actors, transnational organizations, for instance, will possess new means of influence because the rapport de forces between them and the state is changing in the context of the latter’s diminishing sway and in view of their increased resonance in the emerging context of international politics. Conversely, their growing activity already creates new spaces where international politics can be debated and implemented and, over time, can be expected to add to the legitimacy and the importance of the institutional framework which they are now trying to develop. The ideational level, lastly, is framed by the ‘mental sets, belief systems, shared values, and any other attitudinal or perceptional screens through which the events of world politics pass before evoking reactions

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or inactions,’ and, as such, constitutes the ‘intersubjective consensus that locks all concerned into the same premises about the nature of the underlying arrangements for the conduct of global affairs.’18 As new actors come into play into international politics, then, they will bring with them new sets of shared premises which challenge traditional understandings of the nature of the international environment, and which yet will gain legitimacy because they coincide with the character and scope of the institutional processes these actors are generating. New perceptions of the need for some form of governance above the state will thus be generated in tandem with the ‘relocation of authority’ at the global level mentioned by Rosenau and the political realignments concomitant with this process of transformation of authoritative structures. This type of approach obviously draws from the tensions between the material world and the political and ideological spheres set out in the Gramscian approach to world politics presented earlier in this text in reference to the work of Robert Cox and Stephen Gill (see Figure 2.3). The point made by students of global governance, in other words, is that the interrelationships between the material, the political, and the ideational mapped out in the work of someone like Cox are now being developed on a global scale: the trajectory of development of the economic and social configurations, of the power structures, and of the consensus-generating ideas which it studies has now attained a global reach and must thus be studied from a global perspective. To that extent, though, the critique made earlier of the Gramscian literature certainly has ramifications in this context. The main element of that critique was that the Gramscian school ascribes too much weight to economic forces and dynamics in its analysis of social development. The point was made that the organization of violence precedes the organization of economics, and indeed that the former shapes the latter. It is only once mechanisms of control of violence in a given social space have emerged, for instance, that the non-violent mechanisms of exchanges of resources presupposed by capitalism can develop. Also, as a further example, it is only in a nonviolent political sphere that the individual can emerge as a political actor vis-à-vis the state and provide the foundation of the discourse of pursuit of individual profit upon which the capitalist bourgeoisie can then base its promotion of capitalism itself. An analysis of social change rooted in the study of the processes of development of economic factors thus in this sense considers as cause what is in fact the consequence of deeper forces. How does this affect, then, the study of global governance?

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A focus on economic dynamics as the impetus of the changes leading to the emergence of processes conducive to the emergence of global governance isolates, and in truth disaggregates, a reality which can only be understood as part of a complex and in intimate relation with others: it is only through the interrelationship described earlier between state, economic, and bureaucratic forces that capitalist dynamics can emerge. Capitalism in fact demands the existence of the state because it feeds upon the control of violence that only the state can provide. The question arises, then, of the extent to which capitalism can really exist above the state, and without its support. The expansion of a capitalist world order from the West outward towards peripheral regions would not imply, in this sense, the marginalization of the state, but on the contrary its development and revitalization in these regions. Giddens, for instance, has that very idea in mind when he says that The development … of an ever-increasing abundance of global connections stretching across the borders of states should not be regarded as intrinsically diminishing their sovereignty. On the contrary, it is in substantial part the chief condition of the world-wide extension of the nation-state system in current times.19 He adds that ‘we should not imagine that the centralizing of global connections on the one hand, and the sovereignty of states on the other, are always mutually exclusive.’20 Would not the expansion of capitalism, indeed, demand the expansion of the non-economic institutions and practices related to the control of violence, chiefly among them the state, which allow it to function? And beyond the state, the global reach of capitalism would also entail the reproduction in peripheral regions of the complex of bureaucratic and social elements which were described earlier as coextensive with the control of violence and the emergence of capitalism. In this sense, the globalization of capitalism might well also entail, and in fact require, the globalization of a certain model of peace – what was described earlier as ‘peace as democracy’. This globalization of the democratic model of conflict resolution would thus connect with the movement towards a capitalist world order the reproduction of specific parameters of internal developments within the state in peripheral regions, certainly where conflict is endemic: these parameters would have to do with the duplication of the interrelationship of state, bureaucratic, social, and capitalist forces linked to the emergence of both nonviolent and capitalist social arrangements. Global governance, in this

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perspective, might have less to do with the reconstruction of politics above the state and the generation of new spaces of political interaction, and more with the reproduction of much more traditional political arrangements. And this would not be because the globalization of the economy is not proceeding apace and setting in motion specific sequences of social changes, but precisely because it is. The current discourse on global governance might have to be re-examined accordingly. Can the Cambodian peace process provide any evidence on the matter? When the international community put together during the 1991–3 period what Boutros Boutros-Ghali latter called a ‘vision of peace’ for Cambodia,21 this vision did indeed correspond, as was demonstrated earlier, to an attempt to marginalize violence in Cambodian society by reengineering it so that a very specific configuration of state, capitalist, and bureaucratic forces could unfold there. And, as was also said earlier, this vision very much translated in concrete terms the much larger blueprint for conflict resolution in the post-coldwar era contained in the Agenda for Peace published by the United Nations in 1992. The overarching process through which the construction of peace in peripheral regions was to develop from then on thus coincided with the dynamics of pacification just described above. Was this process, though, in fact caused by the movement towards a globalized capitalist order? Can the connection be made between global economic integration and the nature of the conflict resolution initiatives set in motion by the international community in the post-cold-war era? Perhaps an element of demonstration a contrario can be found in the total absence of debate which surrounded the adoption by the international community of the very specific approach to conflict resolution stated in the Agenda for Peace within the Cambodian peace process. The triumphalism associated with the global reach of capitalism in the post-cold-war era forced, it can be argued, an international consensus on the model of conflict resolution best suited to capitalist enlargement: the lack of consideration of other models of peace conceivably better adapted to the social context in which it was going to be deployed can serve as evidence that economic globalization created a situation where no other model of conflict resolution could expect to generate some form of international unanimity. And, to that extent, the emergence of patterns of global governance should indeed be seen as bringing about a thrust towards the development or reconstruction of traditional political frameworks, at least in peripheral regions, rather than a movement away from them.

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Another element of demonstration is the sequence of events which followed the 1991–3 international operation in Cambodia and which led to the July 1998 elections in the country. Even though the 1993 elections had demonstrated the inadequacy of logic of the Agenda for Peace in the Cambodian context, the same approach was used again in 1998. There is thus at this level this sense, again, of a sense of global structural constraints precluding the consideration of other options or the refinement of the logic around which the international community has so far achieved consensus in matters of techniques of conflict resolution. One of the reasons why the lessons of 1993 were not learned in 1998 in Cambodia can therefore perhaps be found there: international actors working in Cambodia in 1998 were operating in a context which did not allow them to apply these lessons. The question must then be asked: will emerging patterns of globalization and global governance permit a movement towards efficient models of conflict resolution, or will they, on the contrary, block that movement? If the reorganization of economics at a global level requires a very specific organization of violence on a global scale too, it should first be noted in that context, the configurations of actors liable to dominate the construction of structures of global governance under these conditions will probably be weighed in favor of those actors able to effect a marginalization of violence in peripheral regions: the state and its agencies, and inter-state organizations in possession or control of military means of some significance. And, quite certainly, these actors can also be expected to fashion and promote an international discourse on conflict resolution which squares with the methods and the means they can set in motion in these efforts. If, in other words, the material underpinnings of the construction of global governance dictate the pacification of ever expanding social spaces, the political and ideational components of this movement towards globalized forms of governance will reflect this and offer pride of place both to the actors which can consolidate and control the means of violence in peripheral regions and to the ideological constructs which allow them to do so. The nature of the interrelationship between the material, the political, and the ideational, in the emergence of global governance might therefore look quite different from the picture usually painted in the literature on the subject. Beyond a smaller movement away from the state system than what is suggested in this literature, global governance might also involve a more direct reliance on the actors able to perpetuate this system and its ideological foundations than what is readily acknowledged there.

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And perhaps, again, the Cambodian peace process gives some indication that this is so. If it is indeed the case, for instance, one would expect to see not only a domination of the construction of global governance through conflict resolution by states and state-led institutions, but also a marginalization of non-state actors in that process. This is quite exactly what happened in the context of the involvement of the international community in Cambodia. It can be asserted, for example, that the peace process was originally engineered and sustained by the Five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council as the first tentative steps towards the creation of a managerial framework for post-cold-war international politics which would at once enshrine the leadership of the P-5 in world affairs and orient the resolution of conflicts in peripheral regions towards the expansion in these regions of traditional, state-centred political frameworks. In this, parenthetically, the Five very much followed a logic spelled out in the Agenda for Peace as the document described what was to be held as the main tenets for post-cold-war conflict resolution by the international community. The Agenda notes, for instance, that the ‘foundation-stone of this work [of conflict resolution] is and must remain the State. Respect for its fundamental sovereignty and integrity are crucial to any common international progress [on this front].’22 The document acknowledges in that regard that ‘the time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty has passed,’ but adds that ‘globalism and [nationalism and other forms of questioning of existing state structures] need not be viewed as opposing trends, doomed to spur each other on to extremes of reaction.’23 The ‘healthy globalization of contemporary life’, the Agenda continues, in fact: requires in the first instance solid identities and fundamental freedoms. The sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of States within the established international system, and the principle of self-determination for peoples [and responsiveness to social demands], both of great value and importance, must not be permitted to work against each other in the period ahead. Respect for democratic principles at all levels of social existence is crucial: in communities, within States and within the community of States. [The UN’s] constant duty should be to maintain the integrity of each while finding a balanced design for all.24 A ‘healthy globalization’, in a word, entails here a respect for the state and the social environment it provides, not a movement away

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from it. Conflict resolution initiatives, therefore, should use it as their ‘foundation-stone’ and be intended to strengthen it. In describing the nature of such initiatives, furthermore, the Agenda seemed focused almost exclusively on the contributions which could be made by state actors. The document did explain, for example, that the ‘wider mission [entailed by broad peace operations … would] demand the concerted attention and effort of individual States, of regional organizations and non-governmental organizations and of all of the United Nations system,’25 but it never expanded on the precise role that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) would be asked to play in that context, while conversely it devoted an entire section to regional organizations.26 The breakdown of the process set in motion in 1991–3 did not bring about, however, a reassessment of this type of logic. As was explained earlier, the involvement of the international community the next time around, in July 1998, was still a state-led operation geared towards the imposition on Cambodian society of a state-centred process of institutionalization of politics along what could perhaps best be termed traditional lines. The prospects of a process articulated around non-state actors could of course have been explored. Much has been made in the recent literature on conflict resolution on the way in which the action of non-state actors such as NGOs conform to the conditions in which the conflict settlement efforts now have to take place. As Andrew S. Natsios has written in a study of how NGOs can respond to the institutional and social collapse which is often at the root of contemporary conflicts and thus provide a better platform for conflict resolution than those afforded by state-centric models: The breakdown of central authority and the rise of numerous centers of power is surely one reason why some policymakers are turning to NGOs with deep roots in the community and at the lowest level of social organization as sources of indigenous authority that might act as mediators among warring factions … Diplomats, through both training and experience, are accustomed to dealing with other diplomats and traditional elites, the very people who have lost their authority in the midst of chaos. The new interest in NGOs reflects the search for some viable institutions in the absence of any other levels of influence during these complex emergencies.27 The fact is, though, that the 1998 peace process remained firmly in the hands of states and state-led organizations, namely, as was

