Peacebuilding
in Cambodia: The Continuing
Quest for Power and Legitimacy
Michael
W. Doyle
Introduction
On July 5-6, 1997, Cambodia experienced a coup that erased
most of the political gains made by United Nations Transitional
Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) in 1992-93. After an expenditure
of more than $1.8 billion dollars for UNTAC, the death of
78 UNTAC soldiers and civilians (and many more Cambodians),
and more than a billion dollars in foreign aid, Cambodia finds
itself in the condition it was in 1990, before the UN peace
operation began. Once again a government lacking legitimacy
faces an internal insurgency on its border and isolation from
the international community.
It was not supposed to turn out this way. The peace operation
in Cambodia that culminated in the May 1993 elections was
widely hailed as one of the UN's peacekeeping successes. But,
as has become increasingly clear, what Cambodia also needed
was peacebuilding--the institutional, social, and economic
reforms that can serve to defuse or peacefully resolve conflict.
Failure to build on a peace treaty can unravel a peacekeeping
success. Only concerted action by the government, the donor
community, NGOs, and the UN--both during and following UNTAC
operations--could have kept peace on track and ensured a continued
effort toward reconstruction, reconciliation, and a peaceful
second set of national elections.
This chapter assesses how a peacekeeping operation that went
relatively well turned into a peacebuilding experience that
wasted the political opening it had created. It focuses on
a gap between factions that had legitimacy without power and
factions that had power without legitimacy. Some of the roots
of the erosion lay in opportunities missed during the UNTAC
period and in those neglected during the almost four years
that followed the peace operation. The deeper roots of the
crisis lay in the social, economic, and political structure
of Cambodia and its unfortunate history the past 50 years.
From Coalition to Coup
During the four years preceding the July coup, Cambodia teetered
on the edge between hope for a deepening peace and fear of
escalating violence. For several years the uneasy coalition
government headed by First Prime Minister Prince Ranarridh
and Second Prime Minister Hun Sen held together, the urban
economy experienced significant growth, and Cambodia looked
forward to becoming a member of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN).
At the same time, however, Cambodia experienced little progress
in building peace beyond that achieved by the 1991 Paris Peace
Accords and the UNTAC peace process.1 The country's fragile political and economic
gains remained in constant jeopardy from the dangerous polarization
within the government, the ongoing counter-insurgency war
against the Khmer Rouge, and the sluggish revival of the rural
economy. The CPP-FUNCINPEC rivalry created a bureaucratic
and political stalemate. Partisan financial corruption seriously
undermined the development process, and international drug
trafficking was a growth industry. Illegal logging bled funds
from the national budget into personal, party, and military
coffers. At the same time, half of all government expenditures
went to support the military. Millions of mines continued
to litter the countryside and to maim and kill. All this in
a country with an average per capita real income of about
one-twentieth that of the United States, an adult literacy
rate of 38 percent, and a life expectancy of 52 years.
Starting with reports of an attempted coup in spring 1996,
violent confrontations between CPP and FUNCINPEC forces marked
the escalation of tensions. Constitutional procedures and
effective government ground to a halt; neither the cabinet
nor the National Assembly met. Essential legislation for Cambodia's
planned entry into ASEAN and for the national election scheduled
for May 1998 was stymied. On March 30, 1997, a grenade attack
on a political rally of opposition leader Sam Rainsy produced
16 deaths and more than a hundred wounded. In May bodyguards
for FUNCINPEC and the CPP battled in the streets, and on May
29, Hun Sen's bodyguards announced that the second prime minister
had been the target of an assassination attempt. In June a
pitched battle was fought in the streets of the capital and
a rocket landed in the U.S. Embassy compound.
Four coup attempts were made between 1993 and 1997; the fifth,
Hun Sen's of July 5-6, 1997, succeeded. (Previous attempts
had been foiled when the parties united against dissidents
or the two senior generals, Ke Kim Yan of the CPP and Nhek
Bunh Chhay of FUNCINPEC, stopped them.) Given the weakness
of the Cambodian state, the underdevelopment of the economy,
and the "thinness" of Cambodian civil society, the
coup should not have been a surprise.2 But
in retrospect, the timing of the July coup appears to have
been triggered by two unpredicted events.
The first was the surprising breakup of the Khmer Rouge in
1996-97. In September 1996 Ieng Sary, foreign minister during
the Pol Pot regime, defected with three "divisions"
and control of the timber and gem-rich region around Pailin.
