Norodom Sihanouk's death in Beijing on October 15, 2012 marked the end of one of the most remarkable careers in international politics of the last century. The former king of Cambodia filled so many lives in his 89 years.
A full assessment of his legacy is for the future, but his death provided an opportunity to assess the memory of this mercurial and passionate figure.
As an only child, Sihanouk never expected to become King of Cambodia. The event that led to this outcome was the death of his maternal grandfather, King Sisowath Monivong, in April 1941. At the time, Sihanouk was a gifted but unassuming 18-year-old student at a Saigon high school, from which he was plucked by the French colonial authorities and crowned.
Japanese forces had been occupying - with French consent - “Indochina” (comprising present-day Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) since mid-1941, and the French thought the teenager would be easier to manage on the Cambodian throne than any of the other candidates.
Sihanouk repaid their faith by becoming a lifelong Francophile: he once remarked that the two historical figures he revered most were the Buddha and Charles de Gaulle.
In March 1945, fearing an Allied invasion, the Japanese imprisoned French officials throughout the colony and announced to local puppet rulers that their domains were now independent. Sihanouk reacted cautiously, and a few months later, once the war was over, he welcomed the French back. In so doing, he demonstrated what was to become a lasting characteristic: an astute assessment of political dynamics and a desire to stay in power.
Crusade for independence
Over the next few years, as France made more concessions to Cambodia, Sihanouk played the role of constitutionalist. But in 1952, when he judged that the French were losing the first Indochina war against the Vietnamese guerrillas, he abandoned this strategy and launched a “royal crusade for independence”. He wrested Cambodia from the French at the end of 1953, and the Kingdom became an independent state, six months before Vietnam officially gained independence at the 1954 Geneva Conference.
Emboldened by his success, Sihanouk abdicated in 1955, appointed his father king and founded a political movement that won elections the same year. For the next fifteen years, until 1970, Prince Sihanouk and his movement dominated Cambodian politics.
Sihanouk was successively Prime Minister and Head of State, and earned a reputation as a tough but benevolent leader.
Yet his patriotism, sincere affection for the Khmer people and irrepressible joie de vivre were counterbalanced by his impatience with economic problems, his repression of dissent and his conviction that, come what may, he alone embodied the Cambodian nation.
Regionally and internationally, Sihanouk pursued a policy of “non-alignment”. This enabled him to keep Cambodia out of the escalating Vietnam War for as long as he could, but as the war intensified, his luck ran out.
In March 1970, while traveling abroad, he was overthrown by a bloodless pro-American parliamentary coup. Cambodia was soon dragged into war, with predictably devastating results.
Routes of exile
Sihanouk was enraged by his deposition. From his exile in Beijing, he allied himself with China, North Vietnam and the Cambodian Communist movement, which he had previously dubbed the Khmer Rouge. He urged his allies to liberate Cambodia on his behalf and, for the next five years, presided over a government-in-exile that gave diplomatic legitimacy to the Khmer Rouge, whose leaders never told him of their plans should they come to power.
When the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, Sihanouk remained the reigning head of state. But the radical and empowered Khmer Rouge left him little to do, and in 1976 placed him and his wife Monique under house arrest in the capital.
By then, the Khmer Rouge had christened their regime “Democratic Kampuchea” (KD) and inaugurated a series of murderous utopian policies, some of which were borrowed from Maoist China. In less than four years, these policies led to the premature deaths of over 1.5 million Cambodians, including many of Sihanouk's children.
In 1977, a border war broke out with Vietnam (unified since the end of the war on April 30, 1975). When Vietnam invaded KD at the end of 1978, the Khmer Rouge authorities released Sihanouk and sent him to New York to plead KD's cause at the United Nations. But in early January 1979, Vietnamese forces reached Phnom Penh and the KD collapsed. Sihanouk again went into exile in Beijing, and this time stayed in North Korea, where he was the guest of Kim Il-Sung, with whom he had befriended in the 70s.
During the 1980s, the socialist regime in Phnom Penh struggled to restore the country after the chaos inflicted by Pol Pot. The regime - dominated after 1979 by the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) - was hampered by the fact that, for Cold War reasons, the KD retained Cambodia's seat at the United Nations.
As a result, no UN aid and very little aid from outside the Soviet bloc reached Cambodia for more than ten years after the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge.
Sihanouk spent the 1980s presiding over a “coalition government in exile” made up of royalist, non-royalist and KD factions, operating from Thailand. This deceptive concoction enabled a KD representative to retain Cambodia's seat at the UN.
After lengthy negotiations, a multinational conference met in Paris in October 1991 and agreed to place Cambodia under a UN protectorate pending national elections.
The circles of power
Towards the end of 1992, Sihanouk returned home for the first time in thirteen years. He was greeted in Phnom Penh by a tumultuous crowd. Until the end of the United Nations mandate, he presided over the Supreme National Council, subordinate to the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (Untac), which continued its heavy and costly mission.
UN-sponsored national elections were held in July 1993, attracting over 90% of registered voters: a huge and relatively peaceful success. The royalist party led by Norodom Rannaridh, Sihanouk's eldest son, won the most votes, but Sihanouk knew that the Cambodian People's Party, which had come second, considered the royalist victory a usurpation.
The prince cajoled the royalists into a fragile power-sharing agreement with the previously dominant CPP, which lasted another five years. In so doing, he distanced himself from royalist voters, while preventing a possible civil war and gaining some freedom of maneuver for himself.
At the end of 1993, Sihanouk was crowned King of Cambodia for the second time. He insisted on restoring a host of pre-1970 symbols: the Cambodian flag used at the time, Phnom Penh street names, the national anthem and military uniforms. These nostalgic arrangements made people forget the coup d'état of 1970 and all the years that followed.
The Sihanouk of the 1990s was as energetic and ambitious as ever, but Prime Minister Hun Sen restricted his political ambitions. Sihanouk spent much of his time in Beijing. In 2004, he abdicated for the second time and was succeeded by his youngest son, Norodom Sihamoni.
For the next eight years, Sihanouk, now known as the King-Father, spent most of his time in Beijing. By the end of the decade, his health was deteriorating and, according to those close to him, he approached life with unusual restraint.
Norodom Sihanouk is inseparable from the history of twentieth-century Cambodia, and it is difficult to make a balanced assessment of his seventy-year political career. He certainly took center stage during his years in power in the 1950s and 1960s, during which time he tread the world stage with fervor, confidence and brilliance. He also made many serious mistakes, such as his early reliance on the Khmer Rouge.
Today, the days when Sihanouk ruled Cambodia are not taught in Cambodian schools. So it's worth remembering that this hard-working, eloquent and lively descendant of the Angkor kings demonstrated throughout his long and sometimes tumultuous life an unwavering commitment to Cambodia and a sincere identification with its people.
Author David Chandler is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Westminster. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding and of a journal entitled Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses.
Courtesy of Opendemocracy.net
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