Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. 2012. xxviii, 423 pp. (Figures, maps, tables.) US$49.90, paper. ISBN 978-981-4379-82-3.
This very mixed collection of papers emerged from a conference at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore in 2011. It commemorates the twentieth anniversary of the Paris Peace Agreement on Cambodia that led to the 2003 elections and a new constitution. The completion of the peace process heralded the first sustained period of relative peace and security for Cambodia in decades. The editors come from diverse backgrounds: Pou Sothirak served as minister of Mines and Energy in the first coalition government of Cambodia after 1993 and was later ambassador to Japan; Geoffrey Wade is an Australian senior research fellow at ISEAS, and Mark Hong, a senior Singaporean diplomat, is also a fellow of ISEAS.
As might be expected given the disparate authorships, the papers are of inconsistent quality and depth. Among the contributors are a current deputy prime minister of Cambodia, one or two outspoken critics of the royal government, Southeast Asian foreign policy practitioners and Western academics familiar with the history and politics of the region. Both the foreword and the concluding paper have been provided by Prince Norodom Sirivudh, half-brother of the late King Sihanouk and former foreign minister in the fractious coalition government of the mid-1990s and no great friend of the current government.
One needs to be selective in choosing which of the papers to read; some are mere conference “boilerplate,” others display a deeper knowledge of Cambodia and the tortuous path it has followed since the Paris Peace Conference. We may skip fairly lightly over the opening pieces on Cambodia’s relations with Singapore. They are reminiscent of the fact that Prime Minister Hun Sen, when asked some years ago what his regional model for development might be, unhesitatingly answered “Singapore.”
In the chapter on “Cambodia and Southeast Asia,” Rodolfo Severino, former ASEAN secretary general, pairs up with Mark Hong to describe the role played by ASEAN in reconciling the warring factions after the breakup of the first coalition government in 1997. This in turn helped facilitate all-party elections in 1998, the reasonably free and fair outcome of which permitted Cambodia to join the regional organization. Carlyle Thayer’s learned paper on relations with Vietnam describes in some detail the historical interactions that have divided and united these mutually suspicious neighbours. The chapter entitled “Cambodia and Others” features papers on Cambodia’s recent relations with China (Julio Jeldres of Monash University), Japan (former Ambassador Yukio Imagawa) and the United States (again, Julio Jeldres), offering factual background data, but few fresh insights.
The chapter on “Peace and Reconciliation…” features widely differing assessments of the role of the UN Transitional Authority (UNTAC) of 1992–93. Yasushi Akashi, who led that operation, is unsurprisingly upbeat, whereas Ken Berry, a retired diplomat and former legal adviser to the Australian Task Force on Cambodia, is more critical of UNTAC’s performance. The youthful Khmer-American scholar Phuok Kung contributes a critical, well-balanced analysis of reconciliation efforts by all sides over the 20 years since the 1993 elections.
In the chapter “Cambodia Today,” we once again encounter varying views; the Belgian academic Wolfgang Sachsenruder, unquestionably an objective source, lays out a clear list of “issues” that preoccupy Cambodia and need to be addressed constructively by its government, including unresolved border disputes, corruption, the plundering of natural resources, land titling, and the emotional “time bomb” created by the apparent inability of minority Vietnamese and Chinese communities to assimilate.
The concluding discussion of “Cambodia’s Future” begins with an excellent paper on the Mekong River by Milton Osborne, the distinguished Australian scholar and author of two excellent books on the subject. This inclusion is by no means incidental, as the great river and its tributaries are vital to the preservation of fisheries and agriculture in the Lower Mekong Basin, not to mention the preservation of several endangered species. Upstream damming for the purpose of hydroelectric development is therefore seen as a serious strategic threat, mainly to Cambodia and Vietnam.
The final word is given to Norodom Sirivudh, who muses on Cambodia’s future in a carefully constructed piece that is congratulatory of the current government’s efforts to grow the Cambodian economy from an extremely “low base.” While paying appropriate homage to Prime Minister “Samdech Techo” Hun Sen, however, Sirivudh manages, largely between the lines, to point out that corruption and impunity remain the major impediments to social and political progress in Cambodia.
This book will be of interest to students of Cambodia and its integration into the area over the last two decades. It incorporates a useful “timeline” and a good index, while the more scholarly contributors provide helpful footnotes.
D. Gordon Longmuir
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
pp. 380-382