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Jimmy Carter, Cambodia, and the United Nations:
Human Rights in a Cold War Climate
Debbie Sharnak
University of Wisconsin-Madison
April 2010
GWU-LSE-UCSB International Graduate Student Conference on the Cold War
Debbie Sharnak
On April 21, 1978, President Jimmy Carter denounced the Khmer Rouge government in
Cambodia1 as the ―worst violator of human rights in the world.‖2 Among growing international
protest against the Khmer Rouge by the Canadian House of Commons, the Norwegians,
Amnesty International, and the United Nations Human Rights Commission, Carter went on
record to condemn the ―mass killings, inhuman treatment of the supporters of the previous
government, the forced deportation of urban dwellers, and the total suppression of recognized
political and religious freedoms, as well as deprivation of food and health care for the general
population.‖3 These accusations were not unfounded; the Khmer Rouge had risen to power in
Cambodia in 1975 promising to restore stability and peace by creating a ―pure Khmer race‖
based on an egalitarian, agrarian society.4 Despite such rhetoric, their aims rested on the
enforcement of repressive policies in which the Khmer Rouge outlawed families, medicine,
school, books, learning, and holidays. The Khmer Rouge murdered anyone who disobeyed these
regulations and anyone they perceived as a threat. These paranoid and brutal tactics, combined
with harsh working conditions in the ‗killing fields,‘ caused the death of 1.7 million citizens,
approximately one-third of the entire population of the country.5
Just months after Carter‘s condemnation, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and ousted the
Khmer Rouge in response to both the cross-border attacks from the Khmer Rouge army and the
1
The Khmer Rouge renamed Cambodia the ―Democratic Kampuchea‖ when they took power to demonstrate both
their contempt for the colonial past and its intent to rule in the interests of the country‘s peasant majority. For the
purposes of this paper and consistency‘s sake, I will refer to the country as Cambodia throughout.
2
Jimmy Carter, ―Human Rights Violations in Cambodia Statement by the President,‖ The American Presidency
Project, April 21, 1978, (accessed at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=30693 on 6 December
2009).
3
Ibid.
4
Described by Mey Mak, deputy governor of Pailin province and onetime private secretary to Pol Pot, at a public
forum on reconciliation held in Pailin in February 2006 as cited in Peter Bartu and Neil Wilford, DDR and
Transitional Justice: The Case of Cambodia (New York: International Center for Transitional Justice, June 2009), 5.
5
Despite debates about the exact number of those killed during the Khmer Rouge rule, 1.7 is the generally accepted
number among scholars today. This number computes to one-third of the entire population of Cambodia—which
would make Pol Pot‘s genocide the highest percentage of a population killed in any genocide of the violent
twentieth century. See Roland Paris, At War's End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), 80.
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slaughter of Vietnamese nationals within Cambodian borders. The Vietnamese established a new
government under the rule of Heng Samrin. The Khmer Rouge, however, continued to operate a
guerrilla campaign to regain control from the jungles of the Thai-Cambodian border. In the
international arena, they claimed that the Vietnamese-installed government was illegitimate and
defended Pol Pot and Ieng Sary as the rightful representatives of the country. In addition to this
public declaration, they also brought the appeal to the United Nations Credentials Committee—a
body tasked with reviewing applications to determine who could represent Members States in the
General Assembly.6 The Khmer Rouge hoped that forcing a vote on the issue would confer
legitimacy to their regime, drive the Vietnamese back within their own borders, and allow the
Khmer Rouge to represent Cambodia both internationally, and most specifically, at the UN.
The Carter Administration confronted the difficult choice of whether to vote to seat the
Khmer Rouge‘s genocidal regime; support Samrin‘s communist, Vietnamese-installed
government; or, to abstain from voting altogether. After weighing geopolitical concerns about
human rights costs against national interests in a Cold War context, Carter‘s representative to the
Credentials Committee, Robert Rosenstock, cast the vote in favor of seating the Khmer Rouge.
As he rose from the table, ―someone grabbed his hand to congratulate him. Rosenstock looked
up to find to his horror that he was shaking hands with Pol Pot‘s foreign minister, Ieng Sary. ‗I
felt like washing my hands,‘ ‖ Rosenstock reported.7 Rosenstock‘s response to this event, a
mixture of disgust and resignation, encapsulates the contradiction of what this vote ultimately
6
The Credentials Committee‘s mandate is to examine each representative‘s credentials and to report on their
validity to the General Assembly. This Credentials Committee report makes recommendations to the General
Assembly on whether to accept each representative‘s credentials. The accreditation of a representative is complete
when the General Assembly accepts to Credentials Committee‘s recommendations. See Rules and Procedure of the
General Assembly, Rules 25-29, U.N. Doc. A/520/Rev.15 (1985).
