Will the United
Nations bring peace?
ON OCTOBER 23, 1991, the Cambodian peace accords were signed in Paris. On November 20, 1991, they were ratified by the United Nations' General Assembly. The country has been placed under international supervision, imposing
"responsibilities on the United Nations that are more complex, extensive and costly than for any previous UN mission."]
The accords reflect recent changes in the international situation. Essentially, control over developments in the run up to elections in 1993 is in the hands of Japan and the Western powers, and the former USSR plays no role.
They also confirm the bloody impasse into which the policy of the Khmer Rouge has led the Cambodian revolution. It seems that Cambodia will once more fall into the imperialist sphere of influence, breaking its close links with Vietnam.
However the future remains uncertain in many respects, including the outcome of the UN's official objective: the re-establishment of a lasting peace, a perspective which has raised many hopes in a country that has experienced 21 years
CAMBODIA talist development here can immediately draw on far more vigorous regional and national sources than in many of the Eastof wars. PIERRE ROUSSET - December 17, 1991
T HE October 1991 accords came
at the end of years of difficult negotiations.2 They contain the following clauses: • The formation of a Supreme National Council (SNC), with 12 members, including the four Khmer "factions" (the Phnom Penh regime, the Sihanoukists, the Khmer Rouge and the movement led by Son Sann, a right wing politician).
• Prince Norodom Sihanouk, now 70 years old, has been named as the SNC's president, and is now recognized as head of state by at least three of the four factions.
• The country has been placed under UN supervision. 3 The first military contingents have already arrived, but the bulk of the forces will only arrive in six months time. In an exceptional measure, the UN has been authorized to take direct control of the country's main administrative mechanisms, in particular the ministries of defence, foreign affairs, public security and information. It must, finally, supervise the holding of elections in 1993.
• Meanwhile, the UN must regroup and then disarm all the Cambodian armed forces and demobilize "at least" 70%: check that purchases of arms from abroad have ceased; impose respect for human rights; and ensure the clearing of mines from the battle zones to allow the displaced population to return.4
The total cost of this intervention is considerable - presently calculated at between one and two billion dollars. The necessary funds have not yet been formally granted by the governments one of the first unknowns: the UN's "Operation Cambodia" may be bankrupted before it is con-
The Paris accords open the way for the re-development of capitalism in Cambodia. Foreign investors will be interested in exploiting the country's natural resources: offshore oil, wood, rubber, mining products, fish and so on. Economic missions are following one another into Phnom Penh, accompanying the diplomats. However, while the situation remains unstable it is likely that Japan and the West will proceed cautiously, above all as far as oil prospecting is concerned.
The full expansion of a neo-colonial economy requires, furthermore, various preconditions: the green light and loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the formalization of intergovernmental agreements, the restoration of the physical infrastructure, including the road network, which has been nearly destroyed, and the setting up of a new financial system. However capiern European countries.
Cambodia is already a crossroads in a regional trade and smuggling network which connects South East Asia (starting with Thailand), Taiwan and southern China. In this area, trans-national Chinese capital disposes of strong banking networks. Fortunes have been built up in the country itself, where the Sino-Cambodian bourgeoisie has regained its footing.
### Flood of functionaries
The United Nations intervention is also going to give a powerful impetus to the process, given its massive and concentrated character. There will be around 20,000 UN civil and military functionaries with considerable purchasing power. They will attract many other "clients" (journalists, people, tourists) into Phnom Penh, which already has a population of 900,000, and some provincial centres. Aid missions will multiply. Here also, 1. Tommy Koh, a member of Singapore's delegation at the Paris conference on Cambodia, International Herald Tribune, November 1, 1991. 2. See /V 183, April 23, 1991. 3. The UN forces are called, respectively, UNAMIC (UN Advance Mission in Cambodia) and UNTAC (UN Transitional Authority for Cambodia). 4. Numerous areas of Cambodia are heavily mined, causing great suffering to the civilian population. The percentage of amputees in the country is extremely high. See Jon Lidén, Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), November 21, 1991. 5. See in particular Stephen J. Solarz, chair of the Asian and Pacific Affairs sub-committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, in the International Herald Tribune, November 14, 1991. He estimates the cost of the US contribution at several hundred million dollars
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Vietnam - political prisoners released
STARTING in mid-November 1991, a number of political prisoners have been released in Vietnam and others are to be set free in coming months.
