Great-Power Posturing and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal

 

 

 

 

GREAT-POWER POSTURING AND THE KHMER ROUGE TRIBUNAL

 

 

John D. Ciorciari

 

            For the past several years, most media treatment of the proposed Khmer Rouge (KR) tribunal has focused on negotiations between the United Nations and the Cambodian government. The focus on UN officials is unsurprising, since they have been the most visible international participants in the process of shaping a tribunal. However, UN diplomats are only the front-line representatives of large international bureaucracies, which in turn are heavily influenced by the world’s most powerful states. This article investigates the role that some of the most powerful members of the United Nations have played in promoting or frustrating recent efforts to establish a KR tribunal.

 

            The UN Legal Department and its current head, Hans Corell, are certainly not mere puppets of the great powers. The personalities and belief systems of UN representatives have doubtlessly influenced their conduct of negotiations with the Cambodian government, as have bureaucratic politics within the United Nations. Nevertheless, UN negotiators never operate free of the constraints of great-power interests. In the case of Cambodia-long a site for strategic, political, and ideological rivalry-great-power politics have left a particularly strong historical imprint on UN policies. Although the Cold-War deadlock of the 1980s ended with the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces and the Paris Peace Accords, contemporary politics surrounding the Khmer Rouge tribunal show that Cambodia remains the subject of rivalry among the world’s most influential states.

 

            Since the relative Soviet withdrawal from Indochina in the late 1980s, the two most powerful military and political actors in mainland Southeast Asia have been China and the United States. During the latter years of the Clinton Administration, the U.S. government pushed- considerably, if not wholeheartedly-for a KR tribunal, while China adamantly opposed trials of former Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) leaders. The proposed KR tribunal became one of many fronts along which Beijing and Washington struggled over perceived issues of national sovereignty and human rights. Under the Bush Administration, and especially since the attacks of September 11, U.S. support for a KR tribunal has receded, while the People’s Republic of China (PRC) remains staunchly opposed. With the world’s largest country against a tribunal and its most powerful country ambivalent, the likelihood of credible trials for CPK leaders is clearly diminished.

 

Chinese Stonewalling

China has been the most consistent and outspoken opponent of an internationally managed or supervised tribunal for former Khmer Rouge leaders. PRC opposition has been explicit and direct, based on the argument that an internationally controlled tribunal would infringe upon Cambodia’s national sovereignty. There appear to be several reasons for the strong PRC position against an international tribunal. First, China’s strong support of the CPK during the 1975-1979 period makes the crimes of the DK regime a sensitive matter to Beijing. Trials of former CPK leaders would almost certainly reopen discussion about China’s role in sustaining the Khmer Rouge and elicit strident international criticism.

 

            Secondly, an international tribunal would undoubtedly draw attention to the Maoist and Communist features of the Pol Pot regime. Trials could provide a public opportunity for Western powers and Communist dissidents to attack the ideological enterprise of Communism and threaten the ideological prestige of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership in Beijing. Some of the intended parallels between Mao’s Great Leap Forward, the 1966-1968 Cultural Revolution, and Angkar’s “Year Zero” program would be difficult for domestic and international observers to miss.

 

            A third basis for Chinese opposition is that a tribunal under international (and primarily Western) leadership would represent a major affirmation of the principle that human rights abuses sometimes justify first-world encroachment into the traditional “sovereign sphere” of developing nations. China’s recurring disputes with the United States and others relating to human rights make it extremely sensitive to such precedents, especially when a Khmer Rouge tribunal would take place in its houyuan (backyard) of Southeast Asia. Beijing has long perceived the Western human rights agenda as a thin veneer for neo-imperial power politics and is suspicious of any process that would underscore its own vulnerability to human rights critiques.

