Peacebuilding in Cambodia
by Michael W. Doyle
Michael W. Doyle revisited Cambodia in May-June 1996, three years after serving as an international monitor for the 1993 Cambodian elections. This briefing reflects conclusions drawn from this recent field visit, and dialogue which occurred at an IPA Policy Forum entitled "Peacebuilding in Cambodia" held in New York on 19 June 1996.
Professor Doyle is the author of UN Peacekeeping in Cambodia: UNTAC's Civil Mandate (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995), and co-editor with Ian Johnstone and Robert C. Orr of Keeping the Peace (Cambridge University Press, 1997). He teaches at Princeton University and is Senior Fellow at IPA.
Professor Doyle would especially like to thank Mr. Sophal Ear, Ms. Atsuko Katagiri, Ms. Mallika Krishnamurthy, and Mr. Keita Tamura for their research assistance; Mr. Benny Widyono, the Secretary General's Representative in Cambodia, Ms. Genevieve Merceur, of the SGRC staff; Ambassador Dato Deva Mohammad Ridzam and Mr. Din Merican of the Malaysian Embassy in Cambodia for their hospitality and advice in Phnom Penh; Mr. Suparidh Hy and the participants at the IPA Policy Forum on "Peacebuilding in Cambodia" held on 19 June 1996.
Preface
Three years after the conclusion of the United Nations peace operation, Cambodia is on an edge between hope for a deepening peace and fear of deepening violence. Relatively little progress in building peace has been achieved since the Paris Peace Agreement and the UNTAC peace process three years ago. 1 Today, the urban economy is booming, but the continuing counter-insurgency war against the Khmer Rouge, the uncertain pace of the revival of the rural economy, and a dangerous polarization within the government plague the fragile peace. The latter two are the more serious. Informed observers now suggest that the chances of deterioration -- an escalation of violence and a collapse of the coalition government into civil war and authoritarianism -- are about as high as the chances of a continued deepening of the rule of law and democratization.The condition of Cambodia today confirms that the peace was only begun when the parties signed the Paris Peace Agreement in October 1991 and when UNTAC arrived in March 1992 to help implement it. The real tests are coming now in the peacebuilding process.
This policy briefing explores the prospects of building on peace in Cambodia in five sections: first, a concept of peacebuilding that highlights its dynamic character; second, an assessment of conditions today, including trends that favor peace; third, an assessment of trends that discourage peace; fourth, an analysis of the deeper, longer-term roots of war in Cambodian society and the successes and failures of UNTAC in addressing them; and fifth, an outline of what Cambodia and the international community can do to solidify existing progress and deepen peace.
Introduction
The 1992-1993 peace operation in Cambodia that culminated in the June 1993 elections was widely hailed as one of the UN's "peacekeeping" successes. What Cambodia needs now is "peacebuilding" -- the institutional, social, and economic reforms that can serve to defuse or peacefully resolve underlying sources of conflict. Failure to build on the degree of peace that has been achieved can unravel the peacekeeping success. Only concerted action by the government, the donor community, nongovernmental organizations, and the UN can keep the peace on track and ensure a peaceful second set of national elections scheduled for 1998.
Background
Although the Khmer Rouge (KR) rejected the peace process mid-course, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) successfully repatriated over 370,000 refugees and organized, for the first time in the UN's history, a nation-wide election from the ground up. Over ninety percent of the electorate turned out to vote -- for peace, they said. The May 23-28, 1993, election brought to power Cambodia's first elected government since the 1960's and placed Norodom Sihanouk on the throne as the reigning monarch of a new parliamentary democracy. But opposition from the Khmer Rouge and continuing distrust between the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and the National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC) resulted in numerous acts of factional violence. (CPP is the party following Hun Sen, based on the faction installed in power by Vietnam in its rescue/invasion of December 1978. FUNCINPEC is the royalist party that follows Prince Ranariddh, King Sihanouk's son.) Continuing strife stymied efforts to canton and demobilize the factional armies and to begin the rehabilitation of a society and economy devastated by the Vietnam War and four years of Khmer Rouge massacres. The national election had to be conducted amidst continuing violence and intimidation. Over the summer of 1993, a coalition government joining CPP and FUNCINPEC was patched together to avoid a repetition of the quashed rebellion that punctuated the vote count in June 1993. The counter-insurgency war with the remaining 6,000 or so Khmer Rouge holed up along the western border with Thailand produced a thousand military and uncounted civilian casualties last year. Each year since 1993, government forces have pushed the Khmer Rouge guerrillas back into the jungles during the dry season, and each year guerrillas have infiltrated back during the wet season. The war absorbs forty percent or more of the government budget and leads to more mines being laid in a country already suffering some of the worst rates of mine casualties in the world. Government forces have not been able to inflict decisive defeats on the guerrillas. The guerrillas pose no military threat to the population centers. The recent defections from the Khmer Rouge of elements following Ieng Sary may spell the end of the Khmer Rouge as substantial military force. But they do not fundamentally change the situation: effective KR forces led by even more hard-line cadres remain entrenched deep in the border jungles. It is time to contain rather than to try to defeat the KR forces, and use the resources for more desperate purposes.
Keys to Cambodian Peacebuilding
The most pressing of those purposes are the keys to peacebuilding: improving the capacity of the civilian bureaucracy and bringing economic development to the countryside. In 1993-1994 thousands of followers of FUNCINPEC were merged into the previous State of Cambodia bureaucracy controlled by the CPP, further bloating an institution already swollen with too many officials without the technical skills to administer a modern state. The capital, Phnom Penh, experienced a Gold Rush-style boom during the UNTAC period, fueled by UN spending; meanwhile, the countryside bore the added burden of inflation on top the devastation of the previous twenty years. Urban-rural inequality has continued to increase, producing rural anger with ominous overtones.
Long-term peacebuilding also requires that the government hold together long enough to fulfill its commitments to develop an impartial judicial system and to organize the crucial second national election, now scheduled for 1998. Instead, the CPP-FUNCINPEC rivalry creates a bureaucratic stalemate. The stalemate tempts both parties to purge leading dissidents and reformers. Partisan financial corruption disrupts the development process. Illegal logging bleeds funds from the national budget into personal, party and military coffers. One lower level development official recently complained that "every stump in the country has been sold at least once." The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has suspended its assistance until it is assured of budget transparency.
In the spring of 1996, the prospect of the 1998 elections reshuffling the relative power of the political parties increased the tensions between the co-prime ministers to the extent that an attempted coup took place (according to reports that circulated through the diplomatic community in Phnom Penh). The international community, led in this case by the regional neighbors in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), thus should continue to convey the importance of unity and legality to the party leaders. The UN should assist and agree to monitor the upcoming elections. International donors, now organized in a World Bank Consultative Group, should coordinate their efforts to ensure that the message has weight. But they should coordinate without imposing across-the-board sanctions for every violation of good governance. The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) contains hundreds of officials at all levels dedicated to social justice and democratic progress. The international community, just as it imposes sanctions on corruption and violence, should continue backing effective peacebuilding wherever and whenever it occurs. 2
Peace as a Spectrum
Peace is not a single or simple good, such as an absence of war or violent conflict, but is instead a complex and variable process. Especially once one looks for a long term peace, real peace requires more than an absence of violence. On the one hand, a temporary peace can be achieved through efficient coercion by a police force, but it is unlikely to last. Longer lasting peaces involve aspects of legitimacy, political participation, social integration and economic development. 3 On the other hand, one cannot define peace as nothing short of economic justice or social harmony without losing an understanding of peace as something different from and, possibly, less demanding than those other worthwhile goals. No peace is perfect. Public violence -- not to speak of private violence -- never gets completely eliminated. Isaiah prophesied that we shall know peace when we see the lamb lie down with the lion. The American comedian, Woody Allen, has added a valuable warning for our world: one of the two might not get much sleep. 4 We should thus consider peace to be a spectrum ranging from insecure to secure, or from cool to warm as depicted in the table below.
The key connection among the levels of peace is the principle that conflict should be resolved, or managed, as close to its source as is feasible, whether on the factory floor or in the local community. When achieved, this kind of conflict resolution prevents escalation of violence and avoids over-burdening the more remote institutions (including the national state), allowing those latter insitutions to play a crucial back-up role. The spectrum is not a strict ladder of development. 5 One observes elements of higher rungs, including political participation, before the lower are complete. But it does appear to be difficult, if not impossible, to secure the higher, more dynamic aspects of peace before the lower aspects of law and order are met. The question for peacebuilding in Cambodia is: how can it move up the ladder?
--------------------------
Table
The Spectrum of Peace (from "Warm" to "Cool")
6. Harmony
5. Participatory society and economy. Includes social rights, participatory industrial rights for labor in corporate organizations, and societal conflict resolution.
4. Dynamic conflict resolution through participatory government that is capable of resolving societal conflicts through deliberation and legislation. Requires productive economy to reduce demands on state.
