DON -4
Bungalow 10 Hotel leRoyal Phnom Penh
15 January 1967
Mr. Noel is a 1965-66 Alicia Patterson Fund fellowship award winner on leave from The Hartford Times. Permission to publish these articles may be sought from the Managing Editor, The Hartford Times.
PHNOM PENH — Early in January, Prince Norodom Sihanouk boarded a plane for France for a month’s long-postponed medical and dietary treatment.
He left behind him a new government, described here as “center-right.” It has weathered four months of crisis, and has emerged strong enough to move gingerly in directions of its own choosing.
But the Prince also left behind two forces, representing varying shades of leftist sentiment, which will serve as public watchdogs. One is a unique “Counter-Government” of moderate views. The other is a personal aide to the Prince, more radical in his views, named Chau Seng.
“Center-right” government here for the next four years — if the government lasts — will have a meaning of its own:
- It will not mean “pro-American,” and would not even if the war in Vietnam suddenly ended. It will mean more balanced neutrality, and a subtle loss of Chinese influence.
- It will not mean “capitalist economy.” It will mean stabilization of the present mixed-economy socialism, rather than a pell-mell rush down the road to total state control.
These modest goals, which have yet to be publicly confessed, emerged from a parliamentary crisis which risked splitting the country. Sihanouk probably encouraged the gentle movement to the right. But he was also then the essential central focus and equilibrium, able to persuade both left and right to limit their goals for the sake of national unity.
While leaving no doubt that he is still in charge, Chief of State Sihanouk has taken two major steps in the democratization of his 13-year-old constitutional monarchy: free elections, and creation of an opposition, albeit one dependent on him.
The first of these steps was his decision to encourage, in September, the most open parliamentary elections in a decade.
Until last fall, Sihanouk — as president of the Sangkum Reastr Niyum, the “Popular Socialist Community” which embraces virtually all political factions in Cambodia — personally chose all candidates for the National Assembly, and then chose the cabinet.
This time, he gave Sangkum endorsement to any Sangkum member who could muster the nominating petitions; 415 ran for 82 seats. Although personal popularity and campaign effectiveness were probably more decisive than “left” or “right” affiliations, the result was a National Assembly of little comfort to Cambodia’s left.
Sihanouk then gave the new Assembly a free hand to choose its own cabinet. Although the prime minister-designate, Lon Nol, was either chosen by the Prince or given his explicit blessing, the rest of the cabinet included some clearly distasteful to the Prince, possibly for reasons as much personal as political.
If they were distasteful to the Prince, they were anathema to the extreme left, strongest here among the youth, and enchanted by China. Even before its investiture, the new government was accused of contemplating a “sell-out” to the United States, and the scuttling of Cambodian socialism.
Sihanouk’s second step toward democracy was creation of the “Counter-Government.” Only history, perhaps, will know whether the step was decided before the character of the new cabinet was known. In any case, it was interpreted in the political heat of late is an indirect -undermining of the new government itself.
With the advantage of two months’ hindsight — whatever the original motive — the Counter-Government seems useful.
In the absence of any political party of opposition, it provides a voice for legitimate criticism within the all-era-bracing Sangkum, according to Sihanouk’s explanation. It is a “shadow cabinet,” although most of its members (all appointed by Sihanouk, as Sangkum president) are not members of the Assembly.
It thus has no power of interpellation on the floor of parliament, and makes no effort to direct parliamentary opposition. Its only voice, in fact, is a daily mimeographed bulletin, which has evolved as the country’s first crusading, muckraking journalism.
Its targets, ironically, have been le6s the new government than the problems left behind by the old, many of whose ministers now serve in the Counter-Government.
Norodom Sihanouk Chief of State
Lon Nol Prime Minister
Despite occasional flights of socialist theorizing and potshots at the Lon Nol government, the CG Bulletin has proven a politically moderate organ, which does not, in fact, represent a substantial body of more radical leftist opinion.
But last fall, the new cabinet saw the Counter-Government as a direct threat. A vice-premier attacked it — and the Prince — in a newspaper article, and suggested a vote of confidence. Behind the scenes, the whole cabinet offered Sihanouk its resignation. There were even wild rumors (propagated by the left) of a rightist coup d’etat.