 

            Finally, the idea of an international tribunal with heavy Western influence offends China’s sense of the balance of diplomatic power in Southeast Asia. Beijing regards mainland Southeast Asia as a traditional area of Chinese influence and perceives strong Western power in the region as a “hegemonic” affront to its legitimate regional ambitions. Further, Beijing suspects that Western military, economic, and diplomatic engagement in the region form part of a new strategy, led by the United States, to engage in post-Cold War “containment” to preserve continued U.S. dominance of the lucrative and strategically critical maritime sea lanes of Southeast Asia. The formation of a Western-led KR tribunal would signal continued U.S. primacy in a strategically and economically prized region where China feels historically, culturally, and geographically entitled to leadership.

 

American Ambivalence

The role of the United States in the tribunal negotiation process has been more ambiguous, as opinions in Washington have been considerably more varied than those expressed in Beijing. Outwardly, the U.S. government has consistently supported the creation of a tribunal under strong international supervision. However, Washington has been unwilling to lend the full force of its diplomatic arsenal against Phnom Penh to bring an international tribunal (or a mixed tribunal with internationally accepted safeguards) to fruition.

 

            If China has frustrated the prospects for a tribunal via opposition, the United States has hindered the process more through insufficient support or relative inaction. While many U.S. political leaders, activists, and voters support the formation of an international tribunal, Washington has been wary to push the issue too forcefully. There appear to be a number of reasons. First, like China, the United States has been widely criticized for its activities in Cambodia, beginning with support for the Lon Nol regime and the bombing campaigns of 1970-73 and continuing through the 1980s, when the U.S. government supported a Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea including the Khmer Rouge. Trials could refocus international attention on U.S. Cold War policies in Indochina, and reopen the political wounds of the Vietnamese War era, adding up to a serious deterrent to many U.S. leaders. Republican supporters of the Nixon administration, which carried out the bombing campaign of 1970-73, are particularly sensitive to the possibility of reopening the Cambodian issue.

 

            In addition, some leaders in Washington are unwilling to support a process that could inure to the benefit of Hun Sen, who has no shortage of political adversaries in the United States. Many members of the U.S. Congress and executive administration are veterans of the Vietnam War, and almost all lived through an era in which Moscow, Hanoi, and their Cambodian allies formed Washington’s mortal strategic and ideological adversaries. Other U.S. leaders oppose Hun Sen for different reasons, citing his alleged human rights abuses and authoritarianism. Senator Jesse Helms and Congresswoman Dana Rohrabacher even proposed a resolution that would put Hun Sen on trial for war crimes rather than the aging leaders of the Khmer Rouge.

 

            U.S. leaders are also conscious that pushing for an international tribunal carries diplomatic costs. Offending China is only one of the costs. Washington must also be concerned about the effect that its actions have in other developing states, where leaders fear unwanted U.S. intervention. The Bush Administration appears less willing to expend political capital on issues like the KR tribunal since the War on Terrorism began in Autumn 2001. The anti-terrorist agenda threatens to override other diplomatic issues and push them under the rug, just as Cold War considerations did during the 1980s, as Washington prioritizes winning support from foreign governments in the fight against militant Islamic extremism.

 

            Finally, vocal U.S. leadership in an international tribunal would also be problematic in an era when Washington has become the world’s most prominent critic of the new International Criminal Court (ICC). Many American political leaders have reservations about the United Nations and, more specifically, believe that encouraging international trials will soon render U.S. leaders and servicemen vulnerable to politically motivated prosecution. Washington has already been widely accused of hypocrisy in its stance toward the ICC, and insisting upon an international KR tribunal would likely intensify those accusations.

 

            Of course, many American leaders and activist groups remain committed to bringing former CPK leaders to justice via an internationally managed or supervised criminal tribunal. Human rights groups and prominent members of both political parties have advocated the proposed trials, with the Democratic Left providing the most consistent vocal support. Nevertheless, the overall U.S. position can only be described as ambivalent. While China had openly lobbied the United Nations and major states to avoid international trials, U.S. pressures have been a blend of public and private encouragement and opposition.

