POLICING CAMBODIA:

The Public Security Dimensions of

U.N. Peace Operations

JAMES A. SCHEAR and KARL FARRIS

During the past quarter century, Cambodia has endured more war, revolution, extremist violence, and sociopolitical collapse than almost any other country on earth. In late 1978, after repeated border skirmishes between the Maoist Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese army, Vietnam launched an all-out invasion of the country. Hanoi ousted the Pol Pot regime and installed a quisling government in Phnom Penh. For the next 12 years, the Khmer Rouge waged a sporadic civil war against the Vietnam-backed regime from their jungle sanctuaries in loose association with two other Cambodian opposition groups. Throughout this long period, the country remained isolated, destitute, and bitterly contested, with each Khmer faction drawing support to varying degrees from different international patrons.

By the late 1980s, the Cambodian conflict had begun to lose salience internationally. The Soviet Union was retrenching from Southeast Asia and wanted to normalize relations with China; its support for Vietnam’s occupation was a major impediment to that objective. The Vietnamese, frustrated by years of futile effort to resolve the Cambodian civil war through military means, were eager to build bridges to their non-Communist neighbors. In April 1989, Hanoi surprised many observers by announcing its intention to withdraw from Cambodia and actually making good on its promise 6 months later. The prospect of Soviet and Vietnamese retrenchment actually pressured the Cambodian opposition factions to negotiate with the Phnom Penh authorities, as a number of Western states appeared to flirt with idea of recognizing the Vietnamese-installed regime. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states, in particular, viewed Vietnam’s retreat as a major boost to the resolution of the Cambodian conflict and as a step toward turning Indochina into a prosperous and peaceful region. They upped the pressure on their Khmer allies to negotiate.

None of these outside developments, auspicious as they were, fundamentally attenuated the struggle for power inside Cambodia. Indeed, for all four of the main Khmer factions—the “State of Cambodia” (SOC) in Phnom Penh, led by prime minister Hun Sen; the Khmer Rouge (KR), led nominally by Khieu Samphan (with Pol Pot in the background); the Front Uni National pour une Cambodge Indépendent, Neutre, Pacifique et Coopératif (FUNCINPEC),¹ a royalist party led by Prince Sihanouk’s son, Prince Ranariddh; and the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front (KPNLF), a republican non-Communist group—the prospect of peace was somewhat unnerving, because it was unclear how a settlement would affect their positions vis-a-vis the other parties. At the same time, none of them was prepared to accept the onus for stonewalling high-profile negotiations that enjoyed near-universal support internationally. So lacking any better options, they all moved forward, haltingly, toward a comprehensive political settlement, the details of which were finally hammered out in Paris in October 1991.

The diplomacy that produced the Paris Accords spanned a number of years.² By the late 1980s, all factions and their sponsors had agreed on the basic elements of a comprehensive settlement: a cease-fire; the permanent withdrawal of foreign forces; the cessation of outside military assistance; the voluntary repatriation of refugees and displaced persons; the creation of a transitional administration; the holding of internationally supervised elections leading to the formation of a new government; guarantees of Cambodia’s neutrality, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; and international support for the country’s rehabilitation and reconstruction.³

By far the most contentious issue in the negotiations was the thorny question of power sharing during the transition to a new government. The three opposition factions were adamant that the SOC should cede administrative control to an interim authority composed of the four factions under the leadership of Prince Sihanouk. The SOC accepted the idea of a transitional body but insisted that it be essentially advisory in nature.⁴

Faced with this deadlock, the idea of having the United Nations manage the transition gained popularity. Promoted initially by Australia, the U.N. approach offered a means of uniting the factions on the principle that transitional oversight would be performed impartially and not be in the hands of any Khmer entity. In September 1990, Cambodian factions agreed to form a quadripartite body—the Supreme National Council (SNC)—that would embody Cambodian sovereignty and represent the country during the transition. The SNC would have 12 members, six from SOC and two apiece from the other three factions, with Sihanouk as chairman and its 13^th member. The body would then delegate authority to the United Nations to ensure the proper implementation of the settlement.⁵

For all concerned, the experimental character of the arrangement was unmistakable. Delegating contentious jobs to the United Nations helped pave the way for agreement, but how the organization would wield the authority entrusted to it, and how durable the parties’ consent to the arrangement would be, remained unclear. The Paris Accords were fragile instruments, a product of intense pressure applied upon the parties by external powers operating in a climate of cooperation that did not yet exist inside Cambodia.⁶

In broad terms, the Paris Accords sought to end the civil war and restore internationally recognized government to Cambodia. The signatories called upon the United Nations to establish a large, multifaceted peace operation—the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC)—to supervise the implementation of the accords and to undertake a wide variety of military and civilian tasks with the consent and cooperation of the parties.

From the operational standpoint, it is important to stress that UNTAC’s mission was neither classical peacekeeping nor “peacebuilding” in the sense of long-term sustainment for reconstruction; rather, it aimed at an intermediate goal—transitional assistance. The operation’s purpose was to shake Cambodia’s warring factions out of their stalemated civil war and end the country’s crippling isolation. It could do these things only by being a large, highly invasive enterprise. UNTAC touched virtually every part of the country. It involved the largest foreign military presence since the Vietnamese invasion of 1978, and its concept of operations called for the largest, albeit voluntary, movement of civilians since the forced evacuation of Phnom Penh and other cites by the Khmer Rouge in April 1975.

