Cambodia and the International Community: The Quest for Peace, Development, and Democracy

Frederick Z. Brown and David G. Timberman (eds.)

Asia Society

1998

Introduction: Peace, Development, and Democracy in Cambodia—Shattered Hopes
by Frederick Z. Brown and David G. Timberman

 

Introduction

When this collection of essays was conceived in mid-1996 our purpose was to assess the progress made by Cambodians and the international community to bring peace, development, and democracy to Cambodia. At that time there was some sense of accomplishment but also growing concern about the future. Unfortunately 1997 was a dismaying year for most Cambodians and those in the international community who care about Cambodia. By spring 1997, when the first drafts of many of these essays had been written, it had become apparent that the intensification of political conflict in Cambodia was rapidly undermining the gains of the previous four years. The March 30 grenade attack on a peaceful opposition rally signaled both a qualitative escalation of political violence and, in hindsight, the jettisoning of peaceful political methods to determine who would lead Cambodia into the twenty-first century.

By 1997 it also had become clear that the commitment and coherence of the international community interested in Cambodia had begun to wane. Many of the countries initially involved no longer had common interests in Cambodia's internal affairs. The reasons are not hard to identify. First, after 1993, Cambodia was no longer the critical crossroads of the cold war and it threatened neither regional stability nor great power relations. Second, donor fatigue set in. The international community had handed the Cambodian parties a way out of their painful mess--it was now up to them to reconcile, to reorder their society, and to work their way up the development ladder the way the rest of Southeast Asia had. The tepid response of the international community to the March 30 attack reflected its growing weariness and did little to discourage the further use of force. The July 1997 coup effectively ended the awkward power-sharing arrangement that had existed since 1993 and dealt a severe blow to Cambodia's nascent democracy. The abrupt removal of First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh by Second Prime Minister Hun Sen meant that the reins of power were once more in the grasp of a Leninist party with little concern for either human rights or the fledgling sense of participatory governance that had been implanted, however tentatively, through the UN process four years before. To the Cambodian people--racked by decades of war and civil strife, still impoverished, and already deeply uncertain--the destruction of the coalition government brokered by the UN-sponsored peace process, with peremptory abductions and sudden executions, was a revisitation of the horrors of the 1970s.

Much of what had been accomplished by the international community's multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment in Cambodia consequently has been destroyed. And with Hun Sen expected to win the elections scheduled for July 1998, Cambodians and the international community, and of course the contributors to this volume, have been forced to confront the prospect of a Cambodia once again under the control of an authoritarian leader and a government staffed at the policy level by former members of the Khmer Rouge or the Communist Party between 1979 and 1991.

In response to what happened in July 1997, we felt it imperative to ask our contributors to recast and expand their essays to address more painful and urgent questions: What went wrong? What might have been done differently? What constructive role, if any, can the international community play in Cambodia, given the sad state of affairs in that country? While answers to these questions are in a sense speculative, we believe certain conclusions are warranted. This introduction provides an overview of Cambodia's recent political history to give nonspecialists the context for the essays that follow. It introduces some of the book's major themes and offers some reflections on the lessons that might be drawn from the Cambodian experiment in making and maintaining peace and what role the international community realistically might be expected to play in the future.

 

The Persistence of the Past

The roots of the Cambodia tragedy are to be found in the geography of Southeast Asia; in the centuries of national and ethnic rivalry among Khmers, Thais, and Vietnamese; and above all in a culture of zero-sum absolutism that refuses to admit the possibility of a "loyal opposition" in political life. One can glimpse the tragic predicament of Cambodia in 1998 reflected in the history of the Khmer Empire beginning in the ninth century as well as in the authoritarian habits of a civilization that flourished almost a millennium ago.

In David Chandler's essay, the persistence of Cambodia's past is applied to the Cambodia of today. The carved stone galleries of Angkor Wat bear witness to the historical struggle of the Khmer Empire to preserve its preeminence in continental Southeast Asia. First conquering, then fighting off the incursions of the Siamese, the Cham, and later the Vietnamese, the Khmer Empire collapsed in the early fifteenth century and was picked apart by its neighbors until it became a French protectorate in 1864. When Cambodia gained its independence from France in 1955 Prince Norodom Sihanouk guided his kingdom through the perils of the cold war in Indochina and sustained minimum damage compared with the disasters that befell Vietnam and Laos.

