In September 1989 Vietnam, suffering from economic woes and eager to end its international isolation, announced that it was withdrawing all of its troops from Cambodia. With most of the Vietnamese gone, the opposition coalition, still dominated by the Khmer Rouge, launched a series of offensives, bringing the number of refugees inside the country to more than 150,000 by the autumn of 1990.

Diplomatic efforts to end the civil war began to bear fruit in September 1990, when a peace plan was accepted by both the Phnom Penh govern ment and the three factions of the resistance coalition. According to the plan, the Supreme National Council (SNC), a coalition of all factions, was to be formed under the presidency of Sihanouk. Meanwhile the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (Untac) was to supervise the administration of the country for two years with the goal of free elections. Untac was successful in achieving SNC agreement to most inter­national human-rights covenants; a significant number of nongovern­mental organisations (NGOs) were established in Cambodia; and, most importantly, on 25 May 1993, elections were held with an 89.6% turnout. The results were far from decisive, however: Funcinpec, led by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, took 58 seats in the National Assembly; the Cam­bodian People's Party (CPP), which represented the previous communist government, took 51 seats; and the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party (BLDP) took 10 seats. The CPP had lost the election, but senior leaders threatened a secession of the eastern provinces of the country. As a result, Cambodia ended up with two prime ministers: Norodom Ranariddh as first prime minister, and Hun Sen as second prime minister.

Untac was quick to pack up and go home, patting itself on the back for a job well done. Even today, it is heralded as one of the UN's success stories. The reality is that it was an ill-conceived and poorly executed peace because so many of the powers involved in brokering the deal had their own agendas to advance.

It was a travesty that the Khmer Rouge was allowed to play a part in the process after the barbarities it had inflicted on its people; it must have seemed like a cruel joke to the many Cambodians who had lost countless family members under its rule. It rapidly became far more than a cruel joke, as the UN's half-botched disarmament programme took weapons away from rural militias who for so long provided the backbone of the government's provincial defence network against the Khmer Rouge. This left communities throughout the country vulnerable to attack, while the Khmer Rouge used the veil of legitimacy conferred upon it by the peace process to re-establish a guerrilla network through­out Cambodia. It is not an exaggeration to say that by 1994, when it was finally outlawed by the government, the Khmer Rouge was probably a greater threat to the stability of Cambodia than at any time since 1979.

Untac's main goals had been to''restore and maintain peace' and 'promote national reconciliation' and it achieved neither. It did oversee free and fair elections, however these were later annulled by the actions of Cambodia's politicians. But a lot of people rode the gravy train as it steamed through Cambodia, with an army of highly paid consultants and advisers flying in... 1st and business class of course!

If that wasn't bad enough, the UN presence also kick-started Cambodia's AIDS epidemic, with well-paid overseas soldiers boosting the prostitution industry. Cambodia's AIDS problem is now among the worst in Asia. '