7
Gareth Porter, ―Breaking Away From Pol Pot.,‖ Nation 231, no. 7 (1980): 206-210.
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signified. In the act of seating the Khmer Rouge at the United Nations, Jimmy Carter, the
supposed human rights president, aligned himself with an ousted genocidal regime.
This paper uses declassified documents from a recent trip to the United Nations archives
to explore the gap between the rhetoric Carter employed when he came into office—in which he
asserted that human rights must be ―absolute‖—and the latter part of his presidency in which this
vote occurred.8 At first glance, supporting the Khmer Rouge appears to be a fundamental
repudiation of Carter‘s human rights policy. Yet, a more in depth study of this vote from an
international history perspective reveals the nuance of Cold War policy and the difficulty of
employing human rights within a national security framework. Scholarship that grapples with
Carter‘s foreign policy towards Cambodia has attempted to explain this decision from a U.S.centric standpoint, which explores battles within the Carter Administration, namely between
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. At best,
such work acknowledges Congressional actors‘ influence on the Administration.9 This paper
reexamines this event by employing an international history framework, considering both the
national and international factors that influenced Carter‘s decision. It understands that Carter‘s
use of human rights and morally-infused rhetoric proved effective at distancing himself during
the presidential campaign from both the national disillusionment produced from American
engagement in Vietnam and the secrecy of the Nixon-Ford administrations—especially the
8
Jimmy Carter, ―Inaugural Address,‖ The American Presidency Project (20 January 1977).
The most comprehensive account was written by Sheldon Neuringer, The Carter Administration, Human Rights,
and the Agony of Cambodia (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1993) but examines the issue solely from a U.S. centric
perspective and lacked access to many of the documents now available. Other books look at the issue of human
rights in Cambodia in small sections; for example, Michael Haas, Cambodia, Pol Pot, and the United States: The
Faustian Pact (Santa Barbara: Praeger Publishers, 1991) and finally the most recent book by Christopher Brady
entitled, United States Foreign Policy towards Cambodia, 1977-1992 (New York: St. Martin‘s Press, 1999). Both
make a brief mention to this specific event in the larger context of their argument but fall short on sustained
engagement with the topic. Even the most recent and comprehensive article by Kenton Clymer that touches upon
U.S.-Cambodian relations fails to place these issues in the context of the human rights movements or examine the
ideological influences that these movements had on the executive branch and public opinion. Kenton Clymer,
―Jimmy Carter, Human Rights, and Cambodia.,‖ Diplomatic History 27, no. 2 (April 2003): 245-278.
9
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Watergate scandal. However, once in office, this moral positioning created high expectations,
which proved difficult to fulfill in the challenging environment of foreign policy formation
where ideals, interests, and power often conflict.
Carter‘s foreign policy choices grew more complicated under the strain of deteriorating
U.S.-Soviet relations and a recession that crippled the domestic economy. These conditions,
combined with the failure to live up to Carter‘s own moral rhetoric, contributed to high levels of
disapproval among American citizens. Leaders facing challenging circumstances tend to revert
back to positions of perceived strength and defend the status quo, rather than confront existing
structures to employ innovative and progressive foreign policy.10 Carter, in voting at the UN on
the question of Cambodia, exemplifies this tendency. His concern for human rights did not
become embedded in diplomatic relations but expressed itself in a traditional approach through
aid to Cambodian refugees. Seeking to take advantage of the Sino-Soviet split and assuage nonaligned nations fears, Carter hid behind legal assertions on the functioning and jurisdiction of the
Credentials Committee. Ultimately, this paper posits a theory that progressive change requires a
challenge to the status quo, which Carter came into office promising to do, but ultimately failed
to achieve.
To understand this shift, Carter‘s rise to the White House must be situated in the context
of the late 1970s. The 1976 presidential election pitted the incumbent Gerald Ford against the
former Governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter. Following the turmoil of both Watergate and the
U.S. defeat in Vietnam, the American public felt a deep sense of distrust and disillusionment for
national politics. While Ford embodied these misgivings by rising to power as a result of the
10
Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 2003), 262. While Suri employs this framework in the context of the1960s, the failure of charismatic
leadership which entrenches political norms can also be applied to Carter and the Cold War in the context of the late
1970s.