After strenuous bargaining between Hun Sen and Ranariddh,
Hun Sen won over Ieng Sary, whose cohorts then received a
royal pardon and Pailin as a nearly independent fiefdom.
During the following summer reports of the capture of Pol
Pot were hailed as a conclusion to Cambodia's era of troubles.
In fact they were a sign of its escalation. The one thousand
or so once-fearsome guerrillas holed up along the northwestern
border finally turned on their founder in June 1997 when he
summarily executed and then photographed vehicles crushing
the bodies of his deputy, Son Sen and his family. In Cambodia,
amidst genuine popular anticipation of long-delayed justice,
the possibility of trial of Pol Pot's trial fanned the flames
of CPP-FUNCINPEC discord. Handing him over became a bargaining
chip for the amnesty of the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders,
as Prince Ranariddh and Hun Sen competed for the allegiance
of the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge offered disciplined cadres,
effective guerrilla soldiers, and up to $200 million secreted
in Southeast Asian bank accounts. As word of a deal between
Khieu Samphan and Ranariddh began to circulate--a deal that
would bring all the Khmer Rouge remnants over to FUNCINPEC--Hun
Sen struck.
The other cause of the coup was the increasing competition
and therefore the increased premium on allies fostered by
the impending elections. The problem was not the elections
per se,3 which, as will be discussed below,
were necessary to maintain legitimacy and establish a mutual
connection between the Cambodian state and the people it ruled.
The problem was the unraveling of the governing coalition.
Tension escalated in 1996, when FUNCINPEC, alarmed that it
had little influence in the administration of the countryside,
demanded a share of the district-level offices. Control of
the districts would be decisive in determining effective access
to the voters. The CPP stalled in its response, and FUNCINPEC
failed to provide a plausible, comprehensive list of candidates.
The underlying source of concern was that the winner of the
elections would have the authority to rule alone (should he
have won an absolute majority). This was a threat for the
CPP, which according to an early 1997 public opinion poll
was vastly unpopular: Only 20 percent questioned said they
supported Hun Sen's party.4 Yet the state officials who were members
of Hun Sen's party had no other livelihood apart from their
bureaucratic positions. Many had joined the Khmer Rouge in
the early 1970s, fled to Vietnam in 1977 or 1978, and returned
with the Vietnamese invasion in December 1978, holding government
office since then. In addition rumors that King Sihanouk,
the one political leader with wide rural legitimacy, might
abdicate and run for election probably intensified Hun Sen's
apprehension. For Ranariddh the prospect of an election became
an opportunity to escape from the paper coalition that rendered
FUNCINPEC powerless. He thus formed an electoral alliance
with Sam Rainsy, who was widely popular among urban youth.
As tension mounted, Ranariddh began to arm his bodyguard unit,
allegedly with smuggled arms shipments, to match the much
larger guard already surrounding Hun Sen. Hun Sen struck on
July 5, 1997. Hundreds of FUNCINPEC supporters were rounded
up, and at least 40, by the estimates of human rights groups,
were summarily executed. As of early 1998 the former opposition
was intimidated and civil society had run for cover. ASEAN
membership is on hold at least until the 1998 elections. U.S.,
Australian, World Bank, (International Monetary Fund (IMF),
and European Union (EU) aid to the government has been frozen.
Tourism has ground to a halt. Private investors have instituted
an informal freeze on new investments. Fifty thousand Cambodians
are refugees on the Thai border. General Nhek Bun Chhay leads
a military resistance in FUNCINPEC's name, and he has been
joined by the few remnants of the Khmer Rouge. The new coalition
(an unfortunate revival of the 1980s joint resistance to the
CPP) operates uneasily on the Thai-Cambodian border.
The condition of Cambodia today confirms that the peace-building
process was only begun when the parties signed the Paris Peace
Accords in October 1991 and when UNTAC arrived in March 1992
to help implement it. Peacebuilding was stillborn, and the
parties remained in a near state of war.
Roots of the Current Crisis
The roots of the current crisis lie in Cambodia's past and
especially in victimization by its neighbors, in the 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 postwar history Cambodia has found itself
in a dangerous neighborhood. Bombed by the United States during
the Vietnam War, which radicalized 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. It
was then occupied by Vietnam for a decade.
As a result Cambodia has 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--trying
to recover from a combination of trials.
Cambodia is still seeking to overcome the legacies of colonialism.