Given the nature of the task, public security quickly became a major challenge—if not the major challenge—facing UNTAC during its period of operation. In this paper, we examine how U.N. planners sought to address the public security problem; how those plans had to be adjusted in the face of various operational difficulties and backtracking by the Khmer factions, principally the Khmer Rouge and the SOC; and generally how military and civilian resources were utilized in an effort to usher the transition process along to its decisive outcome in September 1993, with the formation of a new royal Cambodian Government.

The Mandate

The Security Council expressed support for the Paris Accords in resolution 718 (1991), and it authorized the establishment of UNTAC in resolution 745 (1992) for a period not to exceed 18 months.⁷ Shortly before the actual signing of the accords on October 23, 1991, the Council authorized establishment of the United Nations Advance Mission in Cambodia (UNAMIC), initially to monitor the cease-fire and then to initiate mine-clearance training and the repair of roads and bridges to prepare the way for UNTAC’s arrival.⁸

Under the Accords, the signatories agreed to confer upon UNTAC “all powers necessary to ensure implementation” of the comprehensive settlement.⁹ This expansive delegation of authority came with only one string attached, namely, a decision process for resolving any disputes over implementation that might arise between UNTAC and the local parties; but even these procedures were heavily weighted in UNTAC’s favor.¹⁰ An annex to the Paris Accords, along with a plan for implementation developed by the Secretary-General and approved by the Security Council, spelled out a broad range of missions.

Despite the breathtaking scope of UNTAC’s involvement, never at any time did the Council confer its compulsory Chapter VII authority upon UNTAC to implement its mandated functions. This was somewhat at odds with the tenor of the Paris Accords, under which the Cambodian parties had entrusted UNTAC with powers to do such things as fire or reassign obstructive bureaucrats, seize arms caches, or take corrective action to thwart human rights abuse. In fact, however, no enforcement provisions had been built into the Accords, and it is doubtful the parties would have agreed to the inclusion of such provisions. Nor was there any real support in the Security Council for mounting or sustaining UNTAC on anything but a consensual basis. U.N. leadership was keenly aware of the low tolerance for casualties among UNTAC’s troop contributors.¹¹

Peace Mission Organization and Resources

UNTAC was structured to perform a wide range of assignments, on both the military and civilian sides. Many of these jobs had either an implicit or explicit public security rationale.

Military Missions

UNTAC’s military tasks were the most prominent initially. Thirty-four nations contributed contingents to the 15,568-member uniformed peacekeeping force. It was a diverse organization consisting of 12 infantry battalions, a naval element, an air element, a mine clearance training unit, a robust engineering capability, and a strong medical and logistics support structure needed because of the lack of infrastructure support within Cambodia.

Lieutenant General John Sanderson, the Australian Force Commander, summarized the military’s mission as supervising the cease-fire and building confidence in the peace process and in UNTAC.¹² Specifically, the Military Component of UNTAC was tasked with:

In broad terms, the Military Component was expected to canton about 200,000 soldiers, disarm about 450,000 soldiers and militia overall (militia were not to be cantoned for agricultural reasons), securing more than 300,000 weapons of various types and some 80 million rounds of ammunition, and monitoring the borders and territorial waters of Cambodia. At the same time it had to establish a nationwide mine awareness/training program and assist with mine clearing.

Execution of these tasks was envisioned in two phases. During Phase I, which commenced with signing of the agreement, the factions were to refrain from further fighting and observe a general cease-fire. Phase II would involve the sequential regroupment, cantonment, disarmament, and then demobilization of the factional armies. Plans called for 95 regroupment areas and 52 cantonment areas to accommodate the forces of the four factions.¹³

The core of UNTAC’s military capability consisted of 12 infantry battalions, each structured as a light infantry force with about 850 soldiers. Their primary task was to oversee and facilitate the disarmament and demobilization process. For this, Cambodia was divided into nine military sectors corresponding to the locations of the planned cantonment sites. Eleven of the infantry battalions were given responsibility for manning the cantonment sites within the nine military sectors of operations (in two sectors, two UNTAC battalions were deployed). The 12^th infantry battalion was stationed in Phnom Penh, acting as a mobile reserve to be deployed on orders of the force commander.

Full deployment of UNTAC’s Military Component was planned to be completed by end of May 1992, shortly after which Phase II—the 4-month regroupment, cantonment, and disarmament process of the factional armies—was to commence. At the completion of Phase II, planned for September 1992, at least 70 percent of the factional forces were expected to be disarmed and demobilized. Therefore, with disarmament and demobilization scheduled to be well under way by September 1992, it was thought that civilian-led transitional tasks could be conducted in a stable security environment.

Civilian-Led Missions

Outside the military sphere, the lion’s share of UNTAC work was performed by six additional components—electoral, civil administration, human rights, repatriation, rehabilitation and civilian police—all reporting directly to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), Yasushi Akashi. (The Force Commander also reported to U.N. Headquarters through the SRSG, though on many issues he dealt directly with New York while keeping the SRSG informed.) In addition, a unit was set up within the Special Representative’s office to support UNTAC’s needs in the information/education arena.

