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Cambodia is situated in the central-south of the Indochina peninsula adjoining Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. It is 181,000 square kilo- metres in size and has a population of around 14.8 million who mostly adhere to Theravada Buddhism. Formerly a great Hindu empire, its culture still plays an important role in the country. The ethnic breakdown of the population shows an overwhelming majority of Khmers, with a minority yet sizeable representation of Vietnamese and Chinese ethnic groups. Due to its geographical location, Cambodia has historically been periodically drawn into conflicts involving warring polities of Vietnam and Thailand. This lasted until 1863, when King Norodom sought protection from France, and Cambodia became a French protectorate.

Under its colonial rule, France restored Cambodia’s historical monuments from the Angkor period which helped generate a sense of ethnic and cultural pride among the people. The French retained the institution of the monarchy and ruled Cambodia through the royal family. In 1941 they returned the title of king to the senior branch of the royal family in favour of Norodom Sihanouk, then in his late teens. It was assumed that he would be a pliant instrument of colonial rule, then subject to the authority of the govern ment in Vichy. This was a gross miscalculation which failed to take account of his innate ability to exploit the aura of monarchy among a predominantly peasant population which regarded him as semi-divine. Cambodian politics after the end of the Pacific War were marked by factional struggles representing royalist, republican and revolutionary interests. This development may be traced to the modest opening of the political system by the French on the restoration of their rule following the interregnum of Japanese occupation. King Norodom Sihanouk exploited the aura of monarchy and French failure to restore colonial authority to outmanoeuvre his republican and revolutionary opponents. Through political theatre, he was able to claim the credit for France

conceding independence in November 1953. Once independence had acquired inter national recognition through the Geneva Agreements on Indochina in July 1954, Norodom Sihanouk abdicated the throne in favour of his father Norodom Suramarit, reverting to the title of prince so as to enjoy full political freedom. King Suramarit ruled Cambodia as a populist but ruthless leader in part through the vehicle of Sangkum Reastre Niyum (Popular Socialist Community), a mass movement subject to his manipulation. Prince Sihanouk became head of state after the death of his father in April 1960.

Prince Sihanouk’s commitment to neutrality in foreign policy had served to keep Cambodia out of the Vietnam War until Communist use of his country’s territory provided a pretext for his republican opponents to oust him when he was visiting the Soviet Union in March 1970. Cambodia then experienced five years of civil war, becoming the Khmer Republic under the leadership of Marshal Lon Nol. Prince Sihanouk went into exile in Beijing where he established a united front in opposition to the new regime in Phnom Penh. He was joined in this front by a revolutionary faction led by a close-knit group of Cambodian intellectuals, the Khmer Rouge. The overthrow of Prince Sihanouk propelled Vietnam’s Communists to invade Cambodia to destroy Lon Nol’s army and extracted the administration of the eastern part of the country from the govern ment of Phnom Penh, which served to assist the Khmer Rouge to become a formidable military force. Aided by association with Prince Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge fought their way to power by mid-April 1975 just two weeks before the fall of Saigon. The Khmer Rouge under the leadership of the notorious Pol Pot subjected the people of Cambodia to a terrible ordeal in the name of revolutionary idealism between April 1975 and the end of 1978. They sought the total transformation of Cambodian society by murdering its political and religious elite and by driving the inhabitants of the towns into the countryside, where they

Cambodia, Kingdom of

Liow, Joseph, and Michael Leifer. Dictionary of the Modern Politics of Southeast Asia, Routledge, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/berkeley-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1864825. Created from berkeley-ebooks on 2018-06-18 18:44:36.

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were engaged in a primitive and punishing agriculture. The unstable and precarious new state of Democratic Kampuchea generated a great deal of internal strife marked by paranoia and treachery, and eventually it fell to an invasion by the Vietnamese on 25 December 1978, who then established the People’s Republic of Kampuchea in January 1979. Prince Sihanouk, who had returned to Cambodia to experience house arrest, was able to leave the country on a Chinese aircraft and to go on from Beijing to the United Nations in New York to condemn both his jailors and the Vietnamese occupiers.

While the Vietnamese invasion revealed the full extent of the horrors perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge, the new govern ment in Phnom Penh failed to receive full inter national recog - nition. As a regional organization with an immediate interest in stability in Indochina, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) stood at the forefront of inter national condemnation of Vietnam’s invasion of Cam - bodia and lobbied extensively for Vietnamese withdrawal at various inter national forums. Vietnam eventually withdrew in September 1989 following the collapse of the Soviet Union and its own economic failure, abandoning the govern ment in Phnom Penh and leaving behind a fractious society ridden by civil war. After protracted diplomacy, an Inter national Confer - ence on Cambodia in Paris concluded an accord in October 1991 whereby the United Nations would assume responsibility for implementing a peace plan tied to general elections in 1993. The Supreme National Council was established under Prince Sihanouk’s chairmanship as a formal repository of sovereignty which would delegate powers to UNTAC (United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia) with a supervisory role in administration and responsi - bilities for peacekeeping and conducting elec - tions. However, the Khmer Rouge refused to cooperate with UNTAC, charging them with failure to verify the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces, and called for the replacement of the Phnom Penh administration by the Supreme National Council. They were prepared to parti - ci pate in elections only if they would serve to advance their prospect of resuming power.