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explained earlier, the United States, Japan, and the EU. If NGOs had the grassroots credentials and contacts necessary to energize and mobilize elements in civil society that could have provided the beginnings of an alternative power structure in Cambodia, perhaps more amenable to peace, the possibility was never probed fully, if it was ever considered seriously. Even though there was in 1998 a search for a model of international involvement which would prove more efficient than the 1991–3 UN operation, the models considered remained, to that extent, confined to those linked to the state and its agencies, to the exclusion of non-state actors. And this, precisely in a context where non-state actors could have provided a potent matrix upon which new, and perhaps more efficient, approaches to peace could have been built. The inherent impossibility in the emergent structures of global governance to consider these models which is denoted here adds, in this perspective, another element of answer to the question of why the lessons of 1993 were not applied in 1998 in Cambodia. At another level, the Cambodian peace process can also support the argument that the ideational components of the structures of global governance restrict the very ways in which it is possible to think of models of conflict resolution. As was explained earlier, the international thinking on the best way to give impetus to the peace process in Cambodia has always oscillated between two main approaches. One approach has been directed at the actors of Cambodian politics and articulated chiefly around a series of international pressures on the different Cambodian elites aimed at forcing them to come to terms one with the other. The other approach has been much more directed at the context in which the actors of Cambodian politics evolve. The idea here has been to orchestrate a succession of social changes intended to render Cambodian society more peaceful and to, in a sense, let Cambodian elites come by themselves to the realization that if they did not act in more peaceful ways they would be marginalized in the new environment in which they would henceforth have to evolve. This dichotomy, as was said earlier, underpinned most of the debates about what went wrong in Cambodia during the 1991–3 operation. Both approaches were tried during that period, and none brought success. It was demonstrated here that both approaches were in fact quite simplistic in view of the depth of the changes needed to bring about a new social contract in Cambodia anchored in a movement towards non-violent forms of politics. And yet they constituted the framework with which the international community envisioned the process of

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conflict resolution in Cambodia in July 1998. Why this incapacity to think beyond these two models? An argument can certainly be put forward to the effect that it results from the forces of economic globalization driving the unfolding of global governance. The spread of capitalism produces, as was argued above, a need for the reconstruction of pacified social spaces in peripheral regions. It is this latter process which the international community endeavors to set in motion by generating change both at the level of political actors and at that of the environment in which they evolve. However, an international discourse which takes as its starting point, as its axiom, really, the development of capitalism, does not allow a consideration of how capitalism itself already flows from a certain form of pacification of social exchanges. Approaches to conflict resolution debated in this context, therefore, may be based on a certain understanding of the dynamics of social relations – the nature of the individuals, the role of the state, and the like – which also assumes, in a sense, that the pacification of social relations has already occurred. This discourse on globalization can thus in fact preclude a discussion of the series of institutional and political developments necessary to the emergence of the actors and socials dynamics that such a discourse, again, takes as the point of departure of its consideration of the best framework for conflict resolution. The idea that Cambodian elites could somehow be pressured into abandoning violence was accepted, for instance, by the international community without concern for the difficulty of engineering such a movement in the absence of the set of institutions which allow nonviolent politics to emerge. Can it be argued, then, that this was because of a dominant discourse which simply assumes that individuals can be non-violent, without regards for the prerequisites of such an assumption? The very discursive framework in which the construction of approaches to conflict resolution takes place in the context of the movement towards global governance might thus impede an understanding of the depth, and perhaps indeed of the nature, of the social changes required to engineer a movement from violent to non-violent forms of politics in certain societies. This inherent ability to even conceive of the true nature of the changes needed to articulate a successful conflict resolution strategy might also, finally, provide an element of answer as to why the lessons of 1993 were not heeded during the July 1998 elections. To that extent, the Cambodian peace process does demonstrate that emerging forms of global governance do rest upon a certain organization of violence, at both the global and peripheral levels. This organization of violence can prevent a successful movement towards conflict

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resolution in countries like Cambodia, but it can not be abandoned, precisely because it constitutes the underlying matrix from which global politics now operates. In this context, a question obviously arises: can there ever be in the context of the ongoing emergence of structures of global governance successful conflict resolution efforts by the international community in peripheral regions? A way of answering that question, it seems, is to measure the distance between, on the one hand, the model of conflict resolution which was put forward here as appropriate in a case such as the Cambodian one, and, on the other hand, the parameters which appear to be set by the conditions just described. The model was shown to involve, most of all, what amounts to an intellectual challenge. Is it possible, first, to discern concrete steps through which the complexity of constructing a pacified social space in a society like the Cambodian one can be addressed? Can a precise sequence of social changes, for example, be confirmed to build out of the political and social configurations found in a society similar to Cambodia’s the individual to society relationships which are presupposed by the peace as democracy model? As was also said earlier, this quickly translates into the challenge of putting together under these conditions an international discourse on conflict resolution whose sway, coherence, and manifest unequivocal quality will allow it to become a platform on which diverse domestic and international actors can become united in a common goal. The difficulty here is to, in a word, demonstrate the likely success of the sequences of social and political changes needed to bring about an institutionalization of politics in a social universe such as the Cambodian one, and this to a degree such that the domestic and international mobilization necessary to create these changes is indeed forthcoming. Can this challenge be met under the conditions created by the emergence of structures of global governance? As was just mentioned, the dominant international discourse at the moment is not at all one where the nature of the prerequisites needed to bring about peace and democracy is problematized. Can this discourse be welcoming, then, towards a discourse on conflict resolution built, precisely, on the need to explore these prerequisites, to fashion conflict resolution methods which follow from these prerequisites, and to mobilize international resources at that very level? The answer, in light of recent experiences, appears to be no. For instance, the numerous peace-building operations which have so far resulted in failures, from Somalia to Haiti, have not at all led to a reassessment of the premises of such operations with

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a view to improving their effectiveness. The reflex internationally has been much more, as was said earlier, to abandon such operations altogether. And that attitude has indeed been based, as was also argued above, on the idea that it was the societies where peace-building failed that had to be blamed somehow for these failures, and not at all on the notion that peace-building itself had to be reexamined. This perhaps illustrates, then, the incapacity of emerging models of global governance to be self-reflective enough on the nature of the dynamics involved in the global expansion of peace and democracy to develop an analysis of the way in which these dynamics can properly be extended to peripheral regions. To the extent that emerging structures of global governance create this problem, the only way out, then, is to modify these very structures. It is when seen in this context, in fact, that the intellectual challenge outlined earlier gains its full relief. Is it possible to not only create a model of conflict resolution which is sensitive to the particular dynamics involved in the construction of peace in peripheral regions, but also to make this model politically palatable to a degree such that it can allow for a new international consensus on how to build peace globally in the post-cold-war era? As the construction of global governance proceeds, this is one of the most central tasks which must be addressed. The reconstruction of society on a global scale, in other words, must be based both on the recognition of the importance of the issue of the control of violence and conflict in that process and on an attempt to deal with the obstacles to conflict resolution which the very process of global governance now puts in the way of the search for peace. A progressive perspective on world order, if it is to show the way towards greater well-being for humanity as a whole, must concern itself with these issues and perhaps in fact promote models of conflict resolution of the order of the one put forward here. The human suffering brought about by the repeated failures of the international community in Cambodia in 1993 and 1998 demonstrate indeed, if there ever was a need, the urgency of that task.

Notes 1 The Paris Plan and Its Failure 1. Douglas Pike, ‘The Cambodian Peace Process: Summer of 1989’, Asian Survey, XXIX, no. 9 (September 1989), 842, 847. 2. See: Cambodia: An Australian Peace Proposal. Working Papers Prepared for the Informal Meeting on Cambodia, Jakarta, 26–28 February 1990. (Canberra: Department of Foreign Affairs, Australia, 1990.) The Australian Plan was reproduced in: Amitav Acharya, Pierre Lizée, and Sorpong Peou, eds., Cambodia – The 1989 Paris Peace Conference. Background Analysis and Documents (Millwood, New York: Kraus International Publications, 1991). Subsequent references will be to that text. 3. The peace agreement was in fact a series of accords comprising: the Final Act of the Paris Conference on Cambodia, an Agreement on a Comprehensive Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, an Agreement Concerning the Sovereignty, Independence, Territorial Integrity and Inviolability, Neutrality and National Unity of Cambodia, and a Declaration on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. See: United Nations Peacekeeping Operations. Information Notes (New York: United Nations Department of Public Information, 1992) (CDPI/1306, September 1992), and Frederick Z. Brown, ‘Cambodia in 1992. Peace at Peril,’ Asian Survey, XXXIII, no. 1 ( January 1993), 83–90. 9. See: Stephen R. Ratner, ‘The Cambodian Settlement Agreements,’ American Journal of International Law, 87, no. 1 ( January 1993), 12–18. 10. A.K.P. Mochtan, ed., Cambodia. Toward Peace and Reconstruction ( Jakarta: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 1993), iii.

2 Towards a New Explanation of the Collapse of the Paris Plan 1. Stephen Gill, ‘Epistemology, Ontology and the ‘Italian School,’ in Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations, Stephen Gill, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), (Cambridge Studies in International Relations no. 26), 21. This volume probably presents the most pertinent of these writings. Of particular interest is: Robert W. Cox, ‘Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method.’ This essay was originally published in Millennium, 12, no. 2 (1983), 162–75. 2. Robert W. Cox, ‘Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method,’ 56–7. 3. Stephen Gill, ‘Epistemology, Ontology and the ‘Italian School,’ 28. 4. Robert W. Cox, ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory,’ in Neorealism and its Critics, Robert O. Keohane, ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 208. This text was originally published in: Millennium, 10, no. 2 (Summer 1981), 126–55. 176

Notes 177 5. Cox, ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory,’ 218. 6. Ibid., 218–19. 7. Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence. Volume Two of A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987). 8. Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, 1. 9. Other authors have attempted the same type of study, but their work has lacked the brilliance and the detail of Giddens’ writings. See, for instance, Michael Mann, States, War and Capitalism. Studies in Political Sociology (Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988) and Martin Shaw, ‘War and the Nation-State in Social Theory,’ in Social Theory of Modern Societies. Anthony Giddens and his Critics, 129– 46, David Held and John B. Thompson, eds (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 10. Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, 65. 11. Ibid, 87. 12. Ibid, 94. 13. Bob Jessop, ‘Book Review: A. Giddens’ The Nation-State and Violence,’ Capital and Class, no. 29 (Summer 1986), 217. 14. For instance, in Robert Jervis, ‘Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,’ World Politics, 30, no. 2, 167–214, and Helga Haftendorn, ‘The Security Puzzle: Theory-Building and Discipline-Building in International Security,’ International Studies Quarterly, 35, no. 1 (March 1991), 3–18. 15. Martin Shaw, ‘War and the Nation-State in Social Theory,’ 138. 16. Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, 14. 17. Ibid, 140. 18. Ibid, 135. 19. Ibid, 249. 20. Other authors have underscored the relation between the expansion of capitalism and the centralization of the means of violence in the structures created by the emergence of the nation-state. See, for instance: Charles Tilly, ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,’ in Bringing the State Back In, Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Theda Skocpol, eds. (Cambridge University Press, 1985), and Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, A.D. 990–1990 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990). The originality of Giddens’ work lies in its ability to demonstrate that the elaboration of certain mechanisms of control of violence were part of the emergence of capitalism itself since capitalist practices entail the evacuation of violence from economic exchanges. In this sense, his analysis provides a deeper understanding of the role of violence in shaping the capitalist aspect of the modern order in Western societies. 21. Sheldon Wolin, ‘Violence and the Western Political Tradition,’ American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, XXXIII (1963), 20. 22. Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, 4. 23. Ibid, 308. 24. Anthony Giddens, ‘A Reply to my Critics,’ in Social Theory of Modern Societies. Anthony Giddens and his Critics, 267. 25. Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, 160.

