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these dissidents were Cambodia's left-wing political party, the Pracheachon—driven un-
derground in 1962—and the clandestine Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), whose
members the prince famously dubbed the “Khmers Rouges” (Red Khmers). In 1963
dozens of leading communists fled Phnom Penh, where many worked as teachers and
civil servants, and settled in remote jungle camps under Vietnamese communist protec-
tion. Among them was Saloth Sar, the CPK's new general secretary, who left behind a
career as a teacher to become “a full-time revolutionary.”
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In the mid-1960s, as the US became directly involved in Vietnam, Sihanouk's diplo-
matic high-wire act began to falter. Opposition mounted from left and right. In 1965,
distrustful of US intentions and convinced that the North Vietnamese would eventually
prevail over the US-backed government in South Vietnam, Sihanouk broke off relations
with Washington, and quietly acquiesced in the transport of communist supplies along the
“Ho Chi Minh trail” through eastern Cambodia and up from the port of Sihanoukville.
He also embarked on an economically disastrous nationalization drive that stoked the op-
position of Cambodia's conservative commercial elite. The disaffection of the right was
accompanied by new threats from the left. In 1967 fierce rice requisitioning and commun-
ist agitation sparked a peasant uprising in Samlaut, a hilly area in the western province
of Battambang. The rebellion was eventually put down with brutal force by Sihanouk's
army and air force, but it was an ominous foreshadowing of the conflict to come.
As western Cambodia burned, Sihanouk retreated from the responsibilities of gov-
ernment into the embrace of his favorite hobbies, particularly filmmaking. Beginning in
1966, he dedicated hours to writing scripts and composing music for a string of feature
films. These were characteristically self-centered affairs, in which Sihanouk was director,
producer, scriptwriter, and composer, and press-ganged senior officials and court hangers-
on into embarrassing acting roles. The titles of the films—from
Le Petit Prince du Peuple
(1967), to
Rose de Bokor
, and
La Joie de Vivre
(both 1969)—provided surreal subtitles
to the chaos that was slowly engulfing Cambodia.
Eventually the nimble prince fell. On March 18, 1970, a small circle of pro-American
officials, led by General Lon Nol and a royal rival, Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak, engin-
eered a parliamentary vote that removed Sihanouk from office while he was abroad. On
October 9, Lon Nol and Sirik Matak proclaimed a pro-US republic, bringing the curtain
down on Cambodia's centuries-old monarchy. From Beijing, where his old friend Zhou
Enlai granted him a residence and a comfortable stipend, the prince raged against the
coup plotters and, with Chinese promises of support, set up a resistance front with his
former communist enemies, the Khmer Rouge. On March 23, Sihanouk took to the air-
waves and called for the people to rise up against Lon Nol. For the prince and his country,
it was a moment of no return. Thousands of rural Cambodians heeded Sihanouk's call,
swelling the ranks of the Red Khmers.