Contending factions with force at their disposal were bent on abusing the rules of the electoral game in their own interests.

By early 1993, the Paris Agreement appeared to be in serious jeopardy. The Khmer Rouge had called for a boycott of the elections, which they disrupted through acts of violence. None - theless, UNTAC went ahead with the elections as scheduled during 23–28 May, which were con ducted surprisingly without serious dis- ruption, despite intimidation of opponents by the Cam bodian People’s Party (CPP). Some 4.6 million voters had been registered, of whom nearly ninety per cent cast their ballots in a poll which the United Nations Security Council judged to have been free and fair. FUNCINPEC (National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia) led by Prince Norodom Ranariddh won a narrow plural ity with fifty-eight seats in the Constituent Assembly of 120 members. The incumbent govern ment’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) secured fifty-one, while the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party obtained ten seats. The CPP contested the outcome, threatening terri - torial secession in eastern provinces; UNTAC stood firm but conceded a provisional coalition govern ment, while the Constituent Assembly set about drafting a new constitution. That constitution, which reinstated the monarchy, was promulgated by Norodom Sihanouk on 24 September 1993. He was then enthroned nearly four decades after he had abdicated the throne. Prince Ranariddh and the former prime minister, Hun Sen, became first and second prime ministers respectively in a fragile coalition sustained by a common fear of the Khmer Rouge and of a loss of external assistance. Control of the armed forces and the police remained with the CPP, whose dominant position in the rural administration had not been challenged, despite the greater electoral success of FUNCINPEC.

The last UN peacekeepers left the country towards the end of 1993 amidst simmering tensions within and between the component parties of the ruling coalition as well as charges of endemic corruption. Ironically, the Khmer Rouge were unable to benefit from the degen - eration of Cambodian politics after the advent of the coalition govern ment and were eventually

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outlawed by the National Assembly in July 1994. Human rights abuses and draconian press laws, on top of the murder and intimidation of journalists marred Cambodia’s precarious coalition govern ment. Similarly, members of the coalition govern ment who did not follow the script were harshly dealt with. Finance minister Sam Rainsy was dismissed in October 1994 for his persistence against corruption. Rainsy con tinued his campaign out of office and was stripped of his membership of FUNCINPEC before being expelled from the National Assembly in June 1995 without debate or vote. Foreign minister Prince Norodom Sirivudh, was imprisoned on a trumped-up charge of attempted assassination after being removed from office. By 1997, the working relationship between Norodom Ranariddh and Hun Sen had broken down with both sides competing to solicit defections from the Khmer Rouge. One such defection which dealt a major blow to the Khmer Rouge was that of Ieng Sary, one- time deputy prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea and Pol Pot’s brother-in-law who had been sentenced to death in absentia in September 1996. However, he was subsequently granted a royal pardon, a move which elicited criticism from the UN Commission of Human Rights (UNHCR) and paved the way for the formation of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT) (see Khmer Rouge Trials) to try senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge for grave human rights violations including genocide between April 1975 and January 1979. Conservative estimates put the number of deaths during the Khmer Rouge regime at 1.7 million, almost twenty-five per cent of the population at the time.

In July 1997, while Norodom Ranariddh was out of the country, Hun Sen seized power through a violent coup in Phnom Penh to effec - tively end the coalition govern ment. Cambodia’s bid to join ASEAN towards the end of July 1997 was shelved due to the coup, which had caused embarrassment to ASEAN whose govern ments decided to postpone Cambodia’s entry. Cam - bodia was only admitted into ASEAN in April 1999 following fresh elections and the formation of a new govern ment in Cambodia. The elections in July 1998, which were supervised by inter - national monitors, were predictably won by

the CPP after which Hun Sen assumed the exclusive office of prime minister with Norodom Ranariddh relegated to chair the National Assembly. An ageing and ailing Norodom Sihanouk played a role in brokering an agree - ment whereby a new coalition govern ment was formed in November 1998, but without any effective sharing of power, which had become concentrated in the hands of Hun Sen. It was clear by this time that the dawn of a new era had arrived, effectively obliterating the remnants of Khmer Rouge influence. Pol Pot died in April 1998 in a remote jungle base, apparently of a heart attack. The final surrender of Khmer Rouge forces took place in December 1998 ending any prospect of a return to a murderous rule, whose legacy casts a continuing shadow over Cam - bodia. Even so, the KRT, monitored closely by the UN, continued the process of formulating the tribunal despite it being fraught with difficulties (see Khmer Rouge Trials). The KRT successfully completed its first case in February 2012, giving a life sentence to Duch, who had been in charge of running a notorious prison and was held responsible for some 15,000 deaths. It is now looking into its second case of four senior Khmer Rouge leaders – ‘Brother Number Two’ Nuon Chea, former head of state Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, a former social action minister. All four have been accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes during the 1970s.