In 1970 Sihanouk was deposed. Cambodia entered a downward spiral that led to the autogenocide of the Khmer Rouge (1975–78) and to the Vietnamese invasion and occupation (1978–89). With the installation of a pro-Vietnamese government in Phnom Penh in January 1979, a new era in Indochina began. For noncommunist Southeast Asia, particularly the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the creation of a Marxist-Leninist regime responsive to Vietnamese political will and the influence of the Soviet Union (still a major force in regional geopolitics in the early 1980s) was unacceptable.

With the explicit support of China and the United States ASEAN encouraged two Cambodian factions exiled in eastern Thailand: the Khmer People's National Liberation Front (KPNLF) and the Unified National Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC). The KPNLF was republican in spirit; FUNCINPEC was monarchist. In 1979 they were joined by the remnants of the Democratic Kampuchea government, the Khmer Rouge, still steadfast in their radical Maoist-communist ideology and implacably hostile to the Vietnamese. From their safehavens in Thailand, the three groups organized small armies that conducted guerrilla insurgencies against the Vietnamese and the People's Republic of Kampuchea in Phnom Penh. The Khmer Rouge soon came to dominate the political entity created by ASEAN in 1982, the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK), which enjoyed support from ASEAN, China, and the United States. Vietnam, backed by the Soviet Union and the East European Bloc, supported the Phnom Penh regime. The Cambodia struggle had become simultaneously a civil war, a regional war, and a great-power proxy war.

Between the two opposing communist factions--the exiled Khmer Rouge and the ruling Phnom Penh regime, backed by Vietnam--there was mortal enmity. Because of the outcome of the war in 1975, which had either forced them to flee or to suffer the depredations of the Khmer Rouge, the noncommunists hated both their Khmer Rouge coalition colleagues and the Phnom Penh regime, staffed largely by ex–Khmer Rouge. It is safe to surmise that most Cambodians felt deep hostility toward one or more of these principal actors responsible for their plight. Yet given the society's Buddhist culture, which stresses the spirit of forgiveness, the Cambodian peasantry comprising the great bulk of the population was no doubt more prepared to make peace than were its political leaders. But before 1991, the fundamental obduracy and hunger for unshared power on the part of the elite leadership of all the Khmer parties concerned made compromise and national reconciliation impossible. It is this same recalcitrance that occasioned the July 1997 coup and has made a lasting political settlement extremely difficult in contemporary Cambodia.

 

The Paris Accords and UNTAC

The collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the cold war precipitated a negotiated end to the war in Cambodia. The East European Bloc had been the main supporter of Vietnam's military capability and economic development as well as the life-support system of the Phnom Penh regime itself. As Soviet influence in Southeast Asia eroded, the Chinese found it expedient to modify their geopolitical priorities and downgrade the primacy of the Cambodia issue. In September 1989 the Vietnamese army withdrew from Cambodia, satisfying the demands of ASEAN, China, and the United States. China, still smarting from the international outcry over Tiananmen Square, sought to normalize relations with several Southeast Asian states, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. Vietnam, nearly bankrupt and rife with mounting domestic discontent, was desperately promoting normalization with its ASEAN neighbors, China, and the United States.

The sea change in global and regional relations made it both desirable and possible for the United States, China, ASEAN, and Vietnam to enter into negotiations to remove Cambodia as a bone of contention. The result was the Accords on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict, signed in Paris on October 23, 1991, and their subsequent application under the United Nations Transitional Administration in Cambodia (UNTAC). The Paris Accords called for UN-administered elections to form a new government in Cambodia, ordained that the Cambodian political system be organized on the basis of liberal democratic principles, and committed the international community to assist with the reconstruction and development of Cambodia's shattered economy.

