Cambodia

on the World Today

For a little country, the kingdom of Cambodia in Indochina has just about everything. It can boast a glorious dead past, one of Asia’s most magnificent ruins, a colorful religion; a romantic palace complete with royal dancers, air conditioning, and sacred white elephants; a democratic constitution, dissident piratical bands, Communists; an old king and queen, a young and handsome prince; plenty of American aid, and at least three or four big friendly nations courting it.

Unquestionably this flat, wooded little Buddhist kingdom about as big as Missouri is the most fortunate of three none too fortunate Indochinese states. Vietnam, to the east, is sliced in two by an arrangement that is as practical as King Solomon’s solution for the disputed baby; by fair means or foul, the Communist half intends to take the other.

To Cambodia’s northeast is the kingdom of Laos, where the Communist “Pathet Lao” insurgents and the Vietminh who direct and supply them flatly refuse to give up their control of two of the country’s northern provinces.

For the moment, anyway, Cambodia’s 4 million handsome, dark-skinned inhabitants are luckier, partly because the Communist Vietminh never got the footing or support in the little kingdom that they achieved in the two neighboring countries, and partly because, at last year’s Geneva Conference, Cambodia stood up to the Vietminh, China, Russia — and Mr. Mendès-France, Mr. Eden, and Mr. Krishna Menon — and doggedly, valiantly, and successfully refused to sign any agreement that gave the invading Vietminh and their few Cambodian supporters any excuse at all for remaining in the country.

The commission that stayed

Although an international commission of Poles, Canadians, and Indians has spent the past year supervising the evacuation of Vietminh troops from Cambodia, no one — least of all the Cambodians — is naïve enough to think that all of them picked up their arms and marched out of the kingdom. But for the present those that were left behind are keeping relatively quiet.

The troop evacuation has long since ended, but the commission has stayed on in Cambodia because it claimed the function of supervising national elections specified in the Geneva Agreement and scheduled for September. To the Cambodians, the commission appears to be very like the Man Who Came to Dinner; they have felt a little aggrieved about this prolonged sojourn of the never very welcome foreigners. Understandably, the Cambodians are not overjoyed at having Poles — avowed Communists — at large for more than a year to make contacts and give subversive advice in their country.

As for elections, the Cambodians consider them to be the responsibility of a sovereign state, not the business of other nations; they have held them before without outside interference and see no reason why they cannot do it again.

The man wouldn’t be king

Cambodia must be one of the few places in the world where a young and highly popular king abdicated his throne to form a political party, run in popular elections, and put across his own reform program. King Norodom Sihanouk’s abrupt renunciation of the throne last March in favor of his gentle, bald-headed little father, Norodom Suramarit, and the capable, strong-minded Queen Mother was the second bit of high drama he has staged in recent years.

It was about two years ago that a plump young man of thirty-one with a round, handsome face, bright, intelligent eyes under heavy black eyebrows, and an air of easy authority stepped across from Cambodia into Thailand and told the astonished Siamese customs officials, “I am Mr. Norodom. I seek political asylum.”

While yellow-robed monks in Cambodia prayed for the success of his mission he proceeded to Bangkok, where, to the rage of the French and the consternation of the Americans, he broadcast through the world press a plea for real and total independence for his nation. This flamboyant little hejira worked. It appreciably accelerated the grant of vraie indépendance, not just to Cambodia, but also to the two other “Associated States” of Laos and Vietnam.

This spring, the young king pulled off a star turn of a different kind. To the astonishment of everyone—including, it is said, his mother, and certainly including John Foster Dulles, who had just spent some time discussing affairs of state with the affable monarch — King Norodom Sihanouk suddenly abdicated his throne, turning it over to his parents. His explanation was simple: “I can better serve my country as a private citizen.”

The politician-prince

This gesture of royal renunciation in the best Buddhist tradition is not quite the abnegation it might seem on the surface. For some years the publicity about King Norodom Sihanouk has emphasized his steeplechasing, his love of jazz and saxophone playing, his high-powered cars, his French cuisine, his fondness for producing and acting in homemade 16 mm. melodramas.

But these were just superficial traits of his character. The former king, now Prince Sihanouk, is intelligent, energetic, patriotic, emotional, and impetuous — as an Indian diplomat puts it, “easily the most capable and outstanding Cambodian.”

On the throne, he was restive and impatient at having to work through a clique-ridden French-style parliament and a shifting group of generally ineffective ministers who seemed out of touch with the peasants and the real problems of the country. In his new role of politician-prince, he can be a more direct and open political operator.

Besides, he relinquishes the restraints of kingship without giving up too much of its power. The ties between Sihanouk and his mother have always been extraordinarily close. By abdicating in her favor as well as his father’s, he could count on retaining control of, or at least close coöperation with, the throne.

What he has lost, of course, is the tremendous prestige and veneration which kingship has in Cambodia. It remains to be seen whether Sihanouk’s word will bear less weight, now that he is no longer under the sacred shadow of the royal umbrellas.

The political party Norodom has organized is one of three active political groups in Cambodia today. One, of course, is the Communists, their active agents chiefly Vietnamese who have lived some time in the country. Another is the Democratic Party, a group of younger civil servants and returned students from France, some of whom have received attention from French Communists.

The Democrats want to turn out from office the feudal elite who have been sharing government spoils so long in Phnom Penh, the quiet little French-style town that is the capital. They stand against corruption at home and for neutralism in foreign affairs.

Their leader is Son Ngoc Thanh, a clever and ambitious Cambodian nationalist who was puppet prime minister under the Japanese, exiled by the French to Paris, and allowed to return to Phnom Penh a few years ago on the promise that he would eschew politics. Back home, he promptly disappeared into the hinterland, from which he let out radio and leaflet blasts against the French. He is believed not to be a Communist; but as one British observer puts it, so many of his ideas fit those of the Communists that he would simply prepare the way for them if he came to power.

