71. Transforming Cambodia’s “Killing Fields” into Farm Fields: American Diplomacy and Combatting Genocide
- Author:
- Kenneth M. Quinn
- Publication Date:
- 11-2021
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- American Diplomacy
- Institution:
- American Diplomacy
- Abstract:
- This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Paris Peace Agreement on Cambodia. That accord closed the door on years of war, during which the Khmer Rouge “Killing Fields” caused the deaths of up to two million persons (out of a population of seven million) and brought the 1,000-year- old civilization to the point of obliteration. When I landed in Phnom Penh in 1996 to begin my term as U.S. Ambassador, the country was in the fifth year of implementing that 1991 agreement. Looking back on this improbable diplomatic success offers a chance to assess the effectiveness of American diplomacy in the 1990s, and how, despite one extremely unfortunate regression, Indochina and Southeast Asia were irrevocably changed by that accord.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Genocide, and History
- Political Geography:
- Cambodia and Southeast Asia