Transforming Cambodia's "Killing Fields" into Farm Fields: American Diplomacy and Combatting Genocide.

• Author: Quinn, Kenneth

American Diplomacy

November 1, 2021

www.americandiplomacy.org

Title: Transforming Cambodia's "Killing Fields" into Farm Fields: American Diplomacy and Combatting Genocide

Author:Kenneth Quinn

Text:

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Paris Peace Agreement on Cambodia. That accord closed the door on years of war, during which the Khmer Rouge "Killing Fields" caused the deaths of up to two million persons (out of a population of seven million) and brought the 1,000-year- old civilization to the point of obliteration.

When I landed in Phnom Penh in 1996 to begin my term as U.S. Ambassador, the country was in the fifth year of implementing that 1991 agreement. Looking back on this improbable diplomatic success offers a chance to assess the effectiveness of American diplomacy in the 1990s, and how, despite one extremely unfortunate regression, Indochina and Southeast Asia were irrevocably changed by that accord.

Indochina in 1990--An Intractable Situation

At the start of the 1990s, Indochina seemed frozen in time. As I began serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the East Asia and Pacific Bureau, little had changed from the situation that obtained at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975:

-The United States had no official relationship with, nor diplomatic presence in, either Vietnam or Cambodia. Over 2,000 American POW/MIAs were still unaccounted for from the war; sharp political differences about whether Hanoi was holding back a "warehouse" full of the remains of U.S. military personnel blocked any forward movement.

- Cambodia was riven by internal conflict and civil war. Vietnam, having invaded the country with 200,000 troops on Christmas Day 1978--thus ending the brutal Khmer Rouge rule--had installed the authoritarian Cambodian People's Party (CPP) in power. -An opposition movement, under the titular leadership of Prince Norodom Sihanouk and composed of royalists, pro-democracy elements and the Khmer Rouge units that still controlled much of the Cambodian countryside, battled the CPP.

- Sino-Vietnamese relations, both diplomatic and commercial, had effectively been severed following their 1979 border war. That confrontation was continuing in Cambodia, with China supplying assistance to the opposition Khmer Rouge and royalist forces.

- The Soviet Union, through its support of Vietnam, further intensified its decades-long antagonistic relationship with China. The Nixon-Kissinger tilt toward China had provided important reassurance to Beijing about its vulnerable southern border.

- Japan, to induce Vietnam to provide more cooperation with U.S. POW/MIA accounting, had held back all development assistance and commercial investment from Indochina. The six ASEAN countries in Southeast Asia remained aloof from Cambodia and Vietnam.

Formulating a Three-Part Diplomatic Strategy

To address this seemingly deadlocked situation, we in the East Asia Bureau endeavored to craft a new diplomatic approach, one that would link together progress toward three distinct objectives:

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