Speeches

Intervention of His Excellency Senior Minister, Prak Sokhonn in the 25th Anniversary of the Paris Agreements


Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation

 

25th Anniversary of the Paris Agreements

 

Intervention of His Excellency Mr. PRAK Sokhonn,

 

Senior Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation

His Excellency Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, His Excellency Ambassador Yukio Imagawa, His Excellency Jean-Claude Poimboeuf, Ambassador of France Dear Colleagues Members of the Royal Government of Cambodia, Excellencies Members of the Parliaments, Excellencies Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Ladies and gentlemen,

  1. I am delighted that we can celebrate today the 25th Anniversary of the Paris Agreements in the presence of actors and witnesses of this important moment in the history of my country. I wish to express my sincere thanks to His Excellency Jean-Claude Poimboeuf for his initiative in organizing this meeting. I am furthermore glad that we have amongst us the presence of the other co-chairman of the Paris Conference, His Excellency Ambassador Wiryono Sastrohandoyo of Indonesia. We are fortunate also to have with us one of the key negotiators, Ambassador Jean-David Levitte and one of the actors of the first session of the Paris conference, Ambassador Yukio Imagawa. My appreciation also goes to the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace for its contribution to this meeting, in particular to its Executive Director, Ambassador Pou Sothirak, for his thorough analysis.
  2. I want to express my gratitude to my predecessor, His Excellency Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong, who was involved in every stage of the negotiations with Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen and who deserves to be introduced as one of the architects of the Paris Agreements.
  3. Two intense political will, two genuine peace makers made possible the negotiations and the Paris Agreements. Prime Minister Hun Sen and then Prince Norodom Sihanouk today our King Father. He left us just four years ago but we will never forget what we owe to the Father of the independence of the Nation. He was for Samdech Prime Minister Hun Sen not only the incarnation of a thousand year monarchy but also the essential partner in the rebuilding of an independent Cambodia.
  4. Many countries helped us during the negotiation. But there are that helped us more than the others. I said the important role plaid by Indonesia. I do not forget the contribution of Australia with this new idea of a transitional administration of Cambodia by the United Nations. But France and Japan not only made a decisive contribution during the negotiation process, but since then, during the years that follow and up until now, continue to support the rehabilitation, the reconstruction and the development of the country. My gratitude is for all other countries which, according to their possibilities, made my country what it is today.
  5. Let me set the stage with two questions. How do we stop the infighting and bring an end to this external support? How do we manage the transitional period starting from the cease-fire and leading to the holding of free elections? And how do we take into account the risk that we have a faction, which during their tenure in power has set up a real bureaucracy of death and has systematically eliminated people as a method of governance? In our view, these were the key considerations for the settlement of the Cambodian conflict.
  6. Before assuming the leadership of the Government of Cambodia Mr. Hun Sen was conscious that there could be no military solution to the conflict imposed on Cambodia. It was that very reasoning that led to the peace plan, which he proposed on the 12th of March 1985. From the outset, he expressed what became a constant and a forewarning fear: the Khmer Rouge are not part of the solution; but they are at the heart of the problem. From the start as well, he proposed that a supervised free elections be held.
  7. He was the very first to wish a meeting with then Prince Norodom Sihanouk. The first meeting, which took place two years later in Fere-en-Tardenois, from 2 to 4 December 1987, paved the way for subsequent negotiations.
  8. The journey towards reaching an agreement was indeed long. And this is where we must pay tribute to the good offices of Indonesia, which managed to bring together the Cambodian parties to meet informally several times thus paving the way for Paris to host the two sessions of the Conference leading to its successful conclusion on the 23rd of October 1991. All along the negotiations process, we have appreciated the efforts of the French diplomacy, as personified in particular by Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, for responding to the concerns expressed by our Prime Minister. Let me, once again, express here my thanks to him.
  9. For those who stayed in Cambodia, having survived the tragedy of the Pol Pot regime and freed from its tyranny, the Paris Agreements constitute a stage in a process that began on the 7th of January 1979. It is not an end in itself.
  10. Why did I say "a stage"? it is because all the events preceding that time was totally inexplicable to us: the denial by the Western community of mass crimes committed in our country; the retaining of a Khmer Rouge leader as Cambodia's representative to the United Nations; the decision to ban all development assistance to both a country totally destroyed and a society totally distressed by the loss of its elites. All these were decided in the framework of the United Nations. Such was the diplomatic reality during the years following our liberation, from 1980 until 1991.
  11. I have had the opportunity to raise, just a few weeks ago at the UN General Assembly, about this unconceivable past. We became aware of how the notion of democracy and that of human rights were manipulated to fit the geopolitical imperatives of the moment. Let me stress that there are indeed some States that can behave as they please and with impunity. Unfortunately I reckon that these are far from the principles guiding international relations, for they only represent the interests of the moment.
  12. It is thus with this clear perspective that we must look on, some 25 years later, what the Paris Agreements meant. On a positive side, it should be remembered that they have enabled the election of a constituent assembly that endowed the country with a new institutional framework. Subsequently it has allowed Cambodia to reintegrate itself completely into the international community, from which it was unjustly ruled out in 1979.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

