Epilogue

 The International Conference on Cambodia was convened at the Kleber Conference Centre in Paris from 30 July to 30 August 1989. Failed to resolve the conflict.^1 Had it succeeded, it would have been an even more memorable year for the French as 1989 was also the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. That the conference failed was unfortunate but not a surprise (as explained later) although some participants, such as the British, held the view that ‘there was … every reason to hope and expect’ the conference ‘to succeed’ for reasons such as improvement in Sino-Soviet relations. Vietnam’s serious economic problems, and the impulse of national reconciliation between the Cambodian faction and Sihanouk, which was ‘the key factor … behind whom all Cambodians and factions could unite’.

We may recall from our discussion in Chapter 5 that the Cambodian conflict could only end if four interconnected elements of the conflict were resolved: (1) mutual threat perceptions of Vietnam and Cambodia, the most intractable of which was over the Khmer Rouge, which happened to be the strongest component of the anti-Vietnam resistance; (2) Sino-Vietnamese relations; (3) mutual threat  perceptions of Vietnam and Thailand; and (4) superpower rivalries, particularly between China and the Soviet Union. If we follow the developments up to the eve of the International Conference on Cambodia described earlier, except for (4), and while there were some positive movements in (2) and (3), the first three elements were still not close enough to a resolution, especially (1). In the case of (1), the Cambodian factions could not reach agreement on two issues: the structure of the quadripartite coalition government (proposed by Sihanouk) and power-sharing, and the role of the Khmer Rouge.

According to the PRK account, the CGDK launched the 1989 military offensive with ‘high hopes and determination’, but the offensive collapsed due to ‘several bad tactical decisions’ which led to the loss of key territories and the neutralisation of the bulk of its forces. The Khmer Rouge remained the only force ‘cohesive enough to fight as regular units’. The remaining components of the CGDK—the non-communist factions—‘began to fear the Khmer Rouge dominance.

The Khmer Rouge problem was like an albatross around one’s neck and would drag on till 1997, but more of this later. Suffice to say here that with the departure of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia and the end of the Cold War (leading to greater attention to human rights, especially in the West), the focus shifted back to the Khmer Rouge atrocities. Towards the end of the Paris Conference, as recounted by Kishore Mahbubani (Singapore’s permanent representative to the Number), Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach insisted that the conference declaration should explicitly call for the non-return of the genocidal policies and practices of the Khmer Rouge. Everyone knew that the Vietnamese were never concerned about Pol Pot’s record. Thach knew that the Khmer Rouge would never agree to such a reference and the conference would therefore fail, ‘a failure which the Vietnamese wanted because they were not ready to relinquish control over Cambodia’. Yet the ‘Western officials did not dare to challenge him for fear of being branded defenders of Pol Pot … In practical terms, from the viewpoint of the ordinary Cambodian, the strong Western consensus against the Khmer Rouge had backfired and ruined any chance of agreement because it prevented Western delegations from exposing Nguyen Co Thach’s scuttling of the peace conference.^5 Indeed, Singapore observed that the US was the ‘most nervous delegation’ as they were concerned about media criticism back home regarding their apparent support for the Khmer Rouge. US officials were nervous over how the failure of the International Criminal Court (ICC) would be interpreted in Washington. The Congress and the media had reacted negatively to the ICC and increasingly viewed support for Sihanouk as support for the Khmer Rouge.^6 On 18 July 1990, Secretary of State James Baker, bowing to Senate pressure, announced that the US would no longer support the CGDK at the Number and that it would only provide aid to Sihanouk and Sann, as well as begin providing humanitarian aid through Hun Sen's State of Cambodia (SOC).

There were several analyses as to why the conference failed. Qian Qichen recalled that ‘the dispute over the Khmer Rouge was so sharp that the conference was unable to reach any agreement’. Baker was of the view that the ‘internal problems of Cambodia’ could never be resolved by ‘relying on the four Cambodian factions alone’ and therefore ‘China, the Soviet Union, the United States, and ASEAN should draft a plan for the settlement of those internal issues in Cambodia’. In a December 1989 conversation between French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas and Baker, Dumas said that ‘it had been very apparent at the Paris Conference that the real clue to a settlement was not the parties on the ground but their outside backers’. Dumas was reportedly ‘at pains to emphasise that the main lesson of the Paris Cambodia Conference had been that the key to a solution lay with Vietnam and the Soviet Union on the one hand, and China and the United States on the other than with the parties themselves’.^7 While that might have been the only way forwards, the Chinese felt that there must still be some degree of buy-in by the four factions, particularly Sihanouk, ‘who might object.

to the big powers’ asking him to be head of state while imposing a prefabricated arrangement on him’.

According to the British analysis, the timing was wrong. It ought to have been convened after the Vietnamese troops had withdrawn from Cambodia, which we may recall only occurred in September 1989. Moscow was either unwilling or unable to ‘deliver the Vietnamese’ prior to the conference. Beijing remained determined to make Vietnam ‘eat crow’ for its 1978 invasion ‘and to go on using the Khmer Rouge as its military persuader’. Washington was ‘reluctant to re-engage its prestige and influence in Indochina’. The French did not conceive or execute the conference well. ASEAN’s performance was ‘unedifying’ – it was not clear what Thailand’s policy was (given the mixed messages from the Thai Foreign Ministry and the Thai military), Indonesia was ‘obsessed with justifying JIM II’, while Singapore and Thailand thought that ‘the Paris Conference has replaced JIM’. For the British, it was ‘a missed opportunity and everyone stands to lose, some more than others … the best hope is continuing military stalemate leading to a resumption of the Paris Conference and a comprehensive settlement’.^9 Asked in an interview, Lord Brabazon (who represented the UK at the Paris Conference) said that the four internal parties were ‘simply unable to come to a settlement and there was nothing we or anyone else really could do to persuade them to do otherwise.

The US side claimed that they ‘had always accepted that a comprehensive settlement at Paris was unlikely’, and US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Lambertson described the US as ‘only a second-tier player’ (along with other Western countries); ‘the key actors were Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union’. According to Lambertson, US interest was directly related to its treaty commitment to Thailand. The conference had shown a ‘broad spectrum of interest in ensuring that the Khmer Rouge did not gain power’. US objectives had accordingly been to ‘maximize the influence of the non-Communist resistance: to minimize the Khmer Rouge and to secure Vietnamese withdrawal’. It clearly emerged in Paris that ‘the situation was not at present ripe for settlement. Nevertheless, some useful groundwork had been done which would remain valid in future’,^11 a view that Qian Qichen shared when he wrote: ‘the conference did provide an opportunity for countries relevant to the Cambodia issue and the four sides in Cambodia to sit together for the first time to discuss the issue and lay a solid foundation for its final settlement’.^12 Lord Brabazon, in his 30 August 1989 statement, expressed sentiments more or less on the same lines: ‘it’s about one of the first times the four parties have all sat round a table together, so that must be at least encouraging, it’s not very encouraging but it’s better than nothing at all.

