[Tlc] C-new book

[justinm at ucr.edu]

Dancing in Shadows
Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge, and the United Nations in Cambodia
By Benny Widyono

"Benny Widyono has written a lively, sometimes passionate and
controversial book from the perspective of a fellow Southeast
Asian who was also a senior UN official through Cambodia's
crucial post–Cold War years. His account is rich in detail,
from scenes of his own life and work in the devastated country
to his insider's analyses of its troubled politics." —Barbara
Crossette, Former New York Times correspondent in Southeast
Asia and UN bureau chief

"Benny Widyono brings us the remarkable inside story of the
UNTAC operations in Cambodia after the conclusion of the Paris
Peace Agreements, as well as the intrigues, turmoil, and
political upheavals of the first years of a reborn Cambodia.
This book will be fascinating reading for anyone interested in
the often tragic history of Cambodia and the history of
big-power intervention in Southeast Asia." —Ali Alatas, Former
foreign minister of Indonesia and co-chairman of the Paris
International Conference on Cambodia

"Benny Widyono is ideally placed to assess the turbulent
events in Cambodia between the UN-sponsored Paris Peace
Accords of 1992 and the return to full electoral legitimacy of
Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party-led government in 1998.
During most of those years, as personal representative of the
UN secretary-general, Widyono was at the center of Cambodia's
Machiavellian political scene." —Tony Kevin, Australian
Ambassador to Cambodia (1994–1997)

This fascinating book recounts the remarkable tale of a career
UN official from Indonesia caught in the turmoil of
international and domestic politics swirling around Cambodia
during the tumultuous period after the fall of the Khmer
Rouge. Writing from his experience first as a member of the UN
transitional authority and then as a personal envoy to the UN
secretary-general, Benny Widyono re-creates the fierce battles
for power centering on King Norodom Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge,
and Prime Minister Hun Sen. A simultaneous insider and
outsider, he also untangles the competing and conflicting
agendas of the key international players, especially the
United States, China, and Vietnam. He argues that great-power
geopolitics throughout the cold war and post–cold war eras
triggered and sustained a tragedy of enormous proportions in
Cambodia for decades, ultimately leading to a flawed peace
process.

Widyono tells the inside story of the massive UN operation in
Cambodia, the largest and most challenging in the
organization's history to that time and long considered a
model for UN operations elsewhere. He draws not only on his
vantage point as part of the UN bureaucracy, but also as a
local UN official in the rural Cambodian province of Siem
Reap, the site of Angkor Wat. As a fellow Southeast Asian with
no geopolitical axe to grind, Widyono was able to win the
respect of Cambodians, including the once and future king,
Norodom Sihanouk, whose decline after fifty years as his
country's leading figure is vividly portrayed. Putting a human
face on international operations, this book will be invaluable
reading for anyone interested in Southeast Asia, the role of
international peacekeeping, and the international response to
genocide.

About the Author
Benny Widyono, born in Indonesia to ethnic Chinese parents,
was a career UN diplomat. He was a peacekeeper with UNTAC from
1992 to 1993 and representative of the UN secretary-general in
Cambodia from 1994 to 1997. He holds a Ph.D. in economics and
wrote this book while a visiting scholar at the Kahin Center
on Advanced Research on Southeast Asia at Cornell University.  

Asian Voices series
October 2007 ~ 312 pages
ISBN 0-7425-5553-4 / 978-0-7425-5553-2 $29.95 paper
ISBN 0-7425-5552-6 / 978-0-7425-5552-5 $85.00 cloth 

______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu