Politics and Power in Cambodia: The Sihanouk Years 0582710405, 0582710413

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STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY SOUTHEAST ASIA

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POLITICS AND POWER IN CAMBODIA The Sihanouk Years MILTON OSBORNE

'I act according to my conscience which is absolutely clear. Let those who disapprove of me come and take my place or do away with me.'

7 April 1967

Prince Norodom Sihanouk

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1 LONGMAN

Longman Australia Pty Limited Camberwell Victoria Australia Associated companies, branches, and representatives throughout the world.

Copyright © 1973 Longman Australia This book is copyright. Apart from any.fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism, or

review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publishers. First published 1973 ISBN 0 582 71040 5 (Cased) ISBN 0 582 71041 3 (Limp)

Typeset by The Universities Press Pty .Ltd Printed in Hong Kong by Dai Nippon Printing Co., ( Hong Kong) Ltd

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CONTENTS

Preface 1 The Problem

vii 1

2 The Traditional Background

12

3 The Years of Colonial Calm

24

4 Sihanouk's Growth to Political Maturity

38

5 The Sangkum Solution

55

6 Portrait of a Prince

70

'7 From Hope to Stagnation, 1960 to 1966

82

8 Towards the Abyss

96

9 Exit a Prince

108

Bibliography

118

Index

119

THAILAND

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PREFACE

When Prince Norodom Sihanouk was turned out of office in March 1970 this largely unexpected event gave sudden emphasis to the need

for further study of Cambodia's internal politics. For years Cambodia and its princely leader had received attention mostly in terms of foreign policy developments. The recent internal history of Cambodia was the concern of a restricted few. After Sihanouk fell

the importance of the neglected or ignored domestic politics of this Southeast Asian country was suddenly apparent. Not least, the March 1970 coup d'étcat revealed the extent to which a widely accepted picture of internal harmony within Cambodia under the Prince's rule required substantial revision. This book attempts a broad analysis of Cambodia's internal politics during what may be accurately termed the Sihanouk years.

In restricting analysis to internal politics there is a risk of artificiality, but such artificiality is justified by the overwhelming weight of attention to the country's external concerns that is already available

for study. The footnotes will make abundantly clear my debt to other writers on Cambodian affairs whose interests have primarily been in the external field.

Outside the scholarly and personal debts that can be acknowledged in footnotes I must record my deep gratitude to a range of friends and colleagues jar too numerous to be included here. The list includes many in Cambodia whom I first met in the years 1959-61, when I served as a member of the Australian Embassy in Phnom Penh, and who have continued to receive me with kindness in later years. My own understanding of developments in Cambodia owes much to the opportunities I have had to discuss the country's history and politics with students at Monash University, in Australia, and at Cornell University, in the United States. vii

I am glad to record my thanks to the Australian Research Grants Committee for providing me with funds to study in Vietnam and Cambodia in 1969-70. The Department of History at Monash University ensured that I was freed of responsibilities that might have impeded my research overseas at that time. By inviting me to spend the first half of 1972 as a Visiting Senior FelloW in the Department of History at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, Professor C. D. Cowan gave me the opportunity to write this book in the most advantageous circumstances. As must always be made quite clear, I alone am responsible for the statements made and the views expressed in this study.

June 1972

Milton Osborne

viii

Chapter One

THE PROBLEM L

Historians seldom agree on the exact significance of a particular development. In the future, the cause and the significance of Prince Norodom Sihanouk's fall from power, in March 1970, will be a matter for continuing debate. Yet whatever the terms of that debate, and whatever the degree of agreement achieved, there is ample reason already for arguing that Sihanouk's loss of power was a major turning point in the recent history of Cambodia. Moreover, even for the most sceptical foreign observer of the years when Sihanouk was the dominant figure in Cambodian politics, the fact of the coup d'état, the identity of those who planned it, and the speed with which change was accomplished were matters for some surprise. All of these, cumulatively, provide a new point of departure for a consideration of developments in Cambodia since the Second W'orld War . The coup of 18 March 1970 offers a new perspective from which to examine Cambodian. affairs. Or, to seek another illustrative metaphor, Sihanouk's sudden physical disappearance from the Cambodian

