The Wages of Peace - Hun Sen's Cambodia - page 59

tion. The PDK blocked UNTAC officials from entering its zones and refused to disarm or
demobilize its forces in line with the peace plan. 49
Australia's foreign minister, Gareth Evans, one of the key architects of the Paris Agree-
ments, counseled Akashi to stay the course. The mission and its backers, he said, should
“accentuate the positive, find the common ground, keep working away, and keep our fin-
gers crossed.” 50 But other than issuing resolutions and statements of “concern,” there was
little UNTAC could do. A series of economic embargoes targeted at the PDK's export of
gems and timber to Thailand had little effect on Pol Pot's finances. 51 One incident at the
start of the mission would come to serve as a metaphor for the mission's unwillingness
to directly confront the PDK. In May 1992, traveling near Pailin, Akashi and Lieutenant-
General John M. Sanderson, the mission's Australian military head, came across a Khmer
Rouge “roadblock”—a thin bamboo pole that had been laid across the road. Refused entry
by the young PDK soldiers who manned the flimsy barricade, Akashi and Sanderson
turned their convoy around. 52
The “bamboo pole incident” caused a minor international sensation. Many observers
argued that the UNTAC convoy had the right to force its way through the barrier, seeing
its retreat as a symbol of the UN and Akashi's broader capitulation to the PDK. The in-
cident prompted UNTAC's French deputy military commander, Brigadier-General Jean-
Michel Loridon, to call for more muscular action against Pol Pot's forces. Sanderson re-
fused, rightly pointing out that UNTAC lacked the mandate to engage in “peace enforce-
ment” actions. Loridon was later dismissed for insisting that UNTAC let him deal with
Pol Pot once and for all. For the Khmer Rouge, it was a handy lesson. Despite possessing
all the outward trappings of power, UN member states were reluctant to take casualties.
“The Cambodian people believed that the UN blue berets were like Jupiter threatening
to unleash lightning against the Khmer Rouge,” Sihanouk told the Far Eastern Econom-
ic Review . “What do the people see? When the Khmer Rouge advance, UNTAC pulls
back.” 53
UNTAC faced similar challenges taking charge of the SOC's administrative apparatus.
In many provinces, a handful of UN administrators—none of whom had any experience
in Cambodia or any knowledge of the Khmer language—were expected to take control of
a hostile and deeply rooted political system backed by a thuggish security force. Benny
Widyono, UNTAC's provincial director in Siem Reap, the gateway to the temples of
Angkor, described his first face-to-face meeting with SOC governor Nuo Som, whose
province he was now, in theory, supposed to govern. “He stared at me, I stared at him,
we stared at each other. Finally I blinked first. That was it.” 54 Effective control, he later
wrote, was “a myth.” 55
The PDK's refusal to disarm or cooperate with UNTAC also gave the SOC leadership
grounds for resisting the demobilization effort. The 126,000-strong SOC army was the