Word: sihanouk
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...surrender ended a bloody chapter that began in March 1970, after a bloodless coup ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk as chief of state. The new regime, headed by General Lon Nol, almost immediately launched a campaign to drive Hanoi's troops from their base camps inside Cambodia and quash the Khmer Rouge, a ragtag band of 3,000 to 5,000 leftist guerrillas. After initial hesitations, Washington backed the new regime. The U.S. invasion of Cambodia in 1970, directed against North Vietnamese sanctuaries, was partly designed to help Lon Nol. Also helpful were $1.8 billion in aid and thousands...
With the military situation rapidly deteriorating, the government dropped its demands for elections. Via the Red Cross, it sent an urgent message to Prince Sihanouk, who had been titular head of the Khmer Rouge. The government offered a complete cease-fire and full transfer of powers to the insurgents. Its only condition: no reprisals. From Peking, where he lives in exile, Sihanouk spurned the proposals. He denounced the members of the Revolutionary Committee as "traitors who deserve hanging and should try to escape while they can." He urged the government's soldiers to "lay down their arms, raise...
...expected that Khieu Samphan, 43, will quickly emerge as the major figure in the new government (see box below). For most of the war, the French-educated Samphan was Deputy Premier to Sihanouk, but it was clear all along that it was he who held the power, not the exiled prince...
What role awaits Sihanouk is highly uncertain. In a series of statements last week, the mercurial prince insisted that he is neither a Khmer Rouge nor a Communist but a neutralist. "I am a very independent man," he said. He may have some voice in the new regime, perhaps as its representative abroad, though he has indicated that what he would really like is to be named lifetime head of state. Whatever the role, he said, he would advocate a Cambodia that would be nonaligned, progressive and nonCommunist. That would surely bring him into conflict with Khieu Samphan, who would...
...Congress is not expected to grant President Ford's request for an additional $222 million when it reconvenes this week. The fact that the city's fate is virtually sealed may be one reason that the Khmer Rouge show no willingness to negotiate with Saukam Khoy, whom Sihanouk has placed on his latest list of "supertraitors" earmarked for execution...