The Khmer parties to the Paris Accords were swept along on the tide of the determination of the external powers--for their own reasons--to remove the Cambodia conflict from center stage. External events associated with the winding down of the cold war preoccupied the main players in the Cambodian peace process as momentum toward a political settlement mounted. The architects of the Accords turned a blind eye to Cambodia's most intractable internal aspects, deciding that these could not be resolved at a UN conference table but rather through a process of genuine reconciliation among the Khmer parties themselves. Pragmatically the Accords may have been the most feasible compromise under the international political conditions prevailing in 1991--but they left the fundamentals unchanged, and UNTAC was charged with the task of enforcing an extraordinarily complex, time-phased scenario predicated on an environment of conciliation and compromise among the Khmer parties that did not, in fact, exist. No tradition of compromise had ever existed between mortal enemies in Cambodia's political culture. From the outset this reality made genuine national reconciliation a distant goal.

In addition, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (PermFive) failed to give the Accords the teeth necessary to guarantee compliance. For example, to ensure a neutral political environment UNTAC was ordered to exercise direct supervision over all "existing administrative structures" acting in the fields of information, foreign affairs, national defense, and public security. Clearly this was the most difficult civil mandate to execute, yet it was the one the framers of the Paris Accords were most negligent in addressing, leaving it instead to the judgment of UNTAC's high command. Whatever powers the secretary-general's special representative, Yasushi Akashi, possessed were in practice circumscribed by the PermFive who had bartered the precarious peace arrangement. Many in the UN felt that by pushing the incumbent Phnom Penh regime too vigorously on a neutral political environment, the chances for peace might be ruptured. And the Khmer Rouge, which had signed the Paris Accords in October 1991 but opted out in early 1992, remained a force that, if challenged too bluntly, could bring down the effort. All it would take, so the conventional wisdom went, was a few Khmer Rouge attacks against the 19,000-man UN military force and the deliberate targeting of international civilian peacekeepers.

If the great powers no longer deemed the game worthwhile, the underlying issues certainly were not forgotten by the Cambodians. The political environment during the election campaign period of 1993 was far from neutral. The phased cantonment and disarmament of the Khmer factions' military forces stipulated by the Paris Accords had not been accomplished, nor had the key ministries of the existing State of Cambodia government been subject to effective UNTAC supervision. The Cambodian People's Party (CPP) militias and political operatives were in a position to exert pressure, indeed outright coercion, on the population and against their principal rivals, FUNCINPEC and the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party (BLDP, the renamed KPNLF). Scores of Cambodians were killed and hundreds were injured by political violence during the UNTAC period, some by the Khmer Rouge but most as a result of CPP actions.

The extraordinary care with which the machinery of the electoral process was put in place by UNTAC's electoral component and, indeed, the actual feat of carrying off the national elections successfully masked the harsh antagonisms embedded in Cambodian society. Technically the elections were the most meticulously planned, most expensive per capita ever held in Asia. UNTAC's voter registration achieved a 95 percent (of those deemed eligible) rate of participation nationwide. In the election held May 23–29, 89.4 percent of registered voters cast their ballots. With a total of 38.2 percent of the vote and 51 seats in the Constituent (later the National) Assembly, the CPP came in second to FUNCINPEC's 45.5 percent and 58 seats. The results were a shock to the incumbent CPP, which had expected to win, and an astounding display of courage on the part of the Cambodian people. UNTAC chief Akashi rejected the CPP's charges of fraud and, on June 10, 1993, declared that the elections were fair and free. The CPP refused to accept defeat. A secession attempt in early June by eight eastern provinces had to be quashed by the UN. It was evident to many in the international community that the incumbent CPP regime still controlled the bulk of military force, the police, and civilian administration; that the CPP was determined not to surrender power; and that FUNCINPEC--the winner of the election--controlled too few guns and administrative and political cadres to assume power countrywide. In the absence of a large additional investment of UN military forces and the virtual takeover of the Cambodian government by UNTAC, some sort of accommodation to these circumstances would have to be made. Without it Cambodia would revert to civil war and social chaos--a real possibility in June 1993.