Indeed the first generation of postcolonial leadership is
still in place. King Sihanouk was first enthroned by the French
in 1941. Huge inequalities between urban and rural areas persist,
typical of export-oriented, metropolitan-based, colonial economic
development. Before these inequalities and dependencies were
overcome, the 1978 Vietnamese invasion imposed a new kind
of colonialism, as the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK)
regime ruled from the "knapsack" of Vietnam in 1979,
and Vietnam continued to govern until it withdrew its troops
in from behind the scenes in 1989.5 Prior
to the Vietnamese withdrawal, the PRK renamed itself the State
of Cambodia (SOC).
Cambodia is still recovering from the destruction inflicted
by wars, beginning with the U.S. bombing and Khmer Rouge devastations
and continuing into the civil wars of the 1990s. All left
acute rehabilitation needs, not unlike those of countries
such as Vietnam and Eritrea. Cambodia suffers from a postholocaust
syndrome. The Khmer Rouge massacres left a desperate need
for social reconstruction. Only a handful of monks, intellectuals,
medical doctors, and trained lawyers survived these massacres.
A massive deficit of social capital resulted, and many survivors
carry deep psychological burdens that discourage reconstruction.
Cambodia is a civil war survivor from the pitched battles
of 1979-91 between government forces and the unified resistance
on the Thai border. Like Mozambique and Angola, the reconciliation
and reintegration of 370,000 refugees challenges the country's
efforts to rebuild. Finally, like the economies of Eastern
Europe, Cambodia is undergoing a postcommunist transition
to a market economy begun by the SOC in 1991.
Any of these problems would constitute a serious challenge
to a country as poor as Cambodia, which is unique in facing
them all at once. Its efforts should be judged in light of
this exceptional burden.
Underdevelopment and Dependence
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. The
difficult, deep-rooted tasks of building a state and an economy
remain.
Services and industry, which tend to be concentrated in urban
areas, account for 57 percent of GDP, but employ only 25 percent
of the work force. The productive base must spread beyond
cities. Unfortunately current trends suggest that these inequalities
will worsen before they improve and Phnom Penh will be overwhelmed
by job seekers. Cambodia's GDP grew at an average of 5.9 percent
per year from 1990 to 1995. But while the urban and hotel
sector grew at 20 percent per annum and construction at 15.2
percent, the rural economy stagnated as rice production grew
at -.1 percent and livestock at 3.8 percent.6
Expenditure patterns reveal similar disparities. Rural households
have only 33 percent of the average household expenditure
per day of Phnom Penh households and only 14 percent of the
discretionary expenditure of their counterparts in Phnom Penh.7
Poverty and inequality both undermine the prospects for building
peace. The large and growing gaps in income draw farmers into
Phnom Penh and breed 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, income gaps waste the development potential
of the vast bulk of the population.
Further complicating efforts to spur development and establish
the rule of law is the weakness of the state. The Khmer Rouge
destroyed the postcolonial state Cambodia inherited from the
French and replaced it with a regime that abandoned all normal
state functions and created a national prison camp. The Vietnamese
kept effective sovereign authority in their own hands until
1989. However, the PRK did develop some capacity in the 1980s.
It assisted in training officials, but only very small numbers.
Anyone who was literate (and politically reliable) could be
considered for a judgeship. Training in Eastern Europe often
involved the rote learning of a weak technology--usually in
Bulgarian or German. Many able individuals made the most of
the Eastern Bloc training, but it 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 40s who had already learned Khmer, French, Vietnamese,
and Bulgarian and was 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.
Hun Sen may enjoy unrivaled political control of Cambodia,
but the state he heads is very weak. Budgetary dependence
is significant: Almost one half of the total government budget
(46 percent in 1995) was foreign financed.8
Eighty-five percent of all public investment is foreign-financed,
as is 18 percent of private investment. Between 1992 and 1994
aid commitments stagnated. Actual project aid and assistance
commitments declined; but technical assistance (foreign experts)
grew by 20-30 percent and direct assistance to the government
budget grew from 0.5 to 27 percent.9 Government
salaries 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.
In light of the extensive destruction in Cambodia in the past
30 years, technical assistance is welcome, but current practices
may prevent the building of capacity.
A vicious circle has been drawn around reform. Lacking an
effective civil service, international donors cannot entrust
projects to the Cambodian state. The World Bank and many bilateral
donors tend to contract the implementation of their projects
directly with international and some domestic NGOs.10
Without experience, the state cannot develop capacity. Reforms
required are difficult technically but even more so politically,
since the civil service is appointed and is the major source
of patronage as well as (with the army) security for the two
parties. Broader measures of building trust are necessary,
including, for example, the implementation of the Constitutional
Council and free and fair elections. Short of these broader
reforms, Cambodia will remain in a developmental crisis even
if the July coup is reversed and the legitimacy of the government
is restored.