3. Conflict resolution through the rule of law. Includes equality before the law (no impunity); a viable civil society, free from the threat of arbitrary violence; basic freedoms of the person and society (assembly, free speech) and primary conflict resolution through adjudication. Requires viable economy; effective subsistence rights.
2. Legitimate monopoly of violence. State effectively sovereign; eliminates large-scale armed opposition.
1. Fewer than 1000 battle deaths. 6
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Evidence of Building Peace
Referring to the "Spectrum of Peace,"
Cambodia today is at about level "two." It is
clearly more than "one." Equally clearly, Cambodia
today is less than "three." There is much peace,
some progress, and the war against the Khmer Rouge is
limited. There is also much less than an established and
self-sustaining peace.
1. Regional Improvement
First among the positive evidence for progress in peacebuilding is the improvement in the "neighborhood" surrounding Cambodia. Southeast Asia has gone from a 1960-80's "war-place" to a 1990's "market place."
2. Military Weakness of the Khmer Rouge
The continued military weakness of the Khmer Rouge, driven back to small slivers of territory on the western and northern borders, poses no significant threat to the population centers of Cambodia. Battle deaths seem to have been fewer than 1,000 in 1995-1996 dry season offensive. In June 1996, one expert estimated that the military casualties in the Battambang hospitals were about 1,000. 7 Civilian casualties are impossible to measure. The Cambodian state does control about 90% of the territory (much more than during the UNTAC period). The recent defections from the Khmer Rouge (see below) have considerably reduced the small threat that it once posed.
3. Parliamentary Democracy
Cambodia now has the constitution of a sovereign government, a parliamentary democracy with a monarch, King Norodom Sihanouk, as head of state. The constitution formally recognizes basic human rights of equality before the law, and electoral democracy. 8 Fear of the state is now radically lower in the cities. Leaders of civic society no longer fear surveillance and arbitrary arrest as they did before 1992. 9 Cambodia has had a successful democratic election organized by UNTAC in which the royalist party, FUNCINPEC, won 45% of the vote and the former communist party, CPP, 38%. A coalition government of those two parties continues to govern. The rule of law is thus deepening. But neither democratic pluralism nor basic human rights -- both key elements of the Paris Peace Agreements of 1991 -- is secure. The coalition government suffers from very considerable factional tension and, as noted above, occasional coup attempts, such as the one that disturbed the capital in April 1996.
4. Vibrant Economy and Society
Beyond those positive political tendencies, observers note, as a fourth feature enhancing the prospects of peace, that the urban economy and society are vibrant. Although the countryside has yet to experience the benefits, a rapidly growing market economy based in Phnom Penh has produced an increase in GDP from 1990 to 1995 of 5.9% per annum. 10 In 1995 it grew at 7.6%. In Phnom Penh, schools are packed to capacity and the streets bustle with commerce and traffic, reflecting an urban normalcy that the city has not experienced in more than twenty years. 11 There is a striking growth in the density of the organization of civil society. A civil society outside the orbit of direct state control can offer a key reinforcement for communal values and a support for public order. It also is vital to make democracy effective and manage social problems without overburdening a weak state. Diversified social power provides the foundation that makes widespread political participation effective by improving access to the state bureaucracy and the possibility of mobilizing diverse interest groups to check arbitrary power. 12 Today, fifty newspapers appear in the streets of Cambodia's cities. Cambodia now enjoys one of the freest presses in Southeast Asia according to Justice Michael Kirby, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Human Rights. 13 The local press is often irresponsible and scurrilous in its personal attacks. (It resembles in this respect the U.S. press in the early days of the republic.) But the press is remarkably free, despite occasional attempts to intimidate it, including violent attacks. A revival of traditional Buddhism, which long had a vital role in establishing Cambodian identity, has occurred. Villages rebuild temples and schools with volunteer labor and monks provide leadership. Buddhism, indeed, is the key social glue that that runs from the village to the national level. Venerable Maha Ghosananda, a revered monk and spokesman for peace and reconciliation, leads a Cambodian non-governmental organization (NGO) -- the Dhamayietra Center for Peace and Nonviolence -- that has annually marched across Cambodia to give witness to the need for and possibility of peace. 14 Hundreds of Cambodian and international NGO's (all with Cambodian staff) give civil society a voice with which to speak and limbs with which to act. Their role is not yet secure. Although freedom of association is guaranteed by the new Constitution, the law implementing the provision has not yet been passed, which leaves the actual legal status of NGO's uncertain. But some of most active successfully operate in sensitive areas, such as human rights, including the Cambodian Institute of Human Rights and Khmer Institute of Democracy. So far, they are able to do so without restraint.
Evidence of Building Violence
Yet the peace is far from secure. The counterinsurgency war against the Khmer Rouge remains the most obvious and serious threat of a wider escalation of violence. The threat is not merely the annual casualty toll, 15 but also the war's role as a source of indirect militarization with severe political and economic consequences. The defections in September and October 1996 have greatly weakened the Khmer Rouge and are thus welcome, but they have not solved Cambodia's security problems.
1. Siphoning of Government Resources for Military Conflict with the Khmer Rouge
The continuing war led to the laying of even more mines in a countryside already suffering from the effects of twenty years of uncontrolled mining and some of the worst levels of military and civilian mine casualties in the world. The war, moreover, is an immense financial burden. In 1994, total government tax revenue came to 365 billion riels. (The excahnge rate was 2,000-2,700 riels to the U.S. dollar.) Military spending alone was 392 billion, greater by 27 billion riels than national tax revenues. Total government expenditure was 1,002 billion (foreign aid making up the difference between revenue and expenditure). Military spending alone thus precluded budgetary independence and was 40% 16 of total government spending. (The real figure is much larger, an expert has suggested, closer to 70% of total government spending.) 17 Money spent on the war is money not available for more desperate purposes, among them rural development, demining, education, health care, and paying the civil service. The Royal Cambodian Army is registered at 130,000, but many of the soldiers are "ghosts," part-time warriors or non-existent names on a list for the purpose of raising battalion payrolls. The real, effective size of the army is estimated at 70,000. But even this number is problematic: too large for minimal security, too small to defeat the Khmer Rouge. Other problems are minimal training, antiquated equipment, and very low pay. Soldiers receive $20 per month; generals, $70. Even in Cambodia, this is not enough to raise a family. On top of that, battalions are not given enough supplies and logistics (transportation, fuel, food) for their forces. Officers therefore must raise their own funds to support their battalions, which produces many abuses and a very weak force. These problems are exacerbated by factional tensions in the military as CPP officers accuse FUNCINPEC officers of failing to fight against the KR, FUNCINPEC's former ally. The KR has been no threat militarily. Relying as it does primarily on portage, donkeys, and jeeps for transportation, KR forces do not have an offensive capability against the Cambodian population centers. But their forces do have a very considerable defensive capability. They are well-organized, disciplined and ruthless fighters. Well-funded from sales of timber and gems through Thailand, they have sufficient arms and ammunition. Covered with bamboo jungle, mines and swamps, the terrain of western Cambodia offers formidable advantages to guerrilla fighters. A well-informed military expert with considerable experience in Cambodia judged that the KR in May 1996 had 4,500-5,500 regulars, 2,000 militia. But all estimates are unreliable, he warned: since 1993, there have been "11,000" defections from a KR force not estimated above "10,000" in 1993 -- and yet there are "5,000" left. 18 The Royal Cambodian Armed Forces made considerable progress in the 1995-96 summer dry season campaign. The recent defections of three KR "divisions" of about 300 hundred men, each with their numerous dependents, surprised most observers. The rebellion of the cadres around Pailin and Phnom Malai who follow "Brother No. 2" Ieng Sary (former foreign minister of the KR 1975-79) reportedly broke out when the Khmer Rouge leadership tried to confiscate the four-wheel drive vehicles accumulated by the three divisions. 19 At the request of the two co-prime ministers, King Sihanouk pardoned Ieng Sary on September 14. 20 In early October, a hard-line group surrounding Son Sen and Ta Mok, who is known as "The Butcher" and the KR's most effective military commander, were forced to flee into Thailand. The Khmer Rouge are now (October 1996) formed in very small units on the northern border, between Anlong Veng and Preah Vihear. Every weakening of the Khmer Rouge should be welcomed. The restoration to the government side of gem-rich Pailin and Phnom Malai are particularly significant. The rebellion, however, has not eliminated Cambodia's security problems. More than a thousand effective hard-line cadres continue to follow nominal leaders Pol Pot (who may or may not have died) and Khieu Samphan. 21 The loyal KR forces still holed up along the Thai border appear to be fully able to keep the insurgency alive. They can still draw on bank accounts built up through the gem, arms, and illegal logging trade, now secreted in Southeast Asian banks and reportedly of about $250 million in size. 22 Indeed, the worst outcome would be a set of negotiations between the royal government and the KR defectors that further divided CPP and FUNCINPEC and ratified the effective independence of the KR defectors. This would set an even more dangerous precedent for the special privileges that are already (see below) claimed by the royal military.The strategy over the past three years has been a dry season offensive followed by wet season retreat, or stalemate. A better strategy to round up the remaining KR forces would have been to advance with Thai military cooperation from the west -- from the Thai side of the border -- into Cambodia in order to put the remaining KR in a pincer. This route would have avoided the heaviest mine fields and the densest bamboo jungles. But there was no indication that Thailand would have agreed. 23 The best strategy, however, would be to contain the KR at less cost and use the resulting military savings for economic development. This was the strategy both Thailand and Malaysia effectively employed to manage and then exhaust their own insurgencies. The attractiveness of peaceful development eroded guerrilla support; and malaria (some say) did the rest.But this does not mean that the international community should cut off the Cambodian military. The military needs helicopters and continued training even for a containment role. When the KR threat is one day eliminated, the army can be reduced to 20,000 or so. In the meantime, experts suggest, Cambodia will need 50-60,000 better trained and better equipped soldiers. 24
2. International Border Tensions
A second barrier to continued progress in building peace are the international border tensions that have arisen with Vietnam and Thailand, reflecting the un-demarcated state of Cambodia's eastern and western borders. Actual clashes and charges of encroachment occurred on the Vietnamese border near Svay Rieng when forty Cambodian farmers were chased off what they thought was their land by Vietnamese border guards. These clashes also exacerbate inter-party rivalries when they are exploited by FUNCINPEC as a way of identifying the CPP as a stooge of Vietnamese interests. 25 These tensions also slow the cooperation needed to develop the Mekong River Basin. On the western border, the lack of demarcation complicated Cambodia's efforts to isolate the Khmer Rouge from the support they receive from illegal logging and gem exporters. As a mirror image to the eastern border clashes, western border violence was used to discredit FUNCINPEC by associating it with the Khmer Rouge. These western clashes reduce the active Thai cooperation that would be needed if the KR were ever to be defeated. Border strife both east and west undermines the emerging zone of ASEAN cooperation and growth.