 

Power Sharing

The implicit quid pro quo of the Paris Accords in 1991 (in effect to gain Soviet and Vietnamese cooperation) had been that the incumbent CPP would have a fair shot at political dominance if it would go along with the rules of the game of UNTAC and abide by the results of the election. Hun Sen and the CPP had expected to win in May 1993, and indeed UNTAC officials and the international community generally had similar expectations. Hun Sen did not win, and he was obliged to become second prime minister to FUNCINPEC's Ranariddh. The convoluted power-sharing arrangement, which in effect led to the creation of dual governments, shaped the course of Cambodian politics from then on. In summer 1993 FUNCINPEC and the CPP joined in a provisional interim government, and the newly elected constituent assembly wrote a new constitution. This process, along with the divvying up of ministerial posts and governorships, became a test of the uneasy reconciliation. Both parties in effect were forced to make a coalition government work, if only to avoid renewed conflict and obtain the several billion dollars of international financial assistance that had been promised to rebuild the country as part of the understandings reached at Paris. David Ashley's essay, and those of David Chandler and Michael Doyle as well, describe the tribulations of the coalition government between Ranariddh's FUNCINPEC and Hun Sen's CPP that emerged in 1993.

After the new Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) was formed in October 1993, the UN and the international community remained directly engaged in the reconstruction and development of Cambodia. The country's development needs were great--per capita GNP was only $220 in 1993--but given Cambodia's limited absorptive capacity they were well within the bounds of international donor capability. The International Committee on the Reconstruction of Cambodia (ICORC), the consortium of international donors, had pledged $880 million in economic assistance at its founding meeting in June 1992. Most official bilateral and multilateral aid was directed to budget support, training, education, infrastructure repair, and basic social services. Kao Kim Hourn's essay catalogues the benefits and costs of this massive international intervention.

Increased international assistance made it possible to begin to rebuild Cambodia's shattered physical and human infrastructure; economic reform and Cambodia's reconnection to the regional economy fueled respectable economic growth. Naranhkiri Tith's essay reviews the improvements in Cambodia's macroeconomic performance but cautions that Cambodia's economic recovery is threatened by a lack of political accountability and transparency, the absence of a fair and competent judicial system, and a bloated and underpaid bureaucracy. Judy Ledgerwood discusses the challenges of socioeconomic development in rural areas, where 85 percent of all Cambodians live.

Only a few international donors continued to actively support the development of democracy in Cambodia. The UN Center for Human Rights (UNCHR) became a key defender of human rights, and a flock of nongovernmental organizations, many of them American, supported programs promoting human and women's rights, judicial reform, legislative development, media professionalism, and civil society. As Lao Mong Hay observes in his essay, for a brief period it appeared that democracy might take root in Cambodia. But the emphasis of most donors was squarely on Cambodia's economic development, the theory being that the prospect of an improved economy (if not prosperity) would eventually promote political harmony--a familiar theme for postconflict societies. The international community's interest in the political situation diminished as the months passed. With sovereignty fully vested in the new coalition government, the external signatories to the Paris Accords were not inclined to exert overt pressure with regard to the human rights abuses that became increasingly apparent. There was a sense that it was up to the Cambodians themselves to effect true reconciliation.

In 1994 and 1995, however, the possibility of making donor aid conditional was raised in ICORC's private councils in response to continuing human rights issues, rampant corruption on the part of both coalition partners, illegal logging, and the misdirection of revenues to the Ministry of Defense. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank eventually took action on illegal logging but with unsatisfactory results. The rape of Cambodia's forest resources, which is described in detail in Kirk Talbott's essay, continues in 1998 with devastating consequences: A recent report by Global Witness, a British environmental NGO active in Cambodia, estimates that forest hardwood reserves will be completely exhausted shortly after the turn of the century.

 

From Coalition to Coup

By 1996 it was all too evident that the pluralist political system and representative government codified in the 1993 constitution had not become part of the Cambodian political system as had been planned, perhaps naively, by the framers of the Paris Accords. The National Assembly had been considered the fundament of a nascent civil society. In 1996 it had become virtually powerless in the face of the CPP's dual tactic of intimidation and financial co-option of Assembly members, Ranariddh's deplorably inept leadership, and the venality and gross corruption of both the CPP and FUNCINPEC.