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Nixon‘s resignation, Carter arrived in Washington as an outsider who positioned himself as
untainted by the previous administrations. Ford attempted to frame Carter‘s interloper status as
an example of inexperience; however, Carter successfully presented his distance from Watergate
and Vietnam as an asset. He emphasized his moral Christian background as the key impetus
motivating his belief in the importance of imbuing foreign policy with a sense of integrity. As
Carter stated in one campaign speech, ―We‘ve lost the spirit of the nation…we‘ve seen a loss of
morality…and we‘re ashamed of what our government is as we deal with other nations around
the world. That‘s got to be changed and I‘m going to change it.‖11
True to his campaign rhetoric, once in office, Carter tried to implement a foreign policy
that incorporated a human rights component. First, he enhanced the power and prestige of the
Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs which Congress created just months before
Carter‘s election in 1976.12 In addition, he cut aid to Uruguay and Ethiopia as a result of their
poor human rights records, despite protests from both foreign governments and domestic
business groups that possessed economic interests in the region. In addition, the administration
gradually cut military assistance to Argentina, culminating with Carter‘s elimination of all aid on
September 30, 1978, in response to the Argentinean government‘s harsh rule that ‗disappeared‘
as many as 10,000 citizens.13 While Carter enacted other similar measures during his presidency,
11
The Presidential Campaign 1976 volume 1 part 1 (Washington DC: United States Government Printing Office,
1978), 432.
12
Victor S. Kaufman, ―The Bureau of Human Rights during the Carter Administration,‖ Historian 61, no. 1 (1998):
51-66. In this article, Kaufman points to the initial enhancements of the Bureau when Carter took offices but also
highlights the institutional difficulties that eventually rendered the Bureau ineffective by 1980. That being said, the
initial improvements point to Carter‘s desire to take a multitude of measures towards fulfilling his initial human
rights commitment, even as they fell apart by the latter part of his term.
13
Amnesty International, Report of an Amnesty International Mission to Argentina (London: Amnesty International
1977) and Congressional Research Service, Foreign Affairs and National Defense Divisions, Human Rights and US
Foreign Assistance: Experiences and Issues in Policy Implementation (1977-1978), report prepared for the U.S.
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, November 1979, 106.
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these examples illustrate that Carter pursued, at least minimally, human rights as a part of his
foreign policy agenda.
Even these measures, however, demonstrate the Carter Administration‘s shift from an
absolutist articulation of human rights that Carter declared in his inaugural speech. Soon after
taking office, Vance, the greatest supporter of human rights within the Administration, attempted
to explain a more nuanced policy and commitment to pursuing human rights policies within a
case-by-case analysis. Indeed, Vance argued that ―a sure formula for defeat of our goals would
be a rigid, hubristic attempt to impose our values on others.‖14 Therefore, when articulating the
State Department‘s five goals and priorities in a foreign policy agenda, point three stated that
―without unrealistically inserting itself into the internal operations of other governments, the
United States should give important weight to human rights considerations in selecting foreign
policy positions while continuing in international forums its unwavering stand in favor of the
rights of free people.‖15 Even with this mediated articulation of the most effective
implementation of a human rights policy, Vance maintained his position as a forceful supporter
of human rights within the context of the Administration‘s foreign policy considerations.
Vance‘s views, however, often stood in contrast to Brzezinski‘s more prominent voice
which ascribed to the belief that human rights were important only as a tool to counter the
Soviets. To Brzezinski, human rights should only be used as a means to ―advance America‘s
interests by demonstrating to the emerging nations of the Third World the reality of our
democratic system, in sharp contrast to the political system and practices of [the Soviets].‖16
14
Bernard Gwertzman, ―The Limits of an Activist U.S. Approach to Promoting Human Rights Abroad,‖ New York
Times (1923-Current file), May 18, 1977.
15
Cyrus R Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years in America's Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1983), 441.
16
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977-1981 (New York:
Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1983), 124.
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Carter consciously selected these two foreign policy advisers with differing views to receive a
wide range of policy options that he would arbitrate. Yet, Brzezinski, with more presidential
access, less bureaucratic responsibility, and effective experience in political maneuvering, often
prevailed.17 These factors, coupled with deteriorating global conditions and increasing domestic
criticism, contributed to Brzezinski‘s triumph in applying a narrow view of human rights
implementation in Carter's foreign policy framework. Carter would continue to struggle to
maintain the primacy of a human rights policy, especially when it conflicted with opportunities
to assert national security interests and increase a perception of strength.