After several days of crisis, Sihanouk moved to mollify the cabinet. He removed Chau Seng, the most articulate spokesman for the extreme left, from his sensitive post as chief of Sihanouk’s executive office.
The demotion was real, although in retrospect less sweeping than it first appeared. Chau Seng, as a later article will show in more detail, is still very much on the scene. But at the time, the move placated the new cabinet.
It also inflamed the left, which promptly organized a student demonstration, complete with attack on a police station, to urge the Prince to take the reins again.
It took another week — during which the Prince rebuked the students, outlined with remarkable candor the behind-the-scenes events of the past month, and repeatedly urged the left to “play the democratic game” — before things quieted down.
They are quiet now, and the government has some elbowroom. But the Counter-Government is ready to pounce on any move they feel transgresses the limits approved by Sihanouk. Chau Seng, with his reputation as Princely advisor scarcely tarnished, is using his daily newspaper and his still-high position to pre-empt some of the government’s ground.
The crisis has served, among other things, to emphasize the precarious stability of Sangkum unity, and Sihanouk’s role as the arbiter on whom all factions rely to prevent radical change.
Since assuming office last October, Cambodia’s new “right-center” government has strengthened the system of state cooperatives and state rice purchases; nationalized salt production; fired off sharp protests to the U.S. and its allies over border violations; and been host to Chinese Communists bearing gifts.
All represented continuation of past policies. Lon Nol and his colleagues have been much less talkative about the future. They have, in fact, been so secretive that this reporter — the only American newsman in Cambodia—has been unable, despite repeated efforts, to interview most of them.
It is the reaction one would expect from officials planning a greater role for free enterprise, and perhaps a delicate move toward rapprochement with the U.S. In Phnom Penh’s surcharged political climate, the last thing they would want would be an interview with an American newsman.
Such plans are exactly what the Cambodian left (who are readily accessible to the American journalist) suspect. They have used protest in the press, appeals to the Prince’s vanity, student demonstrations and the floor of the National Assembly to try to limit the government’s options.
Foreign policy is least likely to see change.
Many Cambodians are disturbed by China’s cultural revolution, and would like to see the nation’s neutrality better balanced by backing away from that erratic giant. There may even be some who quietly sympathize with the U.S. effort in Vietnam.
But almost daily violations of Cambodian territory by Thai, U.S. or Vietnamese forces make it impossible for these voices to be heard.
(One former U.S. student opened a conversation by remarking how much he missed ham and eggs for breakfast — surely indicative of a pro-American “gut instinct”! But within five minutes he was telling me that until Cambodia’s borders are respected, no rapprochement will be possible. Another young Cambodian told me frankly he avoids thinking about the war, because “if I reached an unpopular opinion, I might not feel free to express it.” But even he, when pressed for an opinion, began: “Of course, Cambodia’s borders must be first left in peace. We all agree on that.”)
On the other side of the coin are those who are convinced of America’s role as a neo-imperialist ‘power in Asia. They see China as the champion of Asian self-determination. Many even swallow the Red Guards as a legitimate effort to avoid the “revisionism” which has led Russia to join the United States in “Western domination of the world.”
Most of the press is dominated by these voices, and so is the most active and well-organized part of the student population. The United States is a handy whipping boy, not here to defend itself. Restraining Cambodian voices are muted by popular indignation over almost-daily border incidents.
(This is one reason the U.S. should weigh carefully breaking all relations with a country. When our embassy was withdrawn in May 1965, Cambodia suggested leaving a consul; we declined. A U.S. consul would have taken a lot of abuse in the intervening years. But his presence would have restrained some propagandistic excess; even the extreme left accepts some obligations of diplomatic hospitality.)
Thus the only voice to counter publicly the barrage of anti-American, pro-Chinese verbiage is that of Sihanouk himself. Even while assailing U.S. intentions in Asia, he has repeatedly warned his people against dependence on any country, including China. He occasionally contrasts China’s spartan puritanism with Cambodia’s prized “joie de vivre.”
Ever since Averell Harriman’s September visit was summarily cancelled (after a border incident) there have been recurrent rumors that his trip would be rescheduled.
