Cambodia: SIHANOUK's SANGKUM REASTRE NIYUM (7of8) [KH] скачать в хорошем качестве

Cambodia: SIHANOUK's SANGKUM REASTRE NIYUM (7of8) [KH]

They owned the hundreds of buses that ferried Cambodia's population throughout the kingdom, just as they owned the cylopouse they rented out to impoverished Cambodians in Phnom Penh. They were restaurateurs, shopkeepers, traditional doctors and pharmacists, barbers and cinema owners. If there was a commercial opportunity, they seized it. Not all were successful, and there were ethnic Chinese coolies working on the Phnom Penh wharves alongside Cambodians. But with their commitment to education as a key to advancement and their embrace of an entrepreneurial work ethnic shared by few Cambodians, the Chinese population of Phnom Penh provided the commercial drive for Cambodia's capital city. Although he was not ready to place his country under Southeast Asian treaty organization's protection, he did accept a US offer to establish a military aid and assistance group (MAAG in Cambodia that would finance and equip his army. But, seeking to cover his bets and accepting the advice of Zhou Enlai during the Bandung meeting, Sihanouk refused to have his army trained by the United State. Instead he entrusted training responsibilities to the French. Capitalizing on his newly discovered oratorical skills; he made full use of the freedom from kingly restrains to carry his arguments to his people. His message was simple-a vote for the Sangkum was a vote for his policies. The appeal of 'the prince who had been king' was immense. But the overwhelming result suggests that allegations of ballot box stuffing and of voting papers disappearing before being counted were valid. Only days before the election, a band of Sangkum supporters led by Sam Sary disrupted a Democrat rally being addressed by one of their leaders, the left-inclined teacher Keng Vannsak. In the melee that followed a Democrat worker was killed and Vannsak was thrown into prison. The cost of opposition was made very clear. Beyond Cambodia, Sihanouk looked to United Nations as the institution through which his country's point of view could be brought to world attention. He had attended the 1958 general assembly, but it was at the fifteenth general assembly in 1960 that he made the greatest impact. His account of his visit, published after his return from New York, is one of the purest distillations of Sihanouk's views on world leaders and the policies that they followed on their countries' behalf. Describing his experiences in New York, the prince was mocking, outraged, malicious and falsely humble. As a bravura example of Sihanouk's reaction to the conduct of international affairs, his account is worth noting at some length. The behavior of the representatives of the great powers at the general assembly reinforced prejudice already well established in his mind. The contrast between the favored treatments accorded the leaders of major states and that which he and his delegation received in New York strengthened Sihanouk's view that the United States simply did not regard Cambodia as important. Although the meeting appears to have been relatively amicable in tone, Eisenhower failed to give a firm and positive response to Sihanouk's request for additional US funding for the Cambodian armed forces. The prince's feeling that the western powers did not take him or his country seriously was then further reinforced by a contretemps with the British delegation at the general assembly. Making clear that he was speaking about Thailand, Sihanouk told his listeners that he knew of a plan to overthrow him and to change Cambodia's foreign policy to alignment with the United States. If, as he claims, Sihanouk's knowledge of such a plot came from warnings given to him by the French and Chinese embassies as well as his own security services, they had still not implicated Sam Sary. When further evidence reached Sihanouk a week alter, Sary had already fled. After a shadowy existence in exile, he disappeared in 1962, probably put to death by one or another of his foreign paymasters. In his account of the affair given to Wilfred Burchett, Sihanouk provides considerable detail of plans being made Thai and South Vietnamese officials, in concert with Son Ngoc Thanh and with the knowledge of CIA agents, to overthrow him. But more recently presented evidence, cited by David Chandler, suggests that the catalyst for action was a decision made by President Diem of South Vietnam and his brother, the sinister Ngo Dinh Nhu. Using their representative in Phnom Penh as their intermediary, the Diems were ready to finance and assist Dap Chhuon in bringing down Sihanouk. But if the South Vietnamese leaders took the imitative in promoting the planned coup, they were quickly joined by the Thais and by the CIA. The undoubted involvement of the CIA has been seized on by Sihanouk, and others, as proof that the whole affair was masterminded by the United States.