Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
independence for Cambodia, he should be the one to run it. He needed the adulation
of his public and took to making trips to the countryside, where he made lengthy
orations, believing that his “children”, as he referred to the people, supported his
policies. However, for impoverished farmers, who formed the majority of the
population, independence had made no change to their subsistence lifestyles.
When Sihanouk's efforts to manipulate the constitution to gain power for the
monarchy failed, he surprised everyone by
abdicating
in 1955 in favour of his father
Norodom Suramarit, taking once again the title of prince. Gambling on the
continuation of massive popular support for himself in the wake of the independence
struggle, he set up his own political party,
Sangkum
Reastr Niyum
, the Popular
Socialist Community (Sangkum for short). The party managed to win all the seats in
the National Assembly in the heavily rigged 1955 elections, and Sihanouk's dirty
tactics ensured that Sangkum remained unchallenged at the next elections two years
later. The monarchy was effectively dissolved in 1960 when King Suramarit died,
whereupon Sihanouk became head of state once again - although he continued to be
referred to as “Prince Sihanouk”, rather than king. Sihanouk was both hard-working
and creative - he even found time to produce a number of films that drew upon
traditional Cambodian cultures and values - but his conceit and bullying made him
di
cult to work with. Many right-wing intellectuals, whom the prince perceived as
competition, mysteriously disappeared; meanwhile, he toyed with socialism and often
favoured the left.
At the same time, in the schools and colleges left-wing teachers such as
Saloth Sar
(later known as Pol Pot) and
Ieng Sary
(so-called Brother Number Three in the Khmer
Rouge hierarchy) had become senior Communist Party figures by the early 1960s and
were recruiting further members. Another future senior figure in the Khmer Rouge,
Khieu Samphan
, meanwhile hid his communist leanings and joined Sangkum.
In 1963, in yet another of Sihanouk's policy shifts, a government purge of known
communists saw Saloth Sar flee Phnom Penh to take up the life of a full-time
revolutionary. Along with many others in the Cambodian communist movement,
he spent time in Vietnam and China, where he was trained and groomed by
communist forces.
The slide towards war
In the late 1950s, with the knowledge of the United States, plots had been
hatched against Sihanouk by a paramilitary, right-wing, anti-Sihanouk group, the
Khmer Serei
(led by a former editor of
Nagara Vatta
), who were recruited and
supported by the Thai and South Vietnamese governments. Although these events
compounded his distrust of the pro-American Thais and South Vietnamese,
Sihanouk continued to court the US and accept American military aid - while at
the same time forming an alliance with China, who were anxious to prevent US
dominance in the area. Subsequently, in another abrupt change of direction, in
mid-1963 Sihanouk accused the US of supplying arms to the Khmer Serei, and later
that year ordered all US aid stopped. The same year, Sihanouk nationalized banking,
insurance and all import-export trade.
The economy was soon destabilized by the combination of Sihanouk's policies and
the spillover into Cambodia of the conflict between North and South Vietnam.
1832
Mid-19th century
1863
Thai monarch Rama III sends an army
into Cambodia to expel Vietnamese
forces - who flee in advance of the
invasion, taking Ang Chan with them
French forces invade the
Mekong delta and annexe
southern Vietnam
King Norodom (1859-1904) signs first
treaty with French, securing French
protection in return for wide-ranging
concessions