This became evident as newspapers began portraying Carter as weak in the face of global
communist advances. For example, in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the U.S.-friendly
shah and moved to create a theocratic dictatorship in the name of the Islamic Republic. Despite
initial attempts to retain some semblance of a diplomatic relationship with the new regime, the
U.S. admitted the former Shah into the U.S. to receive medical care, which intensified antiAmerican sentiments in Iran. By November 1979, relations between the U.S. and Iran
deteriorated significantly and Iranian militants took control of the U.S. embassy, taking fiftythree Americans as hostages. A failed attempt to rescue them only exacerbated perceptions that
Carter was weak, ineffective, and losing ground to the Soviets.
Conditions in Afghanistan only exacerbated this disastrous situation. Afghanistan, which
served as a buffer between Soviet and U.S. areas interests, occupied a tenuous space in Cold War
politics throughout the 1960s and early 1970s as a modernizing nation in which both the U.S.
and Soviets invested heavily. This arrangement fell apart in late 1978 as a radical leftist group,
the People‘s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), besieged the civilian government and
17
Itai Nartzizenfield Sneh, The Future Almost Arrived: How Jimmy Carter Failed To Change U.S. Foreign Policy
(New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2008), 59-60.
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killed President Mohammed Daoud. This pro-Moscow political faction threatened U.S. interests
in the nation and throughout the Middle East. As the regime struggled to control the country,
Soviets feared the failure of the Marxist revolution, which prompted them to ultimately invade
the country in December 1979. This military deployment, the first Soviet occupation in Central
Asia outside the USSR, carried ominous strategic implications for the Carter Administration as a
symbol of Soviet expansionism and a growing tide of communism throughout the world.18
Concurrent with these crises, the Carter administration experienced challenges in
implementing its foreign policy in Africa, which is best exemplified by the struggle between
Ethiopia and Somalia. Carter, affected by his failures in the Middle East, acceded to pressure by
Brzezinski to aid Somalia in countering the Soviet Union‘s support of Ethiopia, despite
Somalia‘s egregious human rights violations against its own citizens.19 Carter, in providing this
assistance to Somalia, ascribed to the notion of Cold War power politics. Brzezinski, in his
memoirs, understands this shift by explaining that ―in the first two years of the
Administration…global concerns tended to overshadow the pressing requirements of strategic
reality. In the last two, we had to make up for lost time, giving a higher priority to the more
fundamental interests of national security.‖20
In addition to these international calamities, Carter confronted growing problems
domestically as the effects of the global recession destabilized the U.S. economy. In early 1980,
inflation soared, interest rates swelled to 20 percent, and petroleum prices reached $32 a barrel.21
Communism‘s global advance, combined with the wavering of America‘s economic strength,
18
Vance, Hard Choices, 391.
Gaddis Smith, Morality, Reason, and Power: American Diplomacy During the Carter Years (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1986), 155.
20
Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 145.
21
Richard Thornton, The Carter Years: Towards a New Global Order (New York: A Washington Institute Press
Book, 1991), 420.
19
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produced the perception of U.S. weakness in comparison with the Soviet Union, which yielded a
backlash towards Carter in popular opinion. As a result of this lost faith, they elected
Republicans in overwhelming majorities in the 1978 midterm election. In addition, Carter‘s
approval ratings plummeted; between April 1977 and August 1980, foreign policy approval
ratings dropped to an average of only 36 percent, and reached as low as 18 percent by August
1980.22 Carter, who came to office promising to use human rights as a foundation for political
change, failed to fulfill public expectations, which ultimately produced disillusionment among
citizens by the latter part of his Administration.
Within this context of deteriorating international and domestic conditions, Carter faced
the decision to seat the Khmer Rouge at the United Nations, support the Vietnamese-installed
government, or abstain from the vote. None of these choices presented a perfect solution; all
options included drawbacks and political costs. Yet, in the geopolitical environment in which
this vote occurred, Carter reinforced the U.S.-Soviet conflict paradigm and failed to transcend
political structures of the Cold War. Carter viewed the Credentials Committee vote not as an
arena in which to express a progressive and purported human rights policy, but rather as a chance
to counter the Soviets and score desperately needed political points, despite the fact that this
meant supporting the genocidal group. In the end, Carter voted for the Khmer Rouge to
strengthen the U.S. budding relationship with China and produce goodwill from non-aligned
nation who saw an aggressive Vietnamese government as a threat to their sovereignty.
The Chinese dimension, as an opportunity to further exploit the Sino-Soviet split, exists
as a key element to understanding Carter‘s decision to seat the Khmer Rouge. Southeast Asia
proved to be an arena where the divide between the two communist nations became most evident
22
Gallup Opinion Index (March 1978, 18, no. 152; February 1980, 15, no. 175; September 1980, 39, no. 181) from
Andrew K. Katz, ―Public Opinion and the Contradictions of Jimmy Carter‘s Foreign Policy,‖ Presidential Studies
Quarterly 30 no. 4 (December 2000), 663.
