Cambodia and the Sihanouk Myths 9789814380157

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PREFA CE The sudden ouster of dih::\nouk ets Chief of Sto.te, the invasion of Cw~bodia by the United States and South Vietnames e Goverru:tc nt forces, and the internal struggle in Co.r.:1bodin, both to find unity o.nd pence anong the people of th~ nntion and to extric~te the country from the cnlar~cd Vietnan dar found nost students of Southeast Asian affairs unprepare d for the events of the Spring of 1971; nore inportant , uninforme d about the real state of affairs in Cambodia. For all too oany people, Southeast Asia has oeant the larger and better publicise d states of this region - North and Bouth Vietnao, Indonesia , Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and tho Philippin es. Because of their efforts to rennin outside the activitie s arid cvnflicts of th0 area, nettions such as Burna, C~1bodin nnd Laos receive only cinor nttention fron scholars nnd journalis ts alike; as o. result, a lnrge infor1aed public on these countries does not exist. Thus, when najor ch.'1.nges occur, there is a rapid search for scholars and journalis ts alike to interpret events and put them into perspecti ve, for n suddenly intereste d public. Mr. J.L.S. Girling, .Senior Hesenrch Fellow, Departocn t .. of Intern~tional Relations , Australia n National Universit y, has devoted hinself during the past fe~ years to the study of Chinn and South~nst ...lsi a, v;i th special attention to the forncr Indo-Chin a sto.tes - Viotnan, Caubodia and L.:tos. In 1969 he published an important study, Peopl~s' War: Conditions o.nd Conscgucn ccs in Chinn and Southeast Asiet. At the invitatio n of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, he gave 0. Ser.1inar on 11 Car."lbodin and the Sihanouk ~.'iyths II on 111arch 31, 1971. It was the subject of his current research and go.ve the L1e!,i bers of the se::1in:1r an opportun ity to hGnr a differe nt interprot o.ti on of the fall of Siho.nouk and the inter-rel ationship of do n~ stic and external affairs v1hich led to it. Because the paper sti ~.mlatcd good discussio n which continu~d for a period after the seoinar was concluded , tho Institute decided to publish it and give n wider nudionc0 o. ch::1ncc to acquaint itself with f,1r. Girling' s scholarsh ip. It is hoped th.J.t this paper nill add to the linited knouledge nnd interpret ation on Cn.ubodia which is av.::tilable . The f.::tcts, interprct .:1tions and ucthod of presentat ion arc those of the author o.lonc and the Institute is not responsib le for, nor should it be considere d as advocatin g, any ideas or interpret ations includud in this paper. If it stinulo.te s scholars to do further research on this subject, it will have sorved a useful purposG. Josef 3ilverste in Director

21 June, 1971.

Cambodia and the Sihanouk Myths by

J.L.G. Girling

World opinion about Cambodia is still. under the influence of two myths created and sustained by Prince Norodom Sihanouk. These are the "internationalist " oyth, which judr;es a country essentially in terms of its foreic~n relations, and the "personification" myth, which identifies the leader with the nation. Despite Sihanouk's fall the cyths associated with hir:1 linger on. Indeed their r1ost pervasive, if often unrecognised, effect is precisely on current interpretations of the situation in Cambodia. Therefore it is hoped that an examination of the two nyths will provide answers to the following ouch-debated questions: (a) International: eiven the fact of occupation of large areas of Ca~bodia by forces of North Vietnao and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, is this the action of a foreign invader - the "hereditary enemy" - or of the agent or ally of the ousted legitimate rulers? If the first view - that it is part of the process of North Vietnamese expansion - is accepted, is the invasion of Cambodia attributable to "provocation" by the new regime; that is its reversal of Sihanouk's policy of acconmodation? In other words, if the Prince had remained in power, would Caobodia have been spared the disasters of war? (b) Internal: given the important role that "personification" played during the period of Sihan.ouk's regine, what effect does it have on understanding the events leading to his downfall and their consequences? ~Jas the overthrow of Sihanouk the work of a conspiratorial clique backed froo abroad, a coup by the Rightist elite, .or a oore thoroughgoing, if not nation wide, revolt? If the latter view is accepted - na:noly, the rejection of Gihanouk's personal rule by the educated classes who ultimately found it intolerable - how much does this affect the poor urban dwellers and above all tho peasantry? Recognising the hold of traditional id8as of monarchy on the villagers, is this attachr.wnt to the person of Siha.nouk, a former King, who as Prince and later Head of State made great efforts to project hiuself: by incessant visits to the provinces, by a flow of gifts to his audiences fu!d by promotion of "manual labor", etc.; or is it rather to the institution of monarchy and not to the actual occupant of the throne, which in any case has been vacant since 1960?