178 Notes 26. Thom Workman, The Social Origins of the Iran-Iraq War (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1993), 14. 27. See, for instance: Ruth H. Howes and Michael R. Stevenson, eds., Women and the Use of Military Force (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1993). 28. Bradley S. Klein, ‘The Textual Strategies of the Military: Or Have You Read Any Good Defense Manuals Lately?’ in International/Intertextual Relations. Postmodern Readings of World Politics, James Der Derian and Michael J. Shapiro, eds. (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1989). 29. Sheldon S. Wolin, ‘Violence and the Western Political Tradition.’ 30. Abdulgaffar Peang-Meth, ‘Understanding the Khmer: Sociological-Cultural Observations,’ Asian Survey, XXXI, no. 5 (May 1991), 445. 31. Niels Mulder, Inside Southeast Asia (Bangkok: Duang Kamol, 1992), 97. 32. Ibid, 118. 33. S.J. Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renouncer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976). 34. Donald G. McCloud, System and Process in Southeast Asia (Boulder: Westview Press, 1986), 72. 35. See: Than H. Vuong, ‘Les colonisations du Viêt-nam et le colonialisme vietnamien,’ Etudes internationales, XVIII, no. 3 (September 1987), 545–71. 36. Alain Forest, Le Cambodge et la colonisaiton française. Historie d’une colonisation sans heurts (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1980). 37. ‘… c’est justement parce que l’une des fonctions du Cambodge dans le contexte colonial indochinois est de rapporter de l’argent par le biais de l’impôt sans problème que l’oeuvre coloniale fut limitée.’ Alain Forest, Le Cambodge et la colonisation française. Histoire d’une colonisation sans heurts (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1980), 252. 38. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (revised edn) (London: Verso Books, 1991). 39. Ibid, 175. 40. Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, 272. 41. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, xiv. 42. ‘Ce n’est pas la notion de race qui fonde la spécificité cambodgienne, mais la notion de tradition.’ Alain Forest, Le Cambodge et la colonisation française, 464. 43. ‘Ces dernières [les autorités françaises] occupent tout le terrain de l’initiative et de l’action publique, n’exigeant des Cambodgiens, à quelque niveau qu’ils soient, qu’approbation, obéissance et soumission, et cantonnant les autorités dans le domaine du traditionnel et, plus précisément, du religieux … il en résulte une perte complète du sens des responsabilités et la non-émergence d’un certain sens de l’Etat chez un fonctionnariat qui échappe désormais à toute sanction de la part des administrés; ce qui signifie, dans le concret, la continuation, plus discrète cependant, des practique concussionnaires et arbitraires.’ Alain Forest, Le Cambodge et la colonisation française, 489. Though this does not explain the weakness of the French administrative apparatus and its consequences, it is possible to note that the reliance on Vietnamese administrators in Cambodia throughout the colonial period also played a role in preventing the emergence of a bureaucratic class in Cambodia. 44. Nayan Chanda, The Political Economy of Cambodia (New York: The East Asian Institute, Columbia University, 1990), 7.

Notes 179 45. Nayan Chanda, The Political Economy of Cambodia, 13. Chanda is commenting on the Chinese community’s behavior in the early 1980s, but the remark also applies to deeper trends. 46. Alain Forest, Le Cambodge et la colonisation française, 51. 47. David P. Chandler, A History of Cambodia (2nd edn) (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), 12. 48. Ibid, 58. The emphasis is in the original text. 49. On these concepts, see: Abdulgafar Peange-Meth, ‘Understanding the Khmer.’ For two brilliant analyses of the relation between factionalism and the nature of Cambodian politics, see: Marie Alexandrine Martin, ‘La paysannerie khmère et le processus démocratique,’ in Les Cambodgients face à eux-mêmes?, Christian Lechervy and Richard Petris, eds. (Paris: Fondation pour le progrès de l’homme, 1992); François Ponchaud, ‘Elections et société khmère,’ in the same volume. For an interesting contrast on the notion of factionalism, see Pye’s study of the nature of factional struggles in China: Lucien Pye, The Dynamics of Chinese Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain, 1981). 50. I have not come across studies which deal specifically with these approaches to peace. They certainly reflect, however, comments made in many analyses of Cambodian politics. See, for instance: Serge Thion, ‘The Cambodian Idea of Revolution,’ in Revolution and Its Aftermath in Cambodia, David Chandler and Ben Kiernan, eds. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983); Michael Leifer, ‘Power-sharing and peacemaking in Cambodia?’ SAIS Review, 12, no. 1 (Winter–Spring 1992), 139–52; Sheri Prasso, ‘Cambodia. A Heritage of Violence,’ World Policy Journal, XI, no. 3 (Fall 1994), 71–7. 51. Serge Thion, ‘The Pattern of Cambodian Politics,’ International Journal of Politics, XVI, no. 3 (Fall 1986), 129. (This special issue of International Journal of Politics was devoted to ‘Cambodia: Politics and International Relations’ and was published under the direction of David A. Ablin and Marlowe Hood.)

3

Peace in the Post-Cold War Order

1. Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Annex I, Section A, Article 2, Paragraphs (c) and (e). 2. See, among others: Trevor Findlay, ‘Peacemaking in Cambodia. The First Post-Cold War UN Success Story?’ (Ottawa, Canadian Centre for Global Security, 1993); Paul Isoart, ‘L’Organisation des Nations Unies et le Cambodge,’ Revue générale de Droit international public, 97, no. 3 (1993), 645–88; M.H. Lao, ‘Obstacles to Peace in Cambodia,’ Pacific Review, 6, no. 4 (1993), 389–95; Raoul M. Jennar, ‘Plaidoyer pour le Cambodge,’ Politique Internationale, 61, (Fall 1993), 421–8; Gary Klintworth, ‘Cambodia 1992. Hopes Fading,’ Southeast Asian Affairs, 1993, 113–29. 3. On this theme, see: Cambodia Canada Development Program, Peace, Security and Development in Cambodia (Montreal: Cambodia Canada Development Program, 1994); Raoul M. Jennar, ‘UNTAC: ‘International Triumph’ in Cambodia?’ Security Dialogue, 25, no. 2 ( June 1994), 145–56; Terence Duffy, ‘Toward a Culture of Human Rights in Cambodia,’ Human Rights Quarterly, 16, no. 1 (February 1994), 82–104; Michael W. Doyle, UN Peacekeeping in Cambodia. UNTAC’s Civil Mandate (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995).

180 Notes 4. An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping (New York: Department of Public Information, United Nations, 1992). 5. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace, 11. 6. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace, 32. The report defines peacemaking as the ‘action to bring hostile parties to agreement, essentially through such peaceful means as those foreseen in Chapter VI of the Charter of the United Nations.’ It defines peacekeeping as ‘the deployment of a United Nations presence in the field, hitherto with the consent of all the parties concerned, normally involving United Nations military and/or policy personnel and frequently civilians as well.’ For its part, preventive diplomacy is defined as an ‘action to prevent disputes from arising between parties, to prevent existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and to limit the spread of the latter when they occur.’ An Agenda for Peace, 11. 7. See: Paris Conference on Cambodia, Declaration on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia, 23 October 1991. 8. Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Article 6. 9. Speech of Dennis McNamara at the Vienna Conference on Human Rights, June 1993. 10. On the expansion of peacekeeping operations, see: Marrack Goulding, ‘The Evolution of United Nations Peacekeeping,’ International Affairs, 69, no. 3 (1993), 451–64, and Laurence Martin, ‘Peacekeeping as a Growth Industry,’ The National Interest, no. 32 (Summer 1993), 3–11; Alan James, ‘Peacekeeping in the Post-Cold War Era,’ International Journal, L, no. 2 (Spring 1995), 241–65; William J. Durch, ed., The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993). On peace-building and UNTAC, see: Pierre Lizée, ‘The Challenge of Conflict Resolution in Cambodia,’ Canadian Defense Quarterly, 23, no. 1 (1992), 35– 44. 11. C.R. Mitchell, ‘Conflict, War and Conflict Management,’ in International Relations: A Handbook of Current Theory, Margot Light and A.J.R. Groom, eds. (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1985), 129–30. 12. A useful survey of this type of mechanism is found in: Julius Stone, ‘International Conflict Resolution,’ in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences II, David L. Sills, ed. (New York, London: Macmillan and Free Press, 1968), 507–13. The best recent book on negotiations is most probably: H. Peyton Young, ed., Negotiation Analysis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992). See, also: Paul R. Pillar, Negotiating Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983). 13. See: Johan Galtung, Essay in Peace Research, I–V, (Copenhagen and Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Christian Ejlers and Humanities Press, 1975–79). 14. Edward E. Azar, ‘Protracted International Conflicts: Ten Propositions,’ in International Conflict Resolution. Theory and Practice, Edward E. Azar and John W. Burton, eds. (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1986), 29. Also see: Edward E. Azar, ‘Peace Amidst Development: A Conceptual Agenda for Conflict and Peace Research,’ International Interactions, 6, no. 2, 123– 43. The best recent survey on this theme is: Janie Leatherman and Raimo Väyrinen, ‘Conflict Theory and Conflict Resolution: Directions for Collaborative Research Policy,’ Cooperation and Conflict, 30, no. 1 (March 1995), 53–82.

Notes 181

4

Tous les chemins mènent à Paris

1. Nicholas Regaud, Le Cambodge dans la tourmente. Le troisième conflit indochinois (Paris: Fondation pour les études de défense nationale et L’Harmattan, 1992). 2. Ibid, 14. 3. ‘The conflict in and over Kampuchea has been both generated and reinforced by an interlocking structure of relationships.’ Michael Leifer, ‘Obstacles to a Political Settlement in Indochina,’ Pacific Affairs, 58, no. 4 (Winter 1985–86), 627. 4. Michael Leifer, Cambodian Conflict – The Final Phase? (London: Institute for the Study of Conflict, 1989), 12. (Conflict Studies, no. 221.) 5. On this point, see: Pierre Lizée, Le temps comme stratégie: Le conflit kampuchéen, 1978–1988. Unpublished master’s thesis, Université Laval, 1989. 6. The best study of the events of this period is: Frank Frost, ‘The Cambodia Conflict: The Path Towards Peace,’ Contemporary Southeast Asia, 13, no. 2 (September 1991), 119–62. Also see: Charles McGregor, ‘China, Vietnam, and the Cambodian Conflict’, Asian Survey, XXX, no. 3 (March 1990), 266–83. 7. ‘Jusqu’à maintenant, et ceci je le déplore, un certain nombre de personnes s’efforcent d’induire l’opinion publique mondiale en erreur, en affirmant que la guerre au Cambodge aurait été provoquée par la présence des troupes vietnamiennes dans ce pays, et que le problème cambodgien serait un problème entre le Vietnam et le Cambodge, en passant sous silence les crimes de génocide de Pol Pot, lesquels étaient à l’origine du soulèvement et de la lutte populaires qui bénéficiaient de l’assistance des troupes de volontaires vietnamiens pour libérer la nation cambodgienne.’ Intervention de S. Exc. M. Hun Sen, Président du Conseil des Ministres, Ministre des Affaires Etrangères et Chef de la Délégation de l’Etat du Cambodge à la Conférence International sur le Cambodge. Paris – 30 Juillet 1989. In Cambodia – The 1989 Paris Peace Conference. Background Analysis and Documents, Amitav Acharya, Pierre Lizée, Sorpong Peou, eds., 31–2. 8. Speech by Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia to the Paris International Conference on Cambodia Paris 30 July 1989. In Cambodia – The 1989 Paris Peace Conference. Background Analysis and Documents, Amitav Acharya, Pierre Lizée, Sorpong Peou, eds., 4. 9. Address by H.E. Mr. Khieu Samphan to the Paris International Conference on Cambodia. 31 July 1989. In Cambodia – The 1989 Paris Peace Conference. Background Analysis and Documents, Amitav Acharya, Pierre Lizée, Sorpong Peou, eds., 21, 24. 10. ‘La Conférence de Paris ne doit pas être détournée de son objet qui est l’agression et l’occupation de Cambodge par des forces étrangères avec toutes les conséquences qui en découlent.’ Intervention de Son Excellence Son Sann, Président du Front National de Libération du Peuple Khmer et Premier Ministre du Gouvernement de Coalition du Kampuchéa Démocratique à la Conférence Internationale de Paris sur le Cambodge, du 30 Juillet au 5 Septembre 1989. In Cambodia – The 1989 Paris Peace Conference. Background Analysis and Documents, Amitav Acharya, Pierre Lizée, Sorpong Peou, eds., 14. 11. ‘… pour réaliser la réconciliation nationale sur la base du droit à l’autodétermination du peuple cambodgien et pour assurer une solution politique juste, nous

182 Notes

12.