UNTAC’s Electoral Component was tasked with organizing and conducting, not simply monitoring, nationwide elections. The range of jobs was enormous: drafting an electoral law and presenting it for consultation by the SNC; conducting civic education in Cambodia’s 179 districts and training locally recruited staff; provisionally registering political parties and party agents; registering voters; and planning and conducting the polling and the vote count. All these tasks were to be done within 15 months, with the key task of voter registration starting shortly after the completion of the cantonment of factional military forces.

To help create a level political playing field, UNTAC was given major responsibilities in the area of civil administration. The Paris Accords provided that “in order to ensure a neutral political environment conducive to free and fair elections, administrative agencies, bodies and offices which could directly influence the outcome of elections will be placed under direct United Nations supervision or control.”¹⁴

In practice, only SOC had a full-fledged government, and it controlled over 80 percent of Cambodia’s territory. FUNCINPEC and KPNLF had virtually no government, and the Khmer Rouge (KR) refused UNTAC access to areas it controlled.¹⁵ Therefore, UNTAC’s Civil Administration Component, mandated with “supervision and control” over all existing administrative structures, in practice exercised its responsibilities only over SOC administrations. This asymmetry was bound to create tensions.

Five administrative fields in which UNTAC was to exercise direct control were specified in the Paris Accords: defense, public security, finance, information, and foreign affairs. The term “fields” rather than ministries or departments was used deliberately to avoid any temptation in Phnom Penh to “clone” ministries as a way to evade control.

In defense matters, UNTAC was to scrutinize the administrative structures of the military as well as military expenditures. In finance, UNTAC was to examine fiscal policies and allocation of funds, preparation of budgets, accounting systems, banking, taxation, customs and wage policies. In foreign affairs, UNTAC was to oversee the issuance of passports and visas, and foreign assistance disbursement and accountability. In information, UNTAC was to review printed and broadcast materials and to ensure fair access by all parties to means of information.

In the public security domain, UNTAC’s job was to assess the public security procedures of police and other ministries influencing law and order and to examine laws and judicial decisions. To augment its operational oversight, a Civilian Police Component was established to supervise and control local civilian police. (“CIVPOL” is discussed in detail in the next section.)

Within the human rights area, UNTAC’s job was to promote “an environment in which respect for human rights is ensured” and to “prevent a return to the policies and practices of the past.”¹⁶ The Human Rights Component was divided into a Monitoring/Investigation Unit and an Information, Education and Training Unit. The Monitoring/ Investigation Unit’s principal task was to monitor the existing administrative structures of the Cambodian factions. This was done by visiting prisons and detention centers and investigating any allegations of human rights abuses. The Information, Education and Training Unit was concerned primarily with establishing preventive measures by conducting training workshops in human rights for Cambodian school teachers, university students, and government officials as well as helping to develop human rights curricula for primary and secondary schools.¹⁷

Initially, the Human Rights Component was to be staffed with only 10 officers, all to be stationed in Phnom Penh. This low figure reflected a judgment that all U.N. personnel would be able to act as de facto human rights monitors, reporting any infractions, and the Human Rights Component would function mainly as a coordination body. This quickly proved unworkable, and the component was increased so that at least one human rights officer would be stationed in each of Cambodia’s 21 provinces.¹⁸ Also, UNTAC’s Civil Police Component was tasked to serve as human rights monitors.

Paralleling the human rights efforts, UNTAC’s Repatriation Component, staffed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), would oversee the return of roughly 370,000 Cambodian refugees from Thai border camps at a rate of up to 10,000 per week, providing resettlement assistance such as shelter, household kits, and rations for 1 year. Finally, UNTAC’s Rehabilitation Component would coordinate the early phases of internationally funded programs to restore basic infrastructure (e.g., transport, telecommunications, roads). In June 1992, acting upon a consolidated appeal by the Secretary-General, an international donors conference in Tokyo raised $880 million for both near-term rehabilitation and long-term needs.¹⁹

The scope of UNTAC’s activities was enormous, yet a number of missions were not included in the mandate that would have given it more of a “peacebuilding” character. There was, for example, no provision for restructuring local police organizations or vetting personnel, and no program specifically focused on judicial reform. The civil administrative work in financial and macroeconomic areas concentrated mainly on oversight rather than technical assistance. The reasons for this, clearly, were political. Opposition parties did not want SOC to benefit politically from such assistance prior to the election. Once the transition was completed, major reconstruction could begin, but that was not UNTAC’s job. Overall, the concept of operations foresaw military and civilian activities occurring on largely separate tracks. UNTAC’s peacekeepers would help create a secure environment by overseeing an end of the civil war, while the electoral, civil administrative and other components would pave the way for Cambodia’s political and economic reconstruction.