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as the Soviets backed Vietnam and Samrin, while China actively supported the Khmer Rouge.
Despite the ousting of the Khmer Rouge, China remained an ardent backer of Pol Pot‘s regime
and minutes from the Credentials Committee reveal that China ―firmly opposed the designs of
Viet Nam and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and defended the rights of the Democratic
Kampuchea in the United Nations.‖23 Carter saw restoring diplomatic relations with China as one
of his greatest foreign policy accomplishments in the Cold War. Although three presidential
administrations had worked towards this effort for over eight years, Carter announced the formal
restoration of diplomatic relations in December 1978, just as events in Cambodia exploded on
the international stage.24 Maintaining the new relationship with China emerged, as Brzezinski
stated, a ―central, stabilizing element of our global policy.‖25 China and Moscow blamed each
other for the ills in the region. China believed that the Soviets were aggressors who tried to
challenge the Credentials of the Khmer Rouge while the Soviets also had a ―total condemnation
of all things Chinese,‖ expressing the belief that Beijing proved ―responsible for all the political
tensions, troubles, confrontations, and intrigues in South-East Asia.‖26 Carter saw the vote at the
United Nations as an opportunity to exploit this divide.
Losing influence in the developing world, Carter also perceived the United Nations vote
as an opportunity to restore America‘s goodwill among non-aligned nations. When Vietnam
23
Credentials of Representatives to the Thirty-Fourth Session of the General Assembly, 20 September 1979,
Democratic Kampuchea/Vietnam , 1 December 1978 to 11 September 1980, S-0904-0090-0006, United Nations
Archives, New York, New York.
24
Brian Hilton, ―‘Maximum Flexibility for Peaceful Change‘: Jimmy Carter, Taiwan, and the Recognition of the
People‘s Republic of China,‖ Diplomatic History 33 no. 4 (September 2009). In this article, Hilton argues that
original overtures to the Soviet Union were turned down, thus producing a strong turn by the Administration to
reach out to China. Normalizing relations with China is seen not just to produce a strategic advantage in negotiations
with the USSR, but Hilton claims that Carter also saw it as an opportunity as possessing the potential to make
significant long-term progress towards regional and global stability.
25
Brzezinski, 53-54.
26
Sir Robert Jackson, Letter to Secretary General Kurt Waldheim on Meeting with Soviet Representatives, 8 March
1981, Peacekeeping Operations Files of the Secretary General: Kurt Waldheim- Asia and the Far East- IndochinaCountry Files- Kampuchea- Sir Robert Jackson- UN Humanitarian Operations in Kampuchea and Thailand: 11- 231981 to 12-7-1981, S-0901-0007-05, United Nations Archives, New York, New York.
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invaded Cambodia, the main impetus for the aggression stemmed from the cross-border attacks
by the Khmer Rouge into Vietnam and the slaughter of Vietnamese nationals as part of Pol Pot‘s
desire to create a ‗pure‘ Khmer race. However, the Vietnamese believed that the Khmer Rouge‘s
horrific crimes would cause their takeover to be celebrated around the world as a humanitarian
venture. To their surprise, this praise never materialized. Instead, many non-aligned nations such
as Pakistan and Ecuador, condemned the invasion, as they viewed Vietnamese impunity as a
threat to their own sovereignty. From this position of anxiety emerged a quick and total
condemnation from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) whose members
feared that a resurgent Vietnam would challenge the tenuous balance of power in the region.
They issued a statement denouncing the invasion, which declared that ―the pursuit by militarily
powerful States of a policy of intervention, in contravention of the principles of the United
Nations Charter, could only lead to international anarchy and chaos,‖ and rejected ―the premise
that a state can justify its invasion or occupation of another state in order to change a government
held to be repressive or any other pretext.‖27 Other nations also spoke against the Vietnameseinstalled government. For example, Senegal questioned the claims of the Samrin government to
be seated because ―force had been used to change an established government and those who had
used force now asked to be accepted at the United Nations.‖28 The United States, in aligning with
these nations, sought to produce goodwill and restore a sphere of influence while the Soviets
backed the largely condemned Vietnamese government. Ultimately, supporting non-aligned
countries by extolling principles of non-intervention did not emerge solely as the result of a deep
27
Carlos P. Romulo, Statement by the Chairman of the ASEAN Standing Committee and Minister for Foreign
Affairs of the Philippines, 19 September 1980, Kampuchea/Vietnam Conflict: 1 December 1978-22 September
1980, S-0904-0090-0006, United Nations Archives, New York, New York.
