History
Khmer Republic
The Khmer Republic (សាធារណរដ្ឋខ្មែរ) was the government of Cambodia from 1970 to 1975. It followed the removal of Prince Norodom Sihanouk as head of state in March 1970 and was proclaimed a republic in October of that year, ending the monarchy.[1][2] General Lon Nol led it for most of its existence. The republic spent its five years at war with communist forces allied with Sihanouk, and it fell in April 1975.[3]
Background
By 1969 Sihanouk's hold on Cambodian politics had weakened, and fighting between his army and communist guerrillas had grown, above all in the northeast. Prince Sirik Matak and General Lon Nol headed a circle of anticommunist ministers who planned his removal.[3] In August 1969 Sihanouk put Lon Nol and Sirik Matak in charge of the country's economic problems.[4]
Change of government in 1970
In March 1970 Sihanouk was abroad. Days of anti-Sihanouk demonstrations in Phnom Penh and provincial towns led up to a vote on March 18, 1970, in which the National Assembly and the Council of the Kingdom unanimously removed him from power. The new leaders were Lon Nol as prime minister and defense minister, Sirik Matak as first deputy prime minister, Cheng Heng as provisional head of state and In Tam as president of the National Assembly.[1]
Whether the vote was a coup or a lawful removal is debated in Cambodia. The new government held that the Assembly had acted within the constitution, since it had named Sihanouk head of state in 1960 and could undo what it had done.[1] A memorandum from Henry Kissinger to President Richard Nixon, dated the next day, called the Assembly's declaration of doubtful constitutionality.[4] Benzaquen-Gautier wrote that the demonstrations were in all likelihood staged, that tanks patrolled the Assembly area, and that deputies were threatened before the vote. Britannica calls the events a coup.[1][3]
From Moscow, Sihanouk flew to Beijing. With China's backing he allied with the Cambodian communists, his former enemies, whom he had named the Khmer Rouge. The alliance had two parts: a government-in-exile headed by Sihanouk, the Royal Government of the National Union of Cambodia (GRUNC), and a resistance inside the country, the National United Front of Kampuchea (FUNK). In a radio speech on March 23 he called the vote illegal and called on Cambodians to take up arms against the new government.[1]
In 1970 Vietnamese residents of Cambodia were attacked. Benzaquen-Gautier wrote that the violence made "hundreds, possibly thousands," of victims, and that outrage abroad and the reaction of South Vietnam forced the government to end it.[1]
The republic
The Khmer Republic was proclaimed on October 9, 1970.[1] Lon Nol had a stroke in February 1971 that left him partly paralyzed.[2] He was named president in 1972 and kept the post until 1975.[5] He won the presidential election of June 1972; Benzaquen-Gautier wrote that the US government knew of irregularities behind his win but praised the result.[1]
The republic's supporters presented it as a break with Sihanouk's personal rule. Critics on the Western left saw it as the same kind of rule in a new form, pointing to power held by one man and his circle, rule by decree, the suspension of the National Assembly and limits on the press. Benzaquen-Gautier wrote that corruption spread through the government and the army during the war.[1]
Civil war
Lon Nol's government was popular at first for its pledge to drive the Vietnamese communist troops out of Cambodia, but the conflict drew the country fully into the war in Vietnam.[3] In the spring of 1970 United States and South Vietnamese troops entered eastern Cambodia to destroy communist supply bases, and they withdrew in June.[2] Two offensives by Lon Nol's army, named after the early kingdom of Chenla, were defeated by Vietnamese forces, and his army then fought on the defensive.[3]
Lon Nol enlarged an army of about 35,000 men with some 150,000 young recruits.[2] United States military and economic aid to his government came to more than $1 billion.[6] After a ceasefire agreed in Paris in 1973, North Vietnam gave less support to the Cambodian communists, who refused to accept the agreement. That year the United States bombed the Cambodian countryside heavily, which slowed the attacks on Phnom Penh and caused great damage in the populated areas around the capital. By the end of 1973 the government controlled little beyond the capital, the northwest and a handful of provincial towns, and the communists controlled the whole resistance, with Sihanouk as its figurehead.[3]
Fall
The Khmer Rouge began a final offensive on January 1, 1975. Cambodian politicians and younger generals pressed Lon Nol to resign, a move the United States supported, and he left Phnom Penh on April 1, 1975.[6] The government collapsed later that month. Communist forces entered Phnom Penh and ordered its people to leave for the countryside, and the country's cities and towns were emptied in less than a week.[3] The Khmer Rouge state, Democratic Kampuchea, followed.[3]
See also
References 6
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 South East Asia Research, Stéphanie Benzaquen-Gautier, The relational archive of the Khmer Republic (1970 to 1975): re-visiting the "coup" and the "civil war" in Cambodia through written sources (November 5, 2021)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Los Angeles Times, Penelope McMillan, Ex-Cambodian President Lon Nol Dies in Fullerton (November 18, 1985)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Cambodia: Independence
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Office of the Historian, US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969 to 1976, volume VI, document 205: Memorandum from Henry Kissinger to President Nixon, "The Coup in Cambodia" (March 19, 1970)
- ↑ UPI Archives, Lon Nol, who led the coup against Cambodian Prince... (November 17, 1985)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 UPI Archives, Former Cambodian leader, Lon Nol, dead at 72 (November 18, 1985)