1. See IV 201, March 4, 1991, and 209, June 24, 1991.
2. See TV 213, September 13, 1991.
3. Le Monde, December 1 and 2, 1991; International Herald Tribune, December 4, 1991.
International Viewpoint #220 • January 20, 1992
CAMBODIA significant funds will be mobilized — the rebuilding of the infrastructure requires at least $900m. Sectors like transport (from air travel to taxis), building and hotels, are going to burgeon.
The economic fallout from Operation
Those released include a "dissident", the former Communist militant and writer Duong Thu Huong, as well as figures from the counter-revolutionary regime and army imprisoned since 1975. Duong Thu Huong was arrested on April 14, 1991. This 44 year old woman, a long time Communist, and a volunteer during the American war, has never renounced her past. But she com-
Emitted the crime of publicly denouncing the regime of the so-called "dictatorship of the proletariat" and "democratic centralism" in force in Vietnam; that is to say the monopoly hold of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) over the country's socio-political life and that of the party leadership over the VCP itself.
The CP apparatus meant to make an example by imprisoning Huong: no one should question its authority. More recently, the party demanded that she ask for pardon as a condition for her release. but Duong Thu Huong refused to make a statement that would be tantamount to an admission of guilt. Since April 1991, a significant solidarity campaign has been undertak-
Men, notably in France, for the release of this writer.'
A Catholic priest, the Reverend Le Thanh Que, has recently been freed, as well as a poet, Nguyên Chi Thien. The latter, 49 years old, had previously been imprisoned from 1958 to the end of the 1970s. He was re arrested in
1979, but has never been brought to trial.
Finally, the Vietnamese leadership has announced that the last occupants of the "re-education camps" are to be be progressively released — this involves around a hundred people. The releases, which began in mid-
November, will go on until February or March 1992. Many officers in the counter-revolutionary army and top officials of the Saigon regime were imprisoned in these camps after the 1975 victory. Vo Dai Ton, a former lieutenant-colonel in the Saigon army, arrested in 1981 on the Laotian frontier when he tried to launch an anti-Communist guerilla struggle, was also set free on December 9.
These "appeasement" measures come after the holding, in June 1991, of the VCP's 7th Congress, at a time when the regime is trying to renew dialogue with critical intellectuals and when it is taking diplomatic initiatives, and supporting the Cambodian agreement.2 However they do not seem to signal a real change of line on repression, as is shown by the Nguyen Dan Que affair.
This doctor was sentenced to 20 years in prison on November 29, 1991.
The charges, as transmitted by the press agencies, are all connected with crimes of opinion and in no way justify such a sentence. Nguyen Dan Que has already been imprisoned from 1978 to 1988. This time he has been sentenced for distributing a petition in favour of "pluralist" elections, launching appeals for "the abolition of socialism" and translating, as a member of
Amnesty International, some Vietnamese documents.
Here we find all the themes of the national security obsession shown by the VCP leadership in the run-up to the 7th congress: the prohibition of any mention of "pluralism", having links with the "foreigner", and giving unauthorized expression to one's critical opinions and writings. The trial of Nguyen Dan
Que is a warning against dissident temptations.
This continuity of orientation was also expressed at the last plenum of the VCP's Central Committee, which met from November 25 to December 4. On the one hand, the CC took decisions to support the development of the private sector (economic liberalization). On the other, it announced that the new, amended, constitution would continue to embody the "leading role of the CP" that is, a single-party regime (no political liberalization). The CP leadership's proposal that Lee Kuan Yew should become their advisor on economic matters was an ideologically symbolic diplomatic manoeuvre. As we know, Lee Kuan Yew, the highly authoritarian former premier of Singapore, is no expert on socialism. However, he does know a bit about dependent and repressive capitalism. — Pierre Rousset *
8
Cambodia will interest many people and weigh on political developments. However, this speculative brush fire may well be superficial and give way to a crisis, when, in two years, the UN forces leave.