political scene has given students of his country a new lens through which to examine past events. The danger of all metaphors is that at the same time as they aid in the understanding of a complex event they simplify excessively. Yet, in Cambodia's case, to Write of a changed perspective, or of the sudden unexpected use of a new lens through which to view developments, has real point. For these two metaphors emphasize that the

reviews which are now being made of developments in Cambodia during the 1950s and 1960s are concerned, to a very considerable

extent, with continuities as much as changes. Sihanouk's overthrow has not changed the events of the past. It has made observers aware of points of significance that, in large part, were either ignored or insuflieiently understood previously. Even the most disenchanted 1

2

POLITICS A N D POWER

IN CAMBODIA

observers of Prince Sihanouk's 'Buddhist Socialism', and of the increasingly difficult relations which he had with the politically active members of the Cambodian population, hestitated to speculate, at least in public fashion, on the possibility of his political demise. This fact, in itself, made the suddenness of Sihanouk's departure the more surprising. For years, commentaries on Cambodian politics emphasized the importance for Sihanouk's survival of the great popularity he enjoyed among the peasantry. But, when members of the Cambodian political élite chose to act against him, with firm control of the country's armed forces, the impotence of the peas-

antry's passive support was clearly shown. While dissatisfaction and dissension existed among those holding high office under Sihanouk, the loyalty of his Minister of Defence, General Lon Nol, had long seemed beyond question. Yet it was Lon Nol who emerged, immediately after Sillanouk's deposition, as the most powerful of those who had been prepared to strip the god-king of his aura. Cambodia, and its politics, have not been unique in Southeast Asia in the extent to which they have excited controversy, among scholars and more casual observers alike. Indeed, many of the assumptions which have lain behind the controversies over developments in Cambodia have been similar to those held, for instance, in relation to Indonesia or Vietnam. Commenta.tors argued about the nature of political developments in Cambodia in terms of their supposed significance for the wider contest which was perceived between Communism and anti-Communism in the Southeast Asian region.

Cambodia's proximity to the war in Vietnam gave added impetus to analyses couched in these terms. For supporters of United States policy in the Indochinese region, Prince Sihanouk's international policies were, more often than not, seen as wilfully dangerous, or at best unsympathetic. For those who were critical of American policies-a group of commentators of considerable

size, many

nationalities, and varying degrees of probity-the Prince and his policies were frequently portrayed as wise and courageous. Those who wrote from a pro-American bias were frequently unready or unable to comprehend the complexities of the Cambodian political scene and unwilling to accept his justifications of Cambodia's foreign policy. Leaving to one side those who were avowed propagandists

for anti-American causes and cynical journalists who knew that a favorable account of Cambodia would ensure their return to the country, the commentators who saw the best in Cambodia were the mirror image of the critics. To understand all, in their case, was not only to forgive all; at worst, it was also to risk disregarding the complexities of Cambodia in the same manner as less tolerant observers. The resulting sympathetic distortion was just as mis-

leading'

THE PROBLEM

3

Such a clash of views, stemming as much from personal conviction as from scholarly enquiry, has been a feature of the study of Southeast Asia, and indeed of the whole of the Third World, in the

period of burgeoning 'area studies' which followed the Second World War. In the crlldest terms, there has been a clash between 'policyoriented' research, which failed to question the assumptions in Western policies generally and United States policies in particular,

and what might be termed dissenting research and scholarship. This latter approach, through questioning the foundations of Western policy towards the Third World, frequently came to hold far less critical views of the leaders whose policies clashed with those of the West. Vi/'ithin the Southeast Asian region, the differing views held of Sukarno and the Indonesian state which he directed provide an obvious and perhaps the best-known example. When considering

