Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER THREE
The Wages of Peace
On October 23, 1991, the four Cambodian factions and representatives from 18 other na-
tions gathered in the ornate surrounds of the Kléber International Conference Hall in Paris
and signed an agreement aimed at ending the Cambodian civil war. The Paris Agreements
were a remarkable achievement, the product of long and often bitter negotiations. “A dark
page of history has been turned,” French President François Mitterrand announced in the
glittering reception hall. “Cambodia is about to resume its place in the world.”
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The signing of the treaty took place at a crucial historical juncture. The fall of the Berlin
Wall and the crumbling of the once-mighty Soviet Union ushered in what many hoped
would be a more cohesive, norm-based international order free from the paralyzing po-
larities of the Cold War. This was the era of US President George H. W. Bush's “new
world order,” and, at the UN, Boutros Boutros-Ghali's “An Agenda for Peace.” Fran-
cis Fukuyama prematurely hailed the “end of history,” arguing that the dissolution of the
Soviet Union marked “the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the univer-
new atmosphere, the United Nations would finally be able to fulfill its foundational prom-
ise as the embodiment of a singular “international community,” intervening in the world's
trouble-spots in order to spread the blessings of peace and liberal democracy. Cambodia, a
perennial victim of Cold War realpolitik, would be a critical test.
The Paris Agreements created the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC),
which would take temporary control over the Cambodian state. Sovereignty would be
temporarily vested in a 13-member Supreme National Council (SNC) consisting of del-
egates from each of the four factions, with Prince Sihanouk serving as the body's sup-
posedly “neutral” president. UNTAC had a daunting mission. It was tasked with coordin-
ating a ceasefire and the withdrawal of all foreign (i.e. Vietnamese) forces from Cam-
bodia, followed by the disarming and demobilization of the four Cambodian armed fac-
tions. The Thai border camps would be emptied and hundreds of thousands of refugees
resettled inside Cambodia. In order to create a “neutral political environment” for the elec-