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Answers to these questions - through seeking to uncover the reality obscured by the myths - are basic to an assessruent of the prospects of Cambodia in its present struggle for survival. Yet the Qyths are both enduring and tenacious, perhaps because of their protean nature. First of all, outside observers are naturally partial to the "internationalist " myth; all the nore so where external relations, as in the case of Caobodia, are obviously important. But Sihanouk added his own particular slant by repeated assertions that internal opposition to hiQ steQQed not from domestic conditions but from foreign int1erference. (A uore general exaNple of the internationalist way of thinkinG is the denino theory, with its almost coupulsive disregard of national peculiarities and of specific "local" factors). The result has been a marked concentration by outside observers on the external ruther thr.m the internal conncquanccs of Sihanouk';. full: that is, tho North Vietnamcse-N.L.F. offensives on tho one hand, and tho U.S.-South Vietnanese invasion on the other. Finally tho "transference" aspect of tho Iltyth: what happened in South Vietnam after 1954 - whether this was a constitutional and der:tocratic ~overnnent facing the ruthl0ss iLlposition by extremistn of terror and .::mbversion; or a srJall, repressive urban elite incapable of understanding the rural nasses and hopelessly antagonising them - was taking place (either version) in Cambodia after 1970. The paradox of the present Indochina situation is that while militarily there is inde~d a single battleground with Ca~bodia one of the theaters of operations politically, socially and economically each country of the region has to be understood as a separate entity, in its own particular context. The latter is a truism which Prince Sihanouk, whose constant er.l phasis on forei~n po·licy was designed to preserve Canbodia - and thereby his personal system of rule - from the Indochina war, ironically did his best to obscurc.l For internal pressures to chango the system, which wore evaded, disreGarded, or denigrated by 8ihanouk as if they wore Jil,jroly a function of outsidu interests, arJbition::; or i Htrii.~uuc, wc ru in fact largc.:ly responsible for the l'>rincu' s dov;nfnll. The uyth of personification is no less attractive to foreign observers, if only because of their greater acquaintance with international affairs - in which leaders evidently arepresent" their nations - than with dooestic matters. Sihanouk's image was a composite of assorted ~yths: the democrat, chosen of the people; the architect

3 of conse nsus, by means of the Sangkum Reast r Niyum or "popu lar socia list comt.JU nity", of' which Sihan ouk was the found er and its perpe tua l Pre siden t; the indisp ensub lo guide in polit ics and the ferti le instit ution al innov ator; the geniu s of state -craf t and diplom acy; and the authe ntic leade r of the Khuer (Canb odiun ) race, the tradi tiona l interm ediar y betwe en heave n and earth , desce ndant of the god-k ings of Angko r. These claim s were not fraud ulent . But they are oyths in the sense that while the instit ution al form of de wocra cy, for examp le, was prese nt0d, its conte nt or unde rlyin g by purpo se was diffe rent from what is co:c1r:10 nly under st ood was dcnoc racy, "dire ct" or other wise. Rule by the raaj ority ople not at all Sihan ouk's ob j ectiv e, first ly becau se the pe lf were not "read y" to decid e and s e condl y, becau se he himse ns >~a o sl and ls ritua the ad Inste "inca rnate d" their will. 2 , of democ racy were int e nde d, by an appea l to the e ~ otionsage ncour e to n, to reinfo rce popul ar loyal ties to the natio sentim ents of solid arity , and to incul cate faith in the leade r. Organ isatio ns like the Natio nal Cong ress, at whose neetin gs twice a year all citize ns could discu ss t h8ir proble ms, as well as the we e kly "audi ences " for petiti oners held by the Head of State in tho Royal Palac e (the usual pract ice of a benev olent conar ch), serve d to give the in ordin ary peopl e a feelin r; of belon ging, of catte ring socie ty after being "cour ted" assid uousl y by the Princ e, and e ven of parti cipat ing in decis ions - althou gh in fact they did not: as an offic ial publi catio n candi dly point s out, refer ring to the congr ess, "the Presi dent of the Sangk um (Sihan ouk) direc ts its debat es".3 Yet these instit ution s were widel y accep tud for r:10re than a do(!ad e, since the y provi ded emoti onal satis facti on; and b0cau se bu they were believ ed in - or becau se no altern ative c ould conce ived of - they were a r 0alit y at that tine. Only were after the incar natio n of Khnur unity had been rej e cted Sihan ouk's const ructio ns ruvu o. led as a facad e for pe rsona l rule - and one which had fail ed. The y wore the c:eat ion of a myth and witho ut their creat or they were void. Like cost polit ical nyths , int e rnatio nalism and the perso nifica tion of Sihan ouk origin ated from a basis of fact. More signi fican tly they expre ssed, and perha ps still in expre ss, certa in psych ologi cal truth s: first , the n0td to , force than r ratht: acy, Carab odia's situa tion for diplom prese rve the secur ity Of a swall COW1try in a turbu lent for art:a; and secon d, the n0ces sary cubod iucnt of autho rity Camb odians , which took on not only the custo cary foru of

royalty - as King, the he ro of the 1953 "Crusade for Independence", then as Prince, two years later, tho creator of national union - but also the modern guise of the democratic pcrsonality, the "si1.1 ple citizen", a s Sihanouk described hins ulf, "honoured by the affection of the poople."4 Moreover, the two nyths are connected, like t wo sides of a coin, and not just by r e ason of Sihanouk's COQQOn authorship. They come together in the Prince's thesis of the harmony of interest s he had created in Cruabodia. . This state of harmony was supposedly based on the support of the oasses, infusing their strength into new democratic institutions suited to the nature of the country, which in turn served as links between the people and the Prince, Prcsidcnt of the § ·'lnf5kum and Head of State, at the sumr1i t of the pyr-ur;1id. 'l'ho un ison of p