While the CPP cadres often were factionalized, they nonetheless managed, in true Leninist style, to keep disagreement in-house to present a relatively united front to their political foes. FUNCINPEC, on the other hand, was openly splintered by criticism of Ranariddh and weakened by the firing of Minister of Finance and Economy Sam Rainsy, which in turn led to defections and eventually to Rainsy's formation of the Khmer Nation Party (KNP). In October 1995 FUNCINPEC's general secretary (and the government's foreign minister), Prince Norodom Sirivudh, was accused of a plot to assassinate Hun Sen. He was jailed, then driven into exile. Soon thereafter Rainsy was expelled from the National Assembly. Hun Sen pursued a cunning divide-and-conquer strategy, pulling off defections of FUNCINPEC and BLDP figures, such as Khieu Kanarith and Ieng Mouley. Consequently the CPP increasingly dominated the coalition with FUNCINPEC and the BLDP, its minor partner.

Signals pointing to a national meltdown became explicit when the leadership of the Khmer Rouge (still with military forces at their command and base areas in the north and west) began to fragment. By the summer of 1996 almost half the Khmer Rouge military force broke from Pol Pot and defected to the government. The following year the faction's leadership broke into bitter dispute, eventually causing Ta Mok, the guerrilla commander, to arrest Pol Pot. David Ashley points out that the resulting competition between FUNCINPEC and the CPP for the allegiance of defecting Khmer Rouge leaders and the units they commanded was significant to the deterioration of cooperation between the coalition partners, and it eventually became the final rupture in the personal relationship between Ranariddh and Hun Sen.

On March 30, 1997, a peaceful KNP rally in front of the National Assembly was subdued by forces using hand grenades. Nineteen persons were killed, a hundred wounded, and Sam Rainsy barely escaped with his life. From this point onward any semblance of cooperation between the coalition partners ceased. Even the most optimistic analysts saw little chance for political reconciliation and assumed that, sooner rather than later, violence would again shape the future of the country.

On July 5, 1997, the CPP initiated a series of events that either killed or drove into exile many of the political leaders and senior provincial cadres of FUNCINPEC, the BLDP, and the KNP. Hun Sen's special CPP units sought out and arrested or summarily executed key members of the opposition (the UNCHR reported 41 people were killed with many dozens more unaccounted for). First Prime Minister Ranariddh and about twenty FUNCINPEC, BLDP, and KNP politicians and members of the National Assembly managed to flee to Thailand. The July coup came as no surprise to most Cambodians or foreign observers who had been following the nation's affairs since the 1993 elections. Hun Sen's compulsion for power was no secret. But the timing and tactics of the coup were uncertain, and the brutality and totality with which it was carried out were stunning.

The reaction of the international community was surprisingly strong. ASEAN, which has the most direct interest in Cambodia, postponed Cambodia's membership in the regional grouping, making it the only Southeast Asian nation to be excluded. ASEAN has had an interest in bringing an end to the conflict in Cambodia, which has extended to border disruptions and the flight of refugees. Moreover ASEAN has not wished to see a government in Phnom Penh that caters to the international illegal narcotics trade and grand scale money laundering. Reflecting these concerns, ASEAN formed an ad hoc "troika," composed of the foreign ministers of Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, to launch a diplomatic initiative intended to persuade Hun Sen to reconcile with Ranariddh and to hold free and fair elections. In spirit this initiative broke precedent with the long-standing ASEAN principle of noninterference in a member country's affairs, although Cambodia technically was not a member.

With strong U.S. urging, international financial institutions suspended loans to Cambodia, and, in what was possibly the greatest blow to Hun Sen, the UN decided to leave Cambodia's seat vacant at the opening of the General Assembly in October. Several Western donors withdrew their bilateral assistance to the Cambodian government, although some have continued aid to the nongovernmental sector. The crisis also prompted the creation of the "Friends of Cambodia," an informal diplomatic group whose members had been key players in the Paris Accords, including the United States, Australia, Canada, China, the European Union (EU), Japan, and Russia. Both ASEAN, through the troika, and the Friends of Cambodia stressed to Hun Sen the importance of creating and maintaining a neutral political environment for free, fair, and credible elections. Japan took an uncharacteristically active role by brokering a deal that satisfied Hun Sen's demand that Ranariddh be tried for his alleged crimes (it was done in absentia) and still allowed Ranariddh to return to Cambodia to contest the elections (by virtue of a pardon by King Sihanouk).

 

The 1998 Elections

As this volume goes to press, elections are scheduled for late July 1998. Once again, as they were in 1993, Cambodians and the international community are looking to elections to resolve an internal conflict and to legitimize the country's leadership through the ballot box. This task, which fell tragically short of its aim the first time, is all the more difficult now because the 1998 elections are the first that Cambodia has attempted to conduct on its own. Little is left of the UNTAC electoral infrastructure, and the involvement of the international community will be severely diminished in comparison to that of 1993.

Moreover the willingness and ability of the Hun Sen government to conduct genuinely free and fair elections is in doubt. The CPP dominates the bureaucracy and the security forces and has effectively censored the media. While opposition parties, NGOs, and journalists are, in theory, free to challenge the government, they do so at their own peril. A National Election Commission (NEC) has been created, but the opposition perceives it to be strongly weighted toward Hun Sen--despite the membership of a prominent human rights activist. Beyond the issue of political coloration, there are widespread doubts that the commission can handle the logistical challenge of managing elections in so little time. In addition the opposition is itself disorganized and factionalized. Although it would be difficult for any political group to overcome the obstacles presented by the CPP machinery, it will be even more difficult if the opposition doesn't come together. Opposition leaders, primarily Ranariddh and Rainsy, publicly hold out the possibility of boycotting the polls.

The UN and the EU have agreed in principle to assist the government in conducting the elections but reserve the right to reverse their decision if conditions warrant. That UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan has taken a strong stand with regard to international observation of the 1998 elections indicates that the UN sees the UNTAC experience as a significant precedent for peacekeeping--if the UN is seen to fail in Cambodia, can it be expected to succeed elsewhere? The U.S. government, skeptical of Hun Sen's commitment to free and fair elections, has directed its assistance to Cambodian NGOs planning to monitor the elections. As this volume goes to press, no central authority, such as the UN, has assumed responsibility for certifying whether the elections are free and fair. However, certification--or even an informal assessment of an election's outcome--requires a network of election observers to produce credible data as well as agreement on the standards for determining if an election is free. In the upcoming elections, it appears there will be neither a massive international monitoring effort nor an international consensus on criteria for judging the returns. In the event that Hun Sen wins in an uncompetitive or boycotted contest, the United States, Japan, ASEAN, the EU, and other key international actors will need to decide if they will accept the outcome and establish normal relations with the new Hun Sen government. The probability that the United States, Japan, and ASEAN will adopt differing approaches to this issue suggests that the relative cohesion exhibited by the international community since the July 1997 coup is unlikely to survive the July 1998 elections.

 

Lessons from the Past

Why, after such an immense effort on the part of the UN and the international community at large, did Cambodia spiral down from 1993 to the tragic denouement of July 1997? One reason, surely, is the relative shallowness of the accomplishments of the UN during the period of its authority on the ground in Cambodia. The UN might, with some justification, respond that never had so much money and effort been expended for so few people for so long in order to heal a war-ravaged society. But several chapters of this book offer a litany of specific reasons for UNTAC's partial failure, for example: slow deployment of UNTAC, the difficulties in executing the progressive phasing of the UNTAC process, the failure to disarm the parties, the bickering over bringing economic assistance to Cambodia during the UNTAC period, the weakness of the UNTAC civil police component, and the difficulties in monitoring and countering human rights abuses by the CPP. As David Ashley points out, by 1991 the Cambodia conflict "was a dispute left over from the cold war, not a reaction to it." It was not as much an ideological conflict as a struggle for power between feudal lords funded and supplied by foreign patrons. UNTAC's presence did not change that reality.

More fundamentally the seeds of Cambodia's continuing crisis are found in the Paris Accords themselves, in the international political climate surrounding what was supposed to be the resolution of the Cambodia issue, and in the basic assumptions underpinning what was essentially an exercise in nation building. Three of these assumptions are discussed below.

One assumption was an unrealistic faith in the electoral process as the key to solving the problems of Cambodia's conflicted society. The Paris Accords were premised on a belief that an electoral process under impartial international supervision would act as a legitimizing mechanism for the political arrangement to follow. All political groups would have a chance at power sharing. (The "comprehensive" nature of the Accords, of course, unraveled when, in early 1992, the Khmer Rouge, renounced their participation.) All other aspects of the Paris Accords and UNTAC were subordinate to the central objective of creating a legitimized government through an electoral process. It was assumed, somewhat blithely, that international bilateral and multilateral assistance and NGOs supporting constructive social change would follow this "legitimation" and thereby promote reconciliation between the CPP and the noncommunist parties that had been their competitors, at least to the point where they would not seek to resolve their differences by force of arms.