28
Credentials of Representatives to the Thirty-Fourth Session of the General Assembly, 20 September 1979,
Democratic Kampuchea/Vietnam , 1 December 1978 to 11 September 1980, S-0904-0090-0006, United Nations
Archives, New York, New York.
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commitment to support self-rule, but rather as part of a shift in Carter‘s policy towards a more
narrow understanding of human rights concerns whereby supporting the non-aligned nations
produced a more benevolent relationship with this bloc while also serving to oppose Communist
interventions that were perceived as a direct threat to U.S. interests.
Carter‘s relationship with non-aligned nations as a strategic aspect of his foreign policy,
however, is part of a larger project which deserves further attention. The closer positioning and
support of these nations did not just occur in Cambodia, but rather, it contributed to a key, global
aspect of Carter‘s international objectives. For example, the timing and nature of the crisis in
Afghanistan provides a particularly interesting juxtaposition to the situation in Cambodia. The
Khmer Rouge made sure that the international community realized the connection between their
mutual situations and the increasing threat to non-aligned nations‘ sovereignty. In a statement to
the General Assembly, the Khmer Rouge claimed that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
―flagrantly infringed upon Afghanistan‘s sovereignty and territorial integrity and violated
international law, the United Nations Charter, and principles of Non-alignment.‖29 The Statement
goes on to connect the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
as ―all…component parts of a sole and same plan, that of the Soviet international expansionist
big power and its lackeys throughout the world‖ which required the collective vigilance of the
non-aligned nations to unite to oppose the common threat.30 Connecting these two acts of
aggression only further produced fear and backlash to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia
among these non-aligned nations. In addition, the Khmer Rouge made a specific appeal to the
non-aligned nations to garner their support. In a Statement to the Non-Aligned Nations Foreign
29
Thiounn Prasith, ―Statement by the Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Democratic Kampuchea
Condemning the Soviet Invasion in Afghanistan,‖ 30 December 1979, Peacekeeping Operations Files of the
Secretary-General: Kurt Waldheim- Asia and the Far East- Indochina- Country Files- Kampuchea, S-0901-0006-03,
United Nations Archives, New York, New York, 2.
30
Ibid., 3.
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Ministers at the United Nations, Ieng Sary asked the non-aligned countries to consider the issue
of Cambodia as critical to their larger strategic objectives of non-alignment and right to
noninterference in internal affairs. Support for the Khmer Rouge and uniting as a strong bloc was
framed as a commitment to the ―sacred principles of our non-aligned movement.‖31 This explicit
connection between the countries contributed to Carter‘s imperative to support the non-aligned
nations, not only in the isolated situation in Cambodia but as part of a larger, global phenomenon
to achieve his strategic objectives in countering the Soviet Union.
While not predicated on an absolute and broad interpretation of human rights, this paper
seeks to posit to idea that Carter did view his relationship with non-aligned nations as
emblematic of his new, albeit more narrow commitment to human rights. Carter‘s relationship
with non-aligned nations is typically viewed solely in a Realpolitik analysis that understands its
strategic implications; yet, the belief in its human rights element remains a critical component.
Early in Carter‘s administration, he commissioned a report on comparative U.S. – Soviet military
and nonmilitary capabilities with the help of Brzezinski and Professor Samuel Huntington. From
this study, Carter found that the U.S. possessed great advantages over the Soviets in the
nonmilitary capability department which Carter sought to further exploit. One of the main venues
for achieving this objective was through reaching out to non-aligned nations. Through
Ambassador to the United Nations, Andrew Young and other advisors, Carter sought to establish
relations with non-aligned nations to promote ―the attractive appeal of peace, freedom,
democracy, and human rights.‖32 By strengthening these relationships, Carter believed the U.S.
influence could permeate across borders and serve to counter the Soviets, especially as Soviet
31
Ieng Sary, ―From the Deputy Prime Minister of the Democratic Kampuchea to the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of
Non-Aligned Nations,‖ 29 March 1979, Kampuchea/Vietnam Conflict: 1 December 1978-22 September 1980, S0904-0090-0006, United Nations Archives, New York, New York, 3.
32
Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski, ―Presidential Debate,‖ Foreign Policy (March/April 2010).
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expansionism produced fear from their invasion of Afghanistan and the backing of Vietnam in
Cambodia.