13.

14. 15.

16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21.

22. 23.

24.

proposons que soit maintenu le statu quo politique et militaire jusqu’à l’achèvement des élections générales.’ Intervention de S. Exc. M. Hun Sen, Président du Conseil des Ministres, Ministre des Affaires Etrangères et Chef de la délégation de l’État du Cambodge à la Conférence Internationale sue le Cambodge. Paris – 30 Juillet 1989. In Cambodia – The 1989 Paris Peace Conference. Background Analysis and Documents, Amitav Acharya, Pierre Lizée, Sorpong Peou, eds., 34. Speech by Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia to the Paris International Conference on Cambodia Paris 30 July 1989. In Cambodia – The 1989 Paris Peace Conference. Background Analysis and Documents, Amitav Acharya, Pierre Lizée, Sorpong Peou, eds., 7. Organization of Work: Text Adopted by the Conference at its 4th Plenary Meeting, on A1 August 1989. In Cambodia – The Paris Peace Conference. Background Analysis and Documents, Amitav Acharya, Pierre Lizée, Sorpong Peou, eds., 129–30. Tommy T.B. Koh, ‘The Paris Conference on Cambodia: A Multilateral Negotiation that ‘Failed’,’ Negotiation Journal ( January 1990), 84. Statement of the Paris Conference (Issued 30 August 1989). In Cambodia – The 1989 Paris Peace Conference. Background Analysis and Documents, Amitav Acharya, Pierre Lizée, Sorpong Peou, eds., 484. Nicolas Regaud, Le Cambodge dans la tourmente. Le troisième conflit indochinois 1979–1991, 14. Carlyle A. Thayer, ‘Comrade Plus Brother: The New Sino-Vietnamese Relations,’ The Pacific Review, 5, no. 4 (1992), 402. Kevin Rowley, ‘The Cambodian Conflict after the Vietnamese Withdrawal 1989–91,’ unpublished paper. Hawthorne, Victoria: Swinburne Institute of Technology, September, 1991. Carlyle A. Thayer, ‘Comrade Plus Brother: The New Sino-Vietnamese Relations,’ 404. Frank Frost, ‘The Cambodia Conflict: The Path Towards Peace,’ Contemporary Southeast Asia, 13, no. 2 (September 1991), 138. Cambodia: An Australian Peace Proposal. Working Papers Prepared for the Informal Meeting on Cambodia. Jakarta, 26–28 February 1990. In Cambodia – The 1989 Paris Peace Conference. Background Analysis and Documents, Amitav Acharya, Pierre Lizée, Sorpong Peou, eds., 498. Senate Daily Hansard (Australia), 6 December 1990, quoted in: Frank Frost, ‘The Cambodia Conflict: The Path Towards Peace,’ 141–2. Summary of Conclusions of the Meeting of the Five Permanent Members of the Security Council on the Cambodian Problem. Paris, 15–16 January 1990. In Cambodia – The 1989 Paris Peace Conference. Background Analysis and Documents, Amitav Acharya, Pierre Lizée, Sorpong Peou, eds., 487–8. See: Press Statement: Conclusion of Consultations of the Five Permanent Members of the Security Council on Cambodia, 11–12 February 1990, Statement on Cambodia: The Five Permanent Members of the Security Council, Paris, March 12 1990, and Letter Dated 29 May 1990 from the Representatives of China, France, The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United State of America to the United Nations Addressed to the Secretary-General. In Cambodia – The 1989 Paris Peace Conference. Background Analysis and Documents, Amitav Acharya, Pierre Lizée, Sorpong

Notes 183

25. 26.

27. 28. 29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40.

Peou, eds., 489–97, and Letter Dated 19 July 1990 from the Representatives of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America to the United Nations Addressed to the Secretary-General (United Nations, General Assembly, Security Council: Document A/45/353; S/21404; 23 July 1990). The text cited is the one issued after the May meeting. Stephen J. Solarz, ‘Cambodia and the International Community,’ Foreign Affairs, 69, no. 2 (Spring 1990), 115, 112. Letter Dated 30 August 1990 from the Permanent Representatives of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America to the United Nations Addressed to the Secretary-General (United Nations, General Assembly, Security Council: Document A/45/472; S/21689, 31 August 1990). Annex, Statement of the Five Permanent Members of the Security Council of the United Nations on Cambodia. Letter Dated 30 August 1990 … See: Indochina Digest, no. 90 –20, 25 May–1 June 1990. Letter Dated 30 August 1990 …, Annex, Statement of the Five Permanent Members of the Security Council of the United Nations on Cambodia, Appendix, Framework for a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Section 1, Articles 1, 2 and 3. Letter Date 30 August 1990 …, Annex, Statement of the Five Permanent Members of the Security Council of the United Nations on Cambodia, Appendix, Framework for a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Section I, Articles 8 and 10. Proposed Structure for the Agreements on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, (Adopted 23 November 1990), Annex 1, Proposed Mandate for UNTAC, Section A, Civil Administration, Article 2. Proposed Structure for the Agreements on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodian Conflict, Annex 1, Proposed Mandate for UNTAC, Section B, Military Functions. Proposed Structure for the Agreements on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Annex 1, Proposed Mandate for UNTAC, Section A, Civil Administration, Articles 4, 5, 7, and 8. Proposed Structure for the Agreements on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Annex 5, Principles for a New Constitution for Cambodia, Article 4. Explanatory Note (issued on 22 December 1990), (United Nations, Security Council, Document A/46/61, S/22059, 11 January 1991. See, among others: Bangkok Post, 1 February 1991. Quoted in: Ben Kiernan, ‘The Making of the Paris Agreement on Cambodia, 1990 –1991,’ unpublished paper, 1991. Mike Yeong, ‘Cambodia 1991. Lasting Peace or Decent Interval?’ in Southeast Asian Affairs, 1992 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1992), 110. Bangkok Post, 7 June 1991. The quote is found in: Alan Boyd, Australian, 14 June 1991. It is reproduced in: Kevin Rowley, ‘The Cambodian Conflict After the Vietnamese Withdrawal, 1989–1991,’ unpublished paper. Hawthorne, Victoria: Swinburne Institute of Technology, September 1991.

184 Notes 41. Final Communiqué of the Meeting of the Supreme National Council of Cambodia in Pattaya (Thailand), June 24–26, 1991 (Permanent Mission of Cambodia to the United Nations, Document 044/91, June 26, 1991), Section I, Articles 1, 3, 7, and 10. 42. Final Communiqué of the Informal Meeting of the Supreme National Council of Cambodia, (Permanent Mission of Cambodia to the United Nations, Documents 047-91, 17 July 1991), Section II, Article 1. 43. Communique of the Perm-5 Meeting, Beijing, 18 July 1991. 44. Final Communiqué of the Supreme National Council of Cambodia (Permanent Mission of Cambodia to the United Nations, 29 August 1991), Section I, Article 3. 45. Final Communiqué of the Supreme National Council of Cambodia, Section I, Article 3. 46. Final Communique of the Supreme National Council of Cambodia, Section I, Article 2. 47. Mike Yeong, ‘Cambodia 1991. Lasting Peace or Decent Interval?’, 116. 48. Communique of the P-5, Pattaya, Thailand, 30/08/1991. 49. Proposed Structure for the Agreements on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Section IV, Declaration on Rehabilitation and Reconstruction in Cambodia. 50. ‘… un accord entre Vietnamiens et Chinois pour les grandes lignes, et entre Khmers pour les détails.’ Thaddée In, ‘Cambodge, an I,’ Politique Internationale, no. 54 (Winter 91/92), 280.

5 The Paris Plan 01. Paris Conference on Cambodia, Final Act of the Paris Conference on Cambodia (CPC/91/2/Rev.2), 23 October 1991. 02. Paris Conference on Cambodia, Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict (with annexes on the Mandate for UNTAC, Military Matters, the Elections, the Repatriation of Cambodian Refugees and Displaced persons, and Principles for a New Cambodian Constitution) (CPC/91/3/Rev.1), 23 October 1991. 03. Paris Conference on Cambodia, Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict (with annexes on the Mandate for UNTAC, Military Matters, the Election, the Repatriation of Cambodian Refugees and Displaced Persons, and Principles for a New Cambodian Constitution) (CPC/91/4/Rev.1), 23 October 1991. 4. Paris Conference on Cambodia, Declaration on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia (CPC/91/5/Rev.1), 23 October 1991. 05. Final Act of the Paris Conference on Cambodia. Articles 10 and 11. 06. Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Part I, Arrangements During the Transitional Period, Section I, Transitional Period, Article 1. 07. Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Part I, Arrangements During the Transitional Period, Section III, Supreme National Council, Articles 3, 4, and 6. 08. Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Annex I, UNTAC Mandate, Section A, General Procedures, Article 2, Paragraphs a, b, and e.

Notes 185 9. Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Annex 1, UNTAC Mandate, Section B, Civil Administration, Articles 1, 2, 3, and 4. 10. Steven R. Ratner, ‘The Cambodia Settlement Agreements,’ American Journal of International Law, 87, no. 1 ( January 1991), 15. Ratner underscores the legal preeminence of the SNC over UNTAC by noting how ‘the portion of the mandate of UNTAC describing its electoral functions refers only to the Elections Annex, and not to that part of the mandate describing UNTAC’s relationship with the SNC … the mechanism for the relationship between UNTAC and the SNC (requiring the Special Representative [of the UN Secretary-General] to comply with the SNC’s advice when unanimous and consistent with the settlement) states, however, that it “will be used to resolve all issues relating to the implementation of [the] Agreement”’. (Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Annex 1, UNTAC Mandate, Section A, General Procedures, Article 2)21. 11. Steven R. Ratner, ‘The Cambodia Settlement Agreements,’ 24. 12. Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Part 1, Arrangement During the Transitional Period, Section V, Cease-fire and Cessation of Outside Military Assistance, Articles 11, and Annex 2, Withdrawal, Cease-fire and Related Measures, Article V, Ultimate Disposition of the Forces of the Parties and of Their Arms, Ammunition and Equipment. 13. Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Part II, Elections, and Annex 3, Elections, Article 2. 14. Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Part III, Human Rights, Article 15, Paragraph 2. 15. Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, Part VII, Principles for a New Constitution for Cambodia, Article 23, and Annex 5, Principles for a New Constitution for Cambodia, Article 4. 16. Declaration on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia, Articles 6 and 12. 17. Agreement Concerning the Sovereignty, Independence, Territorial Integrity and Inviolability, Neutrality and National Unity of Cambodia, Article 1, Paragraph b, and Article 2, Paragraphs b and c. 18. United Nations, Security Council, S/RES/718 (1991), 31 October 1991. 19. United Nations, Security Council, S/RES/717 (1991), 16 October 1991. 20. On the involvement of the Phnom Penh regime, see, for instance: Philip Shenon, ‘Battered Khmer Rouge Aide Vows to Return to Cambodia,’ The New York Times, December 4, 1991, A4. 21. Communique of the Supreme National Council, 3 December 1991 (FBIS-EAS91–233, 4 December 1991). 22. Communique of the Cambodian Supreme National Council, 30 December 1991 (FBIS-EAS-91–251, 31 December 1991). 23. See, for instance: ‘Cambodia’, in Asia 1993. Far Eastern Economic Review Yearbook, Michael Malik, ed. (Hong Kong: Far Eastern Economic Review, 1993). The following February, the first of many attacks against the personnel of the United Nations took place. The Khmer Rouge were believed to be responsible in most cases. See: ‘Cambodian Guerrillas Wound U.N. Officer,’ New York Times, February 27, 1992, A4. 24. John Cruickshank, ‘The UN’s Next Job: Mission in a Minefield,’ Globe and Mail, 25 October 1991, A17.

186 Notes 25. United Nations, Security Council, S/RES/745 (1992), 28 February 1992. 26. United Nations, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations. Information Notes, (New York: United Nations Department of Public Information, 1992) (DPI/1306, September 1992). Also see: Frederick Z. Brown, ‘Cambodia in 1992. Peace at Peril,’ Asian Survey, XXXIII, no. 1 ( January 1993), 83–90. 27. Interview with Jacques Bekaert, Bangkok, 15 July 1992; Interview with Sukhumbandh Paribatra, Bangkok, 9 July 1992. 28. Interview with Jacques Bekaert, Bangkok, 15 July 1992. 29. ‘Cambodia – Economy-Infrastructure,’ in Asia 1993 (Hong Kong: Far Eastern Economic Review, 1993), 98. 30. ‘Cambodia – Economy-Infrastructure,’ 100; FBIS-EAS 92–180. Also see: JeanPierre Tuquoi, ‘Une fièvre économique trompeuse,’ Le Monde, 26 May 1992. 31. For an informed comment on the actual effect of the economic changes sought by UNTAC on the Cambodian economy, see: Robin Davies, ‘UNTAC and the Cambodian Economy: What Impact?’ Phnom Penh Post, 29 January–11 February 1993, 4 –5. 32. Interview with journalist Mary Kay Magistad, Bangkok, 21 July 1992. 33. ‘Peace, Khmer Style,’ Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 September 1992, 6. 34. United Nations Document S/24578, 21 September 1992. 35. Interview with journalist Mary Kay Magistad, 21 July 1992. 36. Richard Betts, John Bresnan, Frederick Z. Brown, James W. Worley, Donald Zagoria, Time is Running Out in Cambodia (New York: Columbia University, East Asian Institute, 1992), 6. 37. ‘Cambodia – Politics/Social Affairs,’ in Asia 1993 (Hong Kong: Far Eastern Economic Review, 1993), 98. 38. Xinhua, September 20, 22, 23, 1992, FBIS-CHI 92–184/185. 39. United Nations Security Council Resolution 792, 30 November 1992. 40. See, for instance, Philip Shenon, New York Times, 12 January 1992. 41. FBIS-EAS 93–12/14/15, Reuters, 13, 15, 21 January 1993. 42. See: AFP, 24 January 1993, FBIS-EAS-93-014, 25 January 1993; Nayan Chanda and Nate Thayer, ‘Give Me a Chance,’ Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 February 1993. 43. Nate Thayer, ‘Sihanouk Poised to Take Control,’ Phnom Penh Post, January 29–February 11 1993, 1. 44. Chanda and Thayer, Interview with Prince Sihanouk, ‘Give Me a Chance,’ 22. 45. ‘A cause des controverses et manoeuvres politiciennes autour de cette question des élections présidentielles, je me vois obligé de renoncer à participer auxdites élections présidentielles. La validité des résultats des élections “untactistes” de Mai 1993, au Cambodge, est totalement rejetée et sévèrement condamnée par [les Khmers rouges] et sera rejetée (cela est facile à prévoir ou prédire) par la plupart des Partis ou Factions vaincus auxdites élections, lesquels Partis ou Factions diront qu’ils “ont perdu la compétition électorale à cause de la ‘partialité’ de l’UNTAC, d’une participation trop nombreuse d’électeurs et électrices Vietnamiens déguisés en Khmers, de la non participation des Khmers d’outre-Mer […], etc …”. En ma qualité de Président du C.N.S., je reconnaîtrai officiellement la validité de ces élections législatives de Mai 1993 et leurs résultats homologués par l’UNTAC. Mais je ne participerai pas aux élections présidentielles, quelle qu’en soit leur date, car mon Pays, le Cambodge, et le peuple cambodgien, après

Notes 187

46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

6

Mai-Juin 1993, auront besoin d’un NORODOM SIHANOUK neutre et non-engagé (dans des élections contestées par beaucoup de Khmers) pour stopper l’acheminment fatal du Kampuchéa vers une partition irréversible et vers une guerre civile mortelle pour la nation et la race khmère. Ce n’est qu’en me plaçant nettement au-dessus des factions et des partis politiques et en dehors des élections “untacistes” que je serai en mesure d’assurer, le moment venu, le sauvetage du “navire Kampuchéa naufragé”.’ Declaration of Norodom Sihanouk, Phnom Penh, 14 February 1993. Interview with Chanserey Mum, Phnom Penh, 20 May 1993. First Progress Report of the Secretary-General on UNTAC, UN Document S/23870, 1 May 1992. Second Progress Report of the Secretary-General on UNTAC, UN Document S/24578, 21 September 1992. Third Progress Report of the Secretary-General on UNTAC, UN Document S/25154, 25 January 1993. Fourth Progress Report of the Secretary-General on UNTAC, UN Document S/25719, 3 May 1993.

L’Après-UNTAC

1. Akashi Press Conference, Phnom Penh, 22 May 1993. 2. Sheri Prasso (Agence France-Presse), ‘Phnom Penh Cries Foul Over Vote Count. UNTAC denies charges of irregularities, rejects call for halting release of results,’ The Nation, 1 June 1993, A1–A2. 3. Interviews with Canadian diplomat David Sproule, Phnom Penh, 19 and 26 May 1993. Canada was involved in these discussions as a member of the ‘Core Group’, a group of countries particularly implicated with the P-5 in the implementation of the Paris Plan. 4. See: Report of the Secretary-General on the Conduct and Results of the Election in Cambodia, UN Document S/25913, 10 June 1993. 5. ‘Sihanouk Scraps Government, Takes III. Prince’s son vetoes power-sharing plan that critics called a ‘constitutional coup’,’ The Nation, 5 June 1993, A1. 6. Nate Thayer, ‘Sihanouk Back at the Helm,’ Phnom Penh Post, 18 June–1, 2 July. Also see: Ker Munthit, ‘Chakrapong-led Secession Collapses,’ Phnom Penh Post, 18 June–1, 2 July. 7. Thayer, ‘Sihanouk Back at the Helm,’ 1, 2. 8. Interview with Raoul Jennar, Toronto, 2 November 1993. 9. Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia, Chapter 1, Article 1. 10. Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia, Chapter 2, Article 9. 11. Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia,Chapter 14, Article 138.

8

The Lessons of the Cambodian Peace Process

1. Hugh Smith, ed., International Peacekeeping. Building on the Cambodian Experience (Canberra: Australian Defense Studies Centre, 1994). 2. Lyndall McLean, ‘Civil Administration in Transition: Public Information and the Neutral Political/Electoral Environment,’ in International Peacekeeping. Building on the Cambodian Experience, Hugh Smith, ed. (Canberra: Australian Defense Studies Centre, 1994), 55.

188 Notes 3. Mark Plunkett, ‘The Establishment of the Rule of Law in Post-Conflict Peacekeeping,’ in International Peacekeeping. Building on the Cambodian Experience, Hugh Smith, ed. (Canberra: Australian Defense Studies Centre, 1994), 76. 4. Hugh Smith, ‘Prospects for Peacekeeping,’ in International Peacekeeping. Building on the Cambodian Experience, Hugh Smith, ed. (Canberra: Australian Defense Studies Centre, 1994), 211. 5. Sorpong Peou, Conflict Neutralization in the Cambodia War. Turning the Battlefield into a Ballot Box (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1997). 6. Lieutenant General John Sanderson, ‘Introduction,’ in International Peacekeeping. Building on the Cambodian Experience, Hugh Smith, ed. (Canberra: Australian Defense Studies Centre, 1994), ix. 7. On this issue, see: Ian Pennell, ‘Non-Governmental Organisations in Humanitarian Operations,’ in International Peacekeeping. Building on the Cambodian Experience, Hugh Smith, ed. (Canberra: Australian Defense Studies Centre, 1994), 131–6. 8. Raymond Cohen, Negotiating Across Cultures. Communications Obstacles in International Diplomacy (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1991), 19, 30. 9. Ibid, 25. Cohen refers to: Edward T. Hall, Beyond Culture (New York: Anchor Press, 1976). 10. Maurice Keens-Soper, ‘The Liberal Disposition of Diplomacy,’ International Relations, V, no. 2 (November 1973). 11. These distinctions have been studied in many cross-cultural contexts, but mainly with regards to negotiations between Japan and the US. In particular, see: Mushakoji Kinhide, ‘The Cultural Premises of Japanese Diplomacy,’ in The Silent Power: Japan’s Identity and World Role, Japan Centre for International Exchange, ed. (Tokyo: Simul Press, 1976), and Rocichi Okabe, ‘Cultural Assumptions of East and West. Japan and the United States,’ in Intercultural Communication Theory, William B. Gudykunst, ed. (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1983), 21– 44. 12. Stephen E. Weiss, ‘Negotiating with “Romans”: A Range of CulturallyResponsive Strategies’ (unpublished). 13. Weiss, Negotiating with ‘Romans’. Many other authors have argued that the reconciliation of cross-cultural dissimilarities should encompass an understanding of what Weiss terms the ‘negotiation of the negotiation’. For instance, see: June Ock Yum, ‘Network Theory in Intercultural Communications,’ in Theories in Intercultural Communication, Young Yun Kim and William B. Gudykunst, eds. (Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1988), 239–58.

10

The Dynamics of the 1998 Elections

1. Supplement to An Agenda for Peace. Position Paper of the Secretary-General on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations, Document A/50/60-S/1995/1, 3 January 1995 (New York: Department of Public Information, United Nations, 1995). 2. Ibid, article 36. 3. Ibid, article 37. 4. Ibid, articles 38, 43, 45, and 46.