Command relationships reflected these largely autonomous activities. An SRSG at the apex ensured a certain unity at the highest level, but at the provincial level UNTAC’s military and civilian command chains were quite separate. (Even among various civilian components, while coordination was facilitated by co-location, there were separate “stovepipes” to headquarters in Phnom Penh.) Generally, this division of labor accorded with the basic formula for compromise in the Accords: the Khmer Rouge would agree to end the fighting, while the SOC would demobilize politically. Events, however, quickly conspired to render this strategy untenable.

Public Security Dimensions of the Operation

When UNTAC arrived, Cambodia’s public security picture was changing rapidly. Apart from front line provinces, mainly in mountainous northern and western regions, the country was quiet. There was little dissent in SOC-controlled areas, but none was tolerated. The country was isolated; outside the capital, there was little commerce and few foreigners; common crime was not regarded as a major problem, and civil disturbances were rare.²⁰

SOC police presence was very pervasive and rarely challenged. Modeled on Vietnam’s public security apparatus, SOC police performed a wide range of internal security and paramilitary functions, including border patrolling as well as surveillance of, and action against, anti-regime elements.²¹ UNTAC’s CIVPOL Commissioner, Klaas Roos, pointed out that there was no longer a criminal justice system as generally understood. Courts, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and prisons had been destroyed by decades of brutal civil strife—justice was arbitrary.²² How the civil population viewed SOC presence is unclear. The regime consistently portrayed itself as the people’s guardian against the Khmer Rouge, but whatever public support it may have won was tarnished by a widespread perception of the regime as corrupt, inefficient, and a tool of Vietnamese interests.

By 1991, a number of stresses in society were growing more acute. Soviet budget support to SOC had dried up. The regime’s technique for covering its ballooning public sector deficit was simply to put more currency in circulation. Inflation was spiraling. Soldiers and civil servants were not being paid; extortion, banditry, and corruption were increasing. With a peace agreement in prospect, there was an influx of foreign visitors, businessmen, and Vietnamese migrant workers into Phnom Penh, stimulating commercial activity but also socioeconomic tensions.

Size and Composition of CIVPOL Component

From the U.N. standpoint, maintenance of law and order clearly was the key not only to the creation of a neutral political environment for elections but to effective implementation of UNTAC’s mandate, and it was identified as such.²³ Among other points, Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali noted that the widespread distribution of weapons in the civil population and impending demobilization of soldiers were factors that might lead to a deteriorating security situation during the transition. He also stated that “electoral processes are inherently antagonistic in nature” and might “stretch the existing public order machinery.”²⁴ This was a prescient, if greatly understated, observation.

Under the Paris Accords, responsibility for managing local police organizations lay with each of the factions. UNTAC’s job was only to supervise and control the local police, to “ensure that law and order are maintained effectively and impartially, and that human rights and fundamental freedoms are fully protected.” It was for this purpose that a civilian police monitoring element was included in UNTAC’s organization. The Civilian Police Component was modeled after the U.N. Civilian Police as used in the Namibia operation, where the U.N. police also had to deal with elections-related intimidation and violence.²⁵ The plan for UNTAC’s corps of civil police numbered 3,600 officers, a figure driven by a ratio of one U.N. officer for every 15 local policemen or every 3,000 Cambodian citizens. UNTAC’s police came from 32 different countries. For the United Nations it represented the largest U.N. Civilian Police operation deployed up to that time, and it was also the first time the civilian police were not placed within the structure of the Military Component.

Organizationally, the CIVPOL Component consisted of a Policy and Management Unit located in the capital, Phnom Penh, 21 Civil Police units at provincial level, and 200 Civil Police stations at the district level. Presence at village level was supposed to be maintained by regular patrols from district police stations and by frequent contact with village leaders. Initially UNCIVPOL had no executive authority. They were essentially unarmed monitors, not enforcers, though their ROEs did give them latitude to act where they witnessed acts of violence against citizens.²⁶ CIVPOL officers, in concert with other UNTAC components, also had roles in investigation of human rights abuse and in provision of security during elections. As the operation progressed, pressures for mission creep quickly set in. Generally, CIVPOL tasks became more diverse and demanding, to include escort and arrest-related activities, some of which the CIVPOL Component was not prepared to undertake.

CIVPOL Relations with Other Mission Components

While CIVPOL was seen as UNTAC’s principal instrument in the public security arena, it was not the only component with important public security functions. The Military Component’s work in cantonment, weapons impoundment, demining, and vocational retraining was expected to mitigate the social impact arising from widespread demobilization. Similarly, the Repatriation Component’s programs for resettlement assistance would help cushion the impact on refugee populations after departure from their well-established camps on the Thai-Cambodian border. Meanwhile, UNTAC’s civil administrative supervisors would attempt to deter or weed out top-level sponsorship of crime, corruption and human rights abuse. Human rights personnel would work on strengthening civil society through local monitoring of police, improving prison conditions, and training police and judicial personnel. Electoral activities would proceed with a number of public security safeguards in place. Even UNTAC procurement policies, in particular its large outlays for prefabricated buildings, stemmed in part from a desire to mitigate negative impacts on local society, including the stimulation of crime, corruption and socioeconomic dislocations. Although most of UNTAC’s components had some role in promoting or maintaining public security, the sheer magnitude of Cambodia’s various transitions—from war to fragile peace, from isolation to openness vis-a-vis the outside world, from a command economy to the free market, from a one-party state to multiparty democracy—was too great to be cushioned effectively. As it turned out, public security deteriorated badly once the transition(s) got underway, and UNTAC found it difficult to mount effective responses.

