Democracy in Cambodia--One Decade, US$5 Billion Later: What Went Wrong‪?‬

Introduction: Great Expectations After more than two decades of civil war, the opposing factions in Cambodia concluded in October 1991 the Paris peace accords, four separate but related agreements. One of those pacts, the "Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodian Conflict", called for the United Nations to create a transitional authority in Cambodia to serve as an interim force to run government ministries, verify disarmament, and organize elections for a constituent assembly. A second, the "Declaration on the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Cambodia", called for international assistance for Cambodia's economic reconstruction. Collectively, the Paris agreements "constituted the institutionalisation of democratisation, providing the key ingredients and the mechanism for super-imposing them on the subject country: Cambodia" (Roberts 2001, p. xv). (1) Donor nations later met in Tokyo in June 1992, pledging US$880 million towards the reconstruction of Cambodia. At the same time, they agreed to form an International Committee for the Reconstruction of Cambodia (ICORC) to assist in planning and managing reconstruction programmes once a new Cambodian government had been formed [Sanger 1992; Heininger 1994, pp. 56-57).