Prince Norodom Sihanouk and Cambodia, however, something more was involved. Partly it was a question of size. For those who were critical of Sihanouk, the vision of this physically small man, whose country's population was only some six million persons, arguing for his right to determine Cambodia's policies was objectionable; while for those who were sympathetic to Cambodia, such defiance of tlle West, and on occasion of the major Communist powers as well, was, by contrast, a matter for approval. Partly, also, it was because of Sihanouk's personality that so much attention was paid to this ruler and his country by so many foreign observers. Prince Sihanouk was not protean, as his own propagandists and some of his more enthusiastic admirers frequently suggested. He was, and is, a man of very considerable and wide-ranging talent. His abilities spanned a capacity for delivering speeches, often lasting two or three hours, which with their racy colloquialisms captivated the peasantry, to accomplished performance on a variety of musical intruments. As the polit-ical leader of his country, Sihanouk was a perfect host

to all of those, famous or little-known, who were his guests. That a man of talent should have endeavoured, despite the immense diiliculties which confronted him in the task, to develop & state which eschewed the unattractive features of both Capitalism and Communism was, for many, a further reason to accord Prince Sihanouk sympathy. Sihanouk's stated ideal, here, was noble. The reality was more complex, and, particularly in the final years of

Prince Sihanouk's governance, even sinister. But the stated ideal was too often taken to be the fact. Foreign visitors to the model village near Kompong Kantuot, conveniently located close to Phnom Penh, were too ready to believe that it represented something approaching the nature of rural living conditions throughout the country.2 Those foreign observers who sat through the exhausting

experience of a National Congress of the Sangkum Reastr Niyum

4

POLITICS AND POWER IN CAMBODIA

(Peoplc's Socialist Community), the country's one mass political movement, came close to being befuddled by words and speeches into imagining that there was a consistent and operative link between

these public expressions of views and the actions which the Prince's government took. The dichotomies in attitudes and opinions risk, in the form in which they have been presented, becoming misleading. It would be incorrect not to recognize that there were some observers of Sihanouk's Cambodia who managed, with considerable success, to avoid

the pitfalls of excessive enthusiasm or criticism. For these observers there was, however, another problem. Recognizing the great difficulties which lay in the way of efforts to present an accurate account of Cambodian internal developments, they not infrequently directed their efforts towards a consideration of Cambodia in terms of the country's international policies. It is notable, in this respect, that of the three important book-length studies of contemporary Cambodian politics published by Western scholars in the 1960s, two have Cambodia's international relations as their principal concern? Such an orientation was the result of many factors; not least it reHected Sihanouk's own public emphasis upon the primacy of inter-

national affairs in determining the ultimate fate of llis state. There was, in addition, the practical consideration that the study of Calnbodia's international relations had much to recommend it in circumstances which rendered rigorous field research into domestic politics diilicult, if not impossible. The relatively relaxed years of the 1950s changed, slowly but perceptibly, into a period of suspicion, and even obstruction, after the middle 1960s. Vlrhile foreign scholars were not banned from Cambodia, there were implicit, and effective, restrictions upon the no-ture of the research which could be pursued in Cambodia and the range of subjects which could be examined. 1Moreover, foreign affairs did have a vital effect on the internal

politics of Cambodia for most of Sillanoul;'s rule, whether during his period as King, Prime Minister or Chief of State. He had been placed on t11e throne in 1941. In part, at least, his accession reflected the

belief of Admiral Decoux, Governor-General of French Indochina, that the youthful Prince Sihanouk could be easily controlled, in the French interest, during 1.-he period of crisis that followed the J apanese entry into Indochina and the beginning of the Pacific War. Following the Second World \Var. as Sihanouk ,grew to political maturity, events outside Cambodia continued to have great importance for internal developments in the kingdom. The issue of independence for Cambodia was, essentially, dependent upon developments in the conliict between the French and the Viet-Minh. Although Cambodia was not entirely spared the experience of

wa1'

during the Franco-

Viet-Minh conflict, the number of combatants involved was relatively' small and the action limited in comparison with events in

