Dear Editor,
I found the report by Robert Carmichael of the quiet, but very effective contribution
which Mme Kek Galabru had made in setting up the initial meetings between Prince
Sihanouk and Mr Hun Sen in the latter part of the 1980s of great interest. I am delighted
that she has, in her own typically modest way, decided to let the role of herself
and her husband be more widely known.
A perspective history of the 1991 Paris Peace Accords may not be written for several
years to come. The official archives of the principal countries involved may not
be available for public inspection for at least another 20 years, in most cases for
another 30 or 50 years, and in a few cases never. It is however even at this relatively
early stage, in historical terms, sensible to put on record the important contribution
which another person made to the peace process, though this is neither widely known
nor recognised. I refer to Margaret Thatcher, when she was Prime Minister of Britain
in the late 1980s.
Mrs Thatcher came to Thailand in August, 1988 on her way back to London from a visit
to Hong Kong particularly to look at the Cambodian situation, of which she had no
first-hand experience, but which she realized was of importance to the future stability
and prosperity of the region. To that extent she was well ahead of one of her illustrious
predecessors in the Conservative Party, Sir Winston Churchill, who in his 79th year
was heard to remark: "I have lived 78 years without hearing of bloody places
like Cambodia"1.
Sir Winston's comments, however, were related to what the late author and diplomat
Sir James Cable has described as "the last example of an independent British
policy exercising significant influence in the resolution of a major international
crisis"2, namely the Geneva Conference on Indochina of 1954 which was co-chaired
by Britain and the Soviet Union and which brought a measure of peace and prosperity
to Cambodia in the late 1950s and 1960s until the war in Vietnam engulfed Cambodia
as well.
I was British Ambassador in Bangkok at the time of Mrs Thatcher's visit in August,
1988, which occurred at the time of the transition of the premiership from General
Prem Tinsulanonda to General Chatichai Choonhavan, whose mutual desire to play host
to Mrs Thatcher was happily resolved by an invitation issuing from both Thai Prime
Ministers.
Mrs Thatcher was accompanied by her Private Secretary, Charles Powell, and her Press
Secretary, Bernard Ingram, and a team of advisers and journalists who included not
a single official from the British Foreign Office. It was accordingly left to me
as the sole Foreign Office representative to explain the nuances and complexities
of the Cambodian situation, and it was fortunate indeed that I had served in Cambodia
in the early 1960s and in Vietnam in the early 1980s as well as in the South East
Asia Department of the Foreign Office in between.
Mrs Thatcher had a prodigious capacity to absorb and retain the information which
I fired in her direction. This did I hope prepare her for her meeting and discussions
with Prince Sihanouk which took place at the Funcinpec camp at Site B. The record
of those discussions must alas await the pleasure of our "30 Year Rule"
for the release of documents to the Public Record Office at Kew in London. Suffice
to say that on her return to Bangkok, Mrs Thatcher called an immediate Press Conference
and announced that Britain intended as a matter of urgency and importance to seek
the support and endorsement of the other four members of the UN Security Council
(United States, Soviet Union, France and China) in securing a settlement of the Cambodian
problem.
She was as good as her word, and though the Foreign Office in London was somewhat
diffident that this initiative was the result of her endeavours rather than those
of the Foreign Secretary at the time, Sir Geoffrey Howe, instructions were promptly
dispatched to the British delegation to the United Nations in New York and the engagement
of the UN Security Council in the peace process was energetically put in train.
Mrs Thatcher recognized that Britain had long played an objective and impartial role
in Indochina, both as Co-Chairman of the Geneva Conference on Indochina in 1954 and
of the Geneva Conference on Laos in 1962. She realized that a catalyst was needed
in the Security Council, which Britain alone could provide. China had been supportive
of the 1975 revolution in Cambodia which resulted in the emergence of Democratic
Kampuchea under Pol Pot; the Soviet Union had a Treaty of Cooperation and Friendship
with Vietnam whose troops, supported by revolutionary Khmer forces opposed to the
Pol Pot regime, liberated Cambodia in 1979; France was the former colonial power;
and the United States had yet to recover from its traumatic involvement in Vietnam.
In short, only Britain of the five Permanent Members of the Security Council had
the independence and objectivity to raise the Cambodian issue with the other four
Members without raising suspicions that we were acting primarily in our own interests.
The course of events which subsequently led to the 1991 Paris Peace Accords and the
arrival of the United National Transitional Authority in Cambodia to prepare for
the 1993 elections has been well documented. Nonetheless the particular role played
by Mrs Thatcher in galvanizing the UN Security Council into action needs to be put
on record as well.
It would not be fair to say that I was rebuked by the Foreign Office in London for
putting ideas into Mrs Thatcher's mind, but word came back that there was some displeasure
in certain quarters for what was described as my "settee diplomacy" in
sitting down with Mrs Thatcher and giving her a three-year course in the history,
politics, culture and economy of Cambodia in the very short time at my disposal.
I put it to her that there were those on the left of the political spectrum in Cambodia,
whom Prince Sihanouk had regarded since the early 1960s as Khmers Rouges in contrast
to the Khmers Bleus on the right of the political spectrum, who could certainly play
a part in Cambodia's future body politic, as they had in the early 1960s, and it
is no coincidence that the present Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Defence Minister,
Finance Minister and Minister of Commerce of Cambodia are indeed covered by that
generic description.
- Derek Tonkin, British Ambassador to Vietnam (1980-82) and to Thailand and Laos
(1986-89), Guildford, Surrey, UK
Contact PhnomPenh Post for full article
Post Media Co LtdThe Elements Condominium, Level 7
Hun Sen Boulevard
Phum Tuol Roka III
Sangkat Chak Angre Krom, Khan Meanchey
12353 Phnom Penh
Cambodia
Telegram: 092 555 741
Email: [email protected]