Another question remains in abeyance. What will happen in the countryside, where the great majority of the eight million Cambodians live? The present develeconomy, even if the trade networks of the local bourgeoisie irrigate the countryside. Highly individualized, Khmer peasaccommodate itself to a market economy, but the irruption of wild capitalism may open a sharp social crisis, from which the Khmer Rouge will certainly hope to prof-
The restoration of food production is slow, particularly because of mines and the lack of draught animals. The rice harvest for 1990 (1.86 million tonnes) is an improvement but is still not enough. The cultivated area in 1991 was 1.5 million hectares, as opposed to 2.5 million before the 1970 coup d'etat and the American war.
### Return of refugees
In the short term, the return of the refugees, as well as the survivors of the traditional elite, may ignite a social rural and urban conflict over property rights. There are 400,000 persons displaced by the war on the Thai frontier and 150,000 in the country itself. Their lands and housing have been occupied by others for years. Furthermore, the party of former minister Son Sann is demanding the restoration to the rich of their pre-1975 "rights".
The Paris accords have been conceived with the aim of weakening as much as possible, and even dismantling, the regime in Phnom Penh which is allied to Vietnam. The legitimate Khmer administration is supposed to be embodied in the SNC (and, by default, by Sihanouk in person).
A rapprochement between Sihanouk and Hun Sen, the prime minister in Phnom Penh, is well advanced. After having in a fashion recognized each other, on November 25, 1991 they signed a military cooperation agreement and announced a coalition government (postponed indefinitely after the riots which broke out in Phnom Penh during the arrival of the Khmer Rouge leader Khieu 6. A significant proportion of the refugees were born in the Thai frontier camps and have never been able to work. These youth, even more than their parents, might well be unable to adapt themselves to rural life and could swell the ranks of a "marginal" urban population.
The UN plan runs into trouble (update)
THE situation in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh sharply worsened as a result of the repression of a demonstration by medical stu-
CAMBODIA nal disagreements, even if this is a possibility. A real change in the Khmer Rouge line would not go unnoticed: it would require a formal self-criticism, the end of the reign of secrecy and a general renewal dents against corruption last December 21. Several demonstrators were killed by the armed forces, a curfew was Imposed and the right to demonstrate was severely limited.
The sale of public property carried out as part of a polley of privatization, Ignited a series of demonstrations that began on December
17. These demonstrations have mobilized many students - who are often from families belonging to the elite (the son of a senior officer was among those killed). Many slum residents who had been evicted from their homes by government officials hoping to realize quick prof its, also demonstrated. The corruption that has accompanied the uncontrolled sale of public property has thus already led to a sociopolitical crisis, which can only grow with the arrival of United Nations
(UN) forces
The political situation remains very unstable. Sihanouk is keeping his options open. He has authorized two of his children to enter the
Hun Sen government, but Raniriddh, the most influential of the princ es and princesses, has maintaned the perspective of an Independent
Sihanoukist movement. The Supreme National Council (SNC) met In the Cambodian capital for the first time on December 30, 1991, with the participation of Khieu Samphan, There was much concern over
The UN plan has met one of Its first setbacks: A delay in the sending of International forces until several months after the Installation of the
SNC government is being envisaged, in a country where the situation
Is extremely unstable. The situation Is not at all Improved by the fact that a new General Secretary of the UN, Boutros-Ghali, has just been appointed while questions remain as to how the operation will be financed - P. Fo, January 9, 1992
Samphan).
Underlying this rapprochement is the desire to establish a common front against the return of the Khmer Rouge to power.
But this also perhaps reflects the profound evolution of Hun Sen's Cambodian
People's Party (CPP), the former KPRP
(Kampuchean People's Revolutionary
Party)? This party, which has 30,000 members, adopted its new name at a congress on October 17-18, 1991. Taking its distance from Vietnam, the CPP declared that it had renounced Marxism and socialism. In the past such declarations have been more formal than substantial, but it is very possible this time that they express the desire of at least a part of the apparatus to participate "loyally" with Sihanouk in the reconstruction of a neo-colonial state.