In 2003, Cambodia held its third parlia men - tary elections since the signing of the 1991 Paris Peace Accords. Even with claims of a corrupt electoral process in favour of the incumbent party, the CPP did not manage to secure the two-thirds majority vote required to re-elect a prime minister and form a new govern ment. The elections also saw support for FUNCINPEC dwindle while support for the Sam Rainsy Party, a liberal party whose vocal and persistent opposition to the ruling govern ment had gained steady momentum, increased. A new govern - ment was finally installed in July 2004 following a coalition between CPP and FUNCINPEC. Following the impasse of the 2003 parlia men tary elections, Hun Sen sought to amend the constitution and do away with the two-thirds requirement in favour of a simple majority. This

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constitutional amendment was put in place in 2006. Meanwhile, the ailing King of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk, finally relin quished his position in 2004 making him one of the longest serving political figures in history. The mercurial Sihanouk spent his final years in China and passed away in Beijing in October 2012. The 2008 parlia men tary elections saw twelve parties contending, with the CPP winning a clear man - date with ninety out of 123 seats in parliament. On the other hand, support for FUNCINPEC continued to dwindle as they managed to retain only one seat in parliament, while the Sam Rainsy Party saw growing sup port and came in second to the CPP with twenty-six. The story at the 2013 election however, was markedly different. Spurred on by growing urban disen - chantment, high unemployment, persistent land conflicts, the return of opposition figure Sam Rainsy from self-imposed exile (even though he was eventually barred from con - testing) and the formation of a new coalition in the form of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), opposition forces tapped into wellsprings of discontent and combined as the CNRP to limit the CPP to sixty-eight seats on the way to winning fifty-five seats themselves. This considerable reduction in support, which amounted to the loss of a two-thirds parlia men - tary majority, was unprecedented given how the CPP had gained in every election since competitive elections were reintroduced in 1993. In the event, the CNRP refused to accept the result, alleging widespread electoral fraud, and subsequently boycotted parliament and called for fresh elections. In December 2013, anti-govern ment protests erupted as tens of thousands took to the streets in a clear demon - stration of widespread discontent with the personalized rule of Hun Sen. The govern ment retaliated with a crackdown on protestors, and in April 2014 Cambodian courts convicted thirteen people, purportedly from an opposition

organization known as the Khmer National Liberation Front, of treason and plotting to overthrow the govern ment and sentenced them to up to nine years’ imprisonment.

After October 1993, despite persistent ten - sions with immediate neighbours Thailand and Vietnam, Cambodia sought regional inte gration through engagement with ASEAN. It signed the Association’s Treaty of Amity and Coopera- tion in 1995, and was expected to join ASEAN towards the end of July 1997 together with Myanmar and Laos at a meeting of foreign ministers commemorating the thirtieth anni vers - ary of its formation. Membership was attained only in April 1999 after fresh elections and a new govern ment in Cambodia. Cambodia’s chair - man ship of ASEAN in 2012 was marked by controversy over brewing tensions in the South China Sea involving China and the Philippines. At the July 2012 ministerial meeting in Phnom Penh, differ ences between Cambodia on the one hand and the Philippines and Vietnam on the other over the issue of a reference to the Scarborough Shoal dispute resulted in the inability of ASEAN to agree on a joint com - muniqué for the first time in the organization’s history. The imbroglio drew attention to China’s influence in Southeast Asia, in particular over regional states which are heavily reliant on Chinese economic support.

see also: ASEAN; Cambodian National Rescue Party; Cambodian People’s Party; Democratic Kampuchea; FUNCINPEC; Geneva Agree - ments on Indochina; Ieng Sary; Inter national Conference on Cambodia; Khieu Samphan; Khmer Republic; Khmer Rouge; Khmer Rouge Trials; Hun Sen; Nol, Lon; Pol Pot; Ranariddh, Prince Norodom; Sam Rainsy; Sam Rainsy Party; Sangkum Reastre Niyum; Scarborough Shoal Dispute; Sihanouk, King Norodom; South China Sea; Supreme National Council; Treaty of Amity and Cooperation; UNTAC.

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