UNTAC's Legacy
Some of Cambodia's current problems are the product of peacebuilding
that did not take place during the UNTAC period. UNTAC achieved
many successes, but it also missed some significant opportunities
to reform and assist the Cambodian state.
Although the Khmer Rouge rejected the peace process in midcourse,
UNTAC successfully organized, for the first time in the UN's
history, a nationwide election from the ground up. Over 90
percent of the electorate turned out to vote for peace, they
said. The May 1993 election brought to power Cambodia's first
elected government since the 1960s 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 CPP and FUNCINPEC resulted in numerous
acts of violence. Ongoing strife stymied efforts to canton
and demobilize the factional armies and 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 amid continuing violence and intimidation.
UNTAC achieved significant successes in restoring key features
of Cambodian civil society. It repatriated over 370,000 refugees,
encouraged the formation of Cambodian NGOs, and engaged in
human rights education. Most significantly, it gave Cambodian
society a sense of participation in politics through the national
election, and thereby helping to secure legitimacy for the
state. But it failed to control the SOC civil service. In
1993 the successor to the SOC, the Royal Government of Cambodia
(RGC), inherited the continuing war with the Khmer Rouge,
still well armed and ready to fight. The RGC had to accommodate
both the existing CPP-dominated civil service and add to its
ranks the newly enrolled FUNCINPEC officials. The result was
a bureaucratic stalemate in which the two parties blocked
each other at the cost of overall government effectiveness.
UNTAC has been criticized for failing to demobilize both the
armies and the CPP-controlled civil service. Former UNTAC
officials reply that demobilizing the civil service was never
in the UNTAC mandate and the SOC never agreed to it in the
Paris Accords.11 But it should be noted that UNTAC did
not "control" the civil service, nor did it launch
the rehabilitation (except in very minor ways) of the Cambodian
economy, which it was supposed to do.12
Both the SOC and the Khmer Rouge undermined the Paris Accords--and
each blamed the other. The SOC withheld its cooperation from
UNTAC for the purpose of effecting control when the Khmer
Rouge refused to demobilize. The Khmer Rouge refused to demobilize
when UNTAC failed to neutralize the SOC. The wariness of each
side appears to have been justified. But it also should be
noted that while the Khmer Rouge denied UNTAC access to its
zone, the SOC allowed UNTAC to deploy in its territory (85
percent of Cambodia).
Some observers have suggested that UNTAC control might have
been more effective had it been combined with the training
and building capacity of the SOC bureaucracy. Training would
have transferred desired skills and might have provided the
basis for cooperative control. Taken together this would have
opened up the way for a more neutral, national public civil
service. Senior former officials of UNTAC disagree, arguing
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. A mandate to modernize the bureaucracy
was not out of the question in late spring 1993, but no one
knew who would pay the factional armies in the period after
the May election and before the formation of a sovereign government.
(The UNTAC customs service experienced some success in this
role as did the Australian police in Banteay Meanchey Province
in 1993.) If UNTAC had combined control and training, it might
then have handed over a more stable, responsive, and effective
bureaucracy. But by May 1993 the UN was anxious to leave Cambodia
in order to shift its focus to its increasing burdens in Somalia
and Bosnia. An important lesson, then, that can be drawn from
the UN peacekeeping effort in Cambodia is that peacekeeping
will not lead to lasting peace without training for building
peace.
Another shortcoming of UNTAC was its failure to jump start
the rehabilitation of the Cambodian economy. The rehabilitation
component of UNTAC, which was responsible for assessing needs,
ensuring efficient and effective coordination of aid, and
raising resources, was not fully operational until January
1993. It helped put a number of important financial and administrative
reforms in place and averted several major crises, including
hyperinflation, rice shortages, and government bankruptcy.
Aid channeled through UNTAC did not, however, "benefit
all areas of Cambodia, especially the disadvantaged, and reach
all levels of society," as the Declaration of Reconstruction
required.13 Aid flows during the UNTAC period,
in fact, were biased in favor of urban areas, returnees, and
relief in contrast to the declaration's call for developing
rural areas and local capacity building. The urban bias artificially
expanded the service sector (including prostitution), fostered
high rates of consumer imports, and exacerbated income inequality.
