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1994-05-02
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<text>
<title>
Cambodia: Human Rights Watch
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Human Rights Watch World Report 1992
Asia Watch: Cambodia
</hdr>
<body>
<p>Human Rights Developments
</p>
<p> The most important human rights development in Cambodia in
1991 was the formal signing in Paris on October 23 of the
Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict.
The agreement was signed by the four warring parties the
government of Prime Minister Hun Sen in Phnom Penh, the Khmer
People's National Liberation Front (KPNLF), the Sihanouk
National Army (ANS) and the Khmer Rouge as well as all of the
relevant external powers, including the five permanent members
of the United Nations Security Council.
</p>
<p> The agreement is critically important to the future of human
rights in Cambodia for several reasons. It contains important
human rights provisions which appear to guarantee the ability
of the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red
Cross, and domestic organizations as they emerge to monitor the
human rights situation, as well as safeguards intended to
prevent any recurrence of the mass killings of the Khmer Rouge
period. The agreement provides for the release of prisoners of
war and "civilian detainees" arrested because of their
political affiliation or activities. It states the intention of
the transition administration in Cambodia to abide by
international human rights agreements and standards. And it
recognizes the importance of clearing the land mines that have
maimed and killed indiscriminately and represent a major
obstacle to the safe return of the 350,000 refugees along the
Thai-Cambodian border.
</p>
<p> The momentum that led to the final agreement began on April
26, when representatives of the four parties agreed to a cease-
fire to begin on May 1. A meeting was convened in early June in
Jakarta but became bogged down over the question of leadership
of the Supreme National Council (SNC), a body composed of six
representatives of the Phnom Penh government and two
representatives of each of the three resistance factions. The
SNC was to serve as the supreme Cambodian authority pending
elections. A meeting of all four parties held later that month
in the Thai beach resort of Pattaya produced unanimous agreement
on an "unlimited" cease-fire and the cessation of foreign arms
supplies. In July, the four parties met in Beijing and reached
agreement on a number of vexing issues including the naming of
Prince Sihanouk as chair of the SNC and the appointment of a
delegation to the U.N. General Assembly to be headed by the
prince. (The delegation to the United Nations includes Hun Sen
and Hor Nam Hong of the Phnom Penh government as well as Khieu
Samphan of the Khmer Rouge.) The SNC also requested the United
Nations to send a survey mission to help monitor the cease-fire
and arms cutoff.
</p>
<p> The Hun Sen government strongly opposed complete
demobilization of troops, believing that the Khmer Rouge could
not be trusted to comply and thus would be handed an
opportunity to seize military control. In a compromise reached
in Pattaya at the end of August, all factions will demobilize
seventy percent of their military forces and submit the
remaining thirty percent to U.N. supervision in specific
"cantonment areas." (The demobilization issue continues to
present difficulties. No agreement has been reached on the
number of fighters in each military group to which the
reductions would apply. It also appears that paramilitary forces
are not included in the definition of "military forces.")
Agreement on the remaining issue, elections, was reached on
September 19 in New York, with a decision to use a system of
proportional representation within regional geographic
constituencies.
</p>
<p> By October, the planned signing of the agreement had had
consequences both good and bad. On the positive side, the Hun
Sen government released 1,034 prisoners, including what the
Cambodian government news agency described as 442 political
prisoners and 483 prisoners-of-war in early October. (SPK,
October 30, 1991, as reported in Federal Broadcasting
Information Service, October 30, 1991.) Cambodia's most
prominent political prisoner, Ung Phan, Cambodia's former
minister of transport who was detained in May 1990 for trying
to form a new political party, was released on October 17. In
a special congress that met in Phnom Penh between October 16 and
19, the ruling People's Revolutionary Party of Kampuchea
formally renounced Marxism-Leninism and decreed that henceforth
the newly named Cambodia People's Party would pursue a
multi-party system with full separation of powers and a
president and national assembly elected by universal suffrage.
</p>
<p> On the negative side, the Khmer Rouge made plans to move
some 40,000 residents of Site 8, a camp along the
Thai-Cambodian border which had become the Khmer Rouge's
international showcase, into Cambodia before the final agreement
was signed. On September 330, sixteen camp administrators who
had been elected by camp residents were taken across the border
into a military camp and replaced by what appeared to be Khmer
Rouge hardliners. The international relief agencies on the
border raised the alarm, especially when they learned that all
camp residents had been told to expect to be moved between
October 20 and 23. The area to which the Khmer Rouge had planned
to move them was believed to be rife with malaria and ridden
with land mines. International pressure succeeded in halting the
move, but there was a strong belief that all three of the
resistance factions intended to move as many as possible of the
residents of the camps along the Thai border back into Cambodia
before any election takes place. Four of the sixteen Site 8
administrators have returned to Thailand; the fate of the others
remained unknown at year's end.
</p>
<p> Even with the agreement signed, Asia Watch remained
concerned about the problem caused by land mines in Cambodia.
In some ways, the agreement raised the profile of that problem
because, suddenly, the repatriation of some 350,000 people in
Thailand seemed like a real possibility. If the mines are not
located and cleared, the dangers to returning refugees will be
high. Cambodia already has the highest percentage of inhabitants
who are physically disabled because of mines of any country in
the world. In 1990, almost as many people died as were maimed
by mines, often because of lack of transport to get them to
medical facilities or lack of nearby medical care entirely. Most
of the casualties were civilians. The use of mines in Cambodia
violates important principles of customary law relating to armed
conflict, including the obligation of warring parties to
minimize harm to civilians. Over the last twenty years, the
parties to the conflict have not recorded or posted notices of
where they laid mines and, in many cases, never removed the
mines when the fighting in a particular area ceased. The United
States, Vietnam, the Soviet Union and China have been the major
suppliers of mines, leaving them with particular responsibility
to help with mine clearance.
</p>
<p> Another problem looming on the horizon as 1991 ended was how
the Phnom Penh government would protect the lives of returning
members of the resistance factions, particularly the Khmer
Rouge, while at the same time moving toward the greater freedoms
of expression and assembly that will be necessary if elections
are to take place in accordance with the settlement. The problem
was made particularly acute when Khieu Samphan, the Khmer Rouge
leader, and former Khmer Rouge Defense Minister Son Sen were
nearly lynched in Phnom Penh on December 3. There was
widespread speculation that a demonstration against their
arrival in the capital had been quietly encouraged by the Phnom
Penh government, although there was no indication that a
physical attack had been foreseen.
</p>
<p>The Right to Monitor
</p>
<p> There are no known human rights organizations in Cambodia
and, until the ruling pa