No agreed settlement but ... Paris Conference on Cambodia clears path towards peace.

Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, after the month-long Conference on Peace in Cambodia (Paris, 30 July-30 August), said the meeting had cleared a path towards peace in that country. Cambodian parties, he said, must now travel that path, for the salvation of their people and their country", and if they did so, the Conference would "really have been an historic turning-point for Cambodia".

It was "truly unfortunate", he said, that agreement was not reached on a global settlement. "The ship has not reached the shores of peace, even though it has caught occasional glimpses of them", he said.

The Conference, he said, had "done a remarkable technical job, allowing the foundations to be laid for an overall settlement" of the Cambodian problem. He cited in particular discussions on the international control mechanism, on the cease-fire and on safeguards.

A 15-member preliminary fact-finding mission was sent to the country from 6 to 19 August, led by Lt.-Gen. Martin Vadset, Chief of Staff of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO). It gathered on-site technical data to identify logistical problems affecting possible deployment of an international control mechanism. Mr. Perez de Cuellar stressed that the creation of a credible international control mechanism was directly contingent upon the identification of a clear and realistic mandate, the adoption of an effective decision-making process and the provision of the necessary human, logistical and financial resources.

He welcomed the unanimous agreement on a concerted plan of action for the recovery and reconstruction of Cambodia as part of an overall settlement.

The UN system, he said, would assist the Cambodian people in reconstruction efforts, supplying its experience and resources to the economic and social development of the country.

He also reported some agreement on questions related to repatriation of refugees and displaced persons. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was to be given a central role in directing and coordinating repatriation operations, he noted.

Mr. Perez de Cuellar said reservations to drafts before the Conference reflected "a small number of basically political differences", the settlement of which could pave the way for a general agreement. The parties directly concerned, he said, must be willing to compromise. Otherwise, there could be an "unfortunate reactivation of the military option, with readily foreseeable consequences, and all the attendant uncertainty for all concerned".

Viet Nam withdraws

In early September, Viet Nam reported that its "last batch" of 26,000 Vietnamese troops would withdraw from Cambodia between 21 and 26 September.

On 21 September, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, President of Democratic Kampuchea and leader of the "Cambodian National Resistance", charged that while Viet Nam said it would withdraw, thousands of armed Vietnamese would remain in Cambodia "disguised as Cambodians in addition to the 1 million Vietnamese settlers in the country".

On 29 September, Viet Nam reported that all Vietnamese troops in Cambodia had been repatriated" to Viet Nam by 26 September.