Word: khmer
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...opposition grows, so too does an anti-Communist group that calls itself the Khmer Serei, or Free Cambodian Movement. Led by former Cambodian Premier Son Ngoc Thanh, the Khmer Serei claims that it has 10,000 troops sprinkled throughout the steaming Cambodian jungles and the Dangrek Range, with a main force at Stung Treng near southern Laos (see map). On New Year's Eve the group's Radio Free Cambodia declared war on Sihanouk "to free Cambodia from his suicidal policies"; a few hours later Khmer Serei groups raided four Cambodian military forts, capturing some Chinese arms...
...considered genuine if it reneges on this one. Prince Sihanouk said two weeks ago that if the U.S. withdraws from Vietnam "Cambodia will be a ripe fruit, which the Communists will be able to savor without having to take the trouble to pick it from the tree as the "Khmer Reds' will cause it to fall straight into their laps...
...Indo-Chinese slaughtered each other. Burma carried out devastating invasions of Thailand in the 16th and 18th centuries; Thailand fought Viet Nam for control of Laos; both the Thais and the Vietnamese marched southward against Cambodia. In the 14th century, Thailand finally destroyed Cambodia's then-great Khmer Empire, and 200 years ago the Vietnamese overran Saigon-which was a Cambodian fishing village. The European colonizations beginning in the 17th century put a stop to the feuding. But in the years since the colonial bonds were broken following World War II, most of the old ani mosities have burst...
What motivates Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk is the fear and expectation that all this may happen in the foreseeable future. Moreover, Sihanouk is almost pathologically afraid that Cambodia's neighbors, who destroyed the Khmer Empire and have encroached on Cambodian territory ever since, will crush his country completely unless he can make a deal with the most powerful nation in the area-Red China. He may have read André Malraux's The Royal Way, in which one character remarks: "Don't forget that the Khmer temples were built without cement. Like castles made of dominoes...
...such opinions may strike the West, they convince Sihanouk's own people. Of all the rulers of Southeast Asia, he is probably the most popular inside his own country, partly because he has an aura both of divine kingship and grass-roots politics. Sihanouk succeeded to the ancient Khmer throne in 1941 at 19, when the French were still firmly in control of Cambodia. Although his name, from the Sanskrit, means "lionhearted," he was a pampered prince, fussed over by a covey of nannies; not long ago, to illustrate the importance of milk to a conference of his economic...