Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
To the End of Hell: One Woman's Struggle to Survive Cambodia's Khmer Rouge is the incredible memoir of
Denise Affonço, one of the only foreigners to live through the Khmer Rouge revolution, due to
her marriage to a senior intellectual in the movement.
These moves and his socialist economic policies alienated conservative elements in
Cambodian society, including the army brass and the urban elite. At the same time, left-
wing Cambodians, many of them educated abroad, deeply resented his domestic policies,
which stifled political debate. Compounding Sihanouk's problems was the fact that all
classes were fed up with the pervasive corruption in government ranks, some of it uncom-
fortably close to the royal family. Although most peasants revered Sihanouk as a semidi-
vine figure, in 1967 a rural-based rebellion broke out in Samlot, Battambang, leading him
to conclude that the greatest threat to his regime came from the left. Bowing to pressure
from the army, he implemented a policy of harsh repression against left-wingers.
By 1969 the conflict between the army and leftist rebels had become more serious, as
the Vietnamese sought sanctuary deeper in Cambodia. Sihanouk's political position had
also decidedly deteriorated - due in no small part to his obsession with film-making,
which was leading him to neglect affairs of state. In March 1970, while Sihanouk was on
a trip to France, General Lon Nol and Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak, Sihanouk's cousin,
deposed him as chief of state, apparently with tacit US consent. Sihanouk took up residen-
ce in Beijing, where he set up a government-in-exile in alliance with an indigenous Cam-
bodian revolutionary movement that Sihanouk had nicknamed the Khmer Rouge. This
was a definitive moment in contemporary Cambodian history, as the Khmer Rouge ex-
ploited its partnership with Sihanouk to draw new recruits into their small organisation.
Talk to many former Khmer Rouge fighters and they'll say that they 'went to the hills' (a
euphemism for joining the Khmer Rouge) to fight for their king and knew nothing of Mao
or Marxism.
Lon Nol's military press attaché was known for his colourful, even imaginative media briefings
that painted a rosy picture of the increasingly desperate situation on the ground. With a name
like Major Am Rong, few could take him seriously.
 
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