3. Impunity and the Rule of Law
The third barrier to peace is associated with the problem of impunity for military, police, and political cases. The KR are the worst offenders, regularly violating the most basic provisions of human rights as well as the laws of humane warfare. But the government does as well, and its violations pose the greater long-run danger to the rule of law. The May 18, 1996, assassination of Thun Bun Ly, editor of a dissident Cambodian newspaper, was widely blamed on government forces. (The Royal Government counters with an assertion that he was killed in a marital or financial quarrel.) And for the ordinary citizen in the villages and farmer in the fields, arbitrary violence with impunity is a "war" fought in his or her daily life. There has been considerable progress in improving the rule of law for ordinary crimes and civil disputes. Courts have regular procedures; judges and prosecutors have a better sense of their responsibilities and are acquiring the facilities of modern courts and the judicial infrastructure to operate effectively. Public defenders regularly appear with defendants in these cases in the major cities and operate without intimidation. 26 Nonetheless, even in these courts, judges have all been appointed by the CPP as officials of the regime. In political cases, involving CPP interests or officials or the military, observers report that judges still consult party or Ministry of Defense officials. 27 Human Rights Watch has documented cases in which the military engages with impunity in "extrajudicial executions" as well as "pillage" in the countryside. 28 The most typical crime by the military is seizure of civilian property. (But recall that this is sometimes necessary to provide essential supplies to battalions on the march). Forcible conscription accompanied by extortion (to release a son from the draft) and simple theft by military or police forces also occur. Three representatives of a highly respected, non-political Cambodian NGO told me that they had found such anger in the countryside against government depredations that villagers were saying that Khmer Rouge days were better. Then, the villagers claimed, there was much extortion, theft, and forced conscription; now there is added both corruption and wholesale alienation of land and forests to foreign expropriators. 29 Like some Russians who now speak nostalgically of Stalinism, the villagers may not have been expressing a positive preference for the Khmer Rouge, whose depredations have been suffered by nearly every Cambodian family. But growing rural resentment reflects the current levels of desperation in Cambodia's countryside.
4. Political Factionalization
A fourth factor affecting both the rule of law and the prospects for democratization is factional polarization. This is a problem that shaped Cambodian politics throughout the entire peace process. The Paris Agreements took almost ten years to negotiate. The UNTAC period was marred by serious inter-factional violence by the KR and also by CPP against FUNCINPEC. The post-UNTAC period has been punctuated by at least two and, more likely, three or more coup attempts. The first occurred in June 1993 when the a large fraction of the CPP rebelled and forced the establishment of a coalition government "a shotgun marriage," according to one senior FUNCINPEC official. The second broke out on July 2, 1994, again led by extreme elements of the CPP surrounding Prince Chakrapong and Sin Song. 30 A third allegedly was led by Prince Sirivuddh in November 1995. And the fourth, according to reports that circulated through the diplomatic community in Phnom Penh, was attempted (but failed) in April 1996. The political rivalry between FUNCINPEC and the CPP has gone though several phases. Between September 1993 and September 1994, Cambodia enjoyed unprecedented freedom for the National Assembly, press and the NGO's. Then, following the Prince Chakrapong coup attempt, Hun Sen and Ranariddh formed a close alliance against all dissenting forces. They dismissed Sam Rainsy, minister of finance, who had campaigned against corruption and they put increasing pressure on Khmer newspapers. In December 1995, the current phase of crisis emerged from the ouster of Prince Sirivuddh, one of the the most energetic and partisan of the FUNCINPEC ministers. The current issues in dispute concern the upcoming local communal elections scheduled for 1997 and the national election scheduled for 1998. FUNCINPEC is deeply concerned that it has no organizational roots in the countryside; the CPP is concerned that it may again have to run against the popular King Sihanouk, and not just FUNCINPEC. FUNCINPEC received a share of the bureaucratic spoils in January 1994 when CPP agreed to divide senior positions in the ministries with FUNCINPEC and the national bureaucracy absorbed thousands of lower-level FUNCINPEC appointees. FUNCINPEC in spring 1996 demanded a half share of district chiefs, the key agents of local government in the countryside. But CPP refused to divide the district chief posts, seeking to hold on to its monopoly of rural Cambodia. These events thus led a well-informed UN official to describe a serious and escalating deterioration in the general political situation during the first half of 1996, which began, in his view to resemble the violent electoral strife of 1993. Together these trends served as the background provocation to the dangerous increase in abuses committed by the military and police. 31 The longer-term concern revolves around the upcoming wave of elections, communal (in 1987) and national (in 1988), which may end the power-sharing system, and the incompatible sources of power in the contest between the two parties. The contested issues are what economists call "bilateral monopolies." CPP seeks to keep control of the state, which is divided at the ministerial level but CPP-run in all ministries below the top, just as half the provinces have FUNCINPEC governors but in all levels of lower local administration, CPP rules. FUNCINPEC, on the other hand, has King Sihanouk, who is the sole, widely legitimate, secular political figure in Cambodia. CPP fears that Sihanouk will abandon the veneer of neutral constitutional king, abdicate, and run against CPP or that he will not even bother to abdicate but will still lead FUNCINPEC against them, as he did in 1993. FUNCINPEC lacks local party organization outside Phnom Penh, but Sihanouk still conjures crowds. His health, some fear, is the literal lifeblood of the party. In 1997 and 1998, all may again be up for grabs. Tensions within each party exacerbate inter-party rivalry. CPP is reportedly split between hard and soft factions. In FUNCINPEC there is tension between the "expatriates" -- who spent 1975-1992 on the border or, if elite and aristocratic, in France, U.S.A. and Canada -- and the "locals" -- who lived continuously in Cambodia under the unwelcome rule of the KR and later the CPP State of Cambodia (SOC). The latter, some speculate, may prefer to join Hun Sen. Lacking aristocratic connections, many of them feel slighted by the dominance exercised by the expatriates.Tensions are magnified because neither party thinks it can afford to give up its position in the state. The bureaucracy is the sole livelihood many have known, especially the CPP. I was told by a senior CPP official that the CPP will not be thrown out, whatever the electoral results in 1998. 32 Yet the current coalition arrangement does not extend beyond the 1998 election, and the split between the two parties is deep and widening and thus seems to preclude a ready renewal of their power-sharing.
5. Constitutional Legality
Exacerbating all these tensions is a fifth factor, the lack of a settled legal order. No law is secure or constitutional unless the Constitutional Council is available to pass on its legality. Established by the 1993 Constitution but not yet implemented due to factional disputes over the balance of its composition, the Council is the ultimate repository of legal legitimacy. 33 It should have been able to offer a sense of security that decisions can be taken and enforced legally without recourse to civil war, permitting laws to acquire settled foundations and removing contested issues from unceasing bargaining and coercion. But its absence became one more indication that force, not law, could and would rule.
