Diplomacy Over The Kampuchean Question

Abstract

This article examines Kampuchean question from two points of view. Firstly, it seeks to find out if there has been any progress in narrowing down of differences between contending Kampuchean parties. And secondly, it attempts to highlight political changes in international dimension of Kampuchean problem, namely, relations between Vietnam and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) including individual member countries and implications of problem for intra-ASEAN relations. Thus, it is possible to separate negotiations with regard to Kampuchean problem into their internal and external aspects. Three major events form focus of these questions: second Jakarta Informal Meeting (JIM II) during 19-21 February, Paris talks during August 1989, and withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Kampuchea in September 1989. But progress of these attempts to find a solution to Kampuchean question cannot be examined without briefly referring to results of preceding informal talks and diplomacy associated with them, namely, JIM I and activities of Indochinese and ASEAN foreign ministers. JIM I and JIM II, and then Informal Meeting on Cambodia (IMC), are in fact a combination of two different kinds of diplomatic procedures which have been going on over Kampuchean question. On one hand, it is partly diplomacy between ASEAN countries and Vietnam for which main arenas had previously been United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and summits of non-aligned countries. And, on other hand, it is part of intra-Khmer diplomacy that had been started by Prime Minister Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Sihanouk. The results of JIM I in July 1988 and especially Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach's meeting with his Thai counterpart, Siddhi Savetsila, earlier in June 1988 were not dramatic, but they were still remarkable compared with previously deadlocked position. In Nguyen Co Thach-Siddhi Savetsila meeting, Vietnamese agreed on how to meet all parties involved at same negotiations and on main principles of international position as well as general lines of internal arrangements for a future Kampuchea. Vietnam gave up her previous stance not to meet Khmer resistance groups at nego?ating table. Formerly, in Jakarta, Vietnamese did not even meet these groups face-to-face. The arrangements for meeting had been so designed that the parties involved*, that is, fighting