For Carter, this quiet and peaceful diplomatic success can best be evidenced after the
handover of the Panama Canal, an overture that produced stronger relations with Latin American
countries on the whole. Latin America proved to be a key area in which Carter believed his
success with non-aligned nations could have the most force. The Carter Administration judged
that the United States had greater leverage in Latin America than in other parts of the world for
while the U.S. possessed smaller security and economic interests there; Latin America also
suffered from the most severe violations of human rights in the region.33 The Panama Canal
handover was a key aspect of his policy in which the U.S. could prove its commitments to
democratic values and establish its moral authority. For all these reasons, progress in promoting
human rights was seen as viable and practical, especially from the standpoint of nation-to-nation
diplomacy among non-aligned nations. With non-aligned nations rallying around the Khmer
Rouge, Carter viewed his positions with this bloc as most conducive to his larger objectives.
For these reasons, Carter justified his decision to vote for Pol Pot‘s regime in legal terms.
While Carter was not the first president to face a vote on a nation‘s contested representation at
the UN, this procedural justification illustrates that while cloaked in an argument of jurisdiction,
voting for the Khmer Rouge was not the only option for the Carter Administration. Historically,
ambiguous procedural rules for deciding rightful representation allowed for states for manipulate
this process towards their political aims. For example, disputes over state representation in the
General Assembly have arisen since the UN‘s inception in places such as China, Hungary, the
33
Kaufman, ―The Bureau of Human Rights During the Carter Administration,‖ 6.
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Congo, Yemen, Israel, South Africa, and Afghanistan.34 Each time, the criterion differed. When
two political entities vied for the same seat, the UN operated on an ad hoc basis to decide what
factors to consider in determining rightful representation. While many different proposals were
provided that could be applied to individual disputes,35 each evaluation process was utilized
depending upon which factors and considerations were best suited to their individual political
positions rather than any consistent standard.36 For example, in the case of whether to seat the
communist Chinese government or the ousted nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) leaders of the
Republic of China that had fled to Taiwan in the 1950s, the General Assembly substantively
debated prevailing legal norms to decide on who to seat.37 Yet, in other situations, procedural
arguments were used to determine representation.
The glaring inconsistencies in whether the Credentials Committee is utilized as a
procedural or substantive body can best be exhibited by examining the UN votes in Cambodia.
The 1979 vote was not the first time the UN examined Cambodian credentials. In 1973, when
Lon Nol and Prince Sihanouk both submitted credentials to the Committee, Member States
substantively debated the issue based on criterion of effective control, foreign intervention, and
domestic non-interference of the country to determine who would receive accreditation.38
34
Suellen Ratliff, ―UN Representation Disputes: A Case Study of Cambodia and a New Accreditation Proposal for
the Twenty-First Century,‖ California Law Review 87, no. 5 (October 1999): 1209.
35
These proposals include the Secretary General‘s Memorandum on ―The Legal Aspect of the Problem of
Representation in the United Nations, Resolution 396(v): Recognition by the United Nations of the representation of
a Member State, and UN Legal Counsel‘s Opinion on the ―Scope of Credentials in Rule 27 of the Rules of
Procedure of the General Assembly.‖
36
Ratliff, ―UN Representation Disputes,‖ 1231.
37
Ibid., 1222-1224. In this article, Ratliff makes the argument for a new accreditation process for UN representation
which includes human rights considerations in deciding whether to grant a government the right to represent a nation
and a people.
38
Ibid., 1245-1246. In the end, the ambiguity in these principles caused the Committee to postpone the vote until the
following session, causing the Lon Nol government to maintain their credentials. When Senegal submitted a report
to call for the rejection of these credentials in the Committee, it forced an immediate vote, awarding official
accreditation to Lon Nol for the immediate session. In the end, the Lon Nol government was overthrown by the
Khmer Rouge just over a year later. Despite the legal wrangling that occurred around this vote, it is important to
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Debbie Sharnak
However, minutes from the committee debates about seating the Cambodian representative in
1979 show the U.S. arguing for a strict procedural interpretation in which ―the issue was not the
conduct [of Cambodia] against its own nationals, but the validity of the credentials of the
representatives of Democratic Kampuchea…those credentials fulfilled the requirements of rule
27 of the rules of procedure, and the General Assembly should continue to seat the Government
whose credentials had been accepted.‖39 The U.S. further claimed that the ―mandate of the
Credentials Committee was confined to ascertaining if credentials were in order. The proper
forum for a debate on any other issue was the General Assembly.‖40 However, the General
Assembly had referred the issue to the Credentials Committee to decide which stemmed
substantive debate in that body as well. The U.S. therefore used procedural arguments to make a
claim for the Khmer Rouge to maintain representation at the UN.