Unfortunately this was not to be. The political rivalry was too great, and the stakes were too high. Without the Cambodian political elite's genuine acceptance of the need for coexistence, the 1993 elections were in effect a continuation of mortal political conflict by other means. Moreover there was no connection between the elections and the reality of governing Cambodia. Although FUNCINPEC won the election, it could not govern due to the CPP's entrenchment and its own organizational weaknesses. Thus, a FUNCINPEC victory had the unintended effect of virtually ensuring the continuation of instability rather than bringing about an environment of political compromise that would lead eventually to economic progress and social calm. Finally, the international community retreated from its commitment to establishing a genuinely legitimate government when it acquiesced to Hun Sen's demands for power sharing.

The 1993 elections also failed to inculcate new democratic norms and behavior among the Cambodian political leadership. By allowing King Sihanouk and Hun Sen to, in effect, set aside the electoral outcome, the international community became a party to an act that sent a clear message that power politics, not the rule of law, would continue to prevail in Cambodia. UNTAC, then, offers an obvious but important lesson for future UN peacekeeping efforts elsewhere: Elections are necessary for democracy but by no means sufficient. Without broad, sustained supporting measures over a long period, elections by themselves cannot promote liberal democracy in a historically conflicted society.

A second questionable premise was that power sharing would work in Cambodia's highly conflictual and zero-sum political environment. The collapse of Cambodia's coalition government raises basic questions about the utility of power sharing--as least as practiced in Cambodia--as a way to build peace and democracy in highly conflictual societies. (In retrospect it was premature to view Cambodia as a "postconflict" society between 1993 and 1997.) The FUNCINPEC-CPP government was not a coalition in the normal sense. The leaders of the two parties were bitter rivals. In effect two national governments were established, while the CPP continued to dominate the army, the internal security machinery, the national bureaucracy, and local government. The creation of these dual governments bloated the bureaucracy, fueled corruption, and politicized even further the military and security forces. This phony political accommodation crippled decision making and created an environment inimicable to effective governance. In sum power sharing in Cambodia did not foster reconciliation; it did not promote trust or build confidence; and it did not create a new, more inclusive political center.

The failure of power sharing speaks to the difficulty of operationalizing political institutions and processes based on the rule of law, political pluralism, and nonviolent political competition in situations where the political elite evinces little or no commitment to these values. In retrospect it is clear that the coalition government created in September 1993 should have been subjected to the same international scrutiny as the election that was so meticulously carried out under UNTAC.

A third mistaken assumption made by most international donors following the elections was that an emphasis on economic development--rather than on further political development--would ensure peace and stability in Cambodia. High-level international support for the democratization of Cambodian government and society declined precipitously following the elections. Having expended immense effort, generally applauded as successful, the UN moved on to other urgent peacekeeping challenges (in Bosnia and central Africa). The focus of most international donors shifted to Cambodia's reconstruction and economic development not its continued political development. Moreover the international community's assistance to Cambodia's reconstruction and development was largely disconnected from the performance of its government and leaders. This approach has been proven to be erroneous.

The international community, perhaps under stronger leadership from the ICORC, should have made a significant portion of multilateral aid contingent upon bureaucratic reform, reduction of the army, cessation of timber cutting, and so forth. And greater emphasis should have been placed on building up countervailing centers of legitimate authority (for example, the Constitutional Council, which is mandated by the 1993 constitution) and by paying more attention to helping the National Assembly become an effective branch of government.

 

Challenges for the Future

To return to the basic themes of this volume, what will it take to bring peace, development, and democracy to Cambodia? The uncertainties surrounding the elections scheduled for July make it both difficult and unwise to speculate about Cambodia's short- to medium-term future. It can be said, however, that noncompetitive or violent elections that result in an oppressive one-party government will not advance the prospects for peace and development in Cambodia. Regrettably this scenario or some variation of it appears to be likely. With this prospect Cambodia and the members of the international community concerned with Cambodia face five challenges, the handling of which will play a major role in determining the prospects for peace, development, and democracy.