Sihanouk’s reform plan

Like the Democrats, Prince Sihanouk wants to eradicate corruption and take government out of the hands of a little group of wealthy men in Phnom Penh who know little and care less about the welfare of the peasants in the provinces. He abdicated to put across a reform plan which envisages substituting for the present Frenchstyle, splintered, irresponsible assembly and unstable weak cabinets a stronger executive, on the one hand, and peasant-elected local councils with more authority on the other. In foreign affairs, Sihanouk wants Cambodia to be “neutral.”

It was at the historic Bandung Conference last April that Prince Sihanouk first publicly stated Iris adherence to the “neutralist” camp that Jawaharlal Nehru heads so ably and passionately.

The Indians, whose ignorance about Indochina in the last decade has been matched only by the vehemence of their opinions on it, had made the discovery during and after last year’s Geneva Conference that Laos and Cambodia belonged not in ihe Taoist-Confucian sphere like Vietnam but in their own Hindu-Buddhist sphere of influence. In a subsequent visit to Cambodia, Mr. Nehru was tremendously moved and impressed by the fact that the great monuments of Angkor derive straight from ancient Hindu inspiration.

Happy talk

Then, before the Bandung Conference, Prince Sihanouk and Mr. Nehru held direct conversations in the two capitals (although, as Sihanouk divulged at Bandung, they had enjoyed previous indirect contacts through a Cambodian monk). It is not hard to visualize what Mr. Nehru said to Prince Sihanouk. It was roughly this: —

“No alliance between a great Western nation and a backward Asian one is a relationship of equals; it must involve domination and subservience. You have just happily emerged from a humiliating dependence on one great power, France. Surely you do not want to move right into the same relationship with another, even greater Western power, the United States.

“In any case, can or will Washington really protect you in case of aggression from the Vietminh? On the contrary, a military pact between the United States and Cambodia or the presence of an American training mission will simply provoke Vietminh suspicion and antagonism.

“It was India, not the United States, that helped to bring about the end of the Indochinese war and the removal of Vietminh troops from your territory. India is on terms of mutual trust with both Communist China and the Vietminh. They assure me that in return for Vietnam they will not touch Laos and Cambodia. You can surely see that the moral protection of India and a neutral policy will give you a far better guarantee of safety than SEATO, American military aid, or any kind of dependence on the West.”

There is much sound sense in this argument, but it has one or two serious flaws. To Sihanouk’s question, “Will India, then, defend me in case of a Vietminh attack?” the Indian Prime Minister could not answer yes.

Nor is the good faith of the Vietminh so dependable, despite Mr. Nehru’s confidence in it. To date, the Vietminh have not kept their part of the bargain. They are not out of either Cambodia or Laos; they are underground in the first, and blatantly and openly breaking the Geneva Agreement in the second. One has to be very naïve or very ignorant of Communism to believe that the Vietminh, once entrenched in all Vietnam, will refrain from subversion in the two neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos.

Nevertheless, the desire for peace is so strong, independence so recent, and French domination so vivid in Cambodian memory that almost any politician has to have neutralism in his political platform.

The price of aid

Certainly the Cambodians want the enormous American aid they are getting; it finances important reconstruction and development projects and supports the Cambodian army. What neither they nor Mr. Nehru has wanted is a big American military advisory group to take over military training. It is a sad commentary on the lack of flexibility and imagination of official Americans that Washington tried for months to persuade the Cambodians to sign a routine military aid agreement which demanded some of the very special privileges for American military personnel that Cambodians had been struggling for years to take away from Frenchmen.

The Cambodians wish to use American military supplies but keep French officers to train their army. Playing the French off against the Americans is an old and profitable game, and it is easier than ever today when the French in Indochina arc so full of jealousy, hate, and resentment of the United States,

It might well be wise American policy to let India shoulder the responsibility for Laos and Cambodia. What the strategically placed little kingdom will probably do, however, is try to follow the pattern Siam demonstrated so successfully right up to the Second World War: make friends with everybody — Vietnam, China, Thailand, India, France, Britain, and the United States; take what each has to offer; and balance them all off against one another.

The passive peasants

The success of this or any similar policy will depend, not just on Chinese or Vietminh intentions, but on internal developments within the kingdom itself. Though it is underdeveloped and sadly needs technicians and competent administrators, Prince Sihanouk’s little country is fairly well off by Asian standards. It exports rice, rubber, cattle, kapok, pepper, timber, and fish.

But government office is held by a little group of men from families of wealth and feudal position, while the entire middle class is made up of foreigners — French, Chinese, and Vietnamese. The great majority of Cambodians are simple peasants. Their standards of living are very low. Health facilities, schools, roads are inadequate and often nonexistent. Local officials are too often corrupt and negligent.

Partly because there is enough to eat, partly because of the tropical climate, partly because of their passive Buddhist philosophy, the Cambodians who live in little stilt-supported huts across the tropical countryside are an easygoing people; the peasants would put up with their lot a long time without revolting.

But in Asian countries revolutions are not made by the peasants, as popular writers have it, nor by the workers, as orthodox Marxists must insist. Revolutions are made by intellectuals, who ardently desire their country’s progress, feel thwarted by an inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy, and are looking for a faith, a way, and a challenge.

Like many other Asian intellectuals, most young Cambodians simply do not know what Communism in practice is like. If their country does not advance by other, democratic methods, they may see Communism as a short cut to rapid modernization and development. The Vietminh are eager to convert them to this thesis.

This situation offers the challenge and opportunity of a lifetime to Prince Sihanouk, patriot, popular leader, democrat, and king turned politician.