In the present chilly atmosphere, some distinguished American other than Lyndon Johnson’s roving ambassador seems a more likely icebreaker. In any case, no sudden thaw is in sight. And it will be Norodom Sihanouk, not Lon Nol, who will sense the currents and direct the operation.
A more likely “move to the right” will be cautious bolstering of the private sector, encouraging investment in the forthcoming Five-Year Plan. But there will be no shift away from Cambodia’s socialist development of the basic economy.
The socialist orientation was decided early in this decade. After private entrepreneurs failed to respond, the government moved in to create paper, cement, tire, tractor and wood-.products plants, among others. State-organized farm cooperatives were already at work, trying to break the domination and profiteering of small (mostly Chinese) middlemen.
Rejection of U.S. aid late in 1963 (over “strings” on American dollars) left a 10 per cent gap in the national budget. To fill it, all banking and import-export trade were nationalized, in hopes of increasing state earnings — and also of assuring better priority control on use of foreign exchange.
In economics too, then, the public forum is conditioned. There has by now developed a faith in Cambodia’s variety of socialism, just as in its variety of neutrality. It is hard to challenge the faith without appearing “un-Sangkumian.”
There have been few public challenges. Mau Say, the 40-year-old second vice-premier, holder of a doctorate in considered the “brains” of the cabinet. He has said little in public, and is “too busy” for an interview. His close collaborator, Douc Rasy, minister of planning and also holder of graduate degrees from France, granted a brief interview, but pointedly kept his secretary present, and said nothing about the future. He declined to discuss the Five-Year Plan in any detail.
The minister of plan, who also directs the nation’s only paper willing to espouse free enterprise in any form, has written several thoughtful editorials gingerly exploring the role of private entrepreneurs in building a body of artisans. But these have been roughly taken to task.
Mau Say Second Vice-Premier
Likewise when a member of the National Assembly suggested that the state retail firm for imported goods was wasteful and inefficient (a charge which could be leveled against several of the young state enterprises) he was excoriated.
Despite the reticence to speak out, the economic direction seems already decided. It was Norodom Sihanouk who, directly and indirectly, signaled the shift.
The first signal was an article in the monthly “Sangkum” magazine, which the Prince personally edits. Written by Son Sann, the Prince’s long-time top economic advisor and governor of the National Bank of Cambodia, it suggested that the nation must “restore confidence” among private investors if capital is to be found for future expansion.
(“It is to be remarked,” Son Sann wrote, “that economic directionism, pushed too far, has yet to prove itself in the developing nations…. The new Five-Year Plan, he said, will demand several billion riels’ investment — more than the state can afford. Without changing its determination to suppress the speculative middlemen, he said, Cambodia must “take concrete measures to favor the flow of liquid capital [goods and services, the historic function of the Chinese middlemen] into the primary and secondary sectors.”)
If any doubt remained that doctrine was not to cramp Cambodia*s pragmatic approach to her problems, Sihanouk himself ended it with an article in late December in the Bulletin of the Counter-Government.
He described tourism as a major untapped source of income in temple-rich Cambodia, and urged attracting foreign capital to help build the needed facilities.
(“We justify our shortcomings by lack of money for the needed investments,” he wrote. “We put priority on our nationalism or our socialism by refusing to attract foreign capital…. The great nationalist and hero of Arab independence, President Nasser, has not hesitated to associate the U.A.R. with American companies to build hotels.”)
Cambodia has been negotiating this month with Pan American over an air route to Angkor Wat and two new PanAm-built hotels. And, though not yet announced, a new beef export company, with 49 per cent foreign investment, has been approved in principle, the first major new industry begun on private initiative in a decade.
The handwriting is on the wall. Characteristically, it is Sihanouk who recognized the thrust of the Assembly, cajoled and bullied the left into giving the government elbowroom, issued warnings of moderation in all directions, and then gave a cautious go-ahead.
Son Sann Bank Governor
Background and Detail
The foregoing is a summary of political events here during the past four months. It offers a picture of Sihanouk at variance with the frequent Western version of the god-King, the virtual dictator, who jealously guards every shred of power.
