Word: khmers
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Long before the advent of Buddha, Cambodia was settled by migrants from India. More than 1,000 years ago, Cambodia was the seat of the mighty Khmer empire, which ruled most of Indo-China and bequeathed the matchless jungle temple of Angkor Wat to posterity. But Cambodia is now the smallest (about the size of Missouri) of the three Associated States. The French established their protectorate in 1863, but decided to leave the easygoing Cambodians pretty much on their own, to trade contentedly in pepper and corn, grow rice and worship Buddha in the shade. When the Communist guerrillas arose...
Last week Cambodia's lingering peace was being disturbed by the trailblazers of Communism, filtering across its eastern marchlands from Red-infested Viet Nam, raiding its villages, waylaying its merchants and preaching revolt in the Royal Khmer (i.e., Cambodian) army. The Reds posed as patriots, burning to liberate Cambodia from French imperialism; in fact they were the vanguard of an uglier imperialism: Communist China's. Waist-deep in swamp and jungle fighting in the Red River delta, the French could do little to defend their Cambodian proteges from Communist attack. Instead, the 3,000,000 Cambodians relied...
Three Months of Begging. Sixty-five thousand saffron-robed bonzes (Buddhist priests) and the 12,000-man Khmer army welcomed him home. Dutifully he shaved his head and begged for his living for three months as custom prescribed. But the King was determined to emancipate Cambodia from the semifeudal monarchy under which it had slumbered for centuries. He pushed through a program of constitutional reforms which transformed his kingdom from an absolute into a parliamentary monarchy under French protection. Cambodians freely elected their own 75-man National Assembly...
Bloodless Coup. Communist plots soon took away the King's fun. Pardoned by the French, Son Ngoc Thanh returned to Pnompenh. His Pnompenh newspaper, Khmer People Awake, sowed disaffection in the royal army. Viet Minh Communist battalions, 10,000 strong, skirmished along Cambodia's borders, and Son Ngoc Thanh cheered them on. Suddenly last month the King reacted. He closed down Khmer People Awake. Son Ngoc Thanh ducked off to join a band of Red guerrillas...