6. The April Crisis
These five sources of tension came together in the crisis of April 1996. On April 18, 1996, King Sihanouk flew to Paris and, according to reports, speculated about his running for the presidency. Second Prime Minister Hun Sen then declared (April 27) that Sihanouk's resignation would be unconstitutional and that he, Hun Sen, would defend the constitution, by force if need be. Rumors soon circulated around Phnom Penh and were reported in the press that Hun Sen polled the leading generals: Would they back him up with force? Three major generals agreed; the two senior generals, however -- one CPP, the other FUNCINPEC -- said "no," and quashed the coup plot. 34 The shrewdest summary of the difficult spring came from King Sihanouk himself, who issued another one of his mysterious pronouncements. Cambodia, King Sihanouk said, was very unstable -- indeed dangerous -- and trends did not bode well for free and fair elections in 1998. He accused all political parties: "The deputies of FUNCINPEC, CPP, and BLDP and Molinaka [two minor parties] prefer to unite to share power, money and other advantages." In one breath, he then deplored the large gap between Cambodia's rich and its poor; in the next, he suggested that the poor will not complain because they are Buddhists. He concluded his remarkable musings with a warning that Cambodia's entry into ASEAN, the key foreign policy initiative of the past three years, will compromise Cambodia's neutrality. 35
Roots of the Crisis
The roots of Cambodia's peacebuilding crisis lie in
historic victimization by its neighbors both near and far, in
the concentrated underdevelopment of the Cambodian economy
and polity, and in UNTAC's inability to jump-start the
process of civic reform and economic rehabilitation.
Victimization
For much of its recent postwar history Cambodia found itself in a dangerous neighborhood. Bombed by the U.S. during the Vietnam War, which radicalized the intellectuals and peasantry, it fell prey to the Khmer Rouge in 1975, the worst fanatics in the second half of the twentieth century. Cambodia was rescued in 1978, but only by its historic enemy, Vietnam; and then it was occupied by Vietnam for a decade. As a result, Cambodia lacked the space in which to address the key challenges of modern development. It has faced crisis after crisis, and each before it had time to adjust to or resolve the previous one. Cambodia is now, at last, simultaneously trying to recover from a combination of trials. n Cambodia is still seeking to overcome the legacies of colonialism. Indeed, the first generation of post-colonial leadership is still in place. King Sihanouk was first enthroned by the French in 1941. Huge inequalities between city and countryside persist --inequalities typical of export-oriented, metropolitan-based, colonial economic development. Before these inequalities and dependencies had been overcome, the 1978 Vietnamese invasion imposed a new kind of colonialism, as the State of Cambodia (SOC) regime ruled from out of the "knapsack" of Vietnam in 1979, and Vietnam continued to govern from behind the scenes until 1989. 36 Cambodia is still recovering from the destruction inflicted by wars, beginning with the U.S. bombing and Khmer Rouge devastations, and continuing with the civil wars of the 1990's. All left deep rehabilitation needs, not unlike the needs of countries such as Vietnam and Eritrea. n Cambodia, too, suffers from a post-holocaust syndrome. The KR massacres left a desperate need for social reconstruction. Only a handful of monks, intellectuals, medical doctors, and trained lawyers survived the KR massacres. A massive social capital deficit resulted and many survivors face deep psychological burdens that discourage reconstruction. n Cambodia is also a post-civil war survivor from the pitched battles of 1979-1991 between SOC and the unified resistance on the Thai border. Like Mozambique and Angola, the reconciliation and reintegration of 370,000 refugees challenges all the country's efforts to rebuild. And, like the economies of Eastern Europe, Cambodia is undergoing a post-communist transition to a market economy, begun by the SOC in 1991. Any one of these challenges would have been sufficient for one of the poorest countries of the world. Cambodia is unique in facing them all at once. All its efforts should be judged in light of this exceptional burden.
Underdevelopment and Dependence
The difficult and deep-rooted tasks of state and economy building are still to be done. Cambodia is fortunate in having a profound sense of nationhood and a revered national religion in Buddhism, but it lacks a capable modern state and integrated modern economy. Suffering from dis-integrated underdevelopment, it needs integrated development. The productive base must spread beyond cities to the countryside. Unfortunately, current trends suggest that these inequalities will worsen before they improve or Phnom Penh will be overwhelmed by job-seekers. The overall GDP grew at 5.9% from 1990-1995. But while the urban and hotel sector grew at 20% p.a. and construction at 15.2%, the rural sector stagnated as rice production grew at 0.1% and livestock at 3.8%. 37 Expenditure patterns reveal similar discrepancies. Average households in rural areas have only 33% of the average household expenditure per day of Phnom Penh households and they have only 14% of the discretionary expenditure of Phnom Penh. 38 These large and growing gaps draw farmers into Phnom Penh and breed rural discontent and anger against the government. Discontent in turn undermines government incentives to democratize and increases the prospect of predatory human rights abuses. The gaps may also feed into possible support for the Khmer Rouge. Most important, these gaps waste the development potential of the vast bulk of the population.
The weakness of the state further complicates efforts to spur development and establish the rule of law. The Khmer Rouge destroyed the post-colonial state which Cambodia inherited from the French and replaced it with a regime that abandoned all normal state functions and created instead a national prison camp. The Vietnamese kept effective sovereign authority in their own hands until 1989. The SOC did accomplish some capacity-building in the 1980's. It assisted in training officials, but only very small numbers. Anyone who was literate (and politically reliable) could be considered for a judgeship under SOC. Training in Eastern Europe often involved the rote learning of a weak technology -- and in Bulgarian or German at that. Many able individuals made the most of the East Bloc training, but the training was not that useful in coping with modern capitalist management and the dynamic development standards of contemporary East Asia. I met one official in his late forties who had already learned Khmer, French, Vietnamese, and Bulgarian and was now taking up English, all in the process of furthering his technical education. Nonetheless, despite the initiative and patience of officials such as this one, the Cambodian civil service is not ready to supervise modern economic development. Too few of the SOC or newly returned expatriates have experienced the responsibility of modern management. In one famous case at the Cambodian Development Council (CDC, the elite unit charged with the overall coordination of investment and foreign aid in the development plan), an approved "soybean investment response letter" was sent out to every request for information on Cambodian investments, irrespective of the sector, for six months, before the problem was identified. 39
Building States and Markets
Problems such as these are no excuse for despair. Rapid economic development can be achieved with a small and lean civil service, such as the one that led Thailand to economic growth in the 1950's. 40 The real lesson for Cambodia is the importance, on the one hand, of marketization 41 in order to reduce the overall level of demand on public management and, on the other hand, capacity-building for the civil service. Salaries today are clearly too low at $20 per month for the lower civil service and $1,000 per month for a minister. Income at those levels invites corruption and a consequent loss of national revenue. Illegal logging alone results in $100 million per annum in lost revenue when contracts do not go through the Ministry of Finance. The army is bloated far beyond national security needs. Demobilizing soldiers is rightly high on the reform agenda, but demobilization is costly in the short run. If it is attempted without a comprehensive plan to resettle former soldiers on land of their own or without another form of transitional assistance to productive work, they are likely to turn into marauders. In Uganda, one careful study found that dismissed soldiers were 100 times more likely to commit crimes than those with land or other assistance. 42 There is a broad consensus among Cambodian development experts on the need for a "leaner" and more effective state. The Cambodian bureaucracy should eventually shed ten's of thousands of officials in the civil service and equivalent numbers in the military -- while enhancing capabilities all around. An effective state should play a key role in developing the rule of law by ensuring that the state police and judiciary have the means to implement the law impartially. Incentives for military predation can only be reduced by military demobilization and improving the training and logistics of the remaining forces. And the state needs to play a key role in further democratization by planning and organizing the upcoming elections.Yet the current Cambodian state is in a very weak position. Budgetary dependence is significant: 85% of all public investment is foreign financed as is 18% of private investment. Almost one-half of the total government budget was foreign-financed -- 46% in 1995. 43 Between 1992 and 1994, aid commitments stagnated. Actual project aid and assistance commitments declined; but technical assistance (foreign experts) grew by 20-30% and direct assistance to the government budget grew from 0.5 to 27%. 44 In light of the extensive destruction in Cambodia in the past thirty years, technical assistance is both necessary and therefore welcome; but current practices may prevent capacity building. The current development strategy of World Bank is to bypass the state. The World Bank and many bilateral donors plan to contract the implementation of their projects directly with international and some domestic NGO's. In the short run, this may be necessary, but the state is not obtaining the opportunities it requires in order to build capacity. 45 A vicious circle has been drawn around reform. Lacking an effective civil service, international donors cannot entrust projects to the Cambodian state. Without experience, the state cannot build capacity. The reforms required are very difficult technically, but even more so politically, since the civil service is politically chosen and is the major source of patronage and, with the army, security for the two parties. Broader measures of trust-building appear necessary, including, for example, the implementation of the Constitutional Council and free and fair elections in 1997 (communal) and 1998 (national). Short of these broader reforms, Cambodia remains in crisis and reforms are most likely to be achieved at the local level or across a narrow sector (as illustrated below).