One must say in candor that Sihanouk’s performance is open to a less generous interpretation than my own. It could well be argued, for instance, that he precipitated the crisis in the first place, by forwarding the cabinet slate with such obvious displeasure. It can certainly be argued that leftist militancy has been encouraged in past years through Sihanouk’s espousal of socialist reforms, his frequent criticism of selfishness among the well to do, and his warm relationship with Mainland China.
Sihanouk himself justifies his role in terms of national unity and hard reality.
Well-to-do Cambodians, he would argue, must be bullied a bit if social progress is to keep pace with the unrest of a better-educated, more demanding population. Only state direction can channel investment into long-term, low-profit enterprises instead of more lucrative but less important industries. China, whatever its effect on youth, has been a sheet-anchor making tenable Cambodia’s neutral foreign policy, sparing her the agony which envelops her neighbors.
Thus, although leftist influence may indeed be of Sihanouk’s own making, it may be an unavoidable side effect. Avoidable or not, it is in my judgment real. Sihanouk’s performance in this context appears as a masterful balancing act, encouraging “leftist” reform while keeping the left in check, defining the limits of “rightist” complementary moves, which will avoid upsetting the delicate political equilibrium.
No one who spends any time in Cambodia would pretend that Norodom Sihanouk minds being the center of power. The question is whether he is prolonging his domination unnecessarily.
Let me, then, proceed to a chronological description in detail. I will make no effort to hide my own interpretation; but I believe the more critical analysis will be easily deduced.
A Bit of History
There were 415 candidates in last September’s elections for 82 seats in the National Assembly, the popular (and virtually unicameral) house of the Cambodian parliament. Every one was endorsed by the Sangkum. Reastr Niyum, the “Popular Socialist Community” headed by Norodom Sihanouk
The Sangkum was founded in 1955. It was then, and remains today, Sihanouk’s personal instrument for national unity. But as the elections suggest, he is allowing his “guided democracy” to evolve into a full-fledged orchestra. He continues to conduct it, but dissonant sounds are increasingly tolerated.
Sihanouk assumed the throne as the young — and presumably manageable — choice of French colonial administrators in 1941. But the not-quite-20 playboy emerged as a formidable leader.
The French granted a measure of internal control early in 1947, and Sihanouk a few months later gave the nation a constitution. Two years later the French granted nominal independence, but kept control of key functions. Pressed by nationalist agitation, Sihanouk undertook a crusade (which included a showy but effective voluntary exile), which resulted in complete independence November 9, 1953, almost a year before the famous Geneva, Accords ended French rule in Laos and Vietnam.
In the 16 months that followed there were six cabinets, two of them led by the king. Then on Feb. 7, 1955, Sihanouk fulfilled a -pledge to let Cambodians judge, in a referendum, the effectiveness of his crusade. The result was a smashing 925,812 to 1,834 vote of confidence.
Less than a month later Sihanouk abdicated. The monarchy, he explained, made him too much a prisoner of the system, without flexibility to assure stable, constructive government.
Sihanouk’s father assumed the throne in his stead. His death, in April 1960, left a vacuum that could only be filled, constitutionally, by a male heir. Sihanouk, who had pledged never to re-assume the throne, was elected by parliament in June to the new position of “Chief of State,” exercising the powers of the throne. His mother remains Queen, symbol of the continuing monarchy.
Sihanouk formed the Sangkum as an overriding nationalist movement, which would embrace all political factions. Although some opposed the dictatorial nature of his control of the Sangkum, Sihanouk led it in September 1955 to an electoral victory, which captured 82 per cent of the popular vote and all the Assembly seats. In the next election, the Sangkum won virtually 100 per cent of the popular vote. Only the small, ineffective Communist Party remains out of the Sangkum fold.
The new Sangkum grouping did not bring instant stability; there were nine new cabinets or reshuffles in the first two “Sangkum years.” But gradually, stability evolved.
It was a stability dependent on Sihanouk himself, as Sangkum president since it’s founding. He explained this role, with characteristic frankness, in a special press conference in the midst of this fall’s political crisis.
Until this year, he explained, he had personally chosen all candidates and all cabinets, seeking “a judicious dose of tendencies” which satisfied everyone. Although the right was generally believed to control the army and the police, the left felt its security assured by the presence of Sihanouk himself, who “watched over everything…in a perfect co-existence of tendencies.”
