Word: phnom-penh
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...Saukam Khoy's first acts was to summon all of Cambodia's senior generals for a seven-hour meeting to determine whether anything could be salvaged from Phnom-Penh's parlous military situation. By the time the conference broke up at 1 a.m., Saukam Khoy had decided to give a morale-boosting pay raise to all military personnel (a one-star general makes only $25 a month), though nobody was sure where the money would come from...
...with the Khmer Rouge and negotiations to establish a coalition government. The only response from the shadowy Communist insurgents was a step-up in their attacks throughout the country. After withstanding a prolonged seige, the government last week finally abandoned the city of Kompong Seila, 70 miles southwest of Phnom-Penh, and airlifted 2,000 civilians and troops out of the city. The Khmer Rouge advanced within mortar range of the airport at Battambang, the country's second largest city (pop. 200,000), temporarily halting the ammunition and supply flights on which that city depends for survival...
Elsewhere in Cambodia, the story is just as grim. Several towns on the Mekong River are still under pressure, while even Battambang city, 160 miles northwest of Phnom-Penh in the heart of what was once Cambodia's rice granary, might soon fall. Each night the Communists overrun another tiny outpost protecting the city. An inspection of Battambang's defenses, says a recent visitor, turned up "empty holes and no soldiers to fill them...
Perhaps only a change of political leadership can spare Phnom-Penh eventual strangulation and all of Cambodia even greater bloodshed than it has suffered so far. At week's end, there was some new hope that such a change may still be possible; U.S. sources in Phnom-Penh reported that Lon Nol and his family would soon depart Cambodia for Indonesia and then proceed to the U.S. - probably Hawaii, where he underwent medical treatment in 1971 for a stroke. This could open the way for a new government and a negotiated peaceful transition of power to the insurgents. Both...
...decides to hang on, it is because he hopes his forces can defend Phnom-Penh for three more months, until the wet season impedes the insurgents' drive. With an improved military situation, the President would expect political pressures to diminish. On the other hand, if he finally makes up his mind to leave, it may in no small measure be due to Cambodia's students. Last week, as rumors swept the capital that time had run out for the President and that a coup was imminent, leaders of the Association of Students of the Khmer Republic, which claims...