  1. It is an undisputable fact that the terms of the Paris Agreements imposed an extremely ambitious program on Cambodia, entrusting on the one hand the United Nations largely for its implementation while its success on the other hand relied on the will of the Cambodian signatory parties.
  2. This program, in itself so ambitious as to reach near utopia, in one go, has credited as bona fide a political movement guilty of the worst mass crimes, and in so doing has distorted the reality and silently covered up the regime.
  3. I say again that it was an ambitious program since it was a question of bringing peace to a country ravaged by a series of conflicts. Before falling victims to a "proxy war" during the eighties, Cambodians were already victims in 1970 of foreign wills, quite determined to draw us into their camp. Therefore, it is too simplistic to talk of "civil war", as if the Cambodian protagonists were the only actors in this tragedy that has consumed our country over some twenty years. Twenty years of deep divisions within our people, so deep they couldn't healed simply by virtue of an international treaty imposed by the five major powers.
  4. For the vast majority of survivors who had not left the country, great was the fear of a return of the Khmer Rouge. It was this fear, which constantly drove our Prime Minister to repeatedly stress the point of view that the participation of the Khmer rouge in a peace process was full of danger. Some have called it the Cambodian gamble. And it was lost gamble. And this failure felt heavily and solely on the shoulders of the Cambodians to solve the problem posed by the existence of a significant Khmer Rouge military that had broken away from the peace process. This lost gamble was not without consequences for the political stability of the country.
  5. As to the notion of total pacification, it was undoubtedly the work of our Prime Minister, Samdech Hun Sen. He has put forward and implemented a policy that reflected his proposals during the negotiations, namely: bringing to justice the Khmer Rouge leaders and reintegrating the troops and their families into the national community, a process which he labeled as a win-win policy. This policy is unquestionably successful as it has brought reconciliation and restored national unity. Under the leadership of our Prime Minister, we have achieved what no one else before him had done so.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

  1. Cambodia, as independent as it is, had never known a political pluralism stemming from a proportional electoral system. Before the colonial era, it was an absolute monarchy. Soon after its independence, it became a one-party system, validated by elections based on a majority electoral system. This one-party system, called Sangkum Reastr Niyum, was placed under the authority of the father of national independence, our Late King Father Norodom Sihanouk. I need not mention the regimes that have succeeded in the decade of the seventies. Then we have had a regime comprising of survivors from diverse background or even without political experiences. We had a regime, which demanded only peace. And yet it went on only to suffer war and embargo.
  2. Fundamentally speaking, at the roots of our identity, there are certain realities that do not spontaneously lead to a peaceful democratic confrontation as we can find in some Western countries.
  3. I must add that there is nothing in our culture, which up to now, has predisposed us to peaceful debate. In conflict situations, some can't even distinguish between an opponent and an enemy. Moreover, it is not surprising that the relationship between the ruling majority and the minority in the opposition are difficult since the latter simply views the majority as enemies.
  4. Finally, article 2, b of the Agreement related to sovereignty, independence, territorial inviolability and integrity, neutrality and national unity of Cambodia, requires non Cambodian signatory parties, to, I quote, "refrain from interference in any form whatsoever, direct or indirect, in the internal affairs of Cambodia". Today, as on the eve of the tragedy in which our country was plunged, we are urged to adopt the views of one side, we are asked to adopt positions that go against our interests and we are constantly victims of interference in our internal affairs.
  5. We ask to be understood and not to be judged. We are keenly mindful of our own weaknesses. We know the path that we have yet to pursue to rebuild a society subject to a common law. We chose the path of gradual mutation, which, mind you, has taken centuries for those who have constantly criticized us. For us, we aim to do this perhaps in one or two generations.
  6. Our desire is to make Cambodia a modern country. Modernity is all about finding the right balance between the needs for development and the protection of our environment, all at the pain of going through the unavoidable pitfalls of trials and errors. Modernity is also about patiently discovering, or as a matter of fact rediscovering, respectful behaviors, social ethics, a general sense for the common good, and a feeling of righteousness. What it means is that we adopt new behaviors without which a democracy based on the rule of law is just a fiction. The deep wounds that bleed our people made all the more this objective more difficult to achieve. No one should ever doubt about our resolve nor of our desire to be recognized and appreciated for our own merits. Like all other nations, we have our pride and self-esteem and we opt to offer reasons for praise rather than criticism.
  7. We have learned to defend our independence. We knew what is the price of a dignity denied. We will lend our ears attentively to those who care to help us move forward at our own pace. In sum, the Paris Agreements, their legal effects of which have long expired, remain for us a sort of a road map or a program whose implementation can only be but gradual as we have to deal with the constraints of reality. But we will pursue it relentlessly, all because we aspire also to be a peaceful society, a vibrant democracy and a Cambodia worthy of being admired.
  8. In my view we feel we are well on track. Twenty five years ago, the UN has deployed its peacekeepers to assist us. Today, it is our turn to send back our peacekeepers to assist other countries in different parts of the world. As I am now speaking to you, Cambodia has deployed nearly 900 peacekeepers, both women and men, in various capacities as deminers, engineers, doctors, military police to operate in Lebanon, Mali, the Republic of Central Africa, Sudan, and South-Sudan. After the 1998 elections, which was described by the head of the American observer team as a "Miracle on the Mekong", we have finally secured peace and political stability that have allowed our country to experience spectacular development. Annually, we have managed to bring down our poverty rate by one percent and for the last two decades, we have achieved an average growth rate of over seven percent. Far from daydreaming, we are currently working our way to graduate from the status of Least Developed Countries (LDCs). This, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, is a great reason to hope for Cambodia and I can state with conviction that the Peace Agreements signed in Paris some 25 years ago have brought some happy outcomes for my country.

Thank you.

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