T wo years on from the elections, David Ashley asks if the "Kampuchean Problem"
has finally been solved.
THE "Kampuchean problem" as it was understood
international freedoms and civil society. Together they constituted the
obstacles towards a peaceful, stable, prosperous and democratic
nation.
The UN operation, although its mandate touched on all three
problems, was largely devoted to solving the first. The interest of the
international community was not primarily in the development or democratization
of Cambodia but rather in stopping a prolonged military conflict involving major
external interests. These included Vietnam, China, Thailand/Asean, the US and -
though often forgotten nowadays - the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc. This
was achieved, as was the other main objective, a stable central government which
could be recognized internationally; exactly what did not happen in
Angola.
It could be argued that both these achievements were already
largely in place in late-1991, before the first blue-helmets landed at
Pochentong. The Paris Agreements of October 1991 committed all the outside
players to ending their partisan involvement in a country which, outside the
context of superpower rivalry, was of little strategic importance. All the
outside players have largely respected their commitment, Thailand albeit a
little belatedly.
Within a month of the Agreements, a coalition between
CPP and FUNCINPEC had already been signed at Prince Sihanouk's urging. Although
that agreement, which was supposed to bring FUNCINPEC into a secondary role in
government and grant Prince Ranariddh the role of deputy premier behind Hun Sen,
was not fully implemented at the time, the elections ultimately served to force
both parties back to this original arrangement, with slight modifications. The
reason the coalition re-emerged was that it was, in some respects, the only
realistic option. Whilst FUNCINPEC (or more specifically Prince Sihanouk)
enjoyed popular support and Western backing, the CPP controlled the
administration, army and police. For FUNCINPEC to go it alone would have
threatened an almost certain CPP coup. For the CPP to have gone it alone would
have threatened the Western aid vital to sustaining the regime. The election
results, in that sense, were perfect for the international community in that it
strengthened FUNCINPEC's hand whilst forcing both parties towards compromise.
Because the CPP and FUNCINPEC have succeeded in retaining the coherence and
stability of their coalition, this part of the Kampuchea problem has largely
been solved.
Of course, for the Cambodian people the war hasn't ended.
But rather than being an international conflict, it now involves a low-intensity
conflict against an out-dated Maoist movement of the kind which almost
everywhere else in Southeast Asia had died in the 1980s. Because of the lack of
outside support, the Khmer Rouge are forced to rely on their existing arms
stores which, according to a high-level defector, could enable them to fight
defensive "people and guerrilla warfare" for another twenty years but cannot
support a sustained large-scale offensive. As Ta Mok explained to military
commanders in an internal meeting last year, the DK have now entered a new
phase, a new and lengthy war in which they have to be "economical". It is
primarily because of this diplomatic isolation and thus access to the
international arms market that the military threat posed by the DK has declined
significantly in the last two years.
It is as a result of the success in
the first area, that the second issue, that of Cambodia's economic development
and re-integration into "real" Southeast Asia has also begun to be resolved. The
nature of the CPP-FUNCINPEC coalition, both in its 1991 and post-1993
incarnations, is such that economic reconstruction is its principal, indeed
perhaps its only policy aim. It has met with a degree of success. Yet very
little of the economic and infrastructural progress that has been achieved
(concentrated largely on Phnom Penh) has been because of any particular moves by
the government. Rather, what was true of UNTAC is also the case for the
government: what is important was not anything it does but just the fact its
there, as a symbol of stability and international acceptance. (On the other
hand, UNTAC personnel, whatever their failings, did have one great advantage in
the eyes of the Cambodian population: their wallets.)
The Government's
major positive contribution has been to prevent inflation and to give a
relatively free rein to aid donors, NGOs and investors. It is that much easier
to provide aid or make an investment here than in Myanmar or Laos. But this
extreme laisser-faire approach works well for developing service or
trade-oriented private business in Phnom Penh and less well in trying to build a
systematic modern infrastructure in telecommunications or a reliable banking
sector. There has been little progress in creating a level playing-field or
constructing sectoral or regional development plans in which private investment
or foreign aid could be systematically incorporated. Even the much-trumpeted
Investment Law is a poorly-written document which only adds to the arbitrary
discretion the authorities have vis-a-vis the investor. The accompanying
sub-decree, without which the law is theoretically impossible to implement given
that there are no criteria for granting licenses and only the vaguest criteria
for giving incentives, has still not been written nearly a year
later.