In sum, the peace process in Cambodia left behind contradiction
not reconciliation. It failed to resolve the fundamental problem
that the competing factions lacked either legitimacy or power
or both. The more powerful factions--the CPP's State of Cambodia
and the Khmer Rouge--had committed cadres and effective military
forces, but they lacked widespread public support and international
recognition. Prince Ranariddh and FUNCINPEC had greater popularity
and international support but a weak base of support in the
bureaucracy and the military. The electoral defeat of Hun
Sen and the CPP deprived them of legitimacy but did not wrest
from them control of the bureaucracy and the army. The elections
invested Ranariddh and FUNCINPEC with legitimacy but did not
transfer genuine control of the state apparatus.
Restarting Peacebuilding
After the UNTAC period, Cambodia was left with a continuing
war and an unreconciled political leadership and bureaucracy.
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
each year. Government forces pushed the Khmer Rouge guerrillas
back into the jungles during the dry season, and each year
guerrillas infiltrated back during the wet season. The war
absorbed 40 percent or more of the government budget and led
to more mines being laid in a country already having some
of the world's highest rates of mine casualties. Government
forces were not able to inflict decisive defeats on the guerrillas,
and the guerrillas posed no military threat to the population
centers. In 1996 and 1997 Khmer Rouge defections served to
whet factional strife.
Meanwhile the state neglected the two keys to peacebuilding:
improving the capacity of the civilian bureaucracy and bringing
economic development to the countryside. While the capital,
Phnom Penh, experienced a boom fueled by UN spending during
the UNTAC period, the rural areas experienced the added burden
of inflation on top of the devastation of the previous 20
years. Urban-rural inequality continued to heighten, engendering
rural anger with ominous overtones.
Long-term peacebuilding requires a coherent and dedicated
government prepared to fulfill its commitments to develop
an impartial judicial system and organize the crucial second
national election, now scheduled for July 1998. Instead the
CPP-FUNCINPEC rivalry created a bureaucratic stalemate, which
compelled both parties to purge leading dissidents and reformers.
Partisan financial corruption disrupted the development process.
The July 1997 coup rolled back much of the little progress
that Cambodia had achieved since 1993. In response to the
coup and continuing budget irregularities, the United States,
Australia, the EU, the World Bank, and the IMF suspended all
nonhumanitarian assistance. The UN General Assembly has refused
to seat either the Hun Sen-Ung Huot delegation or the previous
Ranariddh delegation. ASEAN has joined in a Friends of Cambodia
group to mediate between the government and the opposition
with a view to discovering ways to restore democratic legitimacy
to the government now holding power in Phnom Penh; the peace-building
deficit continues to impede Cambodian development.
All this raises two fundamental questions. First can peacebuilding
be put back on track? And second should the international
community bother to make a further investment in Cambodian
peacebuilding? Cambodia has already received more than $1.8
billion for the UNTAC peace effort and $1.3 billion pledged
in aid since then. Those who oppose further aid to Cambodia,
argue that other countries are more deserving and more capable
of using the aid effectively.
The international community should remain engaged in Cambodia
for a number of reasons. Abandoning Cambodia will impact the
vast majority of Cambodians who are still on the world's list
of neediest individuals. Moreover the international community
still has a stake in the success of one of its major peace
operations. Cambodia's factions made commitments in the Paris
Accords that the international community, represented by the
UN, agreed to monitor and guarantee for the people of Cambodia.
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,
Laos, Vietnam, and Malaysia.14 Lastly thousands
of migrant Cambodians have risked their careers by returning
home and entering government and business. Others have undertaken
new and risky professions as human rights activists and journalists.
Millions of Cambodians risked their lives to vote in May 1993.
They should not and need not be abandoned.
Putting Peacebuilding Back on Track
Establishing domestic peace is a distinct and difficult task.
Someone or something must be sovereign, guaranteeing law and
order, by force if need be. Otherwise civil war simply continues.
Victory by one side as in the July coup, partition among the
contending factions, subordination to foreign rule, or national
peacebuilding are the alternatives. In Cambodia only the last
truly counts as a step toward long-term peace and development.
The challenges of building peace after the July coup are threefold.
The first challenge is to restore legitimacy by establishing
a new national coalition government and strengthening the
rule of law and democratic participation. The second is to
enhance the effectiveness of the state bureaucracy by reforming
civilian and military institutions, thereby creating a national
state capable of governing on a national rather than a partisan
basis. In this way legitimacy and power can reinforce each
other: The government will gain legitimacy, and the legitimate
government will control the resources of a national impartial
state. And, third, Cambodia needs to continue to develop a
civil society as well as a market economy that reaches and
benefits ordinary citizens, especially in the underdeveloped
rural regions. All three must be met to put peacebuilding
back on track. This will require international assistance
and considerable good fortune.
