Southeast Asia: How Not to Supervise a Peace

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Several days earlier, a helicopter had rocketed the small Cambodian village of Prey Toul near the South Vietnamese border, killing one civilian and injuring 23 others. Prince Norodom Sihanouk's government had complained, and now the International Control Commission -composed of Canadian, Indian and Polish officials—was on the scene to investigate. The fragments they saw were clearly from U.S.-made rockets. The projectile laid out on a table for inspection was a grenade of the kind fired by American helicopters.

"May I observe for the record that I consider this unusually rusty," said the Canadian, examining the grenade, while the crump of artillery and air strikes echoed across from South Viet Nam.

"When the rust is old, it penetrates into the metal," countered the Pole. "This rust is fresh on the surface."

"This rust has started to pit the metal," said the Canadian. "Therefore it was not fired recently."

The discussion proved inconclusive. Despite the conciliatory efforts of the Indian commissioner, there was no Polish-Canadian agreement. After a lunch of roast beef, the ICC team headed back for Pnompenh and a cocktail party.

Ideological Troika. The investigation once again underlined the helplessness of the commission in its attempt to supervise the peace agreed to at Geneva in 1954. With negotiations to end the second Viet Nam war about to resume, the incident also served as a timely reminder that such settlements are only as good as the machinery that enforces them. By that measure, the ICC has been a monumental failure. The Paris negotiators will clearly have to think of something better.

It was in 1954 that the Geneva Conference ended the French-Indo-China war and created three control commissions (for Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia) to supervise the cease-fire and to prevent future violations of its agreements. The commission in Viet Nam-the largest and most important—has held more than 750 full meetings and filed eleven weighty reports on its mission. Without exception, they are chronicles of frustration: the ICC has simply not been able to curb violations, or, for that matter, prevent a war. Its composition—an ideological troika—has rendered impossible the unanimous agreement required for any assessment as laid down in its charter. If the Canadians say yes, the Poles say no, and vice versa. Moreover, the protagonists in the Viet Nam conflict have shown no interest in peace and neutrality. Cooperation with the ICC—in Hanoi as well as in Saigon—has been minimal, and with no force of arms to give it authority, the commission has had to accept the dicta of both capitals.

In the early 1960s, when the two sides began girding for a bigger conflict, Saigon refused to allow the ICC to see the manifests of incoming aircraft (loaded with U.S. advisers and equipment). At the same time, Hanoi kept the commissioners from inspecting Haiphong Harbor. "The People's Army of [North] Viet Nam," said an ICC report at the time, "expressed its inability, despite its best efforts, to provide a boat with a suitable outboard motor."