Seater capers

Wilfred G. Burchett, chronicler of the
Indochinese independence movements,
has written a new book on developments
in Cambodia and Laos titled THE SECOND
INDOCHINA WAR. It is to be released by
International Publishers on July- 20.
(208 pp., paper $1.95, cloth $5.95.)

~ With the publishers permission we
reprint excerpts from one section of the
book, dealing with the creation of the
National United Front for Cambodia's Lib-

eration immediately following the March_

18 coup which deposed Prince Norodom
Sihanouk.

By WILFRED G. BURCHETT

| oe a car on the way to Moscow
airport for a plane that was to
take him to Peking, Sihanouk learned
from Soviet Prime Minister Alexei
Kosygin that he had been deposed.
Members of his entourage knew. of it
some hours earlier but could not de-
cide how to break the news. It came as
a complete shock. There had been no
warning at all. But Sihanouk’s reac-
tion was immediate — and predictable
to those who reallly knew him. He
would fight back. On the plane to Pe-
king he was already planning the
counterattack; on arrival, he
immediately assured of Chinese sup-
port by his old friend Chou En-lai
who met him at the airport. A few
days later he received the same as-
surances from Premier Pham Van
Dong of North Vietnam who made a
special visit to Peking — secret at the
time — for that purpose. By March 23,
five days after the coup, Sihanouk had
formulated a five-point . proclamation
which will. remain an_ historic land-
mark in Sihanouk’s own evolution and
as opening a new chapter in Cambodian
history. In his capacity of Head of
State, Sihanouk: :

e Accused the Lon Nol regime of
high treason and decreed its dissolu-
tion. :

e Announced that a Government of
National Union would be formed.

e Called for the setting up of a
consultative assembly formed from
the broadest sections of the com-
munity, including ‘‘all patriotic, pro-
gressive and  anti-imperialist — ten-
dencies.”’ :

e Called for the creation of a Na-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JULY 31—Page 6

was -

Wilfred G. Burchett and Prince Norodom Sihanouk

tional Liberation Army to fight against
U.S. imperialism and its agents
inside the country.

© Called for the creation of a Na-
tional United Front for- the liberation
of the’ country and to handle the

_ tasks of reconstruction after victory

was won.

He appealed to his compatriots
to make their choice, to rise up and
overthrow the Lon Nol-Sirik Matak

regime.
Things began to move rapidly after
that — more rapidly than Sihanouk

could have imagined at the moment of
the coup. Vitally important was the
immediate response of progressive
intellectuals to his appeal. It had
been broadcast over Peking and Hanoi
radios, ‘monitored and recorded on
tape inside Cambodia and_ rebroad-
cast from’ thousands of loudspeak-
ers all over the country. The effect
of Sihanouk’s voice — and on such a
theme — was electrifying. Lon Nol
had nothing with which to counter. He
had prepared most carefully the
military side of his coup, and the po-
litical intrigue which accomplished it.
But he had done nothing to prepare
public opinion. His slander campaign
against Sihanouk’s private life could
not have moved people less. They were
interested in basic questions of peace

and war, independence, defense
against foreign invasions.

Within 24 hours, there was a joint
declaration cf support from the three
missing left-wing deputies — Hou
Youn, Hu Nim and Khieu Samphan —
the first news of them for almost
three years. The fact that these out-
standing intellectuals, pioneers of the
resistance struggle within the country
with high prices on their heads, of-
fered all-out support to ~Sihanouk
had a galvanizing effect on progres-
sives inside and outside the country.

‘We unreservedly support the
March 23 declaration made in Pe-
king by the Head of State, Prince Nor-
odom Sihanouk,” states the deputies’
declaration. :

When did any resistance’ move-
ment get off to a more auspicious start?
Unity of a broad spectrum of forces
from peasants and workers to the
monarchy! Resistance bases _ al-
ready formed, six main ones domin-
ating all key areas of the country.

4

United against the common foe

The embryo of a liberation army and
leaders tempered by three years of
underground struggle — plus veterans
of the anti-Japanese and anti-French
resistance. Arms in abundance, avail-
able immediately after.
appeal.

In the past, the NLF of South Viet-
nam did not supply arms to the Khmers
Rouges resistance fighters, although
they had abundant stocks in the fron-
tier areas. They did not want to do
anything which might endanger Sihan-
ouk’s neutrality. They loyally  re-
spected agreements on non-interference
in each other’s internal affairs. The
Khmers Rouges, once they went over
to armed resistance in 1967; were
something of an embarrassment, in
fact, to the NLF. The latter could not
appeal to them, in the higher interest
of aiding the NLF to defeat U.S. im-
perialism, to call off their own strug-
gle. But it was easy for Lon Nol to
persuade Sihanouk, as he did at one
period, that it was the Vietcong who
were behind the Khmers Rouges and it
became a very delicate problem for
the NLF to handle. Fortunately, the
main bases and centers of armed

-struggle were remote from the border

areas of South Vietnam. To the best
of. my knowledge, the only help given
the Cambodian resistance fighters
was when a group, hard-pressed by
Lon Nol’s troops in the frontier
areas, occasionally would be allowed
to slip through NLF positions to be passed
back into Cambodian territory as soon as
possible, perhaps in some other sector.

With Sihanouk’s appeal the situa-

~ tion was transformed. He called for

a “struggle waged in common with
other anti-imperialist, people’s forces
of fraternal countries.’”’ If the Ameri-
cans were somewhat disappointed
that many of the arms caches uncov-
ered during their invasion of Cam-
bodian territory were empty, they

- should have looked for the missing

arms in the hands of tens of thou-
sands of Cambodian resistance
fighters, distributed in the very first
days following Sihanouk’s appeal
for armed struggle.

Large-scale spontaneous _ upris-

ings took place immediately after
Sihanouk’s appeal. Although Lon>
Nol tried to pretend these were

Sihanouk’s

launched by the ‘Vietnamese”’ and
instigated a series of savage mas”
sacres against the Vietnamese com:
munity which shocked the world;
journalists on the spot confirmed that
it was Cambodians and not Vietnal®

ese who turned out in massive
demonstrations against the regime
that it was Cambodians and 1?
Vietnamese whose corpses choked

the roads and