This fall, he decided to “impose a more advanced democracy on the regime,” and to himself retreat to a role “no greater than that of a constitutional monarch.”
Anyone who could collect the nominating signatures was endorsed. I am told (arriving shortly after the elections) that Sihanouk actually let out of jail some people who were nominated, and went to great lengths to keep candidates from riding on his coattails. (He himself, of course, was not running; he is Chief of State for an indefinite term. But some candidates tried to use pictures or even tape-recordings of the Prince.) There were also reports that he sought, quietly, to bolster a few favorite candidates, but that the efforts were too quiet, and failed.
The election was sharply contested, as indeed one would expect with an average of five seeking each seat. (In only eight districts were there two-man races, and one seat was uncontested. At the other extreme, there was one district with 12 candidates, one with 11, and a dozen with 8 to 10.)
The turnout was 65 per cent nationwide. In several rural districts, it approached 90 per cent, tending to be a little higher in multiple-candidate districts. Only in the capital, Phnom Penh, was the turnout bad (an abysmal 9 per cent!); apathy of civil servants is the most popular explanation.
(No special voter registration is required in Cambodia; voter rolls are drawn from mandatory reports of residence. The 2,477,702 “registered” on which the above figures are based represent virtually all citizens above the minimum voting age of 20.
(Multiple candidacies, with no provision for run-offs, have an obvious drawback: only 26 deputies had a clear majority. There were charges of irregularities in 56 districts. The new Assembly, whose unchallenged electees are swelled by each new member whose credentials are accepted judges such claims; ultimately it threw out all challenges.)
The new Assembly is more representative than the last, at least professionally. Whereas only eight former deputies had not been civil servants, there are now 24 in a slightly larger Assembly. There are four women deputies (out of five candidates) against two in the old Assembly. There are a lot of new faces; only a third were in the last Assembly, although others were in parliament and/or cabinets earlier.
But if more representative on these counts, the new parliament may be dangerously unrepresentative on another: it is an overwhelmingly conservative body. There were no leftist candidates, apparently, in many districts. There are perhaps 20 of leftist tendencies in the 82-man Assembly, only 3 or 4 “hard left.”
Sihanouk, in opening the new Assembly October 18, called attention to its historic character, and publicly refused “henceforth to accept any responsibilities other than those incumbent on me in my role as Chief of State…”
At the same time, he warned against the dangers of “Byzantine quarrels.” and urged the deputies to maintain a “discipline of free consent…the camaraderie of the Sangkum.”
Events of the next few weeks were to show that Byzantine quarrels were not easily to be put down, and that Sihanouk’s retirement was not at hand.
The Lon Nol Cabinet
The Assembly (or perhaps Sihanouk) called on Lon Nol, from outside the Assembly, to form a government. Former Army chief of staff and vice-premier (Vice-President of the Council of Ministers, in the Cambodian parlance), and a veteran of several earlier governments, Lon Nol was — perhaps because of his association with the military — disliked by the left.
He proceeded to an unusual (and extra-constitutional) method of choosing his cabinet. He asked the Assembly for straw votes on several candidates suggested for each ministry, and then formally proposed, as his cabinet, the Assembly’s own choices.
Although this insured harmony, it virtually precluded any clear mandate for political direction. The Assembly itself shares this shortcoming: the September victors appear to have won more on personal appeal than on platform. Their “rightist” tendency may be more a concurrence of age, business success, local reputation and conservative tendency than the result of a popular mandate from the right.
Likewise the process of picking cabinet ministers one by one, rather than as a slate, encouraged a choice based on personal appeal. Some — Mau Say, Douc Rasy, Sim Var, justice minister Yem Sambaur, a few others — had reputations in some measure as conservatives. Others have been associated with private business or industry. But others wear no such tag, and some wear no tag at all.
Lon Nol had asked several leading leftists to serve; they refused. He and the Assembly included in their list several prestigious moderates, who subsequently declined to serve (thus, undoubtedly encouraging those who thought the new cabinet would fall quickly). As the crisis deepened, Lon Nol and even Sihanouk asked several moderate leftists to join the cabinet; all refused.
Sihanouk, who was formally to present the Lon Nol slate to the Assembly for ratification, held up action for two days. Rumors of his dissatisfaction swept the capital.
