Tous les chemins mènent à Paris

Abstract

According to Nicolas Regaud, the Cambodian conflict before the conclusion of the Paris Agreement can be divided into three periods.¹ The first of these phases began with the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, in December 1978, and ended in 1986. A complete stalemate prevailed at the extra-regional, regional and local levels of the conflict during those years. The speech given by Gorbachev in Vladivostock on 28 July, 1986, inaugurated a second phase characterized by movement at the extra-regional and regional levels of the conflict. The diplomatic talks which took place at this point culminated at the Paris Peace Conference on Cambodia held in August 1989. The failure of the Cambodian factions to reach a power-sharing agreement in Paris then created the dynamic which defined the third phase of the war. A ‘phenomenon of relocalization of the Cambodian conflict’² became apparent in that phase, whereby the extra-regional and regional actors of the conflict settled their differences and cooperated formally or informally to pressure the Cambodians into accepting some form of power-sharing.