Supreme National Council

The leaders of the rival factions currently sit on a 12-member panel called the Supreme National Council that is nominally in charge of the country.

In 1991 the Supreme National Council began representing Cambodia at the UN General Assembly.

Washington, along with other Western governments, decided not to establish full diplomatic relations with the Supreme National Council but rather to await election of a democratic government.

National Council Proposed The agreement also calls for the establishment of a supreme national council to represent Cambodian sovereignty after a settlement and before new elections.

Nonetheless, the agreement calls for setting up a "supreme national council" that would be the voice of Cambodian sovereignty between the time the fighting stops and an elected government is sworn in.

"They would be like civilians in uniform," said Prince Sihanouk, chairman of the Supreme National Council, a coalition of the Cambodian Government and the rebel factions.

He insisted that most of the party's leaders would attend a meeting on Saturday of the party supreme national council, the top governing body, and that a solution to the conflicts would be found then.

Despite a Khmer Rouge walkout, the Prince endorsed a Thai proposal to create a supreme national council with equal representation for Hun Sen's Cambodian Government and opposition factions.

On 26 February 1990, following the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops, the Third Jakarta Informal Meeting was held, at which the Supreme National Council was established to safeguard Cambodian sovereignty.

The plan called for establishing a supreme national council (SNC), as agreed at the Tokyo meeting in June [see p. 37533], composed of 12 "representative individuals of authority" who had to be mutually acceptable.

Asked if that meant Vietnam would urge Phnom Penh to compromise on the formation of an interim authority, or supreme national council, and allow a major role for the United Nations, Mr. Thach hedged.

The Government also said that the Khmer Rouge, the Maoist-inspired rebels who are the most powerful of the three guerrilla groups who joined in the peace settlement, should be expelled from Cambodia's Supreme National Council.

Mr. Twining suggested instead that the United States would deal with the Cambodian Government principally through Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the former King of Cambodia, in his new role as chairman of the Supreme National Council.

The resolution also called for the co-operation of the Supreme National Council of Cambodia and all parties with the Mission regarding the implementation of the agreements in the political settlement, and for all parties to observe a ceasefire.

The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, meeting to try to draft a peace settlement for Cambodia, said last week that a Supreme National Council should consist of notable individuals, not necessarily directly representing the four factions but acceptable to them.

And Mr. Hun Sen signed an agreement in Tokyo, in early June, with Prince Sihanouk that establishes a Supreme National Council to be made up of six members from each rival government, a concession originally offered by the Prince.

The United Nations plan, as currently configured, would hand administrative power over to a supreme national council (composed of members of the resistance coalition and the Phnom Penh Government), which would run the country and assist the United Nations in planning elections.

It also requested the Supreme National Council of Cambodia to co-operate with the United Nations Advance Mission in Cambodia with its expanded mandate of demining and training the local population, and again called upon all parties to observe the ceasefire.

But Mr. Baker implied that if the four rival Cambodian entities - the three coalition partners and the Government - could not come together on a Supreme National Council to represent the nation until new elections could be held, Washington would prefer to leave the seat vacant.

The disagreements concern who would serve on an interim supreme national council to govern Cambodia before elections are held, whether troops should be disarmed in the transition period, and the extent to which the Government of Prime Minister Hun Sen needs to be dismantled before elections are held.

At the Third Jakarta Informal Meeting in 1990, under the Australian-sponsored Cambodian Peace Plan, representatives of the CGDK and the PRK agreed to a power-sharing arrangement by forming a unity government known as the Supreme National Council (SNC).

Resolution 810 concluded by welcoming the Supreme National Council's decision to protect natural resources, demanding all parties guarantee the safety of UNTAC personnel and cease intimidation and requested the Boutros-Ghali to report on any further measures necessary to ensure the realisation of the Paris Agreements.

In Bangkok last week, the Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Sen, and Prince Norodom Sihanouk, one of the leaders of the opposition, signed their first joint communique, agreeing to an enhanced but undefined United Nations role and the establishment of a supreme national council to embody Cambodian sovereignty.