God Save the Afghans
DEALEY, SAM
God Save the Afghans . . . From the U.N. showing up. BY SAM DEALEY AFGHAN LEADERS vying for control of their country have been dragooned into working with the United Nations in an effort to craft...
...Hun Sen holds all effective government power, corruption is endemic, and the country remains one of the world's most violent and desperate backwaters...
...BY SAM DEALEY AFGHAN LEADERS vying for control of their country have been dragooned into working with the United Nations in an effort to craft a transitional government...
...When all the votes were tallied, Prince Ranariddh emerged the clear winner, with 45 percent...
...Virtually overnight, Cambodia was transformed into a multicultural fraternity house...
...consistently leaves the campsite dirtier than they found it...
...The voters showed uncommon bravery and fortitude, sometimes walking several miles to cast their ballots, apparently undaunted by threats of violence or banditry, rough terrain or the heavy rain that swept much of the country," gushed Boutros-Ghali...
...So, Pol Pot's forces maintained their redoubts along the Thai border, withdrew from the election process, and continued fighting...
...But perhaps the most telling indictment of UNTAC's botched efforts comes in the form of a picture taped to the door of Phnom Penh Post editor-in-chief Michael Hayes...
...Over the next two years, peace, democracy, and the rule of law would be enforced by the likes of Camerooni-ans, Nigerians, Indonesians, and Bulgarians (who came to be known in Phnom Penh as "Vulgarians...
...claimed victory and quickly pulled out...
...Pity the poor Afghans...
...In his Off the Rails in Phnom Penh, Amit Gilboa writes that the whoring got so bad the U.N...
...At a September 1990 conference in Paris, the U.N...
...From Somalia to East Timor to Kosovo, the U.N...
...Even more surprising, Hun Sen lost...
...secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali was undaunted...
...Despite this, the May 1993 elections were a smashing success...
...As the election drew nearer, UNTAC suffered again from its first blunder of leaving Hun Sen in charge...
...Politically motivated murders, abductions, bombings, threats and other forms of intimidation also increased, most of them carried out by soldiers, police or supporters of [Hun Sen's government] against . . . political parties engaged in lawful political activity," wrote BoutrosGhali...
...The police ruled it a suicide...
...The negotiations with the Vietnamese puppet regime of Cambodia, led by Hun Sen, and the three opposition groups, most significantly Prince Ranariddh's royalist party and Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, led to the creation of a joint interim government under the titular head of Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk...
...Cambodia today is not a pretty picture...
...Hun Sen took 38 percent of the vote, and the rest was split among 17 other party leaders...
...Success was turned into defeat...
...Sam Dealey is a writer in Washington, D.C...
...Though this arrangement had not been foreseen under the Paris Agreements," Boutros-Ghali wrote, "it appeared to provide a cooperative framework that would contribute to the country's stability and reconciliation...
...brought in over 22,000 personnel from places near and far...
...secretary general Kofi Annan—is to the U.N...
...Consorting with prostitutes filled the empty hours and AIDS and venereal disease spread like wildfire...
...leadership itself, which failed in its mission from day one...
...For their public service, UNTAC's personnel were paid a stipend of $130 per day—this, in a country which boasted a per capita income of $120 per year...
...This, writes Henry Kamm in his Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Land, was "an astonishing feat of diplomatic sleight of hand...
...did little to press the issue...
...Political opposition leaders and journalists continue to turn up dead, brutal Khmer Rouge leaders remain openly at large, and the country's only steady source of foreign income is the hundreds of taxpayer-funded non-governmental organizations now battling (and often contributing to) the U.N.'s other legacy: prostitution, drugs, and AIDS...
...The key to Cambodia's democratic transition rested in the U.N.'s assuming full control of the government...
...The comparison being drawn most often—by a host of American and British officials, and by U.N...
...The U.N.'s mission would not be sacrificed to cowardice, and elections would be held to demonstrate "the firmness of the international community's commitment to the Cambodian people...
...Of the roughly 4.7 million Cambodians eligible to vote, nearly 90 percent did...
...It shows a young Khmer lying face down in a ditch by the side of a road, his back riddled with bullets...
...Brawls and boozing were commonplace...
...issued a directive requesting that UNTAC vehicles not be parked in front of brothels...
...His ruling Cambodian People's Party used the state's considerable apparatus to intimidate voters...
...While the seats of the National Assembly were distributed proportionally, control of the executive went to Ranariddh...
...He declared that the election results "fairly and accurately reflect the will of the Cambodian people and must be respected...
...lacks the resolve to enforce its missions...
...The most disturbing aspect of the U.N.'s Cambodia operation is that UNTAC's failures were not an isolated case...
...The most unprincipled behavior, however, came not from UNTAC's rank and file, but from the U.N...
...Hun Sen had no intention of giving up the government without a fight, and since he still controlled all aspects of the military, Cambodia was on the brink of another civil war...
...But Hun Sen refused to relinquish control over his government, much less the armed forces and the U.N...
...sought to end a quarter century of wars in Cambodia by bringing together the country's major political factions to hammer out a framework for peace...
...For the bargain price of nearly $3 billion, the U.N...
...The U.N...
...drug use shot through the roof...
...But the real power lay with the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), whose mandate was "to restore and maintain peace in Cambodia, to promote national reconciliation, and to ensure the exercise of the right to self-determination of the Cambodian people through free and fair elec-tions"—and to do so by "all powers necessary...
...Which is precisely what UNTAC proceeded not to do...
...effort in Cambodia...
...If Hun Sen's army could be tamed, the Khmer Rouge would ostensibly demobilize and submit to national elections...
...Rather than rallying the international community and its 16,000 troops to quell this thuggery, UNTAC changed the rules, making Ranariddh and Hun Sen co-prime ministers and divvying up control of the government between them...
...Free and fair elections, "not peace and reconciliation, was made the objective by which success or failure . . . was to be judged...
...Behind the rhetoric of peace at any cost—and the invoices to prove it—the U.N...
Vol. 7 • December 2001 • No. 12