This is certainly not the case with the
Khmer Rouge, who have also declared that they now support capitalism and multipartyism. In their internal documents, their leaders underline the "tactical"
aspect of the change in official orientation. Ieng Sary, for example, notes that "it is merely that our operational methods and the forms of our combat are somehow
They retain, different. "8 furthermore, their racist and xenophobic attitude towards Vietnam - and thus leave the field open for the reinforcement of Japanese, Western or Thai influence.
The Paris accords seal the collapse of the revolutionary process in Cambodia. The tragedy of the Cambodian revolution has many causes: the savagery of the American war of 1970-75; the enervating and anti-democratic heritage of French colonialism; the relative passivity of the Western working class movement in the face of the imperialist war; the international weight of Stalinism; the calculations of the Chinese bureaucracy; the internal tensions in the Indochinese liberation movements (between Khmers and Vietnamese) and so on.
But the brutal abortion of the revolutionary potential of 1975 is above all due to the policies of the Khmer Rouge, and specifically the Pol Pot faction. The purges that decimated the Communist ranks, the massive population deportations, the employment of torture as a means of government, and insane xenophobia condemned the regime to plunge further and further down into the spiral of terror.
The Khmer Rouge retain powerful resources that could allow them to profit nomic traffic in rubies); lucrative contacts with sections of the Thai army; an underground political and organizational network across much of the country; and a command structure and militant rank-and-file. There has been no sign that the movement's unity is threatened by interof the leadership, the putting on trial of existing cadres responsible for the crimes committed in the name of the revolution and so on.
The Khmer Rouge presence will continue to influence the political situation, by maintaining anti-Vietnamese pressure and perpetuating the identification of communism with a reign of terror - as was confirmed by the popular reaction in Phnom Penh, with the violent demonstrations against the arrival of Khieu Samphan on November 27, 1991, which forced him to immediately return to take refuge in Thailand?
The political geography of Cambodia is probably going to rapidly change. It is too soon to know what the replacement of the KPRP by the CPP really means, what Sihanouk or his family intends, whether Son Sann's party has a future, or what political forces the new Cambodian bourgeoisie will call into being.
Vietnam: the big loser
The big loser from the Paris accords is Vietnam, "bled white (as the Chinese wanted) by the Cambodian adventure, obliged to retreat without any real compensatory moves by either the Americans or the Chinese and forced by the international situation to again give allegiance to China. "10
The unity of Indochina, artificially cut up by French colonialism, but also the scene of revolutionary struggles which (objectively) tended in the direction of regional solidarity, has received a mortal blow. The implications of the SinoVietnamese rapprochement on Cambodia remain to be seen, but the passing of the country into the imperialist sphere of influence seems more or less inevitable.
It does not seem that the US is capable of deriving immediate advantages from the situation. They lack a regional policy (apart from a desire for revenge, confirmed by the maintenance of the embargo against Vietnam). Sihanouk, meanwhile, will not have forgotten that in 1970 hè was overthrown by a coup d'etat supported by Washington and that the US is largely responsible for the disaster that 7. The Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party was the Communist Party established in power after the Vietnamese intervention of January 1979. In October 1991, Chea Sim, aged 59, was elected president of the Cambodian People's Party and Hun Sen, aged 41, vice-president. On this congress, see Murray Hiebert FEER, October 31, 1991. 8. Quoted by Nate Thayer, FEER, November 7, 1991. 9. The Khmers Rouges were in power from April 1975 • January 1979 (when they were overthrown by th /ietnamese intervention). Their most well known lead ers are Pol Pot, Nuon Choa, leng Sary and the two nembers of the SNC: Khieu Samphan and Son Sen. O. Nguyên Quang, Dien Dan, December 1991
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International Viewpoint #220 • January 20, 1992
CAMBODIA / SRI LANKA has overtaken the country. France, the former colonial power, and Australia, which has pretensions to becoming a new power in the Pacific, have both played an active role in the UN plans and are in direct competition. However, it is probably Japan that is best placed to make its presence felt. As quiet formation of private armies by the more powerful "families". What can form the counterweight to this?
The new Cambodia Will certainly be that of the rich. In the current circumstances, it is hard to see how a popular alternative could impose itself. But it is not yet certain that the country will finally know peace. *