THE PROBLEM

5

Vietnam. Yet Cambodia, and the then King Sihanouk, found that the country's future was considered, almost exclusively SO far as successive French governments were concerned, in terms of wider issues. For his own part, Sihanouk became convinced that it was only through t-he application of international pressure that it would be possible to squeeze independence from the French. To the extent that he was successful in this, by November 1953, the experience confirmed in his mind the close relationship between domestic and

international politics for his country. It may also have convinced him of the primacy of international factors. In taking such great account of the international element in politics, Norodom Sihanouk had a shrewd appreciation of his

country's history. Before the entry of the French into the region, with their establishment of a protectorate over Cambodia in 1864, the rulers who were Sihanouk's forebears had seen their country in dispute between Thailand and Vietnam for centuries. After the fall of the great Angkorian empire in the fifteenth century, the Cambodian state had declined in power. The decline was marked by brief periods of revival, but t-he trend towards national decay was secular. 'Whatever the risks of simplification, there is fundamental truth in

the observation that the state of Cambodia, just before the French colonial presence was imposed, seemed unlikely to survive the dual challenge of its stronger neighbors, Thailand and Vietnam. For

the Cambodian state in the second half of the nineteenth century, the French colonial presence effectively 'froze' those international forces which might otherwise have led to most of the country disappearing into the control of her more powerful neighbors. Ninety years later, with independence achieved, King Sihanouk found little reason to judge that those same neighbors who had plagued his ancestors in the nineteenth century were any better disposed to his state in the twentieth.

Sihanouk's concern with international threats to the Cambodian state fitted well with the political atmosphere of the period in the middle 1950s. Succeeding through a brilliant political stroke in neutralizing internal opposition to his policies, Prince Sihanouk (as

he was styled after his abdication in 1955) sought to play a part on the Third "World Sta-ge, a stage which the Indian Prime Minster, Pandit Nehru, then bestrode to the Prince's considerable admiration. Sihanouk evolved the essential elements of his foreign policy between 1954 and 1956, a period which embraced the Geneva Conference, the Afro-Asian Conference at Bandung, and the formation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATOI. which Sihanouk refused to join. This was the period during which U Nu of Burma and Nehru counseled Sihanouk on the virtues of neutrality, and when Chou En-lai and Pham Van Dong, the Premiers of China and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), assured him of their

6

POLITICS A N D P Q W E R I N CAMBODIA

peaceful intentions towards his country. At the same time, however, the years between 1954 and 1956 were ones t-hat convinced Sihanouk that the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) and Thailand, linked solidly as they were with the United States of America, were unready to accept his stated desire to opt out of the ideological struggle already in progress in Southeast Asia. When a major challenge to Sihanouk's rule came in the early part of 1959 in the form of an attempted rebellion led by a provincial governor, Dap Chhuon, the Cambodian Government placed great importance on t-he involvement of the Thais and South Vietnamese, with implicit, but quite clearly understood, support from the United States Central intelligence Agency. This attempted rebellion, which

was quickly crushed by the Cambodian armed forces, seemed t-o justify the foreign policies which Sihanouk had been following. The affair was also a corroboration of his frequently expressed fears concerning the threats which existed to him and to the Cambodian state. The contentious internal politics of pre-i dependence Cam-

bodia were forgotten, as, in large measure, were the hectic months of internal manoeuvring which preceded the electoral success of the Sangkum in 1955 and Sihanouk's decision at that time to abdicate. The picture of the Dap Chhuon affair that the Cambodian official

press gave, and that foreign observers largely accepted., was of an aberration. Internal threat to Sihanouk and his policies, both national and international, was presented as minimal, the true threat to Cambodia's continued peaceful existence under Sihanouk's benevolent guidance came, rather, from the involvement of extcrna-l forces in Cambodian affairs. The fact that there was an important degree of truth in this picture only served to reinforce those accounts that emphasized international over domestic issues in reviews of Cambodian developments. The accelerating tempo of the war in Vietnam by the beginning of