They were confirmed October 22 when, in a tape-recorded speech presenting the slate to the Assembly, he said he found some nominees unsatisfactory, largely because of their reputations for past corruption.
(Corruption is a difficult charge to weigh. Cambodian civil servants are woefully underpaid; temptation must be great. “Corruption” may be anything from a high official’s renting a villa to a foreign diplomat at a price understood to be outrageous, to a customs official accepting a bribe for a casual inspection. Anti-corruption is a major Sihanouk theme, and some progress is being made. But there are probably very few men now high in government who can afford to throw stones very hard.)
Thrown into a tizzy, the Assembly debated (in a nationally broadcast session) most of the day and long into the evening, arguing both the merits of the Prince’s charges and their constitutional powers. The debate ended only when Sihanouk suddenly came to the Assembly in his shirtsleeves to urge them to get it over with and invest the new cabinet. They did.
(Although there may have been other motivations, one effect of all this was to take a cabinet with every indication of parliamentary support and make it beholden to Norodom Sihanouk for its very life.)
Three days later — in apparent response to anguish and unrest on the left — Sihanouk announced formation of the new organized opposition, the “Counter-Government.”
He introduced the new organ in a context already familiar: his displeasure at being often called, in the West, the “dictator” who runs Cambodia; and his determination to introduce enough democracy to satisfy his detractors and move the nation forward.
The Counter-Government, he announced, would have 18 members, whom he appointed as Sangkum president; they were a “shadow cabinet” roughly paralleling Lon Nol’s. The members would be paid token salaries out of the Sangkum treasury. The Counter-Government would have no powers of interpellation in parliament; most of its members are in fact not deputies, although almost all have been, at one time or another, cabinet officers, and a half-dozen fill “shadow” posts parallel to their former ministerial assignments.
It was to publish a daily bulletin in both French and Khmer (Cambodian) expressing “opinions, suggestions, wishes, criticisms, remarks…and praises” to the government. It would have, in short, only the powers of crusading journalism, augmented by radio broadcast of its more important articles, and by the blessing of Norodom Sihanouk.
Counter-Government, Counter-Attack
The Counter-Government began publication that day, and has printed daily except Sundays since. It is, to be sure, in opposition, and there was frequent sniping at the new government in many of the early articles.
But a visiting American journalist could not help feeling it a breath of journalistic fresh air.
(There are 11 daily newspapers, in four languages, in Phnom Penh. Only the two French-language papers Douc Rasy’s (moderate -right) Presse and Chau Seng’s (far left) Depeche — carry regular editorial comment on domestic ‘issues. But even in these, direct, to-the-point comment on specific issues is rare. More common are long, erudite columns heavy on theory. When they are feuding, which is often, these deteriorate into slurs on one another, occasionally descending from incomprehensibly oblique barbs to gutter language.)
The CG Bulletin has not abandoned these “journalistic” pastimes altogether. But it has increasingly focused, in detail, on commonly known but little discussed problems: corruption; governmental bureaucracy; public apathy. It has named names in a way, which would be libelous under U.S. laws. Its muckraking is sometimes shoddy, perhaps irresponsible. Its daringness is not courage, since it operates with a Princely mandate. But it nonetheless seems to me a useful contribution.
Although aiming its barbs at the new government, moreover, the. CG Bulletin was obviously talking about past sins from its very first issues. Its editorial board is composed of Chea San, minister of information in the former cabinet; Tep Chhieu Kheng, at the time head of the government news agency, and So Nem, former minister of commerce and later of education. A half-dozen others hold Counter-Government “portfolios” similar to their ministerial or sub-ministerial posts in the old government. The CG Bulletin is thus often discussing problems, which its own members failed to deal with.
None of this assuaged the right. In the context, the Counter-Government was interpreted as a deliberate effort by Sihanouk to bring down the Lon Nol government, undoing by subterfuge his own publicly announced goal of letting the democratic process work. The battle was joined by Sim Var, first vice-premier and the “political pro” of the new cabinet.