Notes 189 5. Ibid, article 48. 6. Ibid, article 53. 7. See: Pierre P. Lizée, ‘Cambodia in 1995. From Hope to Despair,’ Asian Survey, XXXVI, no. 1 ( January 1996), 83–8. 8. See: Pierre P. Lizée, ‘Cambodia in 1996: Of Tigers, Crocodiles and Doves,’ Asian Survey, XXXVII, no. 1 ( January 1997), 65–71. 9. Nate Thayer, ‘The Deal That Died,’ Far Eastern Economic Review, August 21, 1997, 14 –16. 10. ASEAN Statement on Cambodia, 10 July 1997. 11. Michael Richardson, ‘ASEAN Admits Burma, Laos. Cambodia Waits,’ International Herald Tribune, 24 July 1997. 12. House of Representatives Resolution 195, passed on 28 July 1997. 13. Murray Hieber, ‘ASEAN – All for One,’ Far Eastern Economic Review, 7 August 1997, 26. Tony Kevin, the Australian Ambassador to Phnom Penh in fact expressed support for Hun Sen. In a much-publicized leaked memo to Canberra, the Ambassador described the Cambodian leader as a ‘democrat at heart’ who was the only person able to bring sustained stability to Cambodia. On this point, see: Reuters, 13 July 1997. 14. UPI, 10 July 1997. 15. See: ‘Blame the Leaders. The UN Says it Again: It Can’t Impose Peace,’ Far Eastern Economic Review, 17 July 1997, 17, 20. 16. See, for instance: Claudia Rizzi, ‘Tokyo Bid Prompts Offers But No Talks,’ Phnom Penh Post, 21 November– 4 December 1997, 1, 3. 17. AFP, 6 October 1997. 18. James Eckardt and Chris Fontaine, ‘Hun Sen Dwells in Development as CPP Campaigns,’ Phnom Penh Post, 17–23 July, 1998, 8, 19. 19. Samreth Sopha and Elizabeth Moorthy, ‘FUNCINPEC Relies on Royalty, Anti-VN Rhetoric,’ Phnom Penh Post, 17–23 July, 1998, 9. 20. Eric Pape and Chea Sotheacheath, ‘On the River with Rainsy in Search for Votes,’ Phnom Penh Post, 22 May– 4 June, 1998, 14 –15. 21. See, for instance: James Eckardt, ‘Rainsy of the Mekong: Rickety Boats and MSG Jokes,’ Phnom Penh Post, 17–23 July, 1998, 9, 13, where Rainsy declares that he knows that Hun Sen can ‘prevent [his] victory’ and that it is thus ‘impossible’ for him to win the elections. 22. See, for instance: ‘CPP Master Plan for Poll Victory,’ Phnom Penh Post, 5–18 June, 1998, 1–2. 23. See, for instance: Matthew Grainger, ‘Campaign “Hunting Season” Begins,’ Phnom Penh Post, 3–16 July, 1998, 1, 3. 24. See, for instance: Matthew Grainger, ‘UN Blasts CPP’s Domination of StateRun Media,’ Phnom Penh Post, 3–16 July: 1998, 4. 25. Matthew Grainger, ‘US Set to Give $7M for Election,’ Phnom Penh Post, 10 –23 April, 1998, 1–2. Japan contributed about US$11 million to the elctions, and the European Union about the same amount. 26. Matthew Grainger, ‘Former Ambassador Says His Observers Will Balance US Opinion,’ Phnom Penh Post, 24 –30 July, 1998, 4. 27. Matthew Grainger, ‘Foreign Observers Gagged Until after Polls,’ Phnom Penh Post, 19 June, 2 July 1998, 4. 28. ‘CPP May Go Solo in Next Government,’ Phnom Penh Post, 7–20 August, 1998, 1, 12.

190 Notes 29. See: Peter Schier, ‘How the Seat Allocation Formulas Make all the Difference,’ Phnom Penh Post, 21 August–3 September 1998, 6–7. 30. ‘How Powerful the People? Lessons for Democracy Square,’ Phnom Penh Post, 4 –17 September, 1998, 1, 5. 31. AFP, 17 September 1998.

11 Global Governance and the Nature of International Conflict Resolution 1. The journal has been published since 1995 by Lynne Rienner Publishers in cooperation with the United Nations University and the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS). The journal deals with the concept of global governance itself – see: Lawrence S. Finkelstein, ‘What is Global Governance’, vol. 1, no. 3 (September–December 1995), 367–72 – and also with the ramifications of the concept in other areas of research – see: Peter Uvin and Isabelle Biagiotti, ‘Global Governance and the ‘New’ Political Conditionality,’ vol 2, no. 3 (September–December 1996), 377– 400. 2. The work of James N. Rosenau is quite emblematic of this strand of research. See, for instance, his Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier. Exploring Governance in a Turbulent World, Cambridge Studies in International Relations: 53 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); ‘Governance, Order and Change in World Politics,’ in Governance Without Government: Order and Change in World Politics, Cambridge Studies in International Relations: 20, James N. Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); ‘Governance in the 21st Century,’ Global Governance, 1, no. 1 ( January–April 1995), 13– 44. Other major texts include: Richard Falk, On Humane Governance: Toward a New Global Politics (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995); and David Held, Democracy and the Global Order. From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Stanford University Press, 1995). One should also note the work of the Commission on Global Governance. The Commission was established in 1992 at the instigation of Willy Brandt, the former West German Chancellor, with the aim of ‘contributing to the improvement of global governance. It [was intended to] analyze the main forces of global change, examine the major issues facing the world community, assess the adequacy of global institutional arrangements and suggest how they should be reformed or strengthened.’ Its report was published as: The Commission on Global Governance, Our Global Neighborhood. The Report of the Commission on Global Governance (Oxford University Press, 1995). The quote is contained in Annex A of this text. 3. Robert W. Cox, ‘Structural Issues of Global Governance: Implications for Europe,’ in Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations, Gill, 259–60. 4. Ibid, 260. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation. The Political and Economic Origins of our Time (Boston: Beacon, 1957 [1944]). 8. Cox, ‘Structural Issues of Global Governance,’ 261.

Notes 191 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

Ibid, 262. Ibid. Ibid. James N. Rosenau, ‘The Relocation of Authority in a Shrinking World,’ Comparative Politics, 24 (April 1992), 253–72. Rosenau, ‘Governance, Order, and Change in World Politics,’ 4. Ibid, 5. Ibid, 15–16. Ibid, 14 –15. Ibid, 14. Ibid. Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, 5. Ibid, 291. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, ‘Overview,’ in The United Nations and Cambodia. 1991–1995, The United Nations, Blue Book Series, vol. II (Department of Public Information: United Nations, New York, 1995), 3. Agenda for Peace, article 17. Ibid, articles 17 and 19. Ibid, article 19. Ibid, article 16. Ibid, Section VII. Andrew S. Natsios, ‘An NGO Perspective,’ in Peacemaking in International Conflict. Methods and Techniques, I. William Zartman and J. Lewis Rasmussen, eds. (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1997), 338–9. Also see: J. Lewis, Rasmussen, ‘Peacemaking in the TwentyFirst Century: New Rules, New Roles, New Actors,’ in the same volume; Thomas G. Weiss and Larry Minear, eds., Humanitarianism Across Borders. Sustaining Civilians in Times of War (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1997); John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1997).

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Bibliography 193 Letter Dated 30 August 1990 from the Permanent Representatives of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America to the United Nations Addressed to the Secretary-General. (United Nations Security Council document no. A/45/472S/21689. 31 August 1990.) Press Statement: Conclusion of Consultations of the Five Permanent Members of the Security Council on Cambodia, 11–12 February 1990. (This text is included in: Acharya, Lizée, Peou, Cambodia.) Proposed Structure for the Agreements on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict. Statement on Cambodia: The Five Permanent Members of the Security Council, Paris, March 13 1990. (This text is included in: Acharya, Lizée, Peou, Cambodia.) Summary of Conclusions of the Meeting of the Five Permanent Members of the Security Council on the Cambodian Problem. Paris, 15–16 January 1990. (This text is also included in: Acharya, Lizée, Peou, Cambodia.)

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Security Security Security Security

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Part II

The 1993 Elections

Alagappa, Muthiah. ‘The Cambodian Conflict: Changing Interests,’ Pacific Review, 3, no. 3 (1990), 266–71. Becker, Elizabeth. ‘The Progress of Peace in Cambodia.’ Current History, 88 (April 1989), 169–72, 200 –1. ——‘Stalemate in Cambodia.’ Current History, 86 (April 1987), 156–9, 186. Bekaert, Jacques. ‘A Nasty Little War: Cambodia,’ International Defense Review, 22 (March 1989), 289–92. Brown, Frederick Z. ‘Cambodia in 1992: Peace at Peril.’ Asian Survey, XXXIII, no. 1 ( January 1993), 83–90. ——‘Cambodia in 1991: An Uncertain Peace.’ Asian Survey, XXXII, no. 1 ( January 1992), 89–96. Bui, Xuan Quang. ‘Regard(s) nouveau(x) sur les origines du conflict CambodgeVietnam,’ Communisme, no. 14 (2e trimestre 1987), 49–76.

198 Bibliography Chanda, Nayan. ‘Civil War in Cambodia?’ Foreign Policy, 76 (Fall 1989), 26– 43. ——‘Cambodia in 1987: Sihanouk on Center Stage,’ Asian Survey, 28 ( January 1988), 105–15. ——‘Cambodia in 1986: Beginning to Tire,’ Asian Survey, XXVII, 27 ( January 1987), 115–24. ——Brother Enemy: The War After the War. San Diego, California: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986. ——‘Vietnam in 1983: Keeping Ideology Alive,’ Asian Survey, XXIV, no. 1 ( January 1984), 28–36. Chang, Pao-min. ‘Kampuchean Conflict: The Continuing Stalemate,’ Asian Survey, XXVII, no. 7 ( July 1987), 748–63. ——‘The Sino-Vietnamese Conflict and its Implications for ASEAN,’ Pacific Affairs, 60, no. 4 (Winter 1987/8), 629– 48. ——Kampuchea Between China and Vietnam. Singapore University Press, 1985. ——‘The Sino-Vietnamese Conflict over Kampuchea,’ Survey, 27 (Autumn–Winter 1983), 177–206. ——‘Kampuchea in Chinese and Vietnamese Policies: The Root of the Conflict,’ Studies in Comparative Communism, XVI, no. 3 (Autumn 1983), 203–21. ——‘Some Reflections on the Sino-Vietnamese Conflict over Kampuchea,’ International Affairs, 59, no. 3 (Summer 1983), 381–9. ——‘Beijing versus Hanoi: The Diplomacy over Kampuchea,’ Asian Survey, 23, no. 5 (May 1983), 598–618. Chen, King C. ‘The Impact of the Changing Sino-Soviet Relationship on Indochina,’ in Changes and Continuities in Chinese Communism (vol. 1), Yu-min Shaw, ed. Boulder, London: Westview Press, 1988. Eiland, Michael. ‘Cambodia in 1985: From Stalemate to Ambiguity,’ Asian Survey, 26 ( January 1986), 118–25. ——‘Kampuchea in 1984: Yet Further from Peace,’ Asian Survey, 25 ( January 1985), 106–13. Elahi, Mahmood-i. ‘Neutralization Through Aseanization: A Way Out from Kampuchea Stalemate,’ Asian Profile, 16 (February 1988), 67–77. Emmerson, Donald K. ‘The Stable War: Cambodia and the Great Powers,’ Indochina Issues, no. 62 (December 1985). Esterline, John H. ‘Vietnam in 1986: An Uncertain Tiger.’ Asian Survey, XXVII, no. 7 ( July 1987), 748–63. Etcheson, Craig. ‘Civil War and the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea,’ Third World Quarterly, 9, no. 1 ( January 1987), 187–202. Evans, Grant and Kelvin Rowley. Red Brotherhood at War. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos since 1975. New York: Verso, 1990. Findlay, Trevor. Peacemaking in Cambodia. The First Post-Cold War UN Success Story? Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Global Security, 1993. Frieson, Kate. ‘The Political Nature of Democratic Kampuchea,’ Pacific Affairs, 61 (Fall 1988), 405–27. Frost, Frank. ‘The Cambodia Conflict: The Path Towards Peace,’ Contemporary Southeast Asia, 13, no. 2 (September 1991), 119–62. Gunn, Geoffrey, C. and Jefferson Lee. Cambodia. Watching Down Under. Institute of Asian Studies. IAS Monographs No. 047. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University, 1991.