UNTAC's Legacy
Some of Cambodia's current problems are the product of peacebuilding that should (ideally) have taken place during the transitional UNTAC period. UNTAC achieved many successes, but it also missed some significant opportunities to reform and assist the Cambodian state. UNTAC achieved significant successes in establishing a peace over most of the country and in restoring key features of Cambodian civil society. It helped the return of refugees, encouraged the formation of Cambodian NGO's, engaged in human rights education and, most significantly, helped give Cambodian society a sense of participation in politics through the national election, thereby helping to secure legitimacy for the state. But it failed to demobilize the armies or control the SOC civil service. In 1993, the Royal Government of Cambodia inherited the continuing war with the KR, still well-armed and ready to fight, and the RGC had to accommodate both the existing SOC (CPP) civil service and add to them the newly enrolled FUNCINPEC officials. The result was bureaucratic stalemate in which the two parties blocked each other and overall government ineffectiveness was the price. Looking back, a senior FUNCINPEC official now complains that UNTAC failed to demobilize both the armies and the civil service. 46 Former UNTAC officials reply that demobilizing the civil service was never in the UNTAC mandate and that the SOC never agreed to it in the Paris Agreements. 47 But then, one should note that UNTAC did not "control" the civil service either, nor did it launch the rehabilitation (except in very minor ways) of the Cambodian economy which it was supposed to do, according to the UNTAC mandate. 48 SOC denied its cooperation to UNTAC for the purpose of effecting control when the Khmer Rouge refused to demobilize. The KR charged the opposite: it refused to demobilize when SOC refused to be neutralized. Both charges appear to have been correct. But it should also be noted that the KR denied UNTAC access to its zone; SOC did allow UNTAC to deploy in its territory (85% of Cambodia). Some observers have suggested that control might have been more effective had it been combined with training and capacity-building. (The UNTAC customs service experienced some success in this role as did the Australian police in Banteay Meanchey province in 1993.) Control/training might then have handed over a more stable, responsive and effective bureaucracy. The training relationship holds the promise of building a viable relationship for cooperative control and would have transferred desired skills, together opening up the way for a more neutral, national public civil service. 49 In the end, and whether feasible within the existing mandate or not, the lesson can be drawn that civilian control as a peacekeeping measure does not work without training for peacebuilding. Furthermore, a new regime will not be fully sovereign, or effective as a reformer and national "peacebuilder," with the old bureaucracy.
Building Peace in Cambodia
What is to be done? Cambodia suffers from a highly dependent, poor economy with a highly divided society in which there is a widening urban-rural gap and increasing overall societal polarization. Its bureaucracy is in need of capacity enhancement. In recent months it appears to be growing ever more politically unstable. Under these circumstances some now say, "Move on." Cambodia has already received the more than $2 billion spent during the UNTAC peace effort and $1.3 billion pledged in aid since then. Other countries, these critics argue, are more deserving and more capable of using the aid effectively. Still other critics urge that any and all aid given to Cambodia should be conditioned on a significant improvement in human rights. The European Parliament called for overall conditionality in discussions of a recent EU-Cambodia Agreement. The U.S. government has linked overall aid to progress on human rights. Global Witness (a UK-based NGO) called on the World Bank Consultative Group to condition aid at its meeting in Tokyo this July. So have some highly regarded experts and long-standing friends of Cambodia. 50 The problem with some of these proposals is that they seek to sculpt a new Cambodian future not with a chisel but with dynamite. Abandonment, the first option, neglects the fact that the vast majority of Cambodians are still on the world's list of neediest individuals. Moreover, the international community has a stake in the success of one of its major peace operations -- the peacebuilding phase is still underway. Cambodia made commitments in the Paris Agreements that the international community, represented by the UN, agreed to monitor and guarantee. Cambodia's regional neighbors have an especially strong incentive to keep their neighborhood productive and secure. An unstable, crime-dominated Cambodia would be very costly for Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia. Lastly, thousands of Cambodians have risked their careers by returning from abroad to join the state. Others have undertaken new and risky professions as human rights activists and journalists at home. Millions of Cambodians risked their lives to vote in May 1993. They should not and need not be abandoned.Assistance, moreover, can make a difference here, but blasting tactics can destroy a delicate opportunity. Cambodia is not doomed to stagnation and coups as some recent reports seem to imply. Assistance can make a difference by supporting those dedicated officials in the state bureaucracy and citizens in civil society committed to constitutional development. The key to successful peacebuilding today is not heavy-handed coercion but, instead, a combination of persuasion, carefully-targeted sanctions and effective assistance. This will require a coordinated division of labor among all those with a stake in a deepening peace, including first of all the Royal Government.
The Royal Government of Cambodia
One. Its first goal should be to maintain the governmental coalition and leave open the possibility of continuing it after the 1998 election, even if one party wins a majority. Administrative experience and legitimacy are scarce commodities in Cambodia today; neither can be wasted.
Two. The RGC should ensure that all donors proposing projects clear those projects through the Cambodian Development Council, which should be organized in such a fashion as to expedite clearance with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Planning. The CDC should continue to put high priorities on rural development, civil service and military reform, downsizing and capacity building.
Three. The RGC should introduce transparency in all contracts. The CDC should make all its arrangements public and the Royal Government should publish all private and public investment and aid contracts. Cambodia today faces no external threats sufficiently serious that they might justify secrecy. Nor does secrecy allow Cambodia to exercise monopoly bargaining power to improve its contract terms. Secrecy today merely serves to cover corruption. Transparency (as the United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] proposes) works to the advantage of all reformers and may, indeed, enhance Cambodia's bargaining power by limiting the ability of foreign investors to play Cambodian officials and ministries against each other.
Four. The RGC should begin now to prepare for the communal elections scheduled for 1997 and the national election scheduled for 1998. (If the 1997 local elections need to be postponed, they can be held concurrently with the 1998 national elections, but the national elections should proceed on schedule.) Cambodia, rather than some international body, should organize the elections, if for no other reason than that it is important to develop indigenous democratic capacity. To further this the RGC should establish a neutral electoral commission composed of eminent Cambodians from civil society and experts from the region and abroad to monitor the work of the Ministry of the Interior. Cambodia should seek the assistance of the UNDP for technical support and international election monitoring for the campaign and the poll (as the Ministry of the Interior has already requested).
Five. The National Assembly needs to play a more independent role in the legislative process. In a parliamentary system, party leaderships naturally exert considerable discipline. But the legislature needs capacity-building, too. It needs to serve as a better watchdog over the government, a better provider for the constituencies, and a better representative of the diversity of the popular will. 51
Six. A key confidence-building measure that could moderate the tension between the political parties would be the establishment of the too-long delayed Constitutional Council. At the present time, all Cambodia's laws live in a limbo between true legality and emergency dictate. The membership of the Council should be selected from all the political parties but encouraged to serve in an independent, national capacity (for example mandated to serve a fixed [e.g. eight-year] but staggered set of terms -- e.g. for the first Council, each third to serve four, six, or eight years respectively).
International Donors: Bilateral, Multilateral and NGO
Cambodian dependency is a problem that must be addressed for Cambodia's future. But in the short run, it is an opportunity to exercise appropriate and constructive international influence in a context where the content of national self-determination is still under contest. Today, there are still few truly neutral and national policies. The donor community should seek both to strengthen the Cambodian state and to guide its direction. In order to achieve both outcomes, donors should not adopt broad conditionality; instead they should adopt selective and coordinated conditionality.
One. The International Monetary Fund can rightly sanction the RGC for a failure of transparency in the sale of state assets, as it has done. The so-called "million meter" logging deal with twenty Thai companies was the last straw that led IMF Director Michel Camdessus to cut off $20 million in budgetary assistance planned to be disbursed in June 1996. His action sent an appropriate signal directly to the responsible officials because it sanctions the government budget. 52 But other donors should not take this as the occasion to punish the poor or undermine the many constructive development efforts now underway, some with the cooperation of other parts of the government. It makes sense, for example, for the World Bank to continue to focus on the demobilization and reintegration of excess soldiers (beginning with the disabled soldiers) even if corruption in the government is not fully addressed. As long as the World Bank can adequately monitor its programs, progress is progress. Effective national programs strengthen the state in ways that are vitally important.