Restoring Legitimacy. The first goal should be to restore
an authentic governmental coalition of Hun Sen's, Ranariddh's,
and Sam Rainsy's followers. Civil government in Cambodia has
no alternative to a coalition. The coalition agreement should
establish the broad outlines of government policies and define
the sharing of ministries. This would give the Cambodian people
and their leaders some time to restore a degree of political
and economic stability. Without the restoration of a legitimate
coalition there can be no one to organize credible elections,
for no party can trust the others. Without the promise of
a coalition continuing after the 1998 elections, neither the
CPP or FUNCINPEC are likely to respect the electoral results.
Moreover, administrative experience and legitimacy are scarce
commodities in Cambodia--neither can be wasted.
One ideal but unlikely step toward a coalition would be a
bilateral pardon from King Sihanouk, in which both Prince
Ranariddh's alleged gun smuggling and Hun Sen's alleged direction
of the 40 or more executions of senior FUNCINPEC officials
both pardoned. The Ranariddh-Hun Sen government would resume
as before. Implausible as this sounds, it should be remembered
that the violence of the 1980s and of the 1993 election campaign
did not preclude the shaky coalition of 1993-97. More realistic,
perhaps, is a general pardon in which Ranariddh retires from
politics and becomes king, and other FUNCINPEC-KNP leaders
are reabsorbed into a government of national unity.
Broader measures of building trust also appear necessary,
if only to help hold the coalition together. They include,
for example, a greater role for the National Assembly and
the implementation of the Constitutional Council. The National
Assembly needs to play a more independent role in the legislative
process. 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. One good step could
be taken with USAID's assistance--providing everything from
desks and equipment to workshops on legislative procedures
and duties--to the fledgling Cambodian legislature.
King Sihanouk could make the difference in two key confidence-building
measures that could alleviate the tension between the political
parties. The first would be to breathe life into the recently
created Constitutional Council. At present, all Cambodia's
laws are suspended between true legality and emergency dictat.
Council membership should be chosen on a new, impartial, national
basis, selected from all the political parties but encouraged
to serve in an independent capacity (for example mandated
to serve a fixed but staggered set of terms).
The RGC also should ensure that the National Election Commission
is genuinely neutral and it should convene a group 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 UN (along with
national and international NGOs) for technical support and
as monitors of both the campaign and voting. Monitoring the
election does little good if the voting is the conclusion
of an oppressive and biased campaign environment. The World
Bank Consultative Group could allocate and monitor aid for
this purpose.
Creating a State That Works. A lesson for Cambodia
is the importance of, on the one hand, a bureaucracy with
the technical capabilities and political authority to make
and implement governmental decisions and, on the other hand,
increased reliance on open markets and transparent protection
for contracts and private property.15
With regard to bureaucratic reform, the RGC must demonstrate
its commitment to marketization in order to reduce the overall
level of demand on public management and building capacity
for the civil service. There is a broad consensus among Cambodian
development experts on the need for a leaner and more effective
state. Rapid economic development can be achieved in Cambodia
with a smaller civil service, such as the one that led Thailand
to economic growth beginning in the 1950s.16
The Cambodian bureaucracy should eventually shed tens 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 the state police and judiciary have the
means to implement the law impartially.
Incentives for military predation can be reduced only by military
demobilization and improving the training and logistics of
the remaining forces. But demobilization is costly in the
short run. If it is attempted without a comprehensive plan
to resettle and retrain soldiers, 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.17
The government also should introduce transparency in all contracts.
The Cambodia Development Council should make all its investment
contracts and concessions public, and the government should
publish all private and public investment and aid contracts.
Cambodia faces no external threats sufficiently serious to
justify secrecy. Nor does secrecy allow Cambodia to exercise
monopoly bargaining power to improve its contract terms. Secrecy
today serves merely to cover corruption. Transparency 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. Donors can require that all foreign assistance
projects be made public. The IMF set the standard in 1996
when it sanctioned the RGC for a failure of transparency in
the sale of state assets.
Developing a Civil Society and Market Economy. Civil
socialization works by reducing demands on the managerial
capacity of the state and improving a society's capacity to
articulate and meet public needs. It also generates employment
and careers outside the bureaucracy and the army. UNTAC helped
open a space for hundreds of new, indigenous Cambodian NGOs.
