13 - The 1991 Paris Peace Agreement: A KPNLF Perspective

Summary

I cannot speak on behalf of the other Khmer component parties to the Paris Peace Agreements, whose objectives and interests might be different from the democratic ideals and hope for change which the Cambodian people pursued through UN intervention, just after the Kuwait war and the UN exercises in Yugoslavia.

The Khmer People's National Liberation Front (KPNLF), since its official inception on 9 October 1979, was not meant to fight the Vietnamese occupying forces, but to bring about peace negotiations, which would involve not only the regional powers, but also the global powers, especially the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council. Aligned with the People's Republic of China and the USA, we were conscious of our limited capacity to move toward peace, because of the involved powers. Our mechanisms for the liberation of Cambodia were double: political-diplomatic; and limited guerrilla action against the formidable fire power of the North Vietnamese, supported by the COMECON and the Soviet bloc.

Since the Khmer Rouge had lost legitimacy as the representatives of the Cambodian People, the USA, some European countries and the People's Republic of China, allied since 1973 with the USA against the Soviet Union and its bloc in the new phase of the Cold War, were looking for a viable democratic force to be the voice of the Cambodian people. Before the June 1982 formation of the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, presided over by H.R.H. Samdech Norodom Sihanouk, the KPNLF was invited to participate in the 1981 International Conference on Kampuchea, which served as a UN framework for negotiations for a peace solution. Unfortunately, the Vietnamese and the Soviet bloc refused to join in.

We were left with no other choice, except to fight for the liberation of Cambodia with the help of the People's Republic of China, which provided a limited amount of a few thousand new weapons to the KPNLF soldiers, at the end of 1979. The KPNLF refused to have any joint action with the Khmer Rouge; we operated separately in the field. It was a cycle of guerrilla warfare in the rainy seasons, when the resistance movement would have the upper hand; and the dry season offensives, during the long months of the dry season from November to June, when the conventional warfare waged by the Vietnamese had the advantage, with their armoured vehicles, tanks and big artillery.