Perhaps the most immediate challenge will be to protect and, if possible, deepen Cambodia's nascent civil society. Many fear for the future of Cambodian NGOs dedicated to promoting human rights, democratization, and the rule of law. Press freedom is also in jeopardy. The international community has funded, trained, and encouraged thousands of Cambodians to believe that these values have a place in their country and should be respected. Many Cambodians have promoted these values at considerable risk to themselves and their families. They deserve the continued support and protection of the international community.

The need to protect Cambodia's civil society is just the most urgent aspect of a larger and more difficult challenge: reforming Cambodia's autocratic and intolerant political culture. Cambodia's political elite must come to understand that both the nation's and their own fortunes are better served over the long run by pluralistic and nonviolent political competition. Cambodia's history of colonialism, monarchy, radicalism, and communism makes this a difficult concept for many in its ruling circles. It may be that this will be possible only with the passage of time, leadership, and generational change. But the international community can support the process of political change by helping to ensure the vitality and efficacy of political institutions designed to channel competition and strengthen the rule of law, such as the National Assembly and the newly established Constitutional Council.

The third challenge facing Cambodia and the international community is restarting the nation's economy and putting in place economic policies conducive to sustainable economic development. Cambodia remains one of the world's poorest and least developed countries. It still suffers from the serious damage done to its human resources by the Khmer Rouge. Since mid-1997 its economy has been further hurt by the triple blows of political uncertainty, the suspension of foreign aid and World Bank/IMF loans, and the regional financial crisis.

There is cause for both concern and hope regarding the Cambodian economy. The reasons for concern are multiple. First, the commitment of the Hun Sen government to transparent and market-driven economic policies is open to question. Second, bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption will continue to be encumber on entrepreneurship. Third, foreign investment and economic aid are likely to be in short supply, especially if political conflict and high-level corruption persist. All of this may cause Cambodia's economy to become even more dominated by illegal logging and the narcotics trade. Arrayed against this disturbing prospect are two reasons for hope. First Cambodia is situated in the center of a region that, while presently facing economic setbacks, is likely to return to moderate growth within a year or two. Second, between 1994 and 1996, there was significant improvement in the economy and economic policymaking. At least this gives the country an economic foundation upon which to build. The fourth challenge is the handling of the remnants of the Khmer Rouge, particularly the treatment of those responsible for the genocide of the 1970s. The backbone of the Khmer Rouge has been broken, and they no longer pose a major threat to security. However, the Khmer Rouge can affect the short-term political situation in Cambodia in two ways. First, their lingering presence gives the government a rationale for maintaining a counterinsurgency campaign and a continued role for the armed forces in domestic security. And since the factions were not demilitarized during the peace process earlier in the decade, the possibility remains of using the armed forces against political enemies other than the Khmer Rouge. Second, reintegrating the members of the Khmer Rouge into Cambodian society will continue to be a complex and controversial issue. The reintegration of mid- and lower-level Khmer Rouge guerrillas should be encouraged and supported. But the reintegration of the Khmer Rouge leadership, particularly those responsible for the genocide and starvation of the 1970s, is fraught with moral and political problems. The sad reality is that the reintegration of these Khmer Rouge leaders may be accepted by Cambodia's conflict-weary society. But the failure of the Cambodian government to conduct a meaningful accountability exercise will almost certainly further undermine whatever belief in justice Cambodians continue to have as well as reduce the government's international respectability.

The final challenge is the need to address the highly politicized nature of the state apparatus, in particular the armed forces. The greatest shortcoming of the UNTAC period was the failure to demobilize the factions and depoliticize the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. Two actively partisan armies were left intact, barely coexisting under the thin veneer of a national military. This helped to set Cambodia up for the events of last July. It is highly unlikely that this situation can be addressed, much less remedied, as long as political tensions in Cambodia remain high. However, when there is political will to downsize and depoliticize the bureaucracy and military, the international community should offer its support to the fullest extent.

The essays that follow address these and other issues in greater detail and offer a variety of perspectives on the continuing struggle to bring peace, development, and democracy to Cambodia.