Two. Given the large difficulties involved in monitoring multiple programs, it also makes sense for the donors to strive for a division of labor. If the World Bank concentrates on demobilizing the military, the European Union can concentrate on civil service. The U.S. and Japan, the two large bilateral donors, should strive to find ways to further focus their initiatives in infrastructure, rural development (small farmer credit), support for national NGO's, civil society, and education. 53 Again, each donor should condition its aid, but only on the performance of the programs it funds. France faces a painful decision. No Western power contributed more to the peace in Cambodia; none deserves more consideration from the Cambodians. But its attempt to reintroduce "francophonie" is harmful. The business language of Cambodia's ASEAN neighbors is English, which is consequently the language young Cambodians most want to learn. The student demonstrations against exclusively francophone education at the Institute of Technology last year signaled the need for change. It would make more sense to permit a concentration on English as a second language for business and law and subsidize francophone studies of art, archaeology and other aspects of Cambodia's culture in which, given Cambodia's prior colonial connection, much of the literature is written. France would earn additional good will if it subsidized study in both foreign languages. 54
Three. The UN Development Programme has developed the single most promising model for combined development. Its rural development initiative -- CARERE II, or Seila (the word means foundation stone in Khmer) -- combines rural infrastructure, local participatory decision-making, and state capacity-building. Designed as a pilot for five provinces, Seila establishes a chain of elected committees beginning with the village development committee, which elects a commune committee, which in turn elects district and then provincial development committees. The provinces are given independent budgets (as are the districts) to allocate to worthy projects proposed by the villages and communes. This is designed to be bottom-up, not top-down, democratization. It embodies the potential of building participatory, responsible, local self-determination and accountability. UNDP assists the provincial committee with technical advice designed to build planning cap-acity and responsible budgetary control at the provincial level. Seila has already won the support of the national government and five provincial governors. It will soon go into expanded operation in fifty villages. 55
Four. International NGO's have an especially important role to play in human rights. While indigenous NGO's are taking the lead in building capacity to protect human rights, and the UN (see below) is playing an equally key role as the monitor of human rights conditions, international NGO's, such as Human Rights Watch/Asia Watch and Amnesty International, are engaged in the most systematic and forthright investigative reporting. The Cambodian Genocide Program, which is funded by the U.S. government, is also vital. It is responding to the unique character of the Cambodian "auto-genocide," which calls for a distinctive approach to justice and reconciliation. All of Cambodia's current governmental factions have a record of severe, past human rights abuses, though none compare to the Khmer Rouge. Moreover, unlike the Holocaust, or even the slaughters in Bosnia and Rwanda, the Cambodian genocide during the Khmer Rouge years (1975-1979) was inflicted not by one religion or ethnic group on another but by brother against brother, relative against relative. As a lead Cambodian researcher, Chhan Youk, who is himself a survivor of labor camps and who lost a brother and sister, says, "This may not be genocide; I don't know what kind of crime it is when you kill your own sisters and brothers." 56 The Genocide Program is documenting the massacres so that someday, perhaps, when the Cambodian people want to come to a full accounting of the tragedy, they will have the records.The key to effective international action is a coordinated division of labor. Donors should resist the temptation for quick, showcase projects, and a thin set of demonstration "seed money" projects which, however good they appear on the annual report, are not likely to sustain themselves in Cambodia's challenging development environment. Long-term, focused, hands-on capacity-building is what Cambodia needs most now. NGO's and other development agencies, however well-motivated, should resist the temptation to become the de facto government of Cambodia. Cambodia must develop itself. 57 The World Bank Consultative Group should regularly meet, require donor transparency, and adopt a coordinated approach. They should continue to combine development and political discussions, as they did in their first meeting in Tokyo in July 1996. 58 They should, most of all, resist broad sanctions and introduce coordinated development assistance.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
The Association of South-East Asian Nations has a key role to play. Having been a pawn of global politics and invasion, Cambodia is eager to obtain the status of a full member of the region by joining ASEAN. ASEAN has a stake in the success of Cambodia. Cambodia will provide a vibrant market for ASEAN products and a place for investment with access to trade preferences (Generalized System Preferences) for countries such as Singapore and later Malaysia and Thailand as they graduate from that status. Failure in Cambodia, on the other hand, will generate spill-over military strife, drug cartels and regional contests for subversive influence.
One. Mekong River development is a regional development scheme that should be furthered. In Cambodia, the Mekong development can offer important improvements for transportation, tourism, flood control (which in September 1996 again overwhelmed the riverine provinces) as well as small scale, local dams. Small dams can be ecologically sound and efficient generators of electric power, and avoid the damage and displacement of population associated with many of the large-scale, power projects. One valuable byproduct of participation in the Mekong River Commission is effective regional cooperation. 59
Two. To solidify the regional peace, nothing could be more valuable than an early demarcation of Cambodia's borders. The demarcation is needed in order to proceed with the development of the Mekong. The eastern border with Vietnam crosses some of the best catchment areas and potential dam sites. Encroachment by Vietnamese farmers stirs strife between the two countries. Demarcation on the west with Thailand would contribute to the cooperation that is needed to confine and isolate the remaining Khmer Rouge. ASEAN should appoint a committee of regional foreign ministers to oversee a demarcation effort or, failing that, endorse the issue being taken to the International Court of Justice. 60
Three. Reflecting a strong commitment to regional self-determination, ASEAN has claimed a special role as the lead international organization in Southeast Asia. It should continue to exercise a special responsibility for peace in its neighborhood, taking under its wing the appropriate external engagement in managing factional conflict during Cambodia's extended political convalescence. Malaysian Foreign Minister Badawi's visit this past spring offers a good example of how neighbors can encourage conciliation. His effort has been complemented by careful diplomacy from Singapore and the Philippines. Confidential and yet concerned, this diplomacy sends a clear signal of the regional interest in the continued progress of peace in Cambodia.
United Nations
The UN embodies the international community's continuing interest in the progress of peace in Cambodia. Peacebuilding is not just an issue for Cambodians (though it is theirs first and foremost) or just for the regional neighbors. The international community risked and lost lives and more than $2 billion for true peace in Cambodia. That interest remains today.
One. It is important to renew the offices of the Representative of the Secretary-General in Cambodia (SGRC), at least through the 1998 elections. The SGRC should be designated as the lead representative of the UN so that, when necessary, the UN can speak with one voice. 61 The Representative should also serve as the lead political coordinator of UN programs, playing a special role in enhancing the appropriate division of labor and helping make the difficult political compromises that will arise. For this purpose, the local representatives of the UN, UNDP, and related agencies (including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and IMF) should establish regular meetings and keep an official record of their arrangements to coordinate. 62 These meetings could serve effectively as the local and frequent counterpart to the World Bank Consultative Group meetings.
Two. The mandate of the UN Center for Human Rights (UNCHR) should also be renewed at least through to the 1998 elections, not because Cambodia is an especially egregious offender of human rights compared to others but because of the exceptional international stake in the success of Cambodian peacebuilding. The Human Rights Center assists the Royal Government in a variety of ways, including human rights education and training, but it is urgent that it retain its active and outspoken reporting of abuses. The Center's rigorous monitoring is a valuable source of information. More important, its rigor provides an essential cover for the capacity-building, advisory and educational role (the "Asian" style) adopted by local human rights NGO's. Without the cover and umbrella of transparency UNCHR provides and can afford to provide, local human rights activists believe that they would soon be forced into silence. 63
Conclusion
The overall strategy by all the participants in Cambodian peacebuilding should be to reinforce equitable and sustainable development, promote broadly participatory politics, and build the capacity of the state. Cambodia's key peace deficits -- the urban-rural divide, the severe strife between the parties, and the weakness of the state -- will thus be addressed. If these efforts stay on track, Cambodia can avoid slipping back into war. With a legitimate and effective state holding an overall monopoly violence and a leadership motivated to deepen the peace process, it can begin to move up the "ladder" of peace to more participatory conflict resolution.In the beginning as well as the end, the responsibility for direction and success is Cambodian. But the international community -- near and far, private and public -- can provide flying buttresses to help hold Cambodia together during a dangerous and complicated peacebuilding process. What is needed is: support from below, including rural development programs such as Seila and rural participation mobilized by Cambodian NGO's such as the Dhamayietra Center; support from within, including the Royal Government's continuing efforts to build state capacity and organize a second set of free and fair national elections; support from the regional near abroad, including the Mekong Project and ASEAN quiet diplomacy; and support from the far abroad, including coordination of donors through the World Bank Consultative Group and the UN. Together, but probably only if all together, they may succeed.
Footnotes
1. See, for example, a U.S. Government Accounting Office report which suggests that little or no progess has been made toward free elections, human rights or mine clearing, Cambodia: Limited Progress on Free Elections, Human Rights, and Mine Clearing (Washington: Government Accounting Office, Feb. 29, 1996).
2. The paragraphs above draw on and update Michael Doyle, "Cambodia: The Real Tests of Peace-building Still Lie Ahead," International Herald Tribune, September 4, 1996.
3. Boulding, Kenneth, "Toward a Theory of Peace," in Roger Fisher, ed., International Conflict and Behavioral Science (New York: Basic Books, 1964) pp. 70-87 and Arie Kacowicz, Peaceful Territorial Change (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994) Chapter 1. For a valuable collection of papers on peacebuilding see UN Department for Development Support and Management Services and UN Industrial Development Organization, Post-Conflict Reconstruction Strategies, an International Colloquium at Stadtschlaining, 23-24 June, 1995 (Vienna: UN Office in Vienna, 1995).
