Word: sihanouk
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Dissatisfaction with Sihanouk has sprung from several sources. Foreign policy intrigues the mercurial prince and so does education, but economic policy, which is vital to Cambodia's welfare, simply bores him. There were rumors that the prince's relatives had profited enormously from government contacts. After Sihanouk was deposed, his wife, attractive Princess Monique, was attacked for alleged profiteering. Even Queen Kossomak, Sihanouk's mother, was the subject of ugly speculation on the same count. "The pretext was that Sihanouk was not doing enough against the Vietnamese," said a young Cambodian businessman. "The real reason was that...
...Sihanouk's foreign policy that kept him in the spotlight both at home and abroad. In the early '60s, the prince concluded that the U.S. would never be able to defeat the Vietnamese Communists. Accordingly, he began disengaging from the U.S. and ingratiating himself with the Soviet Union and, more important, China. In late 1963, Sihanouk ordered U.S. aid officials out of the country, and 18 months later he broke off relations completely...
After Lyndon Johnson's decision to halt the bombing of North Viet Nam, Sihanouk began swinging back toward the U.S. "The American presence helps Cambodia indirectly by maintaining the balance of power in the area," he said. "If the U.S. pulls out of the region, the weight of China will be too great for the small countries of Southeast Asia to bear. They will all become Maoized." A year ago, during a tour of Cambodia's northeast provinces, Sihanouk saw for himself the extent of Communist occupation. Subsequently, the prince said that he had had enough...
Last summer Sihanouk made the two men who eventually overthrew him the principal figures in a "movement of salvation" designed to energize Cambodia's stagnant economy. Both had been key officials for some time. Lon Nol is a quiet, pragmatic 56-year-old general who has been Cambodia's best-known anti-Communist for many years. He became head of the national police in 1951 and entered the army in 1952, taking part in operations against the Viet Minh invaders until the end of the French war in Indochina. Three years after joining the army, he became...
Prince Sirik Matak, 56, who helped Lon Nol depose Sihanouk, is the scion of the Sisowath branch of the royal family (Sihanouk is of the Norodom branch). A more colorful figure than Lon Nol, he could emerge as Cambodia's real new leader. Though he has practically made a career out of publicly opposing Sihanouk on major issues, his unquestioned ability has all but guaranteed him a succession of important government posts. With Lon Nol, he has long fought Sihanouk's policy of tolerating the Communist border presence, but he has struggled hardest to free the economy...