the 1960s further strengthened the tendency of foreign commentators to discuss Cambodia in terms of its international problems. To this, once again, Prince Sihanoulis own pronouncements played their part in giving validity to such an approach. And again, as had been the ease during the la.st half of the 1950s, there were good reasons for paying attention to Cambodia's position in the rapidly changing circumstances of the Indochinese area. As the war in Vietnam grew, and as international involvement in it became greater, the possibility of insulating Cambodia from the conflict diminished. Yet the very size of the Viet-nam War, and the strength of the passions which it generated, go far to explain why so little attention was paid to the slow erosion of' Silianouk's internal position from the early sixties onwards. Sihanouk not only sought to promote for external eon-

suznption the view that Cambodia's major diilieulties were the result of international pressures. Retrospective analysis also suggests that

THE PROBLEM

7

he had grasped the extent to which emphasis on international problems could draw the teeth of internal criticism, when any person or group h.ad suliieient temerity to bare them. While the Cambodian peasantry was generally ready to support him, Sihanouk's mammoth speeches to his rural audiences dwelt, nonetheless, as much on the external threats that faced the state and its leader as on the transformations which had been achieved and were to come because of the existence of the Sangkum. For the more politically sophisticated, above all for the urban élite, even the decline of the Cambodian economy from 1963 and its effect on the Prince's wealthier supporters could be made to seem less demandingly important. For the apparent alternative to economic stagnation involved questioning Sihanouk's

policies, which had succeeded for so long in preventing Cambodia's embroilment in the Vietnam War. By 1966, it is now clear, some of the most important domestic factors in bringing about Sihanouk's downfall were already in play. Yet, i11 a curious fashion, this year probably saw a greater foreign interest in Calnbodia's international policies and Sihanouk's role in them than ever before. The reasons for this situation were complex . The American escalation of the Vietnam \Var, followed by the North Vietnamese response, had brought the possibility of Cambodian territory becoming involved on a permanent basis, going beyond the occasional incursions which had taken place previously.

The disen-

chantment of the American public with the Vietnam War had still not developed fully, but journalists from the leading American newspapers and television networks had sensed that developments in

Cambodia could give sharp emphasis to the debate tllen taking place at all levels in the United States. Vlfhen, in conjunction with General de Gaullc's state visit to Cambodia, Prince Sihanouk decided temporarily to relax the ban which he had imposed on most W'estern journalists in the preceding two years, the international press came

to Phnom Penh in force. For the most part, the journalists' interest was in the international implications of the situation. In particular, they searched for indications that some initiative might emerge to

bring an end to tlle Vietnam war. And much was written about the possible use of Cambodian territory by the Vietnamese Communists for supply and staging bases. Remarkably little concern was paid to the internal politics of the country which had suddenly opened its doors for foreign inspection. The il.lusion was preserved. For it was an illusion, fostered and developed with the assistance of a large band of professional foreign journalists who were employed as members of Prince Sihanouk's private secretariat. In emphasizing the existence of illusion there is the clear danger, it must be recognized, of replacing one unconvincing absolute with another. Silia-

nouk's control over affairs within his state was increasingly fragile as the 1960s progressed, but it would be quite incorrect to argue that it

8

POLITICS AND POWER IN

CAMBODIA

was ephemeral. The importance which he, and foreign commentators, placed upon the role of foreign affairs in determining the development of the country may have been excessive, but it was nonetheless true that concern over Co-mbodia's international relations was a major theme throughout Sihanouk's governance. 'Nhat was so deceptive about the illusion was the way in which it hid for such a protracted period the existence of fundamental problems. Brief consideration of two of the more obvious examples makes this point clearer. In common with other Southeast Asian countries, Cambodia's population includes minority groups which have not been fully integrated into the state. The most obvious instances of these minorities are the large resident Chinese and Vietnamese communities which, by the last years of Sihanouk's rule, probably numbered between 400,000 and 450,000 persons in each case. Readily seen and