The Implementation Track Record

Even if the mission had unfolded according to plan, the challenges facing UNTAC would have been daunting. Practically from the outset, however, Cambodia’s transition did not go according to plan. This added grave complications and gave the impression that UNTAC was lurching from crisis to crisis in its efforts to incubate the creation of a new Cambodian government within a mere 18 months.²⁷

The Deployment Gap

UNTAC got off to a terribly slow start. Unlike Somalia or Haiti, it was not preceded by an intervention force. Its military units deployed in a slow, fragmented fashion, with infantry battalions preceding logistics and engineering elements. Even this 4- or 5-month effort was more rapid than the molasses-like pace of civilian components, especially the civilian police element. There was little advance preparation for CIVPOL. In effect, planning and execution occurred simultaneously.

The U.N. Advance Mission in Cambodia (UNAMIC) was deployed in November 1991 to plan for and facilitate the main UNTAC operation. No police element was included, and Commissioner Roos subsequently stated that this “hampered my efforts to set up this largest and most complicated peace operation within peacekeeping.”²⁸ Roos was not appointed until March 1992, 1 week before he arrived for duty, and there were only 200 police by April 1992. Getting U.N. Member States to commit civilian police contingents for UNTAC proved more difficult than recruiting contingents for the Military Component. This is understandable, because few countries have surplus policing capacity, that is, civilian police forces not already operationally committed.²⁹

The contingent did not reach full strength until November 1992, only 6 months before the scheduled elections, thus an opportunity to establish early momentum had been lost. Instead, the delays contributed to a sense of uncertainty about the transition and the international community’s role in it.

This atmosphere of tension and drift contributed to a situation in which the two main Khmer factions—the Khmer Rouge and SOC—began to backtrack on those parts of the Paris commitments most inconvenient to each of them. For the KR, the military provisions on regroupment, cantonment, disarmament and demobilization were the most constraining. Although there had been numerous field indications that KR units were preparing to comply in early 1992, their posture grew defiant during April-July as they accused UNTAC and SOC of failing to make good on other aspects of the accords, especially verification of the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces. By October, the Khmer Rouge leadership had moved toward a passive boycott—not cooperating but not violently opposing the process.

That posture, not surprisingly, had a deleterious effect on SOC’s incentives to cooperate. The KR boycott seemed to strengthen hard-line elements within SOC. The SOC leadership was desperate to have an election as a way to achieve international respectability, but it also was well aware that the United Nations was not about to cancel the polling in order to penalize any party.

The Law Enforcement Gap

Defiance by SOC was most evident in the public security arena. By late 1992, Cambodia witnessed an upsurge in politically inspired violence and intimidation, aimed largely at the newly resident opposition parties. While the Khmer Rouge were mainly responsible for attacks on indigenous Vietnamese civilians, elements loyal to SOC were widely believed to be the instigators of violence against non-Communist parties.³⁰ In some of the more unstable provinces, UNTAC personnel saw an expanding pattern of harassment, arrest, or abduction of political activists, bombings of party offices, and execution-style murders. Voter intimidation was also widespread, the most familiar tactic being the “registration” and/or confiscation of voter identification cards by local authorities. These cases provided mounting evidence of the complicity of police and military personnel.³¹

UNTAC was not oblivious to SOC’s role in fomenting violence; what it lacked until late in the process were any means and persuasive arguments to induce SOC to rein in its thugs. The Khmer Rouge boycott put SOC in a sulking mood—“Why should you expect so much from us when the other side is so defiant?” was a common refrain. The problem of political violence also showed tellingly the inadequacies of UNTAC’s supervisory apparatus.

As with other components, UNTAC’s civil administration unit deployed slowly. UNTAC had designated July 1, 1992, as the date when it would assume control over the five specified areas, but full deployment of the Civil Administration Component was not achieved until October. Planning was also slow. While the mandate specified what was to be controlled, there were no clear guidelines on how control should be exercised. The whole effort was highly experimental. It took 6 months for the Civil Administration to develop operational guidelines for the nature and method of “control” UNTAC would exercise in the different domains under its supervision. In reality, the Civil Administration Component was never really structured to permit it to exercise direct control of the SOC ministries. This would have required, among other things, a much larger staff, with greater fluency in French and Khmer, and greater familiarity with local culture and customs.

In the countryside, UNTAC controls were spotty at best and almost nonexistent in some places. Only about five to eight Civil Administration officials were deployed per province. The true nature of SOC’s state structure, power relationships, and method of exercising authority from the central government through provincial governors were all recognized too late. Power and decisions in this Communist “party-state” flowed through the interlocking party-government structure and not through the state ministries in which the Civil Administration had positioned itself for control. Finally, the “complex patterns of family, patronage, and political relationships that make up Cambodian society”³² made it impossible for UNTAC to gain any control or influence with the entrenched administrations. There were simply too many ways to evade UNTAC’s scrutiny. Without a functioning, independent judicial system to investigate, apprehend, and prosecute suspects (something which the Paris Accords left for a post-transition constitution), there was little expectation that criminal acts by public officials would carry any consequences.

