The Khmer Rouge, having lost their legitimacy as representatives of the Cambodian people, the United States, some European countries and the People`s Republic of China, allied since 1973 with the United States against the Soviet Union and its bloc in the new phase of the Cold War, were seeking a viable democratic force that would be the voice of the Cambodian people. Prior to the formation of the Democratic Kampuchea coalition government in June 1982, under the presidency of H.R.H. Samdech Norodom Sihanouk, the KPNLF was invited to participate in the 1981 International Conference on Kampuchea, which served as a framework for negotiations for a peaceful solution. Unfortunately, the Vietnamese and the Soviet bloc refused to participate. The treaty paved the way for the United Nations Transitional Administration in Cambodia (UNTAC), a peacekeeping mission that essentially led the country in 1992-93. Drawing on the spirit of the time – a period of dizzying liberal optimism that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union – the agreement also promised to turn a poor and conflict-shaken nation into a liberal democracy in which human rights would be respected and defended. For the CPC, the Paris Agreements have meanwhile been subdated into the party`s own fundamental myths, as evidenced by Hun Sen`s remarks on the anniversary of the agreement. Hun Sen argued that Paris would never have happened had it not been for the meetings between him and Prince Norodom Sihanouk, which took place in France in 1987. He also pointed out (rightly) that the Paris Accords had not ended Cambodia`s civil war, which he attributed to the offensives and amnesties of his own government in the late 1990s – a policy that the CPC`s historiography has since canonized as a „win-win policy“. The CNRP`s statement ended with the call on the United States and other Western powers to impose severe sanctions on Hun`s allies, and to „immediately convene a meeting among the main signatories to verify gaps in the implementation of the 1991 Paris Peace Accords.“ The legacy of the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, which s meant to bring peace and democracy to the country, remains deeply contested. Professor Subedi commented on the two decades since the agreements were signed and noted that peace and stability had brought „enormous dividends“ to the country. Final act of the Paris Conference on Cambodia (10-23-1991) Posted by USIP Library on: February 22, 2000 Source Name: United Nations, Department of Public Information, Agreements on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict: Paris, 23 October 1991, January 1992, 1-6.