The Wages of Peace - Hun Sen's Cambodia - page 58

scarcely digest them. In addition to their relatively high salaries, UNTAC's civilian work-
ers were given a daily allowance of $130—equivalent to the average annual income in
Cambodia—and their spending created runaway inflation. 45 As it plummeted in value,
the Cambodian riel became little more than Monopoly money; before long the US dollar
had become the country's de facto currency.
Little of the money went toward alleviating the poverty and suffering of Cambodia's
8 million people, for whom UNTAC's arrival meant a spike in the cost of food and
everyday necessities. HIV/AIDS also surged as the influx of foreign personnel spawned
a flourishing brothel industry. By 1993 there were 20,000 commercial sex workers in
Cambodia, up from just 6,000 a year earlier, and HIV/AIDS infection rates rose ten-
fold. 46 There were also regular reports of misbehavior by soldiers and police attached
to UNTAC, including the sexual harassment of women, the mistreatment of locals, and
scattered instances of theft and banditry. Resentment at the foreign presence was wide-
spread.
The UN had its eyes fixed on a loftier goal. At the time, UNTAC was the largest peace-
keeping operation ever mounted, a bold experiment in post-Cold War state-building that
would eventually cost more than $2 billion. As a possible model for future UN opera-
tions, there was a lot riding on its success. To reward Japan for its generous financial
contributions to UNTAC, control of the mission was given to Yasushi Akashi, a Japan-
ese veteran of the UN system. Since joining the UN in 1974, Akashi had earned a repu-
tation for his patience, tact, and aversion to confrontation. His steady climb through the
UN hierarchy, according to one 1994 profile, was marked by an “absence of waves” as he
moved between jobs and departments. 47 On paper, all this made Akashi an astute choice
for the top job: as a fellow Asian, he was thought well placed to negotiate the tangle of
Cambodian interests through a strategy of incrementalism and consensus-building. “My
basic approach,” he recalled later, “[was] to combine patient persuasion with sustained
pressure.” 48 Of course, this assumed a great deal of good faith on the part of the Cam-
bodians. It soon became apparent that a wide gulf separated Akashi's mandate from the
realities on the ground.
The most obstructive of these realities was the Khmer Rouge. During 1991 and 1992,
the PDK had remained divided on whether to take part in the peace process. Accord-
ing to Steve Heder, the movement initially planned to pay lip service to the Paris Agree-
ments while working covertly to overthrow the SOC. In February 1992 Pol Pot declared
that “the contents of the [Paris] Agreements are to our advantage,” in the sense that they
would impose constraints on Hun Sen. But by mid-year, when the hoped-for benefits
failed to materialize, Pol Pot hardened his stance. Leaders who continued to advocate par-
ticipation, including defense minister Son Sen, and the PDK's economic chief, Ieng Sary,
were stripped of authority, and the Khmer Rouge embarked upon a campaign of obstruc-