Boraden Nhem ញ៉ែម បូរ៉ាដែន 

Phnom Penh: Asian Vision Institute Press, 2023.

Reviewed by Rosa Yi (Ph.D. candidate of the National University of Singapore, HYI Visiting Fellow)

Chronicle of War, Story of Peace is an elaborate account of key political events, military operations, and peacebuilding strategies in the final decade of Cambodia’s civil war between the Khmer Rouge (KR) remnants and the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC). After half a century of protracted civil conflicts, Cambodia finally achieved national reconciliation and secured complete peace in the late 1990s. The KR, which transformed the country into “killing fields” during its genocidal regime from 1975 to 1979 and continued a guerrilla war from the jungles along the Thai border for another 20 years after its demise, was dissolved. How these hard-earned political achievements came about is the central focus of the book. Most important to this peacebuilding endeavor is, the book argues, the key role of the so-called “win-win policy” and its two architects – former PM Hun Sen and his trusted man, former Defense Minister Tea Banh.

When the Cold War ended in 1989, a diplomatic solution for the Cambodian conflict brought all four warring parties – the State of Cambodia and three resistance factions – to the negotiating table. All parties, including the KR, agreed to the Paris Peace Agreements in 1991, which paved the way for a United Nations-organized national election in 1993. Yet, peace was only partially achieved. The KR withdrew from the Paris agreements and boycotted the 1993 election to continue its guerrilla war. They set up bases throughout their controlled territories that stretched across Cambodia’s northwestern upland region. In Phnom Penh, the election proceeded without the KR, and a coalition government, the RGC, was formed between Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party and Prince Ranariddh’s FUNCINPEC party. The two men became co-Prime Ministers. One of the immediate challenges for the new government was to address the KR problem and end the war. The book maintains that though military measures were deployed against the KR, it was the co-PM Hun Sen who strategically balanced military engagement and peaceful negotiation that slowly disintegrated the already fracturing KR forces. He initiated the win-win policy with Tea Banh as his leading man to implement it. The policy responded effectively to the needs of the war-wary KR militants, allowing them to maintain their political positions and properties. Between 1996 and 1998, all the KR forces gave up armed struggles and joined the government. Peace was secured at last.

I find Chronicle of War, Story of Peace an interesting read and an essential resource for those interested in Cambodia’s military and war history. Readers will find a lot of new empirical materials that were missing in the literature that help nuance our understanding of key political incidents that took place in the final days of the Cambodian conflict. However, one must read the book and treat its arguments with care because it is undeniably a history written by the victors.