Bibliography 199 Haas, Michael. ‘The Paris Conference on Cambodia, 1989,’ Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 23, no. 2 (1991), 42–53. Hémery, Daniel. ‘Viet-Nam-Cambodge-Chine: la guerre des frontières,’ Collectif. Problèmes des frontières dans le tiers-monde. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1982. Hervouet, Gérard. La Reinsertion difficile du Vietnam dans le système international: Une Perspective canadienne. Ottawa: Institut Canadien pour la Paix et la Securité Internationales, 1988. In, Thaddée. ‘Cambodge, an I,’ Politique internationale, no. 54 (Hiver 1991/2), 273–89. Jeldres, Julio, A. ‘Cambodia’s Fading Hopes,’ Journal of Democracy, 7, no. 1, ( January 1996), 148–57. Joyaux, François. ‘Réflexions sur la politique chinoise en indochine,’ Collectif. La Politique Asiatique de la Chine. Paris: Fondation pour les Etudes de Défense Nationale, 1986. Kelly, James A. ‘The United States in Southeast Asia: A Political Security Agenda,’ Washington Quarterly, 12 (Autumn 1989), 113–21. Kiernan, Ben. ‘The Making of the Paris Agreement on Cambodia, 1990 –1991,’ unpublished paper, 1991. Kiljunen, Kimmo, ed. Kampuchea: A Decade of Genocide. New York: Praeger, 1984. Koh, Tommy T.B. ‘The Paris Conference on Cambodia: A Multilateral Negotiation that ‘Failed’,’ Negotiation Journal, no. 1 ( January 1990), 81–7. LaCouture, Jean. Survive le peuple cambodgien. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1978. Lash, Jean and Timothy Stone. ‘Cambodia in Isolation,’ International Perspectives (May–June 1987), 21–34. Lau, Teik Soon. ‘ASEAN and the Cambodian Problem,’ Asian Survey, 22 ( June 1982), 548–60. Leifer, Michael. ‘The Stakes of Conflict in Cambodia,’ Asian Affairs, XXI, no. II ( June 1990), 155–61. ——Cambodian Conflict. The Final Phase? London: Institute for the Study of Conflict, Conflict Studies, no. 221 (May 1989), 1–28. ——‘Obstacles to a Political Settlement in Indochina,’ Pacific Affairs, 58, no. 4 (Winter 1985–6), 626–6. ——‘The Balance of Advantage in Indochina,’ World Today, 38 ( June 1982), 232–8. ——Conflict and Regional Order in Southeast Asia. London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1980. Lizée, Pierre ‘The Evolution of Great Power Involvement in Cambodia,’ in Southeast Asia in the New World Order: The Political Economy of a Dynamic Region, David Wurfel and Bruce Burton, eds. London: Macmillan, 1996. McAuliff, John and Mary Byrne McDonnell. ‘Ending the Cambodian Stalemate,’ World Policy Journal, 7 (Winter 1989–90), 71–105. Mochtan, A.K.P., ed. Cambodia. Toward Peace and Reconstruction. Jakarta: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 1993. Munier, Bruno. ‘La Chine et le Kampuchéa,’ L’Afrique et L’Asie modernes, 156 (Spring 1988), 62–74. ——‘Kampuchéa: Vers un déblocage?’ Studia Diplomatica, 40, no. 6 (1987), 719–26. Muscat, Robert. Cambodia: Post-Settlement Reconstruction and Development. New York: East Asian Institute, Columbia University, 1989.

200 Bibliography Peang-Meth, Abdulgaffar. ‘The United Nations Peace Plan, the Cambodian Conflict, and the Future of Cambodia,’ Contemporary Southeast Asia, 14, no. 1 ( June 1992), 33– 46. Pedler, John. ‘Cambodia: Danger and Opportunity for the West,’ World Today, 45, no. 2 (February 1989), 19–21. Pike, Douglas. ‘The Cambodian Peace Process: Summer of 1989,’ Asian Survey, 29, no. 9 (September 1989), 842–52. ——Vietnam and the Soviet Union: Anatomy of an Alliance. Boulder: Westview Press, 1987. Platero, Marion Calvo. ‘La neutralisation de l’Asie du Sud-Est: entre le rêve et la réalité,’ L’Afrique et l’Asie modernes, no. 145 (été 1985), 56–64. Porter, Gareth. ‘Cambodia: Sihanouk’s Initiative,’ Foreign Affairs, 66, no. 4 (Spring 1988), 809–26. ——‘China in Southeast Asia,’ Current History (September 1986), 249–52, 278–9. Randall, Stephen, J. ‘Peacekeeping in the Post-Cold War Era: The United Nations and the Cambodian Elections of 1993,’ Contemporary Security Policy, 16, no. 2 (August 1995), 174 –91. Ratner, Stephen R. ‘The Cambodian Settlement Agreements,’ American Journal of International Law, 87, no. 1 ( January 1993). Regaud, Nicolas. Le Cambodge dans la tourmente. Le troisième conflit indochinois 1979–1991. Paris: Fondation pour les études de defense nationale – L’Harmattan, 1992. ——‘Cambodge: Quelle nouvelle donne?’ Politique étrangère, 53, no. 4 (Winter 1988), 943–54. Roberts, David. ‘Cambodia: Problems of a UN-brokered Peace,’ The World Today, 48, no. 7 ( July 1992), 129–32. Rosenberger, Leif. ‘The Soviet-Vietnamese Alliance and Kampuchea,’ Survey, 27 (Autumn–Winter 1983), 207–31. Rowley, Kevin. ‘The Cambodian Conflict after the Vietnamese Withdrawal, 1989–1991,’ Unpublished paper. Hawthorne, Victoria: Swinburne Institute of Technology, September, 1991. Sieng, Lapresse. ‘Cambodia: Twelve Years of Suffering,’ International Freedom Review, 1 (Summer 1988), 65–74. Sihanouk, Norodom. Chroniques de guerre et d’espoir. Paris: Hachette, 1979. Smith, Roger B. ‘Cambodia in the Context of Sino-Vietnamese Relations,’ Asian Affairs, 16, no. 3 (October 1985), 273–87. Sola, Richard. ‘Chine-Indochine: de l’interaction à l’antagonisme. Première partie – La Chine en guerre: le conflit du Tonkin en 1979,’ Défense nationale, 42 (octobre 1986), 109–25. Stern, Lewis. ‘Cambodia: Diplomacy Falters,’ Current History, 89 (March 1990), 109, 135–38. Thayer, Carlyle A. ‘Comrade Plus Brother: The New Sino-Vietnamese Relations,’ The Pacific Review, 5, no. 4 (1992), 402–6. Thee, Marek. ‘The China-Indochina Conflict: Notes on the Background and Conflict Resolution – The Case of Neutrality,’ Journal of Peace Research, XVII, no. 3 (1980), 223–33. ——‘Red East in Conflict: The China/Indochina War,’ Journal of Peace Research, 16, no. 2 (September 1979), 93–100.

Bibliography 201 Turley, William S. ‘The Khmer War: Cambodia After Paris,’ Survival, XXXII, no. 5 (September/October 1990), 437–53. Van Der Kroef, Justus M. ‘Cambodia: The Vagaries of a ‘Cocktail’ Diplomacy,’ Contemporary Southeast Asia, 9, no. 4 (March 1988), 300 –20. ——‘The Endless Aftermath of Conquest: Indochina’s Refugees and Their World,’ Crossroads, no. 23 (1987), 15–27. ——Dynamics of the Cambodian Conflict. London: Institute for the Study of Conflict, 1986. ——‘Delayed Peace: The Case of Cambodia,’ Bulletin of Peace Proposal, 17, no. 1 (1986), 59–70. ——‘Kampuchea: The Road to Finlandization, 1983,’ Asian Profile, 13, no. 3 ( June 1985), 221– 41. ——‘The Kampuchean Conflict: Edging Towards Compromise,’ Asian Affairs: An American Review, 12, no. 1 (Spring 1985), 1–24. ——‘Cambodia: Whose Vietnam?’ Asia Pacific Community, no. 28 (Spring 1985), 105–18. ——‘Kampuchea: Diplomatic Gambits and Political Realities,’ Orbis, 28 (Spring 1984), 145–62. Vickery, Michael. Cambodia, 1975–1982. Boston: South End Press, 1984. ——Kampuchea: Politics, Economics and Society. London: Frances Pinter, 1986. Vuong, Than H. ‘Les colonisations du Vietnam et le colonialisme vietnamien,’ Etudes internationales, XVIII, no. 3 (septembre 1987), 545–71. Wanandi, Jusuf. The Cambodian Conflict. Tokyo: International Institute for Global Peace, 1990. Yeong, Mike. ‘Cambodia 1991. Lasting Peace of Decent Interval?’ in Southeast Asian Affairs, 103–19. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1992.

Part III Beyond the 1993 Election (1) Peacekeeping and Peace-Building Goulding, Marrack. ‘The Evolution of United Nations Peacekeeping,’ International Affairs, 69, no. 3 (1993), 451–64. James, Alan. ‘The History of Peacekeeping: An Analytical Perspective,’ In Peacekeeping: Norms, Policy and Process. (1993 Peacekeeping Symposium), 23–36. Toronto: York Centre for International and Strategic Studies (in cooperation with the Department of National Defense), 1993. Lizée, Pierre. ‘The Challenge of Conflict Resolution in Cambodia,’ Canadian Defense Quarterly, 23, no. 1 (September 1993), 35– 44. Martin, Laurence. ‘Peacekeeping as a Growth Industry,’ The National Interest, no. 32 (Summer 1993), 3–11. Pennell, Ian. ‘Non-Governmental Organisations in Humanitarian Operations,’ in International Peacekeeping. Building on the Cambodian Experience, 131–5. Hugh Smith ed. Canberra: Australian Defense Studies Centre, 1994. Peou, Sorpong. Conflict Neutralization in the Cambodia War. From Battlefield to Ballot Box. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1997. Plunkett, ‘The Establishment of the Rule of Law in Post-Conflict Peacekeeping,’ in International Peacekeeping. Building on the Cambodian Experience, 65–78. Hugh Smith ed. Canberra: Australian Defense Studies Centre, 1994.

202 Bibliography Sanderson, John. ‘Introduction,’ in International Peacekeeping. Building on the Cambodian Experience, vii-xiii. Hugh Smith ed. Canberra: Australian Defense Studies Centre, 1994. Smith, Hugh, ed. International Peacekeeping. Building on the Cambodian Experience. Canberra: Australian Defense Studies Centre, 1994. ——‘Prospects for Peacekeeping,’ in International Peacekeeping. Building on the Cambodian Experience, 201–14. Hugh Smith ed. Canberra: Australian Defense Studies Centre, 1994.