The Australians were also pessimistic regarding the prospects for agreement at the conference. They did not ‘go to the conference with any prescription for an internal solution’. Canberra saw that as ‘a matter for the Cambodian parties themselves’. Like the US and Singapore, Australia wanted to avoid ‘a partial solution’ (which India proposed) and would ‘continue to press for a comprehensive settlement’. Indeed, many participants were concerned that in the rush to reach an agreement, the conference might settle for a vaguely worded agreement which left substantive issues unresolved. Singapore insisted that there should be a clear agreement that the rule of unanimity must apply to all substantive issues. In his 30 August 1989 press conference, Senator Gareth Evans said:

[We] spent the first day of this conference establishing that the settlement process was for the time being dead. We spent the last two days writing the obituary. It’s been a very sterile process, there’s no doubt about that, very frustrating and very depressing. There are however some good things that have come out of it. For the last month the committees have been working, in some cases very effectively, to define and refine the details that will have to go into the final settlement.^14

Finally, in a speech delivered on 1 November 1989 to the American Academy of Diplomacy and the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Tommy Koh (who represented Singapore at the conference) drew the following condusion from the ICC, which is worth citing in full: 

"what lessons can we learn from the ICC about multilateral negotiations? First, it is always helpful, perhaps necessary to prepare carefully before convening an international conference. If France had held preparatory meetings at the level of senior officials, it would either have improved the prospects of the Conference or convinced France that Vietnam was not ready to strike a compromise. Second, in the case of regional conflicts in the Third World, the agreement of the five permanent members of the Security Council is a necessary, but not a sufficient reason for success. The Soviet Union was either unwilling or unable to persuade Vietnam to seek a compromise in Paris. Third, in the case of regional conflicts in the Third World, the key to the solution is often held, not by the great powers alone, but in concert with the regional players. Fourth, although it is preferable to have a single Chairman to two Co-Chairmen preside over a conference or committee, the system of Co-Chairmanship can sometimes work if the Co-Chairmen are carefully chosen and if they are able to work in tandem. Fifth, timing is of the utmost importance. In the case of the Cambodian conflict, the Vietnamese had not yet given up their aspiration for hegemony over Cambodia. Therefore Vietnam and its surrogate, Hun Sen, rejected compromise at the Conference table."

II

On 17 January 1990, Michael Leifer gave a second talk on Cambodia at the Asia Society (which was subsequently published in the June 1990 issue of Asian Affairs where he reiterated that unless Sino-Vietnamese relations were repaired, the final phase of the Cambodian conflict would remain incomplete, a view that now declassified archival documents corroborate). We may recall that this was his second update on Cambodia to the Asia Society, eight years after his first in 1982 (summarised in Chapter 5). Notably, he did not express confidence that a resolution was in sight. But as he pointed out, as with so many contemporary political issues, the pace of events is such that no sooner have you written a line than you must "revise it. Indeed, events and developments were happening at a furious pace during the late 1980s, as described earlier. The Berlin Wall fell on 10 November 1989, heralding the collapse of communism in eastern Europe.

We must now turn our attention to developments in Sino-Vietnam relations. We may recall that in his February 1985 speech marking the 55th anniversary of the founding of the VCP, Le Duan said that friendship between China and Vietnam would have to be restored. However, as late as 1988, Beijing refused to talk directly to the Vietnamese because of the latter’s military presence in Cambodia.

In its effort to wean itself from its dependency on the Soviet Union, the Vietnamese simultaneously pursued a two-pronged strategy. First, a ‘multi-directional orientation’ – reaching out to the West and to the US – which was spearheaded by Nguyen Co Thach. Unfortunately for Thach, Washington, for the second time, was not ready to respond to Hanoi’s overture. (The first was when Washington chose normalizing relations with China ahead of Vietnam, leading Vietnam to align with the Soviet Union in 1978.) Second, reaching out to China, the remaining pillar of socialism/communism, led by General Secretary Nguyen Van Linh, whose priority was defending the socialist state, especially in the wake of the Tiananmen Incident (June 1989) and the developments in eastern Europe.

"We may recall that in December 1988, at a meeting between Qian Qichen and Shevardnadze, the Soviets informed Qian that the Vietnamese wanted to discuss the timetable of withdrawal directly with the Chinese. Vietnam's Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach asked twice to visit China in 1988 but was turned down.

The first Sino-Vietnamese meeting at the vice-ministerial level in nine years took place in January 1989 without publicity. It apparently took place in secret. Vice-Foreign Minister Dinh Nho Liem told the Chinese that Hanoi's long-term plan was to settle the Cambodian issue as soon as possible, to normalise relations with China, and 'to concentrate its efforts on economic construction to which Qian "Qichen replied: 'if the basic aspects of the Cambodian issue could be resolved, improvement and normalization of the relations between China and Vietnam would be a natural result.'

Hanoi eventually withdrew all its troops from Cambodia in September 1989. If the Vietnamese had not done so, it was unlikely that there would be any progress in Sino-Vietnamese relations, which in turn would mean no progress in resolving the Cambodian conflict.

Not long after Leifer’s Asia Society talk, a second round of vice-ministerial talks between China and Vietnam took place from May 1990. The Thais learned about this visit when Foreign Minister Siddhi visited Beijing in March-April 1990. Siddhi apparently got on well with the Chinese, 'who seem to think him (in their terms) sounder than Chatchchai.' He was informed by Chinese Foreign Minister Qian that Dinh Nho Liem would be visiting in May, ostensibly 'to inspect the Vietnamese Embassy'. According to Qian, 'the Chinese side is prepared to meet him should the Vietnamese accept national reconciliation and the unity of the factions then this might form the basis for a solution'. The British assessment was that while Liem's visit was billed as one of inspection, 'as was his first “secret” visit ... in January 1989, the Chinese are clearly prepared to see him', although they have 'so far resisted any suggestion that they should talk directly to the Vietnamese'."

