The Wages of Peace - Hun Sen's Cambodia - page 60

one military force capable of opposing Pol Pot, and the government could credibly claim
that Cambodians would be vulnerable if it was forced to disarm. In the end a token contin-
gent of 42,368 SOC troops demobilized—in addition to 3,445 from Funcinpec and 6,479
from the KPNLF 56 —but its most effective forces remained active. This led in turn to fur-
ther PDK foot-dragging and accusations that “ yuon -TAC” was working covertly to aid
the Vietnamese. Akashi was helpless. His mandate was stuck in a spiral of noncompli-
ance on the part of the two most powerful Cambodian factions, and there was little he
could do: the contradictions were in terms of the Paris Agreements, which the factions
had all apparently signed in good faith.
By the end of 1992 the mission threatened to unravel entirely. The Khmer Rouge began
kidnapping peacekeepers, and in December forced UNTAC to withdraw its staff from
Svay Loeu district in Siem Reap, close to the PDK stronghold at Anlong Veng. In April
1993, realizing that UNTAC was powerless to disarm the SOC, the Khmer Rouge form-
ally withdrew from the election and closed their office in Phnom Penh. Speaking on PDK
radio, Khieu Samphan decried the elections as “a theatrical farce to hand over Cambodia
to Vietnam, the aggressor … to legitimize the puppets Vietnam installed in Phnom Penh
since 1979.” 57 The announcement was the prelude to a wave of attacks throughout Siem
Reap that claimed the lives of two civilian police officers and injured another 16 peace-
keepers. 58
With two of the mission's three main aims—demobilization and administrative super-
vision—in disarray, UNTAC went all-in on the third. The holding of “free and fair” elec-
tions in May 1993 was suddenly elevated into the mission's core objective. But earlier
failures meant that the “political environment” ahead of the election would be anything
but “neutral.” On the contrary, the atmosphere was marked by intimidation and violen-
ce. Of the 20 parties that registered for the election, the three largest—the CPP, Funcin-
pec, and the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party (BLDP), Son Sann's successor to the
KPNLF—all built their election campaigns on fear: fear of the Khmer Rouge, fear of a
return to civil war, fear of domination by the Vietnamese.
The CPP's incumbency gave it a massive head start over its rivals. In 1992 the party
had embarked on a nationwide membership drive, swelling its ranks to more than 2 mil-
lion. In many areas enrollment was simply coerced. After arriving in a village, local au-
thorities and CPP “grass-roots strengthening teams” would hand out party memberships
to bewildered villagers, who were told that they were now expected to vote for the CPP. 59
The party's campaign pitch continued to focus on its opposition to the Khmer Rouge,
and menacingly called on Cambodians to “vote for the party that has fed you all these
years.” State propaganda depicted Son Sann and Sihanouk's son Prince Norodom Ranar-
iddh as PDK stooges, and TV broadcasts “exposed” the criminal activities of Funcinpec
and BLDP members. 60 In an April 1993 speech, Hun Sen referred to the two parties as a