With the Khmer Rouge backtracking, and the shortcomings of UNTAC control mechanisms clearly evident, SOC’s large assemblage of local party functionaries, hacks, and thugs had little inducement to adjust gracefully to the competitive pressures created by opposition parties. In the best case, it would have been a difficult adjustment, and UNTAC was already some distance away from that objective.

CIVPOL Problems

Conceivably, an effective U.N. Civilian Police operation could have offset somewhat the gaps in UNTAC’s civil administrative controls. Unhappily, the Civilian Police Component turned out to be one of UNTAC’s least effective overall, despite good work in a few areas by some highly skilled police personnel. The causes were numerous. Slow startup and poor planning were factors. Little training was done to acquaint police officers with the history of the Cambodian conflict or to build a sense of cultural awareness. This is especially critical for mission success, for it impacts on the effectiveness of training, mentoring, and serving as a role model of community policing. International police personnel must understand their environment and establish a good rapport with the local population.

The quality of police contingents provided varied widely. Thirteen of the 14 states that contributed contingents larger than 100 members were developing countries, whose police forces, to some degree, suffered the same problems that afflicted the SOC police: indiscipline, human rights abuses, and corruption.³³ Many came from constabulary and paramilitary backgrounds and were not particularly adept at community-based policing techniques; some lacked basic policing and investigative skills; and a significant number could speak neither English nor French, the operation’s two official languages, let alone Khmer. Roos described rivalries within UNTAC as a whole as well as problems within CIVPOL at the Singapore meeting:

There was also confusion about CIVPOL’s tasks, which were not precisely explained in the Paris Accords. It quickly became apparent that “supervising or controlling the local police” in a direct sense was an impossible task, given the comparatively small number of police officers available for local operations on a daily basis. Monitoring what Cambodian police officers do outside the presence of CIVPOL would have been a difficult task in any event, but the organization was not established or commanded with a highly intrusive presence in mind. There was no sustained Civilian Police presence at the village level, and patrolling was rarely conducted at night. Beyond this, provincial-level coordination with the military and other UNTAC components was erratic.

Unable to perform its core task satisfactorily, UNTAC’s beleaguered CIVPOL suffered from an increasing case load and responsibilities—not only monitoring SOC police, but also providing limited training to local police (mainly to FUNCINPEC and KPNLF factional police): investigating human rights complaints, common banditry, and political intimidation, and conducting security operations. To fill the vacuum in local laws and criminal justice, both for UNTAC and Cambodian police a “Guideline for the Conduct of Criminal Justice in Cambodia” was prepared by the U.N. Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division and used by UNTAC. This document contained some of the key principles and standards from various U.N. agreements pertaining to criminal justice, but it had little impact on the situation. Security operations were disliked by most civilian police personnel. These operations included providing security for the UNTAC Electoral Component, newly established Cambodian political party offices, and the conduct of polling. This meant putting unarmed CIVPOL up against the very real possibility of armed opposition.

In fairness, the lack of commitment to the peace accord by key parties to the dispute had much to do with CIVPOL’s generally lackluster performance. It is difficult to uphold law and order in the midst of a civil war. Cambodia was an anarchic country with no rule of law and no functioning justice system. Each province contained only two prosecutors and three judges, all appointed by the provincial governor and serving SOC interests. SOC simply refused to apprehend or try its members who had been identified by UNTAC investigations as having committed crimes or human rights violations.

The Revised UNTAC Mission

By the end of 1992—9 months into its operation—the United Nations faced three choices: abort the mission, seek a change in the military mandate and attempt to enforce the Paris Accords, or carry on with the elections realizing the work would have to be accomplished in an environment much different than envisioned.

In fact, U.N. planners in Phnom Penh and New York, with Security Council support but without formal action to change the UNSC Resolution, had already begun to flesh out the third option by December 1992. Its elements were to drop the cantonment process as prerequisite to elections, hold the elections without Khmer Rouge participation, if necessary, and take steps to shelter UNTAC electoral preparations from the disruptive effects of a deteriorating public security situation.

This option was risky, but three factors gave it some promise: first, and foremost, the Khmer Rouge were not well postured to obstruct national elections on a large scale. KR soldiers and cadre generally were located in remote jungle areas and were not in a posture of defiance in downtown Phnom Penh, as was the case with Gen. Aideed’s forces in Mogadishu, Somalia. Second, UNTAC benefitted from an exceptionally strong mandate and resources in the electoral and information/education areas. Its ability to deliver a technically sound election required a high degree of public enthusiasm, which it achieved, but not the active partnership of any political faction. By assuring a secret ballot and mounting an energetic public information campaign, it would create its sought-after “neutral political environment,” if not in the country at large then at least in the polling booth. Third, SOC was not without weak points. The question was how to apply pressure to induce restraint in fomenting violence and unrest.