(A leader of the struggle for independence, Sim Var is a former prime minister and one of the founders of Sangkum. He is also one of the few men in Cambodia with courage to differ publicly with Sihanouk. Even some of his political opponents admire his forthrightness. Long considered a leftist, Sim Var apparently modified his views drastically during a tour as ambassador to Japan; he came back with a Japanese wife and a healthy respect for the accomplishments of Japanese free enterprise.
(His return brought an -uneasy return to his nominal collaboration with Chau Seng on La Depeche. Founded originally by Sim Var as an organ of the Sangkum, the newspaper was quartered in his home. Chau Seng, his one-time protégé, was director. But the paper had in fact carried Chau Seng’s exclusive stamp for some time; the total break was to come in the midst of the crisis. But when Sim Var launched his frontal attack on the Counter-Government, the uneasy alliance prevailed; perhaps as a courtesy, his article was given the page-one lead position.)
Sim Var First Vice-Premier
The new cabinet, he wrote in La Depeche, had been “installed with a more than comfortable majority (73 of 78 present) and should be allowed to prove itself before being taken to task.
“But barely born, he wrote, “this Counter-Government has devoted itself, with evident pleasure mixed with no less evident meanness if not malice, to systematic criticism of the new Royal Government, before it has even begun to get started.”
With ill-concealed lèse-majesté, Sim Var continued his polemic by turning the Prince’s often-used arguments against him. Cambodia could ill afford, he said, to “allow this atmosphere of suspicion, so prejudicial to the country, to continue indefinitely, without attempting to dissipate it.” He proposed that the cabinet demand a vote of confidence.
Then, to top off his attack on Samdech Sahachivin’s (Sihanouk’s) creation, he ended with a parody of the deferential language in which Cambodians render homage to their Chief of State. “Let us give thanks to Samdech Sahachivin,” he wrote, “the author of this happy godsend.”
Stung, Sihanouk took to the radio with a blistering attack on both Sim Var and Douc Rasy. He scoffed at the claim of a “comfortable majority,” asserting that only his personal shirt-sleeved intervention had ended the debate and brought their investiture.
(That was, strictly speaking, true. But it was obvious that had he not challenged some nominees, the entire slate — chosen by the deputies themselves only a few days earlier –would have been quickly voted in, beholden to no one.)
He had intervened originally, Sihanouk said in this radio address, because the Assembly had failed to follow his “guidelines” in rejecting tainted leadership.
He formed the Counter-Government, he said, not with malice against the Lon Nol cabinet, but “to prevent our Sangkum, which is the sine qua non of our survival at all, from being brought down.” Were this organ of national unity destroyed, he said, the right and center could hardly save the country from the divisive fate of ‘Laos and South Vietnam.
What made the country weak before the advent of Sangkum, he insisted, was “precisely the fact that the swarming political parties, by their battling, favored personal interests and a tendency toward individualism. This was the origin of the then almost-total disunity.”
He dared the cabinet to seek a confidence vote, warning that he would let them sink or swim. But he also played his ace: if they sank, and national unity with them, he would then be free to take a well-earned rest. (He had even then been postponing his trip to a France clinic for more than six months.)
Maybe, he implied, he ought to resign instead of the cabinet.
That, of course, was enough to rally behind him the forces of the left and even the government’s supporters. A student demonstration before the Royal Palace the next day affirmed the nation’s devotion to their Prince, and pleaded with him not to desert them.
Concessions to the Right
The Prince returned to the radio to thank his subjects for their support, and to assure them he wasn’t really going to resign.
He then revealed that after the previous day’s demonstrations, the new government itself (some of whose members reportedly helped organize the “testimonial”) came to him to pledge their support and to offer their resignations. He had assured them, he said, that he did not seek that, and had urged them to settle down to work.
But reports were that Ion Nol and his cabinet did not simply offer to resign; they threatened to do so unless given some concessions.
This interpretation was buttressed when, a few hours later, Sihannouk again took to the radio to announce that he had taken “a certain number of measures to satisfy the malcontents” in the cabinet and also in the military.
The most striking of these was to shift Chau Seng from his post as Sihanouk’s chef du cabinet, leaving him only the editorship of the two Sihanouk-supervised magazines, Kambuja and Sangkum, and new membership on the largely honorific High Council to the Throne.
