Word: khmer
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Ruling Authority. Politically, the government has profited from a wave of Khmer nationalism that swept Cambodia after the overthrow of Sihanouk, who was put on trial in absentia last week on charges of "endangering the security of the Cambodian nation." But Lon Nol, whose regime came to power with the support of the urban middle class and intellectuals, has yet to win widespread loyalty in the countryside. Already the peasants in some contested areas reportedly have given food to the Communist guerrillas. Critics in the National Assembly charge that the government has been too slow in re-establishing its presence...
...that will determine Indochina's future rulers, Vietnamese Communist troops occupied parts of the massive, ancient complex, scattering storage areas, hospitals and military emplacements near its statuary and intricately carved walls. For the first time since 1431, when the forebears of modern Thailand pillaged Angkor, the seat of Khmer culture was occupied by foreigners...
...Premier Lon Nol announced that it had invited Thailand to send several thousand troops to help defend it against attack from the increasingly wide-ranging Communist troops. South Viet Nam, besides moving ARVN regulars into Cambodia to clean out the sanctuaries, has ordered all available troops from its own Khmer minority to take up the defense of their ancestral home, and about 2,000 are in Cambodia...
...river town of Setbo, a mere ten miles from Phnom-Penh, and held it for two days before being driven back by two hastily summoned and ill-equipped battalions of Cambodian soldiers. The Vietnamese Communist forces in Cambodia were reinforced by relatively small numbers of Cambodian Communist troops (the Khmer Rouge) and reportedly by some units of Pathet Lao, a native Communist force in Laos. There were even rumors, discounted by most Western experts, that some Chinese Communist soldiers had joined the fray...
With the help of emergency reinforcements, the Cambodian army repelled both attacks. At week's end the Communists were reported withdrawing toward the centuries-old ruins. Fearful of battle damage to the remains of the storied Khmer empire, one of the world's most treasured antiquities, the Cambodian government ruled out either a defense of the monuments or an attack if they were taken. One rumor had it that the deposed chief of state, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, might try to move his exile government to Siem Reap. Most observers figured, however, that the Communists picked the temple area...