4. Isaiah 11:6 and Woody Allen, Without Feathers (New York: Warner Books, 1976) p. 28.
5. Like any significant generalization about society this "ladder," too, would be politically controversial. If, let us say, the U.S. would rate a "4" for its extensive political democracy and limited economic democracy and thus social democracies received a "5," many U.S. conservatives would not want to give up the loss of economic freedom involved in moving to society-based conciliation. They would prefer that conflicts be resolved only in the public sector and would be ready to put up with the industrial strife that might follow.
6. This is the measure used in the Correlates of War Project, see Melvin Small and J. David Singer, Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816-1980 (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982).
7. Interviews in Phnom Penh, May 1996.
8. Stephen Marks, "The New Cambodian Constitution: From Civil War to a Fragile Democracy," The Columbia Human Rights Law Review 26:1 (Fall 1994) pp. 45-111.
9. One such leader told me that he was regularly followed by the police before 1992.
10. Ministry of Planning, Royal Government of Cambodia, First Socioeconomic Development Plan, 1996-2000 (Ministry of Planning, Phnom Penh: February 1996) p. 85.
11. The single most impressive sign of peace I saw in Phnom Penh in June 1996 was recess at the central high school when seemingly thousands of laughing, raucous, blue-and-white uniformed teenagers poured into the nearby street, either to stream off on bicycles or be met by their parents.
12. Robert Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (1989) and James March and Johan Olsen, Democratic Governance (NY: Free Press, 1995) pp. 91-139. But for a more skeptical reading of the promise of social capital see Dietlind Stolle and Thomas Rochon, "Social Capital, But How???" paper presented at the Conference for Europeanists, Chicago, March 1996.
13. "Special Representative of the Secretary-General Cites Progress on Human Rights, but Warns of Evidence of Return to Autocracy," Testimony to the Human Rights Commission of Justice Michael Kirby, April 1, 1996 (Geneva: UN Information Service, April 1, 1996).
14. Interviews in Phnom Penh at the Center.
15. Casualty estimates in 1995 were 1,000 military in Battambang hospitals, and 2,400 overall for the government forces. Interview in Phnom Penh, May 1996.
16. First Socioeconomic Development Plan, p. 90.
17. Interview in Phnom Penh, June 1996.
18. Interview in Phnom Penh, May 1996.
19. Sutin Wannabovom, "Free Market Forces Shatter Cambodia's Khmer Rouge," Reuters News, August 13, 1996 and Huw Watkin, "KR Forces May be Slashed in Half," Phnom Penh Post, August 23-September 5, 1996, p.3. The roots of the defection are interestingly explored in Ung Bun Ang, "After the KR Breakup: Who Will Benefit?" CAMNEWS, September 18, 1996. Ung Bun Ang traces the defection to the Cambodian government's ability to win the Thai gem and log traders to its side (the so-called "million meter" log concession). This followed the U.S. Congress's decision in 1994 to sanction countries giving aid to the Khmer Rouge, and Thailand's subsequent closing of the border on 27 May, 1996. At its height, according to Ung Bun Ang, the Pailin ruby trade was worth $27 million per week and the KR timber trade was worth $10-$20 million per month. For the dissident KR it may have become apparent that the only way to continue their trade was with the approval of the Royal Government, and particularly Hun Sen. The KR crisis is also reflected in shifts in China's associations. Formerly a major supporter of FUNCINPEC and the KR, Beijing is now courting Hun Sen, after FUNCINPEC established close relations with Taiwan. Beijing sent General Zhang to Cambodia for military assistance talks and arranged for a private visit from Hun Sen to the People's Republic in July 1996. Phnom Penh Post, on the other hand, suggested in a front page editorial that the KR defection was engineered by FUNCINPEC as a way of reviving the 1980's coalition between the two forces and putting pressure on the dominant CPP. See Post Staff, "Balance of Power Shifts as Leaders 'Stroke the Tiger'" Phnom Penh Post, September 6-19, 1996, p. 1.
20. Reuters News, "Dissident Khmer Rouge leader Receives Royal Pardon," Reuters, Phnom Penh, September 14, 1996.
21. Defense Secretary of State Ek Sereyvath estimates hardline KR loyalists at "just below 1,000." A Western military analysts in Phnom Penh estimates their numbers at 3,000-4,000 around Anlong Veng and a further 1,000-2,000 in the southwest. See Leo Dobbs, "Khmer Rouge Hardliners a Threat Despite Woes," Reuters News, October 15, 1996.
22. Philip Shenon, "Cambodian Arms Flow Back to Thailand," The New York Times, March 7, 1993. and Raoul Jennar, "Thailand's Double Standards Must Be Stopped," Phnom Penh Post, October 8-21, 1993, p. 8.
23. In the past, Thai generals seem to have made considerable sums by taxing KR trade, and the Thai government was reluctant to confront the army commanders.
24. Interview in Phnom Penh, May 1996.
25. Chea Sotheacheath and Chris Decherd, "VN Said to Have Chased Farmers," Cambodia Daily, June 6, 1996, p. 1.
26. I attended a session of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court with Cambodian public defenders on May 27, 1996. None of the defendants -- accused variously of breaking and entering, illegal weapons possession, sexual assault, etc. -- appeared to have been tortured or coerced. The procedures seemed professional and impartial. The public defender assured me that this was normal in these cases in that court. Other courts, especially in the provinces, do not have similar reputations.
27. Interviews in Phnom Penh, May and June 1996.
28. Human Rights Watch/Asia and Human Rights Watch Arms Project, Cambodia at War ( New York: Human Rights Watch, 1995) pp. 44-68.
29. Interview in Phnom Penh, May 1996.
30. Nate Thayer, "Coup Plot Thickens," Phnom Penh Post, July 15-28, 1994. A temporary coalition between CPP and FUNCINPEC would have been required in any case in order to obtain the two-thirds vote in the Constituent Assembly needed to ratify the Cambodian Constitution.
31. Interview in Phnom Penh, May 1996.
32. Interview of government officials in Phnom Penh, May 1996.
33. Interviews in Phnom Penh with constitutional expert and diplomats, May 1996. For background see, Kong Phirun, "Fondement du Droit Constitutionel Cambodgien," Annales de la Faculté de Droit et des Sciences Economiques de Phnom Penh 1996 (Phnom Penh: Editions Thevoda, 1996) pp. 43-52.
34. Interviews in Phnom Penh, May 1996; background in Ted Bardacke, "Power Play Threatens to Dethrone Democracy," Financial Times, March 27, 1996, p. 7; and coup plots reported in Marisa Chimprabha, "Political Disputes Threaten Stability," Bangkok Post, June 1, 1996.
35. One suspects that he hoped he was wrong and that, as so often in the past, his speaking out was designed to make sure that his predictions would not come true. Agence France Presse, "Sihanouk Fears the Next Elections Will Not be Free," printed in Bangkok Post June 6, 1996, p. 23.
36. For a thoughtful discussion of Cambodia's political legacy, see Aun Porn Moniroth, Democracy in Cambodia: Theories and Realities, trans by Mrs. Khieu Mealy (Phnom Penh: Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, 1995). For background on the Cambodian conflict see Ben Kiernan and Chantou Boua eds., Peasants and Politics in Kampuchea 1942-1981 (London: Zed Press, 1982), and Michael Vickery, Kampuchea: Politics, Economics and Society (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1986) and David Chandler's chapter, "Three Visions of Politics in Cambodia," in Doyle, Johnstone, and Orr, eds., Keeping the Peace (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
37. First Socioeconomic Plan, p. 85.
38. First Socioeconomic Plan, Table 2.3, p. 17.
39. Interviews at the Cambodian Development Council, May 1996.
40. Robert J. Muscat, "Rebuilding Cambodia: Problems of Governance and Human Resources," in Rebuilding Cambodia: Human Resources, Human Rights and Law, Fred Brown, ed., (Washington: Foreign Policy Institute, 1993), pp. 13-42.
41. The general case for marketization is made in The World Bank, From Plan to Market: World Development Report 1996 (Washington: World Bank, 1996). See also Mancur Olson, "Disorder, Cooperation and Development: A Way of Thinking About Cambodia Development," (Phnom Penh: Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP), February 1996).
42. J.P. Azam, "Some Economic Consequences of the Transition from Civil War to Peace" (Washington: World Bank, 1994) and Elisabeth Uphoff Kato's, "Quick Impacts, Slow Rehabilitation," in Doyle, Johnstone, Orr, eds, Keeping the Peace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
43. First Socioeconomic Development Plan, p. 90.
44. John P. McAndrew, Aid Infusions, Aid Illusions (Phnom Penh: Cambodian Development Resource Institute, Working Paper No. 2, January 1996).