Operationally, the biggest adjustment UNTAC made was to redeploy its Military Component to support the electoral process. Fortunately, there was a clear understanding of the importance of this adjustment at command levels. The Force Commander, Lieutenant General John Sanderson, worked diligently to imbue in his subordinates and the force in general appreciation for the significance of the new mission. This was critical given that support to elections was hardly glamorous work and required active cooperation with civilians. In this change of mission, the first act was to redeploy UNTAC’s infantry battalions. Initial deployment had been designed to accommodate regroupment and cantonment of factional military forces. The new locations corresponded with the borders of the Cambodian provinces and also aligned these units with the deployment of the electoral and other civilian components. Completed by December 31, 1992, the redeployment was intended to make the military more effective in protecting UNTAC activities by conducting escort and patrol operations and ensuring a more rapid response to potential trouble spots.³⁵

One immediate and positive result was improved planning and coordination for security operations among the military, the Civilian Police, and the Electoral Component representatives. Regular meetings to discuss each components’ plans and requirements were held at the various military battalion headquarters now located in provincial capitals. This helped abate the natural friction between civilians, who tend to want more military protection when the security situation deteriorates, and the military, who prefer that civilians limit their movements to make providing security easier.

The change in mission did have a noticeable impact on how the military interpreted its ROEs. While focused on cantoning and disarming factional forces, the Military Component interpreted its right to use force very narrowly, that is, strictly for self-defense. When the mission changed to protection of elections in which the military did patrolling, performed escort duties, and manned static security positions, the interpretation for the use of force was expanded to cover protection of UNTAC against any person or group that might threaten it with violence. The military thus became more assertive in defending itself and was more ready to return fire when attacked. Throughout Cambodia, UNTAC military installations and positions increased their vigilance and enhanced security measures.³⁶

One such measure was weapons control. Instituting a weapons control program was one of the main tasks given to the UNTAC military in the Paris Accords.³⁷ Habituated to near-constant threats, many Cambodian homes had weapons for self-protection. Automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and hand grenades were easily obtainable and relatively cheap in the black market. At one stage, a weapons buy-back program was considered but dismissed because the supply and availability of weapons was such that speculators would soon dominate the market and get rich.³⁸

UNTAC troops initially had no authority to take weapons from individuals other than through the cantonment process, but as violence increased, U.N. Special Representative Yasushi Akashi issued a directive in March 1993 making the possession of weapons illegal without a firearms license from the police force of the relevant Cambodian authority. Those found in possession of a firearm without the appropriate license could have the weapon confiscated. Soon thereafter the military and CIVPOL components, along with local police, began jointly enforcing the directive with weapons confiscation checkpoints.³⁹ A dip in gun-related crime was reported after UNTAC’s weapons directive came into effect.⁴⁰

In taking a more proactive stance, it was clear there were outer limits on UNTAC willingness to take on new tasks. The UNTAC Military Component was not prepared to assume responsibility for protecting party candidates, recognizing (correctly) that VIP security would overwhelm its limited manpower and field intelligence resources. Nor did UNTAC press its prosecutorial powers very far, fearing adverse reactions from SOC.⁴¹ UNTAC’s military was unwilling to use force when making arrests,⁴² and the CIVPOL contingent, which saw its main job as monitoring, was no more enthusiastic about the idea.⁴³ In the end, UNTAC efforts to establish a Special Prosecutor’s office foundered when it became clear that SOC courts would not hear cases brought before them by the Special Prosecutor.

Despite UNTAC adjustments, an atmosphere of crisis lingered. March and April 1993 saw an increase in pre-election violence, with even UNTAC civilians being targeted. During a 2-week period, seven U.N. workers were killed.⁴⁴ This led to a near revolt by U.N. electoral volunteers, who threatened to leave the country unless more protection was provided. UNTAC’s leadership was compelled to conduct a nationwide stand-down in the electoral process for several days while security procedures were reviewed and electoral volunteers were fully briefed on election security measures. The volunteers were also equipped with U.S. military flak jackets and helmets rushed to Cambodia on American military aircraft. These actions helped to stem the outflow of the electoral volunteers. In the end, only about 60 volunteers out of total of 400 left. However, even this attrition forced UNTAC to backfill for departed U.N. volunteers, using military observers.

As elections neared, polling station security came to be UNTAC’s predominant concern. Many feared that the Khmer Rouge, despite their operational weaknesses, could still disrupt the voting by attacking polling stations. A countrywide threat analysis was conducted by the military, with input from other components. Based on this assessment, individual districts received threat ratings (i.e., high, medium, or low). This analysis permitted a more focused allocation of UNTAC security forces, which General Sanderson had admitted to the U.N. volunteers were insufficient to guarantee security for the more than 1,600 static and mobile polling places located throughout the country.

At each site, UNTAC retained responsibility for security and for U.N. personnel and property in the immediate area. Measures included military and CIVPOL fixed guards, mobile patrols, and general area security. Each of UNTAC’s infantry battalions established a mobile reserve with the capability to respond to a security situation within 60 minutes anywhere in their area of responsibility. This was further backed up by a force headquarters mobile reserve stationed in Phnom Penh, which could be flown in UNTAC helicopters to any trouble area.

