The Cambodian ceasefire accord, reached in June at a meeting of the warring Cambodian parties at the Thai beach resort of Pattaya, was a promising step toward settlement of the country's long and bloody conflict. The Communist regime in Phnom Penh and the three resistance groups arrayed against it (Sihanouk's National Army, the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, and the Communist Khmer Rouge) agreed to make a functioning reality of the Supreme National Council--representing all of them--that was called for in a United Nations peace plan last year. The Council convened in Beijing in July under the chairmanship of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. In principle, foreign arms supply to all sides is to stop and the UN is to play an important role in managing a transition to free elections. Many issues remain to be settled, however.
The news from Cambodia seemed to fit a global pattern of encouraging developments in regions of tension. It was as if the world were tying up all the loose ends of the Cold War conflicts left over from the 1970s. So far in 1991 we have seen completion of Cuban and South African troop withdrawals from Angola, a political accord among the Angolans, Soviet abandonment of the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia, and now progress toward a Cambodian settlement. This follows upon the 1990 democratic election in Nicaragua and the 1989 deadline for both the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan and the Vietnamese troop withdrawal from Cambodia.
