How to improve the USA and the EU relations with Cambodia?

Phnom Penh 19-12-2023

by Raoul M. JENNAR

Even if the USA and EU represent the two main markets for our exports, even if positive signals have recently emanated from the diplomacy of these two partners, their relations with Cambodia do not live up to the ambitions which are ours both in the area of political neutrality which is the foundation of our foreign policy and in the area of our economic and social development.

Relations with the USA are deeply affected by the distant and recent past. As early as 1956, the USA decided to support those in Cambodia who wanted to overthrow the head of state, then HRH Prince Norodom Sihanouk. They supported several coups attempts and even an assassination attempt. Their role in the 1970 coup is obvious. From 1965 until 1974, carpet bombing and chemical warfare inflicted by the US Air Force caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Cambodian civilians and destroyed fully the country.

In 1979, they condemned the overthrow of the Pol Pot regime by the Vietnam army which was protecting the national security of its country and responding to the call for help by thousands of Cambodian refugees. A condemnation of the overthrow of a regime by a foreign army which they had regularly approved before 1979 and which they will approve afterwards.

Worse, for twelve years, they orchestrated at the UN a coalition which recognized one of the Pol Pot’s executioners as the only legitimate representative of a people of survivors; they imposed - with the support of Europeans and ASEAN countries - an embargo which deprived survivors of a genocide of the most fundamental rights to food, health, education, culture, work, housing, development; they supported a military coalition dominated by Pol Pot's forces that sought to destroy the reconstituting state in Phnom Penh.

After the Paris Accords of 1991, they spared no effort to remove the CPP from power. Following their failure, they became the ardent supporters of an opposition characterized by its calls for racial hatred, insubordination, civil war, and the practice of fake news likely to cause unrest internally and with neighboring Vietnam. A policy of “regime change” was at work until the recent past. It served as motivation for deeply unjust sanctions.

As far as the Europeans are concerned, the main criticism that can be made is that they have always faithfully followed the USA, without reservation and without nuance. Between 1979 and 1991, Western European countries provided real support to the military force dominated by Pol Pot, with the UK special forces even going so far as to provide instructors to the Khmer Rouge.

It is the legacy of the past. A past that Cambodians do not forget. Today, the USA and EU criticize and sanction Cambodia for the weaknesses of the rule of law and the lack of independence of the judiciary, for limits to political pluralism and freedom of expression, for widespread corruption. They also accuse Cambodia of becoming China's "puppet", just as they accused it in the past of being Vietnam's “puppet”.

Cambodians must provide frank and credible responses to these accusations. Allow me, as a Cambodian citizen, to provide my explanations.

The Paris Agreements imposed the introduction, via the Constitution and adherence to international instruments, of a liberal democracy of Western inspiration. They even imposed the electoral system even though it varies according to Western countries. As if the country was accustomed to democratic practices when it never practiced them, neither before colonization, nor during it, nor after 1953. Democracy is established neither by an international treaty, nor by a Constitution. Dictatorial regimes have functioned with an exemplary democratic Constitution.

The practice of democracy requires from a significant part of the population a sufficient degree of education to understand the imperative need to respect the laws and rules which organize society. Submitting to the law in all circumstances and whatever the position one occupies requires strong support from all levels of the population. This is far from being the case today in Cambodia where evading the law is practically a national sport. We cannot say that Westerners, from 1993 onwards, have helped Cambodians much to learn a respect for the law which they themselves took centuries to accept (to some extent). Westerners should have an honest approach to the issues they raise. Democracy, even if it is far preferable to any other regime, is a difficult exercise.

A democracy can only function if, in addition to respect for the law, there is strong adherence to a national consensus on sensitive subjects. On the perimeter of the national territory, on the reality of the 1970 coup, on the nature of the genocidal regime of Pol Pot, on the liberation of the country on January 7, 1979, there is no national consensus. By supporting an opposition that fuels divisions on these issues, the US and EU have not helped the emergence of a peaceful democratic debate in Cambodia.

There is no doubt that progress still needs to be made. But it is not with lessons and sanctions from powers that are far from exemplary that we make progress. It is by recognizing the efforts made and helping to take new steps that we move forward. Stop focusing on the empty part of the bottle. Help increase the full part!

It is not by interfering and setting themselves up as judges that Westerners will obtain what they consider desirable for the happiness of Cambodians. Cambodians are not blind. They don't need givers of lessons that they apply once here and forget another time there.

Cambodians know they still have a lot to learn and to improve. But they also know that they are the heirs of what was once a great Asian civilization. They believe they have the right to respect and dignity. This is what they get from China, an old and lifelong friend who, since Zhou Enlai, has never stopped defending the neutrality and independence of Cambodia and, in periods of peace, has never stopped give it generous help. Without monetizing his generosity in political or military support, contrary to pitifully polemical assertions.

Couldn't the USA and EU do the same thing? Help, at the level as China does, to equip the country and to invest in industrial activities. Contribute much more significantly to the reconstitution of human resources whose terrible deficit created by the war and the Pol Pot regime was aggravated by the twelve years of the embargo that ended only 32 years ago. Train Cambodian youth, the vast majority, in the most modern industrial technologies and in techniques for managing a modern state. Cambodia is and will remain an Asian neutral nation. It will never be the satellite of a great power. It has no enemies, and it wants to be everyone's friend. With mutual respect. Is that too much to ask of it?