The Political Economy of Cambodia’s Transition, 1991–2001 This book explores the three continuing, intertwined transitions which have taken place in Cambodia since the late 1980s – the transition from command economy to free market, from civil war to peace, and from single-party authoritarianism to multi-party democracy. Using a political economy approach and drawing on extensive original research, the book argues that the first transition, to the free market, has been particularly important in determining the character of the other transition processes. The reorienta- tion of the state on the basis of personal networks of political loyalty and economic entrepreneurship, backed by the threat of violence, permitted the emergence of a limited political accommodation between the major parties in the 1990s, which provided few benefits to Cambodia’s poor. The book goes on to show how the interaction between local, state, transnational and international networks has provided different opportuni- ties for local participation and empowerment in rural and urban areas, and suggests that the roots of a future Cambodian democracy lie in this local activity, rather than primarily in elite or international policies for state trans- formation. Caroline Hughes is a lecturer in the School of Politics at the University of Nottingham. Her research focuses on the politics of resistance to, and nego- tiation of, international discourses of human rights and democracy in the Southeast Asia region. She has explored these themes in particular with respect to post-UNTAC Cambodia. The Political Economy of Cambodia’s Transition, 1991–2001 Caroline Hughes First published 2003 by RoutledgeCurzon 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2003 Caroline Hughes All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hughes, Caroline. The political economy of Cambodia’s transition, 1991–2001/ Caroline Hughes. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Cambodia–Economic conditions. 2. Cambodia–Politics and government–1979– I. Title. HC442 .H844 2003 320.9596'09'049–dc21 2002068233 ISBN0-203-22175-3 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-27627-2 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–7007–1737–4 (Print Edition) Contents Acknowledgements vii Note ix 1 Introduction: points of departure 1 2 Economy and state–society relations 18 3 Economic reform and state-making in the 1990s 39 4 State and party in the 1990s 59 5 International intervention and ‘international community’ 85 6 Multi-party politics in the 1990s 115 7 Promoting democracy: NGOs and ‘civil society’ 138 8 Urban protest movements: the future of Cambodian democracy? 173 9 Conclusion: manipulating Cambodia’s transitions 214 Notes 222 Sources 245 Index 255 Acknowledgements This study was possible thanks to the generosity of the Leverhulme Trust, which funded fieldwork in 1998–9 through their Study Abroad Scholarship programme, and also supported me during the writing phase from 1999–2001 through the Special Research Fellowship scheme. Fieldwork in 1995–6 was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, to whom many thanks are also due. I would like also to thank John Vijghen of the Experts for Community Research project for facilitating further opportuni- ties for research. The many people in Cambodia who kindly gave their time and expertise to assist me in my fieldwork are far too numerous to mention. Special thanks, however, are due to Chea Sophal, Sok Ty, Soeur Ketja, May Sam Oeun, Oeur Hunly, Nouv Phearit, Eva Mysliwiec, Ann Bishop, Jeanne Morel and Juanita Rice, for their generosity, indefatigability and hospitality. In helping me to make sense of the results at various stages, I am indebted to Laura Summers, David Chandler, Robert Taylor, David Hawke, Mike Parnwell, Sorpong Peou, John Marston, Yukiko Yonekura, Christine Chaumeau, Eva-Lotta Hedman, Vanessa Pupavac and colleagues at the School of Politics, University of Nottingham. I would also like to thank my parents, Dawn and Tom Hughes, for their financial and moral support, and my husband, Richard Brown, for his patience and advice. Note A number of the interviews referred to in these notes were conducted under guarantees of confidentiality. Consequently, interviewees are identified by a code letter (indicating their profession, etc.) and a number. For instance, J indicates a judge or court official. The full list of codes used is as follows: D National Assembly Deputy DEM Demonstrator EO Election observer F FUNCINPEC activist GW Garment worker H Human Rights NGO worker I International Organization official J Judge LLawyer LA Villager, Lvea Aem District, Kandal Province N Journalist OR O’Russei market trader S Student