(2) Models of Negotiation Bell, David V.J. ‘Political Linguistics and International Negotiation,’ Negotiation Journal, 4, no. 3 ( July 1988), 233– 46. Cohen, Raymond. ‘International Communications: An Intercultural Approach,’ Cooperation and Conflict, 22 (1987), 63–80. ——Negotiating Across Cultures: Communication Obstacles in Inter-national Diplomacy. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1991. Der Derian, James. On Diplomacy. A Genealogy of Western Estrangement. Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987. Keens-Soper, Maurice. ‘The Liberal Disposition of Diplomacy,’ International Relations, V, no. 2 (November 1973), 231–6. Mushakoji, Kinhide. ‘The Cultural Premises of Japanese Diplomacy,’ in The Silent Power: Japan’s Identity and World Role. Japan Center for International Diplomacy, ed. Tokyo: Simul Press, 1976. Ock Yum, June. ‘Network Theory in Intercultural Communication,’ in Theories in Intercultural Communication, 239–58. Young Yun Kim and William B. Gudykunst, eds. Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1988. Rocichi Okabe. ‘Cultural Assumptions of East and West. Japan and the United States,’ in Intercultural Communication Theory, 21– 44. William B. Gudykunst, ed. Beverly Hill: Sage Publications, 1983. Weiss, Stephen. ‘Negotiating with “Romans”: A Range of Culturally-Responsive Strategies’ (unpublished).

Part IV

The 1998 Elections

(1) Dynamics of the 1998 Elections Lizée, Pierre. ‘Cambodia in 1996: Of Tigers, Crocodiles and Doves,’ Asian Survey XXXVII, no. 1 ( January 1997), 65–71. ——‘Cambodia in 1995: From Hope to Despair,’ Asian Survey XXXVI, no. 1 ( January 1996), 83–8.

(2) Global Governance Commission on Global Governance. Our Global Neighborhood. The Report of the Commission on Global Governance. Oxford University Press, 1995. Cox, Robert W. ‘Structural Issues of Global Governance. Implication for Europe,’ in Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations. Stephen Gill, ed. Cambridge University Press, 1993. Falk, Richard. On Humane Governance. Towards a New Global Politics. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.

Bibliography 203 Finkelstein, Lawrence S. ‘What is Global Governance?’ Global Governance 1, no. 1 (September–December 1995), 367–72. Held, David. Democracy and the Global Order. From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance. Stanford University Press, 1995. Lederach, John Paul. Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1997). Natsios, Andrew S, ‘An NGO Perspective’, in Peacemaking in International Conflict. Methods and Techniques, I. William Zartman and J. Lewis Rasmussen, eds. (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1997), 338–9. Rasmussen, J. Lewis. ‘Peacemaking in the Twenty-First Century: New Rules, New Roles, New Actors’, in Peacemaking in International Conflict. Methods and Techniques, I. William Zartman and J. Lewis Rasmussen, eds. (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1997). Rosenau, James. Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier. Exploring Governance in a Turbulent World. Cambridge Studies in International Relations: 53. Cambridge University Press, 1997. ——‘Governance in the 21st Century,’ Global Governance 1, no. 1 ( January–April 1995), 13– 44. ——‘Governance, Order, and Change in World Politics,’ in Governance Without Government. Order and Change in World Politics. Cambridge Studies in International Politics, 20. James Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. ——‘The Relocation of Authority in a Shrinking World,’ Comparative Politics 24 (April 1992), 253–72. Uvin, Peter, and Isabelle Biagiotti. ‘Global Governance and the “New” Political Conditionality,’ Global Governance 2, no. 3 (September– December 1996), 377– 400. Weiss, Thomas G. and Minear, Larry, eds. Humanitarianism Across Borders. Sustaining Civilians in Times of War (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1997).

Index ASEAN, 54, 71, 74, 143– 4, 157–8 Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, 157 Agenda for Peace, An, 48, 153, 168–71 Agreement Concerning the Sovereignty, Independence, Territorial Integrity and Inviolability, Neutrality and National Unity of Cambodia, 90, 97 Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodian Conflict, 90 –3 Ahmed, Rafeeuddin, 71 Alatas, Ali, 112 Anderson, Benedict, 32–3, 34 Annan, Kofi, 158 Australia, 158 Australian Plan, 9–10, 62, 64, 66–8, 78, 80 Evans, Gareth, 65, 67–8, 112 Azar, Edward E., 50 Boutros Boutros-Ghali, 168 Cambodia bourgeoisie, 30, 36–7, 83, 109, 119 Buddhism, 3, 30, 37–8, 40, 41 Brahmanism, 30, 37 bureaucracy, 35, 82, 84, 106, 108 cantonment, 77, 117 Chinese community, 36 colonial period, 31, 33, 36 Constitution, 70, 96 demobilization, 109–10 economic activity, 97–8, 103, 108–10, 119, 143 hyperinflation, 109 industrialization, 108–10 monarchy, 40 – 4, 88, 127, 136 National Assembly, 78, 156, 161

National Election Committee, 161 nationalism, 33–5 Pailin, 156 Phnom Malai, 156 Red Solution, 61, 62, 64, 72, 80 –1 society, 30 – 4, 44 –5, 109–10 state, 30, 32, 35, 37, 40, 42 Vietnamese invasion, 53, 57 Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), 11, 116, 156, 159–61 Canada, 158 capitalism, 23–6, 29, 36, 44, 82– 4, 119, 143, 166–8, 172 capitalist class, 36, 106 Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK), 54, 56, 58–9, 64 Chakrapong, Prince, 126, 128 Chanda, Nayan, 36 Chandler, David P., 37 China, 53–5, 59, 61, 63– 4, 71– 4, 80 –1, 158 Red Solution, see Cambodia, Red Solution Sino–Soviet relations, 53, 55, 63 Sino–Vietnamese relations, see Vietnam, Sino-Vietnamese relations Cohen, Raymond, 146–7 Cold War, 71, 150, 163 conflict nature of, 49–50, 144 –6 resolution, 49–50, 80, 107, 135–7, 144 –8, 149–50, 154, 159, 162, 167–70, 172–5 Cox, Robert, 15, 18, 163– 4, 166 Declaration on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia, 82, 90, 95, 103

204

Index

École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 34 Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), 96 elections July 1998, 2, 155, 159–62, 169, 171–3 May 1993, 2, 78, 124 –7, 162, 169, 172–3 European Community (Union), 161, 172

Japan, 158–9, 172 Jayavarman VII, 37

Final Act of the Paris Conference on Cambodia, 90 –1 Forest, Alain, 31–2, 34, 35, 37 Framework Document, 6, 68–71, 73, 90 France, 56, 59, 112, 158 Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendent, Neutre, Pacifique et Coopératif (FUNCINPEC), 11, 99, 125–8, 156–7, 159–61

Mitchell, C. R., 49 Morley, James W., 111 Mulder, Niels, 31

Galtung, Johan, 50 Giddens, Anthony, 19–22, 25–6, 29, 33, 103, 167 Gill, Stephen, 166 global governance, 2, 163–6, 168–70, 172–5 globalization, 163– 4, 167, 169–70 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 53, 55 Gramscian school, 15–16, 18, 25–6, 166 Gouvernment d’Union Nationale du Cambodge (GUNC), 58 Heng Samrin, 54 human rights, 10, 96, 116 Hun Sen, 56–8, 67, 71–3, 75, 78, 99–100, 127, 155–9, 161 Implementation Plan, 71, 73, 75–6, 80, 82, 92, 95 International Control Mechanism (ICM), 58 Jakarta Informal Meeting, 55, 73, 80

205

Khieu Samphan, 57, 73, 100 Khmer Rouge, 11, 30, 36, 54, 58, 61–2, 64 –7, 71–3, 78, 99–101, 110 –15, 117, 120, 125, 127–8, 156–7, 161 Klein, Bradley, 27 Leifer, Michael, 53– 4

Nam Tien, 31 nation-state, 19, 21, 23, 29, 32–3, 35, 82, 163, 167 Western models, 19, 21, 29, 32 nationalism, 32, 34 negotiations, models of, 145–8, 149–50 Nhek Bun Chay, 156 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 171–2 Norodom Sihanouk, Prince, 11, 34, 54, 56, 58, 65, 73–6, 79, 84, 88, 92, 99–100, 113–15, 120, 122, 126–7, 161 Sihanoukists, 62, 65, 87, 100, 100, 120, 125 Norodom Sirivudh, Prince, 155–6 Permanent Five Members of the United Nations Security Council (P5), 63, 65–9, 71–5, 77, 79–80, 82, 84, 88, 90, 92, 94 –7, 102, 112, 170 Paris, 46, 63 Paris Agreement, 3, 10–12, 16, 43–6, 59, 86–9, 90 –3, 95–100, 104 –5, 110, 118–20, 124, 134 Paris Conferences First Conference, 53–60, 74, 88 Second Conference, 60 –80, 88, 90 Pattaya Meeting, 63, 73–9, 84, 87, 92–3, 97

206 Index

peace, 13–9, 23– 4, 43–5, 60, 72–3, 80, 85–6, 104 –7, 133– 4 Cambodian conception, 13, 30 –2, 39– 43, 85–6, 93, 104, 122 Western conception, 13, 19–24, 85–6, 93, 104, 120 –1 peace-building, 48–50, 139– 42, 144 –5, 153–5, 174 –5 peacekeeping, 48, 101–2, 139– 42, 145, 153– 4 Pean-Meth, Adulgaffar, 30 Peou, Sorpong, 141 Pike, Douglas, 9 Pol Pot, 56, 99, 141, 156–7, 161 Polanyi, Karl, 164 Post-Cold War order, 101, 150, 163, 165–70, 175 Rainsy, Sam, 155–6, 160 –1 Ranariddh, Prince, 126–8, 155–9, 161 Ratner, Stephen R., 93–5 Regaud, Nicolas, 53, 59 Rosenau, James N., 164 –6 Samphan, Khieu, 156 Sary, Ieng, 156–7 Shaw, Martin, 21–2 Siem Reap, 161 Smith, Hugh, 140 Solarz, Stephen, 66 Son San, 54, 57–8, 62–5, 78, 87, 110 –11, 120 Son Sen, 157 Soviet Union, 53, 61 Communist Party, 63 Sino-Soviet relations, see China, Sino-Soviet relations Supreme National Council of Cambodia, 11, 46, 67–71, 73–5, 79, 81, 85–6, 91–5, 97–8, 99–102 surveillance, 21–3, 26, 28–9 Ta Mok, 157 Tambiah, S. J., 31, 157 Thailand, 30 –1, 88, 93, 100, 156, 158 Thion, Serge, 44

Ung Huot, 157 United Nations, 63– 4, 68–9, 71–2, 77, 82, 90 –1, 97, 99–101, 105, 115, 140 –1, 153, 170 United Nations Advanced Mission in Cambodia (UNAMIC), 99 United Nations Secretary-General, 99–100, 102, 115, 117–18, 153 United Nations SecretaryGeneral’s Special Representative in Cambodia, 46, 69–71, 76, 92, 94, 100, 111–12, 125, 134 United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), 10 –12, 46–7, 68–71, 74, 77–9, 81–2, 84 –6, 92–8, 100 –10, 115, 124, 140, 142–3 civil administration, 67–8, 115, 140 human rights unit, 49, 160 McNamara, Dennis, 49 Sanderson, John, LieutenantGeneral, 142 United States, 53– 4, 61–2, 65–6, 71–2, 87, 114, 122, 158, 160, 172 Vietnam, 30 –1, 53, 61, 63– 4, 72–3 invasion of Cambodia, 53, 57 Sino–Vietnamese relations, 62, 64, 88–9 Vietnam War, 36 Vietnamese Communist Party, 55, 155 violence, 14 –15, 43–5, 83, 85, 103–5, 115, 155, 166–7, 169, 173–5 Cambodian conception, 30 – 43 contextual, 39– 40, 147 instrumental, 39 Western conception, 19–29 Vladivostock (speech), 53, 55, 61, 63 Wolin, Sheldon S., 22, 29 Workman, Thom, 27