45. "Recommendation to the International Committee on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia (ICORC) 1995" in World Bank, Cambodia Rehabilitation Program: Implementation and Outlook: A World Bank Report for the 1995 ICORC Conference (Washington: World Bank, February, 1995). See also Benny Widyono, "Reconstruction of the Post-conflict Public Administrative Machinery in Cambodia" prepared for the Inter-regional Seminar "On Restoring Government Administrative Machinery in Situations of Conflict," March 13-15, 1996, Rome, Italy, and Royal Government of Cambodia, The Administrative Reform: An Overview Prepared for the Donor's Meeting, Phnom Penh, May 10th, 1996 (Phnom Penh: Royal Government of Cambodia, 1996).
46. Interview in Phnom Penh, May 1996.
47. The UNTAC Mandate specifically charged UNTAC to exercise supervision over "agencies, bodies and other offices [which] could continue to operate in order to ensure normal day-to-day life." For background on the new features of the UN mandate in Cambodia see Steven Ratner, The New UN Peacekeeping (New York: St. Martins Press, 1995); Trevor Findlay, The UN In Cambodia (Stockholm: SIPRI, 1995); Janet Heininger, Peacekeeping in Transition: The United Nations in Cambodia (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1994); and Nishkala Suntharalingam, "The Cambodian Settlement Agreements," in Doyle, Johnstone and Orr, eds., Keeping the Peace (op.cit.).
48. On the control function see Article 6 of the "Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict" and UNTAC Mandate Annex 1, Section B; both in A/46/608-S/23177, October 30, 1991.
49. Former senior officials of UNTAC disagree, arguing in response that the parties would not have accepted so proactive a mandate at the Paris peace negotiations. All can agree that a training function, if widely implemented, would have required an increase in the UNTAC budget.
50. "News Briefing," Cambodia Daily, May 30, 1996, p. 6. See also Stephen Morris, "Who Will Help Cambodia?" in Asian Wall Street Journal, May 1, 1996. Morris, a Cambodia expert, urges that Most-Favored-Nation status for Cambodia be tied to human rights. See the suggestions as well of Sam Rainsy in favor of overall sanctions against corruption, Sam Rainsy, "Why Budget Support to the Cambodian Government Should be Reconsidered," CAMNEWS Sept. 13, 1996; and Global Witness, RGC Forest Policy and Practice: The Case for Positive Conditionality (London, May 1996). The U.S. and Australia, France and Japan also (according to U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kent Wiedemann) condition aid on the maintenance of democracy; see Agence France Presse, "U.S. Aid to Cambodia Conditional on Democracy," Washington, April 17, 1996. For similar arguments, see also William Shawcross, "Tragedy in Cambodia," The New York Review of Books, November 14, 1996, pp. 41-46.
51. U.S. Agency for International Development is currently providing some but not enough assistance to further these purposes.
52. Mathew Grainger, "IMF Freezes Funding," Phnom Penh Post, May 31-June 13, 1996, p. 1.
53. Interviews in Phnom Penh, June 1996.
54. Interview in Phnom Penh, May 1996.
55. UNDP and RGC, Project Document, CMB/95/011/01/31, CARERE2 (Phnom Penh, February 1996) and interviews with Scott Leiper, UNDP, May 1996. And for background see, Royal Government of Cambodia, UNDP, and UN Office for Project Services, Building the Foundation of the SEILA Programme: The 1996 Work Plan of the Cambodia Area Rehabilitation and Regeneration (CARERE) Project (Phnom Penh, March 1996).
56. Seth Mydans, "Side by Side Now in Cambodia: Skulls, Victims and Victimizers," The New York Times, May 27, 1996, p. 1 and "Cambodian Killers Careful Records Used Against Them," The New York Times, June 7, 1996, quote p. A8.
57. With its plethora of sectoral committees, Cooperation Council for Cambodia (the NGO coordination group) appears to be better organized than the government. It also has better staff and more substantial expertise. Still the development focus must be on indigenous capacity building. See McAndrew, Aid Infusion, Aid Illusion and interviews with development officials, May 1996.
58. Christopher Johnstone, "Tokyo Meeting Yields New Aid Pledges for Cambodia," JEI Report, vol 1996, no. 27 (Japan Economic Institute of America, July 19, 1996).
59. Mekong News, September 1995 (Mekong River Commission, 1995/2).
60. Interview at RGC ministries, June 1996.
61. In Phnom Penh during May and June 1996 many officials, including some UN officials, thought this role was played by the UNDP Resident Representative, as it is in many countries in which the UN has presence.
62. Interview with international officials and diplomatic community in Phnom Penh, June 1996, and an interview with a UN official in New York, May 1996.
63. Interviews at UNCHR and interviews in Phnom Penh, May 1996.
List of Interviews
New York
Mr. Thomas Cox, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (April 19, 1996)
Mr. Charivat Santaputra, Permanent Mission of Thailand to the United Nations (April 14, 1996)
Mr. Yukinari Hirose, Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations (May 5, 1996)
Mr. Jonathan Prentice, Department of Political Affairs, United Nations (May 9, 1996)H.E. Mr. Razali Ismail, Permanent Representative of Malaysia to the United Nations (May 9, 1996)
Mr. Richard Rowe and Ms. Genevieve Hamilton, Permanent Mission of Australia to the United Nations (May 9, 1996)
H.E. Prince Sisowath Sirirath, Permanent Representative of Cambodia to the United Nations (April 19, 1996)
Mr. Supharidh Hy (May 9, 1996)
Mr. Francesc Vendrell, Department of Political Affairs, United Nations (May 9, 1996)
Phnom Penh
Ms. Liz Bernstein, and other members, Dhamayietra Center of Samdech Preah Maha Ghosananda (June 5, 1996)
Mr. Jeffrey Cane, Personnel Management Consultant, Cambodian Development Council (CDC) (May 30, 1996)
H.E. Mr. Chantol Sun, Secretary of State, Minister of Economy and Finance; Secretary General of the CDC (May 28, 1996)
Professeur Jean-Marie Crouzatier, Faculté de Droit, Phnom Penh (May 31, 1996)Dr.
Chem Widya, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (June 3, 1996)
H.E. Mr. Dato Deva Mohd. Ridzam, Ambassador of Malaysia to Cambodia (May 27, 1996)
Mr. Din Merican, Private Sector Adviser to the Malaysian Embassy (May 27, 1996)Ms.
Carol Garrison, Executive Director, Cambodian Cooperation Council (May 24, 1996)Dr.
Edward Greeley, Director, Democracy and Governance Project, U.S. Agency for International Development (May 30, 1996)
Mr. John Harrison, Adviser to the Chairman of the Mekong Committee (June 3, 1996)Ms.
Marie Hirigoyen, Juge, Adviser, Ministry of Justice of Cambodia (June 4, 1996)Mr.
Francis James, Attorney, Legal Aid of Cambodia (May 26, 1996)
Ms. Rudi Jeung, Assistant Representative, The Asia Foundation (June 5, 1996)
Mr. Kao Kim Hourn, Executive Director, Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (June 4, 1996)
Mr. Kassie Neou, Executive Director, Cambodian Institute of Human Rights (May 25, 1996)
Ms. Elisabeth Uphoff Kato, Executive Director, PACT (May 30, 1996)
Mr. Shigenobu Kato, Minister Counselor, Embassy of Japan to Cambodia (May 24, 1996)
Mr. Andre Klap, Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP (May 23, 1996)
Professor Kleinjaens, President, Centre for Advanced Study (May 25, 1996)
Mr. Klok Buddhi, Directeur de Cabinet, Ministry of the Interior (June 5, 1996)
Dr. Lao Mong Hay, Executive Director, Khmer Institute of Democracy (May 27, 1996)
Mr. Scott Leiper, Program Manager, Cambodia Area Rehabilitation and Regeneration Project (CARERE)/Seila, UNDP (June 1 and 4, 1996)
Mr. John McAndrew, Cambodian Development Resource Institute (May 31, 1996)Ms.
Mary Grace McGeehan, Second Secretary, U.S. Embassy (May 29, 1996)
Mr. Ok Serei Sopheak, Director of Cabinet to Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng, Council of Ministers, Ministry of the Interior (June 1, 1996)
Mr. Christophe Peschoux, UN Center for Human Rights (May 31, 1996)
Ms. Pok Marina, Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (June 4, 1996)
Mr. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Human Rights Officer, Office of the United Nations Center for Human Rights in Cambodia (May 31, 1996)
Mr. Peter Scheier, Permanent Representative to Cambodia, Konrad Adenauer Foundation (June 5, 1996)
M. Didier Treutenaere, Expert, Secrétariat d'Etat à la Fonction Publique (June 5, 1996)
Mr. Bill Vistarini, NGO Coordination Consultant, CDC (May 29, 1996)
Major Jan Wanderstein, Military Advisor to the UN Secretary-General's Representative in Cambodia, (May 29, 1996)
Mr. Steven Watkins, First Secretary, Australian Embassy (June 4, 1996)
Dr. Benny Widyono, UN Secretary-General's Representative in Cambodia (May 28, 1996)
Mr. Yi Sopheap, CDC (May 29, 1996)
Ms. Nina You, Planning Coordinator Specialist, CDC (June 4, 1996)