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POWER-SHARING and________ PEACEMAKING IN CAMBODIA? Michael Leifer T,hirteen years after its beginning, the Cambodian conflict appears to be over. Within less than four months, a protracted process of negotiations was accelerated and brought to a conclusion by an initiative undertaken by Prince Norodom Sihanouk and sanctioned by China. That process led to the signing of a peace agreement at an international conference in Paris in October 1991.J This article addresses the issue of power-sharing, which occupied a central place in those negotiations, and assesses the viability of the ultimate accord. The Cambodian conflict eluded resolution for so long because it did not lend itselfto any ofthree general ways ofovercoming an internal war fuelled by international rivalry. Conflict resolution is most likely in such 1. The Final Act of the Paris Conference signed on behalf of nineteen governments on October 23, 1991 comprised three documents: (1) An Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict together with five annexes dealing with (a) the mandate of the United Nations Transitional Authority; (b) withdrawal, cease-fire and related measures; (c) elections; (d) repatriation of Cambodian refugees and displaced persons; and (e) principles for a new constitution for Cambodia; (2) An Agreement concerning the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and inviolability, neutrality and national unity of Cambodia; (3) A Declaration on rehabilitation and reconstruction of Cambodia. Michael Leifer is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of several books and numerous articles on the politics and international relations ofSoutheast Asia. His most recent book is ASEAN and the Security ofSouth-East Asia (London/NY: Routledge, 1989). 139 140 SAISREVIEW circumstances where: (1) one party imposes on its adversary a military defeat which then leads to a political settlement; (2) neither party "wins" the civil war but one ofthem is unwilling to bear the human and material costs of continuing the conflict and therefore concedes effective defeat, even if disguised as a "political settlement"; or (3) both parties reach a genuine compromise in the form of power-sharing arrangements. In the recent experience ofIndochina, conflict resolution ofa kind has been achieved in only two of the three ways indicated above. For example , the decisive military victory by the Communist-led Viet Minh over the French at the battle ofDien Bien Phu in May 1954 shaped the provisional political settlement for Indochina agreed on at the Geneva Conference the following July. Alternatively, the unwillingness of American society to sustain the costs ofmilitary stalemate in Vietnam was responsible for the terms of the Paris Peace Agreements that were concluded in January 1973. In both of these circumstances, the settlements were only provisional ; the ultimate arbiter was force majeure. In April 1975, the Phnom Penh regime was ousted. Later that month the South Vietnamese regime was militarily defeated. The fall ofSaigon and Phnom Penh was followed by the collapse of the provisional accord for Laos, that had been agreed on in February 1973. The third way of resolving an internal conflict is in the balance over Cambodia. There is hope that, for the first time, Indochinese warring factions will be able to reach a genuine compromise leading to peace and power-sharing. Its employment has been influenced, however, by one of the three contingencies leading to conflict resolution that were mentioned above. There has been no decisive military victory, but a military stalemate has occurred, accompanied by a loss of political will on the part of an enfeebled Vietnam, which had been deeply involved in the conflict. However, genuine compromise and power-sharing among adversaries have not been a part ofthe political tradition and experience ofIndochina. Power has been treated as a possession to be enjoyed on an exclusive basis, not as a commodity which might be shared with adversaries. At issue, therefore, is whether the measure of compromise reached in the political settlement of October 1991 is genuine or is merely a tactical accommodation leading to renewed confrontation. Origins of the Conflict The Cambodian conflict had its origins in a clash ofwills between the Vietnamese and Cambodian Communist Parties over the nature of their PEACEMAKING IN CAMBODIA? 141 relationship.2 After consecutive...

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