Cambodia’s comprehensive political settlement: closing a tragic chapter on Cambodia’s past?
Chhay Yiheang (November 1998)
Documenting and punishing war crimes is seen as the key to establishing justice, consolidating peace and promoting the rehabilitation of deeply divided societies. In this regard, the victimisation of Cambodians by Cambodians during their long conflict (Khmer Rouge atrocities, in particular) is rightly receiving much attention by the international community today. In the process, however, the complex historical legacy of outside involvement in Cambodia’s war is often downplayed. This has hampered understanding of the country’s continuing political problems and has also made it difficult for Cambodians to close a turbulent chapter on their past.
External interventions
A vicious interaction of variables at domestic, regional and global levels has shaped Cambodia’s tragic destiny. Repeated incursions by Cambodia’s expansionist neighbours Vietnam and Thailand, starting in the 1500s, were followed in the 19th and 20th centuries by French colonization, the US bombing and invasion of Cambodia at the height of the Vietnam war, and Chinese backing for the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. Vietnam’s 1979 invasion of Cambodia, ostensibly to save the Khmers from the Khmer Rouge, itself resulted in an eight-year foreign occupation. The ensuing US and Chinese-led international isolation of Cambodia effectively allowed the Khmer Rouge to retain Cambodia’s UN seat through the 1980s and various armed groups to wage a destructive war against the government.
These foreign interventions both resulted from and intensified weaknesses within Cambodian society. Since the 1500s, one Khmer faction or another — often led by the country’s ruler — has been complicitous with outside parties in the violation of Cambodia’s sovereignty. Foreign values and political systems — such as communism — were often accepted blindly by Cambodia’s people, stemming more from their need to survive than from any legitimate affinity with outside cultures. Along the way, Cambodians at all levels of society have lost faith in the viability of their own culture and in their ability to regain full control of their destiny as was promised by the Paris agreements.
Contradictory impulses
This crisis of confidence among Cambodians manifests itself in contradictory ways. On the one hand, there is still a general suspicion of foreigners and a tendency by Cambodians to blame them for the country’s persisting problems. The historical fear of being ‘swallowed up’ by Vietnam, for instance, continues to be manipulated by politicians playing the nationalist card for short-term political gain. The reality is that for most Cambodians ‘anti-Vietnamese’ sentiment stems more from a fear of Vietnamese hegemony than from a hatred of the Vietnamese people themselves. However, with historical patterns of foreign abuse and exploitation weighing heavily on their psyche Cambodians are often guilty of failing to separate the two.
On the other hand, there is still a widespread belief that peace — when it finally comes to Cambodia — will come from the international community. This explains the dramatic expectations created among many Cambodians by the Paris agreements and the deep disillusionment which has followed since 1993 as the promises of democracy, human rights and peace have failed to materialize. Though increasingly aware that they must look within their country for both the causes of and solutions to Cambodia’s persisting problems, there is also a lingering belief among many Cambodians that the international community has left them ill-equipped to bring about the difficult political changes necessary.
Closing a tragic chapter?
The comprehensive nature of the final settlement was intended to remove once and for all the external factors driving Cambodia’s war by including guarantees to defend Cambodia’s sovereignty. With the emphasis placed on Cambodians ‘determining their own political future’ through elections, the international community could in effect wash its hands of the problems bound to emerge during consolidation of the fragile peace. Not only has this made it difficult to achieve a full accounting of foreign involvement in Cambodia’s long conflict, it has also meant that the country’s powerful elites themselves face few external pressures to remain accountable to the people.