Japanese and Indian Tip-toeing

 

            American ambivalence and strong Chinese interests against a KR tribunal have left the issue open for other major powers to step into greater roles in shaping the process. Both Japan and India have expressed interest in the Khmer Rouge trials, although both of these Asian powers have approached the matter with caution. India is eager to assume a greater leadership role in the diplomacy of Southeast Asia, as evident from its improved relations with Vietnam, Indonesia, and other regional actors. New Delhi’s offer to support a mixed KR tribunal if the United Nations permanently withdraws reflects an interest in the accountability process and in assuming a higher profile in Southeast Asian diplomacy. However, India is currently preoccupied with the conflict in Kashmir and is loath to offend Beijing, a longtime ally of Pakistan. New Delhi is also concerned about the re-emergent U.S.-Pakistani alliance and will continue to approach the KR tribunal carefully, avoiding steps that would threaten its critical relationship with Washington.

 

            Japan has likewise expressed interest in funding the Khmer Rouge tribunal and has offered consistent normative support for an international legal proceeding against Khmer Rouge leaders. Nevertheless, like India, Japan is constrained by its relations with other major states active in the Asia-Pacific region. Its alliance with the United States remains Japan’s dominant international security relationship, and Tokyo has seldom taken diplomatic action in the region that would create tension with Washington.

 

            Japan has also been wary of diplomatic initiatives that would offend neighboring Asian countries, whose acute memory of Japanese imperialism and the “Greater East Asia Prosperity Sphere” is evident in continued rows over history textbooks, Japanese war memorials, and the like. The opposition Japan faces in asserting diplomatic leadership in Southeast Asia was epitomized by Lee Kuan Yew, who once exclaimed that allowing Japan to participate in the UNTAC peacekeeping mission was “like giving chocolate liquers to an alcoholic.” Asian suspicions of Tokyo help to explain why Japan has relied heavily on financial support, and not military or political muscle, to exert its diplomatic influence in Asia. The KR tribunal is likely to be no exception.

 

            In sum, both Tokyo and New Delhi have interests in assuming greater leadership in the KR tribunal process, but both are cautious to avoid tension in their relations with China or the United States. Neither India nor Japan is likely to pursue an aggressive accountability campaign without a green or, at the very least, a blinking yellow light from Washington.

Conclusion: A Great-Power Muddle?

 

            To conclude, the impact of great-power politics on the search for accountability in Cambodia has been mixed. During the late 1990s, the balance of great-power influence was tipped in favor of a tribunal, but enthusiasm was never unanimous. In the past year, the most powerful and relevant state in the greater Asia-Pacific region-the United States-has shifted to a more ambivalent position, and a divided Washington has arguably hindered the emergence of Khmer Rouge trials as much as its has promoted them. The more enthusiastic policies of India and Japan are promising, but their realization may well depend on renewed U.S. interest.

 

            Without stronger great-power backing, UN negotiators may possess insufficient diplomatic leverage to break their current impasse with the Cambodian government. Facing only moderate pressure, Hun Sen and his negotiators have been unwilling to meet UN demands for added procedural safeguards designed to ensure the fairness of the trials. Cambodia’s recent receipt of $600 million in bilateral aid-$200 million more than it asked for-shows that Hun Sen’s alleged intransigence on the tribunal issue has cost him little. If the past is any indication, the great powers will need to apply considerably more pressure if the Cambodian government is to accept trials that comply with inter-national (i.e., UN) demands.

 

            To be sure, there are many individuals in each of the great powers, along with variable fractions of each state’s leadership, who support a tribunal on moral or ideological grounds. However, evidence to date suggests that perceptions of national self-interest have been at least as important as considerations of justice in shaping the policies of the major powers, and those self-interests have contributed to the absence of justice for the crimes of the CPK.

 

            While great-power politics are by no means the only factors holding up a KR tribunal, they may become the most determinative variable as the negotiating process moves forward. As the country with the greatest power resources and the most shifting position toward a trial, the United States is probably the critical hinge. To achieve credible justice in Cambodia, U.S. policymakers will have to overcome their concerns and commit themselves to the promotion of the same human rights so fundamental to the American political and ideological tradition.

 

_______________________

John D. Ciorciari is the Wai Seng Senior Research Scholar at the Asian Studies Centre, University of Oxford.