In step with the moderating of civil war, traditional Buddhist
organizations began to reestablish their role as spiritual
guides and community organizers in the rural areas.
Marketization has created new sources of livelihood in Cambodia's
cities and towns. International donors' requirement of transparent
investment contracts can limit corruption and encourage broad-based
economic development that takes advantage of Cambodia's low
wages and access to ASEAN and other international markets.
Apparel and other light manufacturing are currently experiencing
a boom around the cities. Well-meaning foreign activists are
protesting child labor. A better focus would be establishing
the right to unionize and promoting basic health and safety
standards. Working in a clean, safe factory near their parents
is a step up for the many Cambodian children who toil on the
rice farms and for the unfortunate thousands who work in the
brothel villages that surround Phnom Penh.
The UNDP has developed the single most promising model for
combined market and democratic development in the countryside.
The Cambodia Area Rehabilitation and Regeneration (CARERE)
Project II, or "Seila" (which means "foundation
stone" in Khmer), combines rural infrastructure development,
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 among 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,
local self-determination and accountability. The UNDP assists
the provincial committee with technical advice designed to
build planning capacity and responsible budgetary control
at the provincial level. Seila won the support of the national
government and five provincial governors. It was scheduled
to go into expanded operation in 50 villages.18
The autocratic structure of the Cambodian village will not
be changed overnight, but even first steps toward consultation
and accountability, when connected to real investments, can
begin to mobilize rural efforts.
International Facilitation
Outsiders are needed; they control the international legitimacy,
the capital, and the markets that the CPP needs. In September
1997 the five permanent members of the UN Security Council
and ASEAN wisely combined forces to focus diplomatic efforts.
The result was ASEAN's decision to postpone Cambodia's membership
and the UN's decision not to seat the coup delegation. Such
diplomacy sends a clear signal of the international and regional
interest in the continued progress of peace in Cambodia.
An UNTAC II is out of the question (no one in the international
community is prepared to invest the manpower or money), but
something more than the monitoring of a future election is
required. Monitoring will be too late to correct abuses or
assist the coalition. Cambodia needs a UN Peace-building Mission
for Cambodia (UNPMC) that will assist in the planning for
a national election as well as in building the capacity of
the civilian and military bureaucracy. Intensive monitoring
and technical help worked in El Salvador in 1994 to train
a national civilian police, begin the reform of the judiciary,
and produce a poll that allowed the beleaguered FMLN former-guerrilla
movement to gain a toehold in the government.19
It should work in Cambodia as well, where the voters have
a standard exemplified in the free UNTAC elections of 1993.
NGOs need to add intensive campaigns of voter education, modeled
on the successful ones organized by UNTAC, especially in the
regions the Khmer Rouge barred from UN access in 1993. UNPMC
should monitor and provide technical assistance only. Cambodians
should organize the elections to develop indigenous democratic
capacity if for no other reason.
Investing in the long-run development of human rights and
a vibrant civil society also calls for a continuation of the
UN Center for Human Rights. UNCHR assists the 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. Without the cover that UNCHR provides,
local human rights activists believe that they would be forced
into silence.
The international community should be prepared to restore
all aid to a Cambodian government that agrees to a UNPMC.
The current cuts in foreign aid and the collapse of international
private investment are powerful incentives for resuming the
path of comprehensive peacebuilding. Should the government
refuse a UNPMC, aid should be limited only to assistance that
directly serves to support the poor and builds indigenous
nongovernmental organizations and a civil society free of
government control. If the government tries to exploit or
tax the aid, it should cease.
Finally ASEAN 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,
which has a stake in Cambodia's success. Cambodia will provide
a vibrant market for ASEAN products and a place for investment
with access to trade 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
spillover military strife, drug cartels, and regional contests
for subversive influence.
Conclusion
It is time for King Sihanouk's last hurrah. The man who led
Cambodia to independence from France in 1955, maintained the
precarious balance between the North Vietnamese and the United
States in the 1960s, and orchestrated the Paris Peace Accords
of 1991, again needs to lead Cambodia in a peace-building
campaign to restore legitimacy and effectiveness to the Cambodian
state. Though ill and frail, he alone can mobilize a national
coalition of all the parties and call on the international
community to once again take on an active peace-building role.