Nonetheless, at least a law exists and a process established,
however arbitrary, by which investors can come and try their luck. Given
Cambodia's natural resources, cheap labor, geographical position and the huge
amount of foreign aid, as long as government keeps quiet, intact and keeps the
door open, things will basically work out. Of course, as with Vietnam and Burma,
foreign investment and diplomatic acceptance doesn't necessarily have any
relationship with balanced and sustainable rural development, social justice,
environmental protection etc. But whilst these may be problems of the next ten
years, they were never central to the "Kampuchea problem" of the previous
decade.
This brings us to the third issue - that of the political, social
and economic legacy of an autocratic and socialist government. This was never
the prime concern of the international community: the elections were intended
not so much to introduce democracy as to create a legitimate and thus
diplomatically recognizable government. Nonetheless, in the face of its failure
to demobilize and disarm the factions, UNTAC devoted most of its attention to
organizing a free and fair election and promoting human rights, both ideas which
rapidly gained an important purchase among Cambodian public opinion. Whilst the
post-election government has focused almost exclusively on problem development
and rehabilitation, the elections themselves were fought almost exclusively on
peace/war and perceived abuses of power (human rights, social justice,
corruption, etc.). It was indeed striking how small a role economic issues
played in the elections.
It is largely this discrepancy between the
issues on which the elections were fought and the issues on which the government
has chosen to focus subsequently that explains how quickly the government lost
the support of, for example, the independent Khmer-language press. In terms of
reforming the authoritarian or socialist legacy, it is difficult to recollect
any particular measure the government has taken since the adoption of the
Constitution (the establishment of the Appeals Court and wide-scale budgetary
reforms being limited exceptions).
This is despite the fact that
socialism was always a rather ill-fitting foreign import drafted on to the
Cambodian reality: indeed, nowadays, it is difficult to see any sign that 17
years of blanket socialist-communist propaganda in Cambodia made any impact on
anyone at all (Michael Vickery apart). The centrally-planned economy was far
weaker than in Eastern Europe. There was no large-scale and out-dated heavy
industry to be closed-down and thus no huge work-force to be made redundant.
Already in the late 1980s, following the Vietnamese example, free-market reforms
had moved much faster and with much less opposition than virtually anywhere in
Eastern Europe.
For this reason, the focus in Cambodia was not on
economic but political transition. As in much of the former Soviet bloc, the
CPP, whilst abandoning ideology and state planning, was able to transform its
political power into financial, bureaucratic an organizational strength. While
the elections and economic liberalization severely weakened the CPP's
totalitarian control over the countryside and brought freedoms such as the press
and free movement (still unknown in China or Vietnam), the next stage -
entrenching these freedoms into a rule of law and a democratic system - has
progressed far more slowly.
This is for four reasons. The first: the CPP
controls half the government and has thus been able to prevent any major changes
in the economic or bureaucratic status quo. The second is that even if the
government had wished to confront strong vested interests, it is far from clear
who would have won: the government is weak in financial and human resources and
hamstrung by the inevitable complications of the coalition system. Thirdly,
Prince Ranariddh has adopted a policy of not publicly disagreeing with his CPP
partners. The objective of national reconciliation and fear of upsetting the
delicate political balance has essentially precluded discussion of contentious
political issues: thus the Government has preferred to deny the existence of
serious human rights violations or corruption than to deal with them. At no
point since the elections has FUNCINPEC (or indeed CPP) been prepared to put
forward any alternative vision or policies on which they might seek to gather
public or parliamentary support. This, fourthly, is not least because the top
FUNCINPEC leadership appear to share with the CPP a similar ideal of Cambodian
society, one which is top-down, non-pluralistic and has no place for civil
society.