(Later events have shown that Chau Seng continues to wield considerable influence. I believe Sihanouk, having given the moderate left a spokesman in the CG Bulletin, feels he must allow Chau Seng to speak up for the more radical view. This will be explored in a forthcoming newsletter.)
At the same time, Sihanouk- made two changes in the military. He eliminated from his personal cabinet a sort of mediator between civilian and general staff control, Gen. Saukham Khoy, who had apparently ruffled some important feathers. More important, Sihanouk delegated his powers as commander-in-chief to his uncle, Prince Sisowath Monireth. A professional soldier, widely admired by the military, and one of the behind-the-scenes strengths of Sihanouk’s Cambodia, Monireth will be a steadying influence.
As for the Counter-Government, Sihanouk said, it would be continued until the National Congress (a unique Cambodian experiment in “popular democracy.” a sort of nationwide New England Town Meeting) could review it in December,
Chau Seng High Councilor
(Sihanouk also made a further concession, which has never been announced publicly. The “portfolios” of three radical members of the Counter-Government were, in effect, passed on to others. The three — Hu Nim, Hou Yuon and Khieu Samphan — are still nominally members of the Counter-Government. But they are stripped of whatever powers their assignments [justice, agriculture and commerce, respectively] might have given them.)
Having thus made some apparently major concessions to the right, Sihanouk proceeded to assure the left that his heart was still with them.
The ideas were not new; he has repeated them a half-dozen times in national radio addresses since I have been here.
“Our Reds,” as he calls them, “have a great deal of merit in their case. The well to do of Khmer society would be well advised to see that genuine progress is made in meeting the country’s needs. He is a monarchist, but his heart is with the left, and he would probably be a “Red” himself were it not for the accident of his birth.
“I ask people to stop coming in alarm, warning me of the so-called danger which our regime courts of being overthrown someday by Communism, painting me a black picture of the situation in the country regarding the activities of our Reds.”
Calm Returns
The next day, Sihanouk called in three trusted reporters for a long “Press conference” in which he reviewed candidly the history of the crisis, stressing again the importance of national unity.
In this indirect “address to the nation,” the Prince included a little to assuage the right: “Socialization, yes,” he warned, “but neither satellisation nor Vietminhisation of the country.”
He ridiculed the “tommy-rot” rumors propagated by the left of a rightist coup d’etat, and again urged the left to be patient, to “respect the majority,” and to trust in him.
The storm, it seemed, was almost over.
But not quite. The next day there was another student demonstration (probably planned before the press conference. It is not clear whether the organizers would had called it off, after reading Sihanouk’s remarks, even had there been time.)
The demonstration, it was learned later, began in two private schools, including one run by extreme leftist Hou Yuon. Eight students were arrested (or possibly just held for questioning) for passing out tracts demanding dismissal of the cabinet and dissolution of the National Assembly.
A few hours later, demonstrators surrounded the police station where the eight were held, demanding their release. When they were refused, the attacked the station, destroying furniture and office supplies and injuring one policeman.
Sihanouk again took to the air. Rebuking the students, he returned to his basic theme of the entire crisis:
“Our beloved country has known, since 1955 and the advent of the Sangkum, union, peace, good fortune and growing prosperity. It would be heart-rending and catastrophic if we were to provoke disunion. The consequence would be to lose for the nation and its people all the prestige we have acquired in the eyes of the world, as a nation and people who are the exceptions in this tormented region.”
The demonstration was the parting final shot. It failed not because of any national shame (such as sometimes follows similar leftist outbreaks in Japan) but simply because the vast majority of Cambodians take the Prince’s advice.
Things have been quiet — on the surface, at least — since. The leftist pot simmered for the next few weeks, and Sihanouk returned to his basic themes in his next few radio addresses The left and right continue to shake their fists and mutter at one another, but no one seems to feel the cabinet is any longer in jeopardy.
The government, meantime, has been buckling dorm to its work. In public, it has been strengthening the cooperatives and the state purchasing agencies to develop maximum rice exports from a bad year’s crop. In private, it has been putting the finishing touches on the Five-Year Plan. Its submission will prove a useful test of the measure of stability achieved.
(Photos courtesy Cambodian Ministry of Information)
Received in New York January 23, 1967.