Peacebuilding in Cambodia tests whether the antagonists of
the civil wars can be turned into the protagonists of party
politics. The Paris Peace Accords were comprehensively negotiated
among the factions over 10 years and received the full support
of the international community, together with the deployment
of 23,000 peacekeepers in 1992-93 and an expenditure of about
$4 billion in peacekeeping and foreign aid. Smaller efforts
in less divided countries have worked, for example in Namibia,
El Salvador, and Mozambique. Will this larger, more difficult
test be passed? If not, what are the prospects for peacebuilding
where the divisions are even more severe and have an ethnic
or religious basis, as in Bosnia or Angola?
Notes
1. See U.S. General Accounting Office, Cambodia:
Limited Progress on Free Elections, Human Rights, and Mine
Clearing (Washington, DC: GAO, 1996).
2. In December 1996 a near consensus existed
among Cambodia experts that the chances of a coup in the near
future were about 50-50.
3. For a criticism of electoral strategies
for peace, see Jack Snyder and Karen Ballentine, "Nationalism
and the Marketplace of Ideas," International Security,
Vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 5-40.
4. Keith Richburg and R. Jeffrey Smith, "Cambodian
Chaos," International Herald Tribune, July 14, 1997,
p. 4.
5. For a thoughtful discussion of Cambodia's
political legacy, see Aun Porn Moniroth, Democracy in Cambodia:
Theories and Realities, trans. Khieu Mealy (Phnom Penh: Cambodian
Institute for Cooperation and Peace, 1995). For background
on these issues, see Ben Kiernan and Chantou Boua, eds., Peasants
and Politics in Kampuchea 1942-1981 (London: Zed Press, 1982);
Michael Vickery, Kampuchea: Politics, Economics, and Society
(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1986); and David Chandler, "Three
Visions of Politics in Cambodia," in Keeping the Peace:
Multidimensional UN Operations in Cambodia and El Salvador,
ed. Doyle et al. (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
6. Royal Government of Cambodia, First Socioeconomic
Development Plan, 1996-2000, p. 85.
7. Ibid., Table 2.3, p. 17.
8. Ibid., p. 90.
9. John P. McAndrew, Aid Infusions, Aid Illusions,
Working Paper No. 2 (Phnom Penh: Cambodian Development Resource
Institute, January 1996).
10. "Recommendation to the International
Committee on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia,
1995" in Cambodia Rehabilitation Program: Implementation
and Outlook: A World Bank Report for the 1995 ICORC Conference
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 1995). Also see Benny Widyono,
"Reconstruction of the Post-Conflict Public Administrative
Machinery in Cambodia" (prepared for the Interregional
Seminar "On Restoring Government Administrative Machinery
in Situations of Conflict," March 13-15, 1996, Rome),
and Royal Government of Cambodia, "The Administrative
Reform: An Overview" (prepared for the Donor's Meeting,
Phnom Penh, May 10, 1996).
11. UNTAC's mandate specifically charge it
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. Martin's, 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 Keeping
the Peace: Multidimensional UN Operations in Cambodia and
El Salvador, ed. Michael Doyle et al. (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1997).
12. 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; New York: United Nations, October 30, 1991.
13. See Elizabeth Uphoff, "Quick Impacts,
Slow Rehabilitation in Cambodia," in Keeping the Peace,
ed. Doyle et al. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997),
pp. 186-205.
14. The press has been suggesting a connection
between the July coup and Teng Bunma, who is said to have
bankrolled it and to be personally involved, according to
U.S. officials, in the transshipment of drugs in Southeast
Asia. Teng Bunma recently received a timber concession of
one million acres. "Cambodian Tycoon Acquires Major Timber
Concession," Reuters, October 2, 1997.
15. The general case for marketization is
made in World Bank, From Plan to Market: World Development
Report 1996 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1996). See also Mancur
Olson, "Disorder, Cooperation, and Development: A Way
of Thinking About Cambodian Development" (Phnom Penh:
Cambodian Institute for Cooperation Peace, 1996).
16. Robert J. Muscat, "Rebuilding Cambodia:
Problems of Governance and Human Resources," in Rebuilding
Cambodia: Human Resources, Human Rights, and Law, ed. Fred
Brown (Washington, DC: Foreign Policy Institute, 1993), pp.
13-42.
17. J. P. Azam, Some Economic Consequences
of the Transition from Civil War to Peace (Washington, DC:
World Bank, 1994).
18. United Nations Development Program and
Royal Government of Cambodia, Project Document CMB/95/011/01/31,
CARERE II (Phnom Penh: February 1996), and interviews with
Scott Leiper, UNDP, May 1996. For background, see RGC, 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 Project (Phnom Penh:
March 1996).
19. Ian Johnstone, Rights and Reconciliation
(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995).
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