recognized by both Cambodian and foreigner alike, the Chinese and Vietnamese minorities tended t-o eclipse awareness of the existence of other, indigenous minority groups whose relations with Cambodian society were less frequent, and possibly more acutely difficult, than was the case with those whom the French used to call the 'foreign Asians' within the country. The indigenous minority

groups in question were the tribal peoples of the uplands. These hill people, in a pattern repeated over and over again throughout the Southeast Asian region, have lived for centuries in a state of tenuous isolation from lowland Cambodian society. On occasion the necessity for trade brought the hill tribes into contact with the Cambodian administration. But more characteristically relations between the lowland and highland groups were marked by the hostility engendered by the attitude of total superiority which the lowlanders assumed. For the lowland Cambodian, the tribal peoples dwelling in the hills and mountains were pa/nong, or savages. Nearly one hundred years of French rule did not greatly change this attitude, and when Cambodia achieved independence it persisted. Prince Sihanouk visited these peoples, now dignified by the term Khmer Loeu, or upland Cambodians, and government press releases spoke of the programs of 'Khmerization' which were bringing the hill people into the modern world. Nothing was said, officially, about the resistance the Cambodian Government had encountered in developing its program, so that it was for most observers a considerable surprise when it became clear, from late 1966 onwards, that disaffection was widespread among the hill peoples of the Cambodian northeast. That this disaffection was stirred, to some extent, by external forces does not detract from the evidence it provides of a different and more complex internal Cambodian situation than that which was so often presented to the world in the years before Sihanouk's deposition.'*

THE PROBLEM

9

Prince Sihanouk's relations with the educated youth of the country, and the attila-udes held by a significant number of that group, were a further instance of the persistence of illusion throughout the sixties. Scarcely an issue of the Prince's monthly magazines, Kambuja and-Sangkum, appeared without articles and photographs emphasizing the concern which Sihanouk had for the education of

Cambodian youth, their association with the development of the country and their integration into its politics. The curiously-named Royal Cambodian Socialist Youth was a major element in Prince Sihanouk's policy towards the youth, designed as a conscious

variation on other organized and uniformed youth groups to associate the young with the aims of the state. There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of Sihanouk's desire to expand the educational opportunities open to the young people of his country, or to believe that he was other than genuine in seeking to have the youth feel an involvement in the tasks and responsibilities of government. The problem was that his plans for expanded education never took sufficient account of what would follow when there were insufficient job opportunities for those who had passed through his new secondary and tertiary institutions. And the more politically aware members of the youth frequently discovered that their support of the Prince's

policies, through the Royal Socialist Youth, gave them little opportunity to progress to positions providing any real sense of direct personal involvement in government affairs. The mistakes and diihcultics associated with Prince Sihanouk's policy towards the youth of Cambodia form a so bstantial part of the explanation for the role adopted by the youth, particularly of Phomn Penh, after the March 1970 coup d'état. To the surprise, and even disbelief, of many foreign observers, an important section of the educated young people in the capital declared themselves as fervent supporters of the new I`OgiII1€.5

The disaifeetion which was present among important sections of the Cambodian youth before Sihanouk's overthrow, and the problem

of relations with the hill tribes which had been in existence throughout Sihanouk's rule, represent two of the more obvious instances of difficulties within the Cambodian polity that went largely unrecognized or unrecorded by foreign observers. They make clear the necessity for a deeper and more critical analysis of developments in

Cambodia since the Second World War. Similarly an awareness of how so many of Sihanouk's former associates, men who, it was once thought, could not possibly deviate from loyalty to the Prince, have become his avowed enemies emphasizes this need. The shift these men made may have reflected a. sudden decision in confused circumstances, at least in the ease. of some of those who have now

changed sides. But this does not hold for all the prominent politicians involved. Indeed, the return of Son floe Thanh to overt