To compensate for UNTAC’s insufficiencies, a plan was devised to enlist the military forces of the three Cambodian factions that supported the elections in providing security. By written agreement with the United Nations, these forces were given responsibility for general security in the areas under their control. For this, they were given access to some of the weapons they had turned over to the United Nations for storage before the disarmament process collapsed.

The polling was successful beyond what most had dared hope, with 90 percent of registered voters casting ballots in a festive atmosphere in spite of early monsoon rains. The Khmer Rouge threat did not materialize on any significant scale. While the security situation had deteriorated throughout UNTAC tenure, and a neutral political environment was never established, the elections were technically sound and widely acclaimed, inside the country and out, as a valid expression of popular will. The UNTAC strategic goal was achieved: a new Cambodian Government with international legitimacy was established.

Key Factors Influencing the Outcome

UNTAC military redeployment was a vital step in offsetting a decline in public security. Both operationally and psychologically, it provided valuable protective cover for the process. For the Khmer Rouge, it reduced the number of targets of opportunity, ratcheting up the costs of obstruction. Although it left some military units exposed in remote areas, the shift also helped to keep a reasonable distance between Khmer Rouge-controlled zones and locations where UNTAC planned to concentrate its electoral assets.⁴⁵ It also demonstrated a clear resolve to stay the course, bolstering confidence among UNTAC civilian staff, as well as the Cambodian people, that polling could be conducted safely in major population areas. Without the Military Component’s direct and active involvement, the elections could not have been held under the tense conditions that prevailed at the time. Yet, it is also true that the Military Component’s action alone would not have been enough to deliver a successful result.

UNTAC was able to utilize civilian resources that had a definite value-added from the security standpoint. On the electoral side, UNTAC devised procedures that helped to insulate the process from the corrosive effects of political violence. The ballots listed political parties rather than candidates, which allowed UNTAC to delay the release of the lists of actual candidates in some cases until very late in the campaign. When SOC internal security officials demanded such information, UNTAC refused.⁴⁶ Moreover, the balloting and counting procedures were designed to preserve anonymity for localities as well as for individual voters. Prior to counting, returns from a number of districts would be mixed together, so that no one could learn how a given commune had voted (and thus could not threaten reprisals on that basis).⁴⁷ To thwart the most common form of political harassment—the confiscation of voter IDs—UNTAC electoral planners adopted a so-called “tendered ballot” procedure, to enable registered voters without their IDs to cast ballots.⁴⁸ All these steps helped to ensure that, at least within the polling booth, the environment was conducive to free and fair elections.

There were even some modest successes in dealing with SOC. Unable to penetrate its security apparatus directly, UNTAC sought to attenuate political violence by indirect means. It launched a number of surprise “Control Team” inspections in a number of provinces, to help expose SOC’s complicity in political violence. It also deployed static guards and mobile patrols to deter attacks on vulnerable opposition party offices. While efforts such as these hardly solved the problem, they helped to keep political pressure focused on SOC misbehavior. From behind the scenes, the very real threat by non-Communist opposition parties to withdraw from the election because of political violence was exploited by UNTAC and some outside states in efforts to maneuver SOC toward greater self-restraint.

As the election drew closer, these efforts seemed to take effect. The violence that was widely expected during campaign events did not materialize. While campaigning started slowly in the more stable areas, it soon spread throughout most of the provinces. By the end of the 6-week campaign, nearly 1,600 meetings and rallies, involving nearly one million people, had been held around the country without serious incident.⁴⁹ It appeared that SOC security forces were finally exercising restraint, perhaps out of a belief that victory at the polls was assured. As it turned out, they were wrong. FUNCINPEC won the May 1993 election, with a sulking SOC coming in second, resulting in a (shaky) coalition between the two, brokered by Prince Sihanouk. The outcome ultimately paved the way for the emergence of the new government.

Results of the Mission

UNTAC failed to bring about an end to the civil war in Cambodia: the core element of the Paris Accords went unfulfilled, and the Khmer Rouge remained defiant, though diminished. But UNTAC could fairly claim a number of successes. In the face of prodigious difficulties, it organized an electoral process that inspired great public enthusiasm, produced an internationally recognized government and helped to end Cambodia’s years of crippling isolation. The operation also brought home hundreds of thousands of refugees, helped to open up Cambodian society in unprecedented ways, and assisted in the unification of three of the factional armies. In steering a shaky transition process forward, UNTAC aided a major realignment of domestic political power, one in which Cambodia’s royalist non-Communist opposition party moved into coalition with Hun Sen's Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), leaving the Khmer Rouge out in the cold. By codifying Vietnam’s disengagement, it played a part in promoting reconciliation between post-Communist Indochina and the ASEAN states.

All these achievements, considerable in their own right, are even more notable for the fact that they were obtained in spite of a public security situation that UNTAC was never able to control. Despite its far-reaching mandate, UNTAC never had the wherewithal to control local police forces effectively. It was deterred from aggressive enforcement action for fear that SOC would either defy the process or unravel internally, producing even more anarchy. Moreover, civil-military coordination was feeble in UNTAC, at least in its initial phases. The civilian and military components were organized as largely separate operations; only the imminent collapse of the mission brought the two camps together.

Lessons Learned

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