Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and anti-French causes, and anti-royalist Cambodian groups in exile began to gather
along the Thai border. A year later these factions had banded together to form the
essentially left-wing
Khmer Issarak
, a band of fledgling idealists that grew into a
powerful armed guerrilla movement that waged something approaching a war of
independence against the French; between 1947 and 1950, the Khmer Issarak actually
controlled fifty percent of the country.
The seeds of the movement had been sown back in the 1930s with the opening of
Cambodia's first high school, the
Lycée Sisowath
in Phnom Penh, whose students soon
began to question the standing of educated Khmer in a country where Vietnamese
dominated the middle levels of the administration. When the first Khmer-language
newspaper
,
Nagara Vatta
, was launched (Khmer had hitherto been used only for the
publication of religious texts), it was aimed at these newly educated Cambodians,
propounding Khmer nationalist views. The editors were allied to the
sangka
(the
Buddhist clergy), led by Phnom Penh's
Institut Bouddhique
, the backbone of
Buddhism in Cambodia, which had taken responsibility for most education until the
opening of the
lycée
.
When Sihanouk requested Cambodia's independence late in 1945, the French (afraid of
losing their grip on Indochina) reluctantly agreed to allow elections and the formation of
a National Assembly, but refused to contemplate full independence. Thus, for the first
time in Cambodian history, political parties were created,
elections
held (in 1946) and a
new government formed. The election was resoundingly won by the democratic (and
anti-royalist) party, Krom Pracheathipodei, which adopted a constitution along the lines
of that of republican France; Sihanouk, although he retained his throne, was left virtually
powerless. Late in 1949, Cambodia was granted
partial independence
, though the French
continued to control the judiciary, customs and excise and foreign policy, and retained
the right to maintain military bases in the country.
Frustrated by his lack of political power and the residual French grip on the country,
in June 1952 Sihanouk staged a
coup
, dismissing the cabinet, suspending the
constitution and appointing himself prime minister; in the early months of 1953 he
declared martial law and dissolved the National Assembly. Sihanouk then took the first
of what was to become a habitual series of trips abroad “for his health” - in reality to
lobby the French in Paris to withdraw and grant Cambodia full independence. With
France fighting a losing battle in Vietnam against the communist Viet Minh, the
French government eventually did an about-face, and on
November 9, 1953
, Cambodia
duly celebrated full independence.
The Sihanouk era
Cambodians were ecstatic at achieving
independence
, and Sihanouk was feted as a
national hero. The following year, accords were signed in Geneva laying down the
terms of French withdrawal from Indochina. Key points included the disbanding of the
Khmer Issarak, Cambodian
neutrality
and the
partition of Vietnam
at the seventeenth
parallel into what would become communist North Vietnam and the non-communist
South Vietnam.
Early on, it was clear that Sihanouk, though politically adept, would change sides at
the drop of a hat to achieve his ends, driven by an unassailable belief that, having won
1779
Early 19th century
1812
Ang Eng (1779-97) is installed
as king under Thai patronage,
establishing a royal lineage which
endures to this day
Thai forces seize Battambang, while the
Vietnamese annexe the Mekong delta, leaving the
Cambodian monarch, Ang Chan (ruled 1806-34),
increasingly helpless
Ang Chan moves
the royal court to
Phnom Penh