When a third alternative to an official seating was suggested, in which the Congo
proposed to seat no one and leave the seat unoccupied, the U.S. also found legal justification to
reject that proposal. Rather than abstain from the vote, the U.S. suggested that ―if the draft
resolution seeks to leave the seat of Kampuchea vacant, it could be argued with considerable
cogency that it would be contrary to the Charter, as it would in effect deprive a Member State of
its rights and privileges of membership in a manner not foreseen in Article 5 of the Charter.‖41 In
contradiction to the substantive issues discussed during the 1973 Cambodian vote or even the
Chinese discussion from two decades earlier, UN documents reveal that the Carter
note that the terms of debate centered around substantive issues, rather solely procedural issues, a fact that U.S.
attempted to disregard as relevant in the 1979 vote.
39
Credentials of Representatives to the Thirty-Fourth Session of the General Assembly, 20 September 1979,
Democratic Kampuchea/Vietnam , 1 December 1978 to 11 September 1980, S-0904-0090-0006, United Nations
Archives, New York, New York.
40
Ibid.
41
J.F. Scott, Office of the Legal Counsel Memo on the Question of the Representation of Kampuchea to SecretaryGeneral, 14 September 1979, Kampuchea/Vietnam Conflict: 1 December 1978-22 September 1980, S-0904-00900006, United Nations Archives, New York, New York.
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Debbie Sharnak
Administration justified their support of the Khmer Rouge on a narrow and technical
understanding of Rule 27 in the United Nations. Lost in a bureaucratic web, the U.S. avoided
positioning itself in explicit moral alignment with the Khmer Rouge government while still
maintaining their political objectives to counter the Soviet Union and reassert themselves as an
ally to nonaligned nations. Despite a few letters to the editor in newspapers expressing outrage
about the vote,42 almost all public domestic U.S. attention to Cambodia at the time centered on
the plight of refugees.
Thus, Carter continued to view foreign policy formation through a lens of managing the
Great Power conflict rather than transcend a normative paradigm of placing perceived strategic
imperatives as the primary consideration. To fulfill a meager claim to his human rights policy
and assuage U.S. domestic calls for action, Carter promised $69 million in Cambodian aid.43
This traditional expression of humanitarian concern failed to challenge the entrenched notions of
viewing most foreign policy decisions through a U.S.-Soviet prism and did not threaten Carter‘s
attempts to assert a position of perceived strength in the international arena. This pledge of aid
did not jeopardize the Khmer Rouge‘s or China‘s interests. While generous, it failed to live up to
the promise of asserting a human rights framework to guide foreign policy formation.
What follows from this event is the questioning about the ultimate efficacy of human
rights when it comes into conflict with perceived national security concerns. To understand the
strategic thinking behind the vote at the UN changes the perception that Carter‘s decision to seat
the Khmer Rouge was a basic contradiction of his human rights policy. Instead, it serves as an
example of a changed, more narrow human rights conception that did not hold human rights as
42
―Hold-Your-Nose Diplomacy,‖ The Washington Post, September 17, 1980.
Carter Pledges Aid to Cambodian Refugees, 25 October 1979, Peacekeeping Operations Files of the Secretary –
General: Kurt Waldheim- Asia and the Far East- Indochina Country Files- Kampuchea, Humanitarian Relief
Assistance, 10 December 1979 to 31 August 1979, S-0901-0006-05, United Nations Archives, New York, New
York.
43
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Debbie Sharnak
absolute, and further, sought nontraditional expressions of a human rights policy, for example,
by serving as a model and partner to non-aligned nations. Yet, to accept this vote as the only
option also obscures the reality in which progressive foreign policy can be possible in the realm
of difficult and trying circumstances. Historian Jeremi Suri claims that in the 1960s, global
leaders abandoned a framework of innovation in foreign policy to reflect a position of ―national
constituents or national ‗interests.‘ ‖44 This tendency extends to Carter‘s actions in the 1970s.
Faced with deteriorating conditions domestically and abroad, combined with low approval
ratings, Carter abandoned his position of change and innovation to revert back to a bipolar, Cold
War paradigm. This policy produced little reward and many consequences for the Cambodian
people. Whether facing communism in the Cold War or terrorism today, threats to United States
are unlikely to dissipate anytime soon. Carter, by seating a genocidal regime at the UN, further
entrenched himself in the status quo. While Carter should receive credit for bringing the
discourse of human rights into the normative framework of foreign policy considerations, what
must be continually improved upon is how to not abandon these principles when policy decisions
might be difficult or appear on the surface to contradict national security interests.
44
Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente, 365.
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