10

POLITICS

AND POWER I N CAMBOD]A

participation in the internal politics of Cambodia provides a dramatic illustration of the way in which old and even apparently obliterated patterns of Cambodian politics have reappeared. While there is

always danger in failing to recognize the extent to which new elements have entered and affected the politics of any state, the extent to which old alliances have survived the long years of Sihanouk's paramountcy in Cambodian affairs is striking in the extreme. The debates of the immediate post-Second World War period about the form of the constitution have reappeared following Sihanouk's downfall. The politicians who struggled to gain power in t-he period before 1955 are still playing an active role. Son Ngoc Thanh, one of Sihanouk's oldest political enemies, has shown that he maintained a

burning interest in his country, that he never ceased to work during his long years of exile to achieve Siha-nouk's downfall, and, most notably of all, that there were those within Cambodia who still held this man in respect, despite Prince Sihanouk's denunciation of him as the epitome of those who would betray his country's interests. Just because of the covert nature of most dissent during the period of Sihanouk's domination, an account of the period before March 1970 must be at best incomplete, and at worst badly so. The senior members of the government and administration of the new Khmer Republic may deserve sympathy for the problems of personal choice which faced them when the Prince lost power. The choice between serving the new regime or joining its opponents

in the marquis is seen as easy only by outsiders, untouched by the demanding multiplicities of personal and public interest, of family ties and personal convictions. Yet whether these Asian Vicars of Bray warrant sympathy or not, a student of recent Cambodian history must now pick his way through the obstacles of both deliberate distortion and unconscious obfuscation of the past. The painful efforts of the new Cambodian leadership to present a picture

of legality and constitutional behavior in their official descriptions of events during March 1970 are a prime example of this point. There is in such efforts the clear possibility of a new illusion emerging, an Orwellian effort by the new leaders to convince their constituents and themselves that, long before Sihanouk's overthrow, they, who were so often pictured as his close associates, had been convinced that fundamental change had to be made in the governance of the country. . Yet, for all its difficulties, the opportunity does exist for a reassessment of the years during which Sinahouk was the dominant figure in his country. This reassessment must begin width a review of the role which previous Cambodian kings played in the state, particularly in the years of French control , for if there is one single

point on which there can be no doubt it is that Sihanouk gained immeasurably from the prestige accorded the office of king within the

THE PROBLEM

11

Cambodian state. To counterbalance awareness of this traditional factor, an attempt must be made to give prominence to those features of Cambodia. since 1945 which have so often been neglected or

omitted from the published record. For some, not least the charting of political alienation during the years when Sihanouk was most powerful, any account remains fraught with uncertainties. A review of Cambodia's recent history benefits from the illumination cast by three unqualified certainties. Prince Sihanouk, so often seen as the epitome of a modernizing Southeast Asian ruler, suddenly lost his position within the Cambodian state, to be transformed into a Chinese pensioner. The Prince's downfall, whatever the extent of foreign involvement in the March 1970 coup that can be proved or may be suspected, cannot be explained without recognition of the many domestic considerations which caused his

political opponents to act against him. And, finally, there is the certainty that with Sihanouk's overthrow one may confidently write of the end of an era. That this was marked by Cambodia's tragic engulfment in the Indochinese War has heightened the

passions of those discussing Cambodian affairs. It has not altered the fact that with Sihanouk's fa-I1 an era has ended and brought with its end the possibility of a fresh, if necessarily incomplete, assessment of his years in power.

REFERENCES l Prince Sihanouk was frequently portrayed as either 'erratic' or as an object of indulgent mirth. As examples of such analysis see A. Vandenbosch and

R. A. Butwell, Southeast Asia among the World Powers, Lexington, Kentucky, 1957, p. 142, and \ V. A. Hanna, Eight Nu.£'iorL Mfalce-rs, New York, 1964, in the chapter 'His Royal Highness Prince Co:mrado', pp. 183-214_ .