(3 of 5)
The Paris agreement had several purposes. One was to remove a large barrier to U.S.-Soviet-Chinese detente. Another was to get the international community off the hook of recognizing the Khmer Rouge as the government of Cambodia; elections would in effect legitimize much of the present administration in Phnom Penh in coalition with other parties. Equally important, the peace plan would separate the Khmer Rouge from China, their principal sponsor; in return for having its clients admitted to the political game in Phnom Penh, Beijing agreed to stop supplying them with weapons. Including the Khmer Rouge in a settlement was at the very least a distasteful as well as risky solution, but the alternative was more war, no international recognition for Cambodia and no chance of peace.
Western diplomats believed that the process would wither the Khmer Rouge's power. What they failed to predict was the communists' ability to finance their own arms purchases from the sale of timber and gems in areas they control along the border with Thailand, which with Thai assistance they have savagely pillaged at great cost to the environment. The U.N. Security Council has imposed sanctions on the Khmer Rouge, to little avail.
Pol Pot's forces are also threatening to destroy the peace process altogether by refusing to demobilize their 27,000 fighters and allow UNTAC access to territory under their control. Their reason appears to be fear of UNTAC's liberating effect on their cadres and villagers. But their standard $ explanation is that they pulled out of the accord because UNTAC failed to insist on the withdrawal of all Vietnamese troops from Cambodia or to take control of the government in Phnom Penh, as required by the accord.
There is no evidence that main-force Vietnamese units are still deployed in the country, but hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, perhaps more than a million, are now there as traders, artisans, fishermen. Many of them are demobilized soldiers, suspected by some Cambodians of being part of a Hanoi fifth column. Vietnamese advisers are still believed to hold key positions in some ministries.
For so complex and ambitious a program, the U.N. was lamentably slow in deploying UNTAC. Troops came piecemeal, and some were at first immobilized by lack of logistic support. Despite the large staff now in place, UNTAC has had difficulty asserting control over the Hun Sen administration. In the provinces, the handful of U.N. civil servants found themselves powerless in the face of entrenched local officialdom backed by all the government's resources, including police and troops.
When the Khmer Rouge announced in June that they would not allow the U.N. into their areas, some U.N. officers wanted to call their bluff and dispatch forces into the territory. But force commander Lieut. General John Sanderson felt such pressure might destroy the peace process, and most of the countries that had contributed troops would not let them be sent into battle against the Khmer Rouge. The disagreement highlighted a U.N. dilemma: When should peacekeeping become peace enforcing -- perhaps with the loss of peacekeepers' lives?