Word: sihanouk
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Surging out of the border jungles that had served them as sanctuaries for years while Prince Norodom Sihanouk was in power, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese bands seemed to be all over a broad swath of southern and eastern Cambodia, and heading for the national capital of Phnom-Penh. In Takeo province, 50 miles south of the capital, they battled Cambodian soldiers at Ang Tasom and Takeo, the provincial capital, closing two key highways linking Phnom-Penh with southern ports. Roughly 100 miles northeast of Phnom-Penh, Communist troops blew up a bridge and occupied a town in Kratie province...
Since the coup that swept Prince Sihanouk from power, reporters here have served as the eyes and ears not only of their news organizations but also of the Cambodian government and foreign embassies of the East and West. One Western official refers to the press corps as "our political section." He is only half kidding. Like reconnaissance patrols, newsmen head out each day to where they guess the Communists and the action are. On their return,* they file their stories and then sit down by the pool at the Hotel Royal to swap information over citron presses. Officials...
...ostensible purpose of the South Vietnamese operation was to provide support for the right-wing military regime in Cambodia which toppled the neutralist government of Prince Sihanouk six weeks...
Government Hostages. The campaign against Vietnamese in Cambodia has been intensifying since the ouster of Prince Norodom Sihanouk five weeks ago. Recently, thousands of Vietnamese have been rounded up by Cambodian authorities and herded into concentration camps. Ostensibly, the government's policy was a security precaution against deepening infiltration by some 40,000 Vietnamese Communist troops, who have staged occasional attacks on civilians as well as on soldiers. Especially in border areas, the government is apparently using the prisoners as hostages, in the hope of warding off attacks by Viet Cong or North Vietnamese troops. Two weeks...
River Trap. The government's need to boost morale by any means possible is accentuated by its military failures. Sihanouk had allowed the Communists more or less a free run in Cambodia's border provinces. The Lon Nol government seized power with the announced purpose of finally ridding the nation of the Vietnamese intruders. Today, however, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong control perhaps twice as much Cambodian territory as they did a month ago. Minister of Information Trinh Hoanh admits uncomfortably: "Before, the Communists weren't occupying our territory. They'd come...