This should not be too surprising: Cambodia has historically
been a loosely-organized society based vertically on relations of power and
status rather than notions of equality and law. Cambodia has never known a
separation of powers: the society has rather comprised the all-powerful state
(or palace) and the all-powerless rural population with the Chinese traders
in-between. In particular, civil society played no role in the Sangkum Reastr
Niyum regime of 1955-70 which Prince Ranariddh continually evokes as the
government's model. Since no political faction or figure has dared to openly
discuss the weaknesses of that model, it is not surprising that the model is
being reproduced.
As in the 1960's, this unitary model can provide
Cambodia with the political stability necessary for economic development whilst
forestalling violent political and social upheaval. If it does so, then, as in
Malaysia and Singapore, its authoritarian tendencies will be considered a price
worth paying. But the Cambodian leaders have yet to show the far-sightedness,
anti-corruption zeal or sheer drive of a Lee Kuan Yew. If economic development
begins to falter, as in the late 1960's, the greatest weakness of the model is
that it leaves no institutional room for peaceful political change. In 1970,
what was formally just a vote of the National Assembly (albeit under pressure)
to change the President brought about the collapse of the entire system. It was
this lack of any civil society - in terms of institutions or even ideas or
traditions - which ultimately enabled the Khmer Rouge to enact extreme Maoist
policies with a freedom unparalleled anywhere else in the world.
Twenty
years on, Cambodia has yet to evolve an indigenous way of bringing real
political debate within the system and of building independent institutional
constraints on the use of power. Rather the Royal Government continues to
confuse itself with the political system of which it is merely a part. Note, for
example, the way that all electronic media is completely dominated by and is
subservient to the Government. The courts, who have yet to show any serious sign
of independence, have judged printed criticism of the two Prime Ministers as
harmful to social order. The National Assembly has yet to exercise any of its
constitutional rights to question government policy. (The only time when MPs did
seek to question policy, over the Malaysian contracts, the government simply
refused to answer.) The most outspoken MP, already deprived of any access to the
electronic media, is about to be expelled; yet another defeat in his
long-running attempts to use the law and domestic and international public
opinion against the weight of political power.
The failure of the
Assembly to act as a forum for democratic exchange is made all the more serious
by the lack of internal democracy within the government and the leading parties.
The Council of Ministers now reportedly meets only once a month and appears
rarely to discuss issues of contention; instead, like the Assembly, it largely
concentrates on the discussion and approval of draft legislation or specific
development projects. Within the parties there has been absolutely no attempt to
mobilize or consult the mass membership recruited prior to the elections.
Indeed, for many major decisions, there appears to be no discussion with even
the medium and higher-level party leadership, let alone the general public. In
retrospect, the way in which the constitution was drafted - largely behind
closed doors with no possibility for public input - should have been an early
sign of the way the democratic winds were blowing.
Cambodia's historical
failure to evolve a discourse of legitimate and responsible political debate
affects the "opposition", which essentially means the anti-government
newspapers, just as it does the government. Whereas in other countries, the
boundaries for political criticism have been established by tradition as by law,
in Cambodia no such boundaries exist. Likewise, because no other channels exist,
the press acts as the public's primary means to vent its frustration with the
world, including its paranoia about it's neighbors. The result is that pro-and
anti-government press tends to be largely filled by a fairly unsubtle exchange
of insults; not by news so much as by views and prejudices bottled up over 20
years.
Cambodia has advanced from the horrors of the 1970's and 1980's.
The KR is an anachronism, a movement combining 1950's Vietnamese communist
tactics with half-digested 1960's Maoist ideals. As long as it is deprived of
foreign support, and Cambodia itself becomes part of contemporary Southeast
Asia, then its passing-away, like that of Pol Pot himself, is merely a matter of
time. With political stability, some development and reconstruction will
inevitably proceed; although the pace depends on a degree of strategic planning
and on curbing rapaciousness. But if that political stability is founded on a
system which cannot incorporate political debate or change, then Cambodia, like
Burma, has yet to solve its most fundamental dilemma - that of creating a
political system suitable for a modern world.
- David Ashley, formerly
worked for UNTAC and was assistant to the former Minister of Finance.
