Word: khmers
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...conventional bombs the U.S. rained upon Japan in World War II. Most of it, of course, was aimed at guerrillas hiding in heavy jungle. As a result, the bombing obviously did not inflict the kind of destruction caused by raids over population centers. Nor did it cause the Khmer insurgents to surrender. Only in the few days immediately prior to the bombing halt did the insurgents fall back - about ten miles from Phnom-Penh - and then it was probably to regroup. Insurgents now control 80% of Cambodia and many of the roads leading to its capital...
Only Saigon benefited from the fighting in Cambodia, which diverted North Vietnamese troops and thus gave South Viet Nam's President Nguyen Van Thieu a chance to consolidate his military and political position. Instead of keeping Cambodia nonCommunist, the American incursion helped catalyze the minuscule pro-Communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas into a movement of na tional scope. It pushed Prince Norodom Sihanouk, a dedicated neutralist who was overthrown as Cambodia's ruler in spring 1970, reluctantly into the hands of Hanoi and Peking...
Despite the incessant American aerial barrage, the Khmer insurgents continue to gain ground-battering Lon Nol's forces at will. Deftly applying pressure first on one major highway leading to the capital and then switching to another, the insurgents have kept the government's forces off balance. In fighting creeping ever nearer to Phnom-Penh, the rebels have inflicted 800 to 1,200 casualties weekly upon government troops. The heavy casualties have diluted Lon Nol's units; the four battalions guarding the bridge at Prek Ho now each contain about 120 men, instead of their normal strength...
...bombing will stop, Lon Nol's puppet strings will be cut, and Cambodia will eventually return to peace and national sovereignty under the leadership of the revolutionary Khmer Rouge. Lon Nol probably already has a mansion on the French Riviera picked out, where he can join other reactionary luminaries like Madame Nhu and a host of South Vietnamese generals...
...bombing to stop on Aug. 15 before they join the exodus. Many of the middle class now would seem to welcome the end of the corrupt government of Lon Nol. "The first thing the insurgents will do is shoot the profiteers and the corrupt people," says one Khmer, "and that will be a good move...