Union activist SK Villager, S’aang District, Kandal Province SQU Evicted squatter SRP Sam Rainsy Party activist U University professor V Monk W SRP-produced witness of alleged electoral fraud 1 Introduction Points of departure Cambodia’s transitions The Cambodian state has been undergoing a triple transition since the 1980s – from command economy to free market; from war to peace; and from authoritarian rule to democracy. All three strands of transition have been intensively scrutinized and influenced by international intervenors in Cambodian affairs. All remain incomplete, insofar as the terms ‘free market’, ‘peace’ and ‘democracy’ are understood in the West. This study investigates the ways in which the first strand of transition – the transition from command economy to free market – has significantly influenced the possibilities for, and limits to, the other two strands. In particular, it seeks to demonstrate the ways in which the development of the Cambodian economy over the course of the 1990s has erected barriers to the emergence of substantive democracy in Cambodia. The transition from command economy to free market took place by degrees, in Cambodia, following the collapse of the horrific experiments with total collectivization conducted by the Democratic Kampuchea (or Pol Pot) regime in the late 1970s. The restoration of privately farmed plots of land in the early 1980s proceeded to the embrace of market relations in all economic spheres in the late 1980s. This transition took place in the context of a civil war, the presence of Vietnamese troops, withholding of trade and aid from Western countries, and the struggle to rebuild a Cambodian state and to remake Cambodian society in the aftermath of the devastating Democratic Kampuchea regime during which up to two million Cambodians died. The war that raged in the 1980s was conducted between a Phnom Penh- based regime and a resistance based on the border with Thailand. The Phnom Penh constitutional regime, initially named the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) and later renamed the State of Cambodia (SoC), was installed by the invading Vietnamese army in 1979, and controlled the majority of Cambodian territory. Opposing them was a resistance formed of remnants of three earlier regimes. Dominating the resistance militarily was the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea (NADK), more commonly 2 Introduction: points of departure known as the Khmers Rouges, comprising the remnants of the infamous Pol Pot regime of 1976 to 1979, that had fled to the Thai border following the Vietnamese invasion. Also participating in the resistance were the royalist Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendent, Neutre, Pacifique et Coopératif (FUNCINPEC), led by Prince Sihanouk, who had led Cambodia from independence in 1953 until he was toppled by a right-wing coup in 1970, and the republican Khmer People’s National Liberation Front (KPNLF), formed of remnants of the republican government that had succeeded Sihanouk, from 1970 to 1975. The resistance, who together formed a Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK), retained diplomatic recognition in the United Nations and aid from China and Thailand, as well as humanitarian aid, directed in particular to the two non-communist parties, FUNCINPEC and the KPNLF, from the West. The PRK enjoyed the recognition of the Soviet Bloc. The international alignments that supported these warring armies served to mark the Cambodian conflict as a specificallyCold War phenomenon. This designation appeared increasingly apt towards the end of the 1980s, when, war-weary and suffering from a decline in Soviet aid and an economic reform agenda at home, the Vietnamese army began to pull out of Cambodia. Signs of a rapprochement between Gorbachev’s Soviet Union and Deng Xiaoping’s China, together with the articulated desire of Thailand’s premier Chatichai Choonhaven to ‘turn battlefields into market- places’, entailed increased regional interest in a solution to the problem. The dependence of the warring armies within Cambodia upon external aid and arms permitted significant pressure to be brought to bear upon the parties to the conflict to begin to negotiate more seriously over an end to the war. Thus, the second strand of Cambodia’s transition – the transition from war to peace – began from 1989, when negotiations began to gather steam. A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire was brokered in 1991, in the context of a wide-ranging and complex peacekeeping operation. Although unsuc- cessful in prompting an immediate end to the civil war, the UN operation altered dramatically the balance of internal and external forces.