Cambodia and the United Nations: Comparative Foreign Policies Under Four Regimes (Volumes I and II).

Abstract

A comparative study of Cambodia's foreign policies under the four radically different regimes of Prince Norodom Sihanouk of the Kingdom of Cambodia (1953-1970), General Lon Nol of the Khmer Republic (1970-1975), Pol Pot of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1978), and Heng Samrin of the People's Republic of Kampuchea (1979 on) is undertaken. A period of twenty-six years is covered, with a focus on the United Nations. Based on the general theoretical and conceptual framework in the study of foreign policy, this study first seeks to establish the strengths and the weaknesses of the intangible and tangible ingredients of Cambodia's capability in the implementation and the attainment of Cambodia's foreign policy goals and objectives. With this information, this study proceeds to examine the relevant events and the manner in which Cambodia became a member of the United Nations, and the internal and external factors which influenced Cambodia to adopt a neutral foreign policy in world affairs. Prince Sihanouk's courses of action in international politics, and in the United Nations, are then scrutinized, and the problems which he confronted and which led to his regime's collapse are discussed. This study then turns to the examination of the birth of General Lon Nol's republican regime, its problems with the war, its efforts to build a viable foreign policy, and its courses of action to execute such policy in the international arena, and in the United Nations. Factors which brought about the regime's downfall, and its replacement by a violent Communist Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot are also discussed. The inward-looking Pol Pot regime is analyzed both in the way it conducted its internal revolution, and its political and diplomatic activities outside its border and in the United Nations. Attention is given to the evolution of the regime's international behavior as it sought to fulfill its economic needs at home and to regain an image of respectability abroad. An examination of the overthrow of this regime by Vietnamese military intervention which installed the Vietnamese-backed Heng Samrin government follows. Vietnamese and Soviet bloc countries' efforts to win United Nations acceptance of the Heng Samrin regime are fully scrutinized. The study found that all four regimes established survival and security as the goals they sought to attain for Cambodia. All proclaimed policies of independence, neutrality, and sovereignty. All have had weak intangible and tangible elements of capability; the only things they have had in their favor have been the country's geographical position and international strategic position. In the conduct of their foreign policies, all the regimes have applied courses of action which were not in conformity with the nation's interests as dictated by the prescribed goals of survival and security. This study exposes the failure of foreign policies. It ends as the study of a national tragedy: the gradual death of a 2,000 year old civilization.