Liem visited China from 1 to 10 May 1990. The visit was described as 'useful'. All aspects of a solution of the Cambodian problem were discussed. Differences remained but there was some progress. The two sides did not agree that Vietnam had withdrawn all its troops. Liem said that Vietnam 'could accept any style of international supervision'. Liem asked the Chinese to stop supplying the resistance, but the Chinese were only prepared to do so after an agreement had been reached. Both sides eventually agreed that after an international agreement, all countries (including China and Vietnam) would stop supplying any military aid. The two sides disagreed on the composition of the interim administration (meaning the SNC). Whereas the Chinese stuck to their formula on the " involvement of all four factions with no one faction dominating, the Vietnamese proposed that the SNC should be in two halves, if Sihanouk agreed, the Khmer Rouge (but not the Pol Pots) could be included. China and others could not accept the maintenance of power of the Heng Samrin regime, which would have given the regime an unfair electoral advantage. The key issue of the role of power of the SNC thus remained unresolved. Both sides agreed on the need to avoid a civil war. The Vietnamese said that Hun Sen would not sign any international agreement which did not refer to genocide. The Chinese retorted that this point had caused the failure of the earlier negotiations. The Vietnamese eventually agreed to raise this issue again in international fora. The Chinese finally agreed that Nguyen Co Thach could visit China only 'in the context of normalization' but stated that they were 'not yet at that stage'. Normalisation was still conditional on a comprehensive Cambodian settlement. There would be a third round of talks, but the date had not been fixed.

"On 2 September 1990, at the invitation of the Chinese, Nguyen Van Linh, Prime Minister Do Muoi, and Advisor Pham Van Dong flew to Chengdu to meet secretly with the Chinese. By this time, Le Duan, Truong Chinh, and Le Duc Tho (who died in October 1990) had all passed away and a new generation of leaders had replaced them. Van Tien Dung, who led the 1978 invasion and was ‘the least inclined to cooperate with China’, had been retired. Only Pham Van Dong, who was eighty-four years of age in 1990, remained in an advisory role to a new and younger generation of leaders.

Tran Quang Co, who was then vice-minister of foreign affairs, in his 2003 memoir, recalled that the Chengdu meeting focused mainly on the Cambodia issue and barely discussed the normalisation of relations which the Vietnamese were given to expect. Due to their hastiness to improve their relationship with China, the Vietnamese side accepted all the demands of the Chinese with regard to the establishment and composition of the SNC of Cambodia which were disadvantageous to the Vietnamese-backed Phnom Penh regime. The Vietnamese were initially opposed to "quadripartite government headed by Sihanouk, arguing that Sihanouk should work with Hun Sen instead to counter the Khmer Rouge. The Chinese, on the other hand, wanted to protect the Khmer Rouge and insisted on giving Sihanouk one additional vote in the quadripartite power-sharing (the Vietnamese-installed regime led by Hun Sen (6), the Khmer Rouge (2), the KPNLF led by Son Sanh (2), FUNCINPEC led by Sihanouk’s son Ranariddh (2) and Sihanouk (1)). The meeting was meant to be a secret, but soon after the Chinese made public the Chengdu agreement, thus embarrassing the Vietnamese and compromising their public negotiating position.

Soon after the Chengdu meeting, General Vo Nguyen Giap visited China from 18 to 26 September 1990, where he attended some Asian Games ceremonies as ‘a specially invited honored guest’ and met with Vice-Premier Li Peng and other ‘old friends’. His meeting with Li Peng ‘was mainly devoted to Cambodia’. We still do not know why the Chinese agreed to the visit since ‘no breakthroughs’ had been announced. The Friendship Gate was reopened for Giap on 18 September and he flew up from Nanning to Beijing the next day. The British assessment was that Giap’s visit and the symbolic opening of the Friendship Gate ‘clearly shows an improvement in bilateral relations’."

III

At this point, we need to pause and turn our attention back to Thailand – ASEAN’s front-line member state most directly threatened by this conflict. We may recall from Chapter 5 the election of a new Thai government in August 1988 and the meeting between the new Thai Prime Minister Chatchai Choonhavan and Hun Sen in January 1989, marking the start of a significant shift in the Thai approach towards the Cambodian conflict.

On 15 November 1989, Thai Foreign Minister Siddhi announced that the Thai MFA would now accord a lower priority to the Cambodian problem. A review of the international situation and implications for Thailand reached the conclusion that with most of the Vietnamese troops withdrawn from Cambodia in September 1989, the threat to its security from the Thailand–Cambodia border was no longer a serious concern. Moscow had also become friendlier towards Thailand and less inclined to support ideological expansion. The review further noted the impatience of the West and strong anti-Khmer Rouge feelings. Thus, the best way forward was to accept any compromise solution which was acceptable to the four Cambodian factions. The Thai military, which shared similar views with the Thai MFA, would however continue to support the two resistance forces and to facilitate the flow of supplies to the CGDK Cambodian resistance, but Bangkok also wanted the flexibility and the options to shift its position on Cambodia should the need arise. The Thais could in fact ‘coerce’ the CGDK if they wanted to as they controlled their military supplies.

PRK official history revealed that in December 1989, Thai Prime Minister Chatchai secretly sent a military general to meet Hun Sen in Laos. Following that, in January 1990, Chatchai sent his foreign minister and more than seventy officials to Hanoi 'to end the long-running dispute with Vietnam'. In late January 1990, Hun Sen visited Bangkok at the invitation of Chatchai and both sides signed several trade agreements. Chatchai, according to the PRK’s interpretation, wanted 'to revive the Thai economy' which was 'lagging behind Singapore'. The PRK gave the Thais much credit for their help in reaching the agreement on the creation of the SNC, which we may recall was eventually agreed upon on 9 September 1990 in Tokyo. In his account of the chronology, Prak Sokhonn (deputy prime minister of Cambodia) noted that the SNC was first mooted by Hun Sen during his second meeting with Sihanouk in 1988 and discussed at the first JIM in July 1988. No agreement was reached then. By March 1990, 'with the support' of General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, 'the agreement to create the SNC was settled with just a title ' amendment' and adopted in Tokyo 'with the support of the host and H. E. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, also present at the event'. The composition of the SNC was determined in Jakarta and 'the first SNC meeting took place in the Embassy of the Kingdom of Cambodia in Bangkok'.

IV

"Between Congressman Stephen Solarz and Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Gareth Evans, they cobbled together a new initiative to resolve the Cambodian conflict, which Evans announced in the Australian parliament on 24 November 1989. Canberra, in 1983, withdrew its co-sponsorship of the annual ASEAN resolution on Cambodia in the UN General Assembly because it believed that 'the resolution was too one-sidedly critical of Vietnam and took insufficient account of Pol Pot's genocide'.

The core of the Australian proposal was for the United Nations to assume responsibility for the administration of Cambodia during the interim period between the establishment of a ceasefire and the emergence of a new government following an internationally supervised election. This proposal was the seed that eventually led to the creation of UNTAC, which we discuss later. Solarz noted that 'the Cambodian endgame has entered a new and critical stage' and 'it does not seem like an exaggeration to suggest that the Australian proposal constitutes the last best hope for a peaceful resolution of the Cambodian conflict. No less certain is the danger the Khmer Rouge poses for Cambodians if negotiations fail.' Eric Schwartz (assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration) recalled in an obituary on Stephen Solarz's passing in 2010 that 'when the Bush administration was reluctant to promote the idea of UNTAC, Solarz 'sold the idea to the Australian Foreign Minister, who secured its acceptance by the international community.' It is worth recalling that Evans’ proposal was similar to Sihanouk's call from way back for Cambodia to be placed under a form of 'UN trusteeship'.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council met on six occasions to resolve the impasse among the Cambodian factions and to discuss the Australian proposal, the first being in January 1990. A Cambodian Summit was convened in Tokyo from 4–6 June 1990 where the idea of an SNC was discussed.

At their fifth meeting of the five permanent members, in July 1990, they reached agreement on two key areas of UN involvement: (1) transitional arrangements regarding the administration of Cambodia during the pre-election period and (2) military aspects of the settlement. The agreement on the establishment of the SNC was significant and both the Russians and the Chinese reportedly made considerable concessions which made it possible. The SNC was empowered to represent Cambodian sovereignty and delegate necessary powers to UNTAC. However, the relative degree of power of the SNC and UNTAC had yet to be worked out."

"During the sixth meeting, in August 1990, they reached an agreement on the outlines for a comprehensive political settlement for Cambodia. They had adopted a framework document on administrative arrangements, military arrangements, elections, human rights, and internal guarantees. US officials told the ASEAN missions in Washington that 'there was a sense of finality among the Permanent Five this time' and a British official commented that it was the 'last opportunity' for the Cambodian factions. The full agreement of the Cambodian factions was the next essential step before the framework document could be implemented. The five permanent members urged the Cambodian factions to support the framework document in its entirety, as a package. It was non-negotiable. Details needed to be worked out within the framework. Richard Solomon recalled that building consensus on the UN plan was much easier than getting the Cambodian factions to 'shift their conflict.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas was to convene a meeting in Jakarta for the four factions to form the SNC. Both Moscow and "Beijing reportedly promised to do their utmost to influence their clients to show flexibility at the coming Jakarta meeting. The Jakarta Meeting on Cambodia was held on 9–10 September 1990. Its success was seen as 'a triumph' for Ali Alatas after the failed series of JIM meetings, as well as the Informal Meeting on Cambodia in February 1990, which Jakarta had again convened in the hope of getting the four factions to reach agreement. The success of the September Jakarta meeting apparently owed much to the secret high-level meeting between the Chinese and Vietnamese in Beijing on 3–4 September mentioned earlier. Although Sihanouk sent a representative instead of attending the Jakarta meeting himself, despite Chinese persuasion, the meeting agreed that Sihanouk should be the chairman of the SNC.

The first meeting of the SNC was held in Bangkok on 17–19 September 1990 but made no headway in reaching a political settlement. The factions could not agree on the PRK's condition that if the Council elected Sihanouk as the chairman, Hun Sen must automatically be appointed the vice-chairman. On 15 October, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) unanimously adopted a resolution on Cambodia which nominated the new ASEAN-sponsored resolution which nominated the Cambodian seat at the UN. However, given that the Cambodian factions were not ready and there was no Cambodian delegation at the UN, the 45th UNGA declared the Cambodian seat vacant on 16 October.

In late November 1990, Sihanouk revealed that the Chinese had told him that if nothing was done to stop the war in Cambodia the conflict would go on indefinitely without any winners and losers. In Sihanouk’s view, this was a change in Chinese thinking compared to three or four years previously, when Deng Xiaoping was still in power and had encouraged the resistance to continue fighting. On 22 November, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson announced that since the adoption of the Permanent Five plan on Cambodia in September 1990, China had stopped providing military assistance to the Cambodian resistance, including the Khmer Rouge. There were two views. One was that the Khmer Rouge could continue to fight for another seven years even without Chinese support. The Khmer Rouge’s objective was to topple the PRK while the Ranariddh-led ANS and the Khmer Rouge would continue to be ‘discreet allies on the battlefield’ to achieve this goal. Another view held that senior Khmer Rouge leadership had already agreed on the UN role and therefore Khmer Rouge military pressure was only for the purpose of ensuring the PRK accepted the UN plan. In the third quarter of 1991, the SNC met three times in quick succession: June, July, and August 1991. The issue of chair and vice-chair of the SNC was finally resolved at the SNC meeting in Pattaya on 24–26 June 1991. Sihanouk had forced the pace when at the SNC meeting in Jakarta on 2–4 June, and apparently without consulting the other NSC members he proposed that he be appointed chair and Hun Sen as vice-chair. Hun Sen agreed, while the Khmer Rouge, surprisingly, opposed this. As Ranariddh explained, Sihanouk’s view was that time was running out for the non-communist resistance as their international support was eroding. Australia and Japan were favourable to Hun Sen, and while Ali Alatas was playing a positive role he was under strong domestic pressure. It was therefore necessary to achieve agreement on the establishment of the SNC under his leadership as quickly as possible to take the initiative away from Hun Sen. China supported Sihanouk’s decision. That this was finally agreed at Pattaya was evidence that the Chinese must have leaned on the Khmer Rouge. A Chinese diplomat in New York said that ‘the Chinese put all their cards in Sihanouk’s hands, and trust Sihanouk.

A Sino-Vietnamese deal had also apparently been struck to resolve their outstanding differences over Cambodia towards the end of June or thereabouts. The challenge of assessing Sino-Vietnam relations is, as British officials noted, 'the chronic secretiveness of both sides', particularly the Vietnamese side: 'The Vietnamese are extremely economical with information on recent contacts with Peking.' The British believed that 'there may have been greater agreement that is now apparent.' British sources also reveal that the Vietnamese were anxious to improve relations with China, which in a way concurs with Tran Quang Co's description in his memoir of Vietnamese hastiness' ( recounted earlier ).

When asked, the Vietnamese side denied that there were any more contacts with the Chinese after Giap’s visit to China in September 1990, but British sources revealed that there indeed were. Perhaps most notable was Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien’s three-day visit in April 1991 to China for talks with Vice-Foreign Minister Xu Dunxin on the Cambodia issue and the normalisation of Sino-Vietnamese relations. The visit was reported to be ‘satisfactory’ and both sides agreed to continue to consult with each other ‘in the near future’. They met again in August 1991 (the fifth set of Sino-Vietnamese vice-foreign minister talks since 1989). Taking place after the resolution of the SNC issue, it was ‘the best meeting so far’. The other was Minister of Defence Le Duc Anh’s unpublicised visit in August 1991.

Anh (who subsequently rose to the position of president of Vietnam in the following year) apparently played a key role in persuading the Chinese to agree to normalise relations with Vietnam. The visit ‘remains shrouded in secrecy’. On the other hand, Nguyen Co Thach, who had pursued an equidistant foreign policy between China and the West, was removed from the Politburo in July 1991, apparently to appease the Chinese. Thach had written to US Secretary of State James Baker suggesting talks between the two sides, but no location, date, or level of talks were decided. However, the MIA Office at Hawaii might have continued pre-talk talks. Vice Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien (in August 1991) and Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam (in September 1991) also separately visited China. Cam’s visit was the first time in more than a decade that the foreign ministers of both countries had met. Both sides ‘agreed to continue to exert active efforts for a final settlement’. On 23 October 1991, the Third Indochina conflict finally came to an end at the reconvened International Conference on Cambodia in Paris.

Both Vietnam and China also finally normalised relations in November 1991 during the visit of Vietnamese General Secretary Do Muoi and Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet to Peking (5-9 November 1991). Many bilateral issues remained unresolved at the point of normalisation. At the very least, agreement was reached on the ‘principles which would govern relations’ and, most importantly for this study, removed a major ‘roadblock’ for the resolution of the Cambodian conflict.

V

We now reach the final part of this narrative: the UNTAC phase of the Cambodia story (1992-1993) and its immediate aftermath. It is not possible to talk about the Paris Peace Agreement without reference to UNTAC, which was mandated 'to discharge its responsibilities effectively and complete impartiality' in a relatively short time.

The UN sent an advance peacekeeping force - United Nations Advance Mission in Cambodia (UNAMIC) - to the country in November 1991, which was replaced by UNTAC in March 1992. UNAMIC was absorbed by UNTAC in March 1992. The UN custody of Cambodia ended soon after the 23 May 1993 elections, in September 1993.

Keith B. Richburg in the Washington Post recalled that 'Cambodia has been widely touted as a success story - a model of global peacekeeping in the post-Cold War world'. The United Nations apparently spent close to $3 billion in its efforts to 'break the cycle of tragedy' in Cambodia. But in 1995, '2½ years after UN-sponsored elections were supposed to have ushered in a new era of democracy and economic recovery, Cambodia appears to be sliding back to its familiar pattern of political assassination and repression,' a view shared by Michael Leifer.

Did this change come as such a surprise? Probably not. In the annual reviews of Cambodia in 1987 and 1988 prepared by the Southeast Asia Desk of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), it was cautioned that 'we should be under no illusion however that any settlement which may ultimately emerge will be easy to implement. The Cambodian factions will be uneasy bedfellows and will not abide by Western rules for the elections which international observers may be asked to monitor.' Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was sceptical that Sihanouk would be able to control the various factions in Cambodia after a settlement. In an interview many years later, in 2000, Laetitia van den Assum (Netherlands’ Bangkok-based ambassador to Thailand, Burma, Laos, and Cambodia) noted that 'Cambodia does not yet have a tradition of sharing power in the sense it is known in other parts of the world.

In assessing the role of UNTAC in the brief period leading to the 1993 general elections, it is useful to begin with the fact that left on their own, the four Cambodian factions would continue to fight among themselves. The peace agreement was essentially foisted on them by their respective sponsors in an international environment that had dramatically changed when the conflict began in the late 1970s. Cambodia’s domestic politics, on the other hand, had not changed. The Paris Peace Agreement established UNTAC 'to oversee the country through a ceasefire and the creation of a new government through nation-wide elections', in short, 'an international midwife to a brokered peace agreement endorsed by the UN Security Council.' But 'all groups resented the intrusive role of UNTAC, complied reluctantly, and guarded their sovereignty where they could.

UNTAC was the 'first of the mega-peace keeping operations ... mounted by the UN', with 'all the attendant teething problems', which was to be expected. It was 'always going to be difficult to execute given the complexity, the magnitude and the compressed timeframe'. Compounding the 'unprecedented nature' of the Paris "Peace Agreement was the fact that UNTAC was tasked with a 'peace-building mission in addition to peace-making and peacekeeping'. Michael Leifer, writing in 1994, noted that UNTAC was entrusted with the responsibility for ensuring 'a neutral political environment' which would be 'conducive to free and fair elections'. To that end, UNTAC was also charged with exercising 'direct control' of a broad sphere ranging from foreign affairs to national defence, public security, and more. However, these tasks 'proved to be beyond UNTAC’s capability partly because of its conventional peacekeeping mandate in addressing the problem of the Khmer Rouge' and because of its failure to attempt seriously to control the way which the SOC employed its security apparatus against political opponents.

In a 1998 interview, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former correspondent for the New York Times, Henry Kamm, pointedly said that UNTAC was 'painted as a great success because the United Nations did a rather clever trick'. Kamm explained: the Paris Agreement under which the UN forces came into Cambodia was supposed to 'pacify' the country and 'hold elections'. All the Cambodian parties 'signed on to a surrender of their military' but everyone refused to give up power, beginning with the Khmer Rouge. Thus, 'an agreement that was supposed to bring peace and to demilitarise Cambodia was never respected, and then the United Nations sort of hid this away and said the purpose was to hold free elections'. Kamm, however, put most of the blame on the 'major powers who bring about UN resolutions and make UN decisions. The major powers raised no objection when this United Nations-sponsored agreement was totally ignored really and not really applied.

John Sanderson, who was commander of the military component of UNTAC, recalled that they could not get access to areas held by the Khmer Rouge. It is perhaps worth noting that whereas many analysts and observers were of the view that the Paris Peace Agreements would give the Khmer Rouge the opportunity to regain power, Lee Kuan Yew was convinced that in a free election, the Khmer Rouge would lose and Sihanouk would win.⁶⁰ In the event, the Khmer Rouge eventually chose to opt out of the peace process. Both Leifer’s and Kamm’s assessments of the UNTAC sojourn in Cambodia are generally shared by others, such as Kelvin Rowley in his very sharp and succinct account of the period.⁶¹ Rowley rightly noted that in the short term, the success of UNTAC ‘can be judged by the extent to which it implemented the details of the Paris Agreement before it left Cambodia’. In the longer term, however, UNTAC’s success ‘will be judged less on this than on whether it succeeded in establishing a stable liberal democracy’ in the country and this would depend on ‘forces in Cambodian politics rather than UNTAC itself’.⁶² UNTAC did deliver the general election in a timely manner with minimal disruption. But as Yasushi Akashi (special representative of the secretary-general and chief of mission, UNTAC) said, while what UNTAC achieved was ‘quite significant’, it was ‘yet far from completing that process’.

Although FUNINCEP, led by Ranariddh, won the elections, albeit by a small margin, he was however pressured to share power with Hun Sen, who became second prime minister."

VI

It is perhaps fitting to describe Cambodia–Vietnam relations in the period after the 1993 elections here, considering that the relationship was one of the principal causes of the Third Indochina conflict.

In August 1993, the two co-prime ministers, Hun Sen and Ranariddh, visited Vietnam (as well as Thailand and Laos). The visit also came in the wake of a series of victories by the coalition forces against the Khmer Rouge in north-western Cambodia, who had been killing ethnic Vietnamese there. It was reported that the Vietnamese laid out a lavish welcome and hailed the visit as ‘marking the start of a “new era” in the long-turbulent relations between two countries’.

The two principal issues discussed during the visit were that of the ethnic Vietnamese refugees located at the Vietnam–Cambodia border and the border disputes along their land frontier and the Gulf of Thailand. The fate of the ethnic Vietnamese refugees in the Vietnam–Cambodia border who had fled to Vietnam because of the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge was the urgent issue. It is estimated that the Khmer Rouge had killed some 100 since 1979. Vietnam had referred to these killings as ‘genocide’ and ‘racist attacks’. During the visit (23–25 August 1993), the United Nations headquarters in Cambodia reported that two more fled Vietnamese were killed. The refugees, who supposedly had Cambodian identity papers and were mainly from the Tonle Sap region where they have lived for generations, were awaiting permission to return to Cambodia. The actual number is controversial. But as new laws on immigration and unemployment have not been drawn up, Phnom Penh was acutely concerned about the political and social ramifications of their return. Phnom Penh further claimed that 200,000 to 500,000 were illegal immigrants, Vietnam, on the other hand, placed the figure at 10,000.

The other issue discussed was the territorial disputes along the Vietnam–Cambodia frontier and in the Gulf of Thailand. On 7 July 1982, the government of the PRK, represented by then Foreign Minister Hun Sen, signed an agreement with Hanoi represented by the late Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach, delimiting the sea boundary between the two countries.⁶⁵ A year later, on 20 July 1983, both foreign ministers concluded a treaty on the principles for the settlement of their border problems. A joint committee on national border delimitation was subsequently established. On 27 December 1985 in Phnom Penh, Hun Sen and Nguyen Co Thach signed a treaty on national border delimitation, which encompassed both land and sea, between the PRK and Vietnam.⁶⁵ The agreements signed by Hun Sen and Thach were, however, not recognised by the Sihanouk-led CGDK, which comprised the KPNLF, FUNCINPEC, and DK, established on 22 June 1982. This was essentially a united front against the PRK, which was seen as being controlled by Vietnam. During the 23-25 August 1993 discussions, the leaders once again agreed to make every effort to resolve the issue through negotiations. The communiqué released at the end of the visit stated that both sides would set up commissions of technical experts to examine their border disputes and the issue of ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia. 57 From the time of Nguyen Manh Cam’s visit to Phnom Penh in January 1992 to Hun Sen and Ranariddh’s visit to Hanoi, the political situation in Cambodia can at best be described to be in a ‘transitory state’. Until the general election of May 1993, the sovereignty, independence, and unity of Cambodia were enshrined in the SNC, which was only a temporary entity. When the two-co-premiers travelled to Hanoi for talks, Cambodia was led by an interim coalition - the constitution had yet to be approved and it was not clear then whether Cambodia would have one or two prime ministers. The constitution was only passed on 21 September 1993 and Ranariddh and Hun Sen became the first and second prime ministers respectively. Sihanouk was also formally reinstated as head of state. 68 It was therefore not unexpected when Ranariddh admitted that the visit to Vietnam ‘was not very positive or profitable’ and that nothing very substantive was achieved. 69 Subsequent reports confirmed that the interim status prevented decisions on major issues. 

Hanoi was clearly very anxious to resolve the two outstanding issues, particularly that of the ethnic Vietnamese refugees. In February 1994, Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam paid his second visit to Phnom Penh for two days of talks. This was also the first high-level meeting since the formation of the new Cambodian government of the post-UNTAC period. Cam met with Norodom Sirivudh, who was then deputy prime minister as well as foreign minister, to discuss the refugee problem. The issue was not resolved. The Phnom Penh government refused to allow the ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia to return until the passage of the immigration law, which went before the General Assembly in April. 71 In April, Vietnamese Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet travelled to Phnom Penh to discuss the issue again but apparently the talks were unsuccessful. It was evident from Sihanouk’s interview with the Far Eastern Economic Review in May that the deep-seated suspicion of Vietnamese intentions towards Cambodia persisted.²³ The issue of immigration was to be debated by the Cambodian National Assembly in August. The Vietnamese were unhappy with the bill, proposed the formation of an expert group to study and discuss the issue.²⁴ Nevertheless, in the same month the National Assembly passed the immigration law which did not guarantee citizenship and left vague what was to be done about the ethnic Vietnamese refugees still stranded at the border. Hanoi then asked the Phnom Penh government to postpone implementing the law until after the forthcoming visit to Vietnam of first Prime Minister Ranariddh.²⁵ In the view of the Vietnamese, the law if implemented could ‘adversely affect the long-standing friendship between the two countries’ by 1995, the immigration law was still not enforced.

Prince Norodom Ranariddh paid a working visit to Vietnam from 15 to 17 January 1995 to resolve the two issues of the ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia and the disputed land and sea borders. The issue of navigation rights along the Mekong River also strained relations between the two countries. The Vietnamese authorities had begun to prevent cargoes bound for Phnom Penh from proceeding along the Mekong River beyond Hanoi. The Vietnamese charged that the ships were transporting banned goods, for example used vehicles. Ranariddh believed that the Vietnamese action was a reaction to Cambodia’s immigration laws. A related issue was Vietnam’s plan to build a bridge on its side of the river, which Cambodia felt was too low to allow the transit of large ships. Ranariddh was accompanied by a delegation of forty that included ministers from: foreign, interior, defence, forestry, fisheries, public works, education, agriculture, and commerce. According to Ranariddh, there were many issues to discuss, but the main purpose was to improve relations, which was very necessary.²⁷ The discussions reached some modest achievements. Agreements were concluded on cultural and scientific exchanges, educationl cooperation, agriculture, and foreign affairs. Ranariddh assured Vietnam that Phnom Penh would not carry out any mass expulsions of foreigners. Vietnam’s Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet in turn expressed his understanding regarding Cambodia’s immigration bill. The ethnic Vietnamese issue remained unresolved, but both sides agreed to form a group of experts to jointly study the implementation of the immigration laws and its ramifications. Regarding the border issue, it was agreed that existing borders would be respected until the problem could be discussed in detail by a joint commission. Soon after the visit, the Cambodian government announced that it was ready to let approximately 4,000 ethnic Vietnamese who fled to Vietnam almost two years previously to return to Cambodia. Those who had Cambodian identity papers (issued before 1970) could return as early as February 1995.

In August 1995, Vietnamese President Le Duc Anh paid a two-day visit to Cambodia. The most senior Vietnamese leader to visit Cambodia since premier Vo Van Kiet’s in April 1994, Anh was the general who oversaw Vietnam’s military operation in Cambodia in 1978. The visit was largely symbolic, but symbolism has always had an important place in Cambodia (as in Vietnam). Anh laid wreaths at the Independence Monument and the Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Monument, which pays homage to those who died during the invasion of December 1979. He also pledged 1,000 tons of rice for the Cambodians, who were facing food shortages.⁷⁹ Both sides agreed to discuss their border differences gradually and to leave the borders as they were for the time being. It was also proposed that foreign ministerial talks take place in September to tackle the other issues, such as the height of the bridge to be built on the lower course of the Mekong River.

At the end of the visit, Foreign Minister Ung Huot announced the formation of a Vietnam–Cambodia Inter-Governmental Commission, which would meet for the first time on 9 September 1995. The commission would investigate the border issue, the bridge issue, commercial access along the Mekong, purchase of electric power from Vietnam, tourism ventures, Vietnamese immigration and settlement in Cambodia, among other things, Ung Huot reiterated that there would be no mass expulsion of illegal foreigners despite domestic pressure to do so. He also made it known that there would be a meeting in October to try to resolve the issue of 3,600 ethnic Vietnamese who fled Cambodia in 1993 after a series of massacres and were currently trapped on the border.81 Only after Anh’s visit did Sihanouk finally make his long-delayed trip to HanoI from 14 to 16 December 1995 - his first since 1975.

Looking back, 1995 was one of the better years in the development of Vietnam-Cambodia relations since October 1991. It may be worth noting that it was Le Duc Anh who visited Cambodia before Sihanouk visited Vietnam. The subtext here is particularly significant when we note that these are two countries where hierarchy, size, power, and rituals are all important. Although no substantial agreements were reached in the year and outstanding issues remained hanging in the air, the seeds for eventual resolution were at least planted. Unfortunately, the growing differences between CPP and FUNCINPEC in the following year (which culminated in the coup of July 1997) derailed the process.

the unresolved border demarcation between the two countries had always been a potential for conflict and a convenient issue which anti-Vietnamese elements exploited. In January 1996, Vietnamese armed soldiers and farmers were alleged to have illegally entered Cambodian territory, including the provinces of Svay Rieng, Kompong Cham, and Prey Veng, to build houses and cultivate farmland. The violations were said to have begun on 27 December 1995 in Svay Rieng, which Vietnam denied. Both Ung Huot and Co-Interior Minister Sar Kheng met Tran Huy Cuong, Vietnam’s ambassador to Cambodia, and all were committed to a peaceful solution to their border dispute. In January 1996, Sar Kheng paid a working visit to Hanoi for talks. On 24 January, a Cambodian newspaper printed an article that essentially argued that the Khmer Empire had shrunk to a ‘barely visible dot on the world map’. It cited a statement by Sihanouk in 1992 that Cambodia had lost ten to forty kilometres of territory to Vietnam. The writer then posed the 

question where the borderline now lies and whether 'Cambodian land will become Vietnamese land and Cambodians will be turned into one of Vietnam's minority groups.

Not all Cambodians shared the same view. In February, the chief of police in Cambodia's Kandal province, which had a twenty-nine-kilometre common border with Vietnam's An Giang province, was reported to have said that there was no border problem with Vietnam and that the latter actually provided water to Cambodia for farming. As for the areas where the border was unclear, the authorities in both provinces considered them as 'white zones' that were off limits to either side. He also made the point that more contacts between local authorities at district, communal, and provincial levels could solve and avert problems.83 Ranariddh, who demonstrated a penchant for evoking the Vietnamese threat, was reported to have warned of the possible use of force if talks failed to resolve the border dispute. Hanoi retorted that if his remark were true, it would not be in the interests of friendly ties and likely to damage relations.84 It is significant to note that Second Prime Minister and Chairman of the Council of Ministers Hun Sen did not share Ranariddh's sentiment. At a meeting of the Council of Ministers to discuss the Cambodia-Vietnam boundary issue on 7 February, peace, friendship, and cooperation were stressed.85 As Co-Minister of Interior Sar Kheng said, the border dispute was tied to domestic politics.

in March, VCP leader Do Muoi and Ranariddh would have had the opportunity to discuss the border issue when they both attended the 6th Party Congress of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party in Vientiane.86 Soon after, in April, Vo Van Kiet led a sixteen-member delegation, which included the foreign minister and the deputy ministers of interior, commerce, transport, and planning and investment, to Phnom Penh for a day of talks in an effort to resolve the border dispute. According to the communiqué issued at the end of the visit, the two sides agreed to settle the border issue without resorting to the use of force. It was also decided that local authorities should address border issues first, and if they failed, the issues could then be referred to provincial authorities and finally to the related ministries. They also agreed to hold a working group meeting at the expert level as soon as possible, possibly in the first week of April. Regarding the ethnic Vietnamese residing in Cambodia, both sides agreed to convene urgently a third meeting of the working group at expert level. It was also proposed that a consular agreement be signed as soon as possible. Both sides reaffirmed their determination to strengthen bilateral relations by taking concrete measures to boost cooperation in the fields of transportation and communication, agriculture, forestry, education, and security. Finally, Vietnam also welcomed Cambodia’s intention to join ASEAN and expressed willingness to help Cambodia integrate.

On 17 May 1996, it was reported that more ethnic Vietnamese were being killed. Gunmen apparently attacked a floating village on the edge of Tonle Sap and killed seventeen people, of whom fourteen were Vietnamese. Hanoi lodged a formal protest. The border experts from both countries met for the first time in Ho Chi Minh City from 20 to 23 May. We do not have the details except that the negotiations proceeded in what was described as a ‘friendly and frank’ manner and that the next meeting would be in held in Phnom Penh. The rivalry between the two co-premiers and their parties intensified as the next election drew closer. The ethnic Vietnamese always had to bear the consequences whenever the political struggles in Phnom Penh intensified. During the 1993 United Nations–sponsored election, one of the key themes of FUNCINPEC’s campaign was that voting for the CPP would mean keeping Cambodia beholden to the hated Vietnamese and further impoverishing the country. The Khmer Rouge (and at the time FUNCINPEC as well) continued to propagate the image of Hun Sen and the CPP as the ‘Vietnamese-installed regime’ long after the 1989 Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia. In 1996–1997, Ranariddh was again courting the staunchly anti-Vietnamese Khmer Rouge. For example, in early June 1997, an unidentified aircraft bombed a memorial for the Vietnamese war dead in Sihanoukville. Two days after, Ranariddh added fuel to fire when he remarked that the Cambodia–Vietnam Friendship Monument in central Phnom Penh had been standing there for too long and that if he were to win next year’s election, he would have it removed.

Meanwhile, the second Vietnam–Cambodia Inter-Governmental Cooperation Commission convened in Phnom Penh from 26 to 28 February 1997 and was attended by Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam. The commission announced that an agreement on trade, road and water transportation, and information cooperation would be signed soon, and that discussion on other matters would continue. The critical issues were, however, still not resolved.

Turning to the China factor in Vietnam–Cambodia relations, Cambodia–China relations had also been improving since the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces in 1989. China was becoming increasingly a major player in Cambodia. In April 1996, General Zhang Wannian, chief of the PLA General Staff Department, visited Cambodia. China granted $1 million in non-lethal aid to Cambodia and was considering providing training assistance to the Cambodian coalition government. According to a December 1997 report in the Far Eastern Economic Review, China was the second-largest Asian aid donor to Cambodia, next to Japan. Many of the most prominent investors in Phnom Penh were from mainland China. The Chinese had also been providing military assistance to Hun Sen in his fight against the Khmer Rouge. According to one source, it was Zhang who conveyed Beijing’s invitation to Hun Sen to visit China, and Beijing was apparently miffed by Ranariddh’s contacts with Taipei, which included discussions on a possible direct air link between Phnom Penh and Taipei and the opening of a consular office in Phnom Penh. Beijing could have decided that in view of Sihanouk’s age and poor health, it was prudent to cultivate Hun Sen.

Both CPP and FUNCINPEC were also courting Beijing. In mid-June 1996, Loy Simchheang, secretary-general of FUNCINPEC, met then Prime Minister Li Peng in Beijing. During Vietnam’s 8th Party Congress, on 1 July 1996 in Hanoi, Wen Jiabao (acting leader of the CCP Central Committee delegation, alternate member of the Politburo and secretary of the CCP Central Committee secretariat) held separate talks with Chea Sim (chairman of the CPP and chairman of Cambodia’s National Assembly) and Chhim Seakleng (leader of FUNCINPEC delegation). About a fortnight later, on 12 July 1996, it was announced that Hun Sen had been invited to visit China from 18 to 22 July 1996. There was no elaboration as to the purpose of the visit except that it was part of a friendship programme between the two countries. According to Hun Sen, the trip to China had been planned much earlier.

It is worth noting that the Chinese disclosed the visit shortly after Sihanouk left Beijing for Cambodia. When the news was announced, Hun Sen and Ranariddh were in Tokyo attending a ‘consultative group’ meeting on financial aid to Cambodia for 1996 and 1997. In China, Hun Sen met Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Premier Li Peng and toured Zhuhai, which is one of China’s special economic zones in Guangdong Province, as well as Shenzhen.⁹⁷ Coincidentally, a senior Vietnamese military delegation led by Chief of General Staff Pham Van Tra was also in Beijing during this time. There is, however, no report of any meeting between the Vietnamese and Cambodians.

VII

The coalition government led by two prime ministers did not last. The rivalry between the two co-premiers culminating in the ouster of first Prime Minister Ranariddh was common knowledge. As Cambodian parliamentarian Ahmad Yahya commented in a December 1996 interview, ‘the coalition exists only on paper, only in theory. It just doesn’t work.’⁹⁹ As the saying goes, ‘two tigers cannot share one mountain’, and the very public uneasy alliance, not unexpectedly, broke down in July 1997, resulting in the defeat of Ranariddh. According to Son Soubret (second vice-president of the National Assembly, 1993–1998), the July crisis was ‘a grave consequence' of the failure of UNTAC to help create a national army in the transition period and the failure to achieve national reconciliation through a democratic process.

We may recall that the principal condition demanded by Beijing for normalisation of relations between China and Vietnam was Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia. It is reasonable to assume that the Chinese remained sensitive to any new Vietnamese interference or involvement in Cambodian affairs. There was no evidence that Hanoi was involved in the 1997 political crisis. Sino-Vietnam relations had been improving gradually since 1991 and did not appear to have been affected by the crisis.¹⁰¹ Both Vietnam and China were not unhappy with Hun Sen and were comfortable with each other's current relations with Cambodia.

As a result of the coup/political crisis, depending on one’s point of view, Cambodia’s seat at the United Nations was suspended. The details of Cambodian domestic politics need not delay us too much here.¹⁰³ What is perhaps relevant to note is that had it not been for the 1997 coup and ensuing political crisis, Cambodia would have been admitted into ASEAN on 23 July 1997 during the 30th ASEAN ministerial meeting (also the 30th anniversary of the founding of ASEAN) in Kuala Lumpur. Because of the political uncertainty in Cambodia, the decision was taken at the ASEAN foreign ministers special meeting on 10 July to postpone indefinitely its admission. Apparently, it took ‘more than a little persuasion’ to secure both Malaysia’s and Vietnam’s agreement to convene the special meeting of the foreign ministers. The ‘critical swing’ factor was Indonesia. For the first time in its history, ASEAN expressed disapproval of a violent change of government in a neighbouring country.¹⁰⁴ That said, the ASEAN member states were no longer willing to get involved in Cambodian domestic politics. Bilahari Kausikan, who was Singapore’s permanent secretary to the Number in 1997, recalled Prince Ranariddh asking to meet him in New York soon after the coup. When they met, Ranariddh greeted him, saying, ‘Bilahari, the struggle begins again’. ‘What he said is seared in my memory. I could hardly believe my ears. I told him as politely as possible, that he had been given his chance and this time the struggle, if there was to be one, was his struggle, not Singapore’s struggle or ASEAN’s struggle’, he recalled.

A general election was subsequently held a year later in July 1998, and in early December a new coalition government was formed with Hun Sen as the sole prime minister, which came as no surprise. As Henry Kamm noted, ‘the election merely ratified a totally irregular state of affairs that existed before … he [Hun Sen] lost the UN-sponsored elections in 1993, but bludgeoned his way into power, into a share of power …It was Hun Sen and his machines, which has run Cambodia since then [1993]’. Cambodia regained its seat in the Number and reapplied for admission into ASEAN. It eventually became the tenth member of ASEAN on 30 April 1999.

In recent years, due to the erosion of democratic and human rights provisions that were spelled out in the Paris Peace Agreement, there has been a reassessment of the legacy of the 1991 agreement. Hun Sen embarked on rewriting the history of those years. He also insisted that the agreement had now been superseded by the 1993 constitution, and in 2020 his government ended the national holiday commemorating the signing of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement. The PRK version of history is that it was only in 1998 that Cambodia achieved ‘prevailing peace under the government’s win-win policy initiated by Hun Sen’.On the other hand, those who are opposed to Hun Sen and his CPP continue to hold the terms of the Paris Peace Agreement ‘as a benchmark against which current political developments are to be measured, so as to hold the government accountable’, as well as a supportive ‘legal tool’ to justify the involvement of the international community in Cambodian domestic politics. As the prominent opposition personality, Sam Rainsy said: ‘It is about control of history and of the future.

¹ For an account and discussion of the conference, see Ang Cheng Guan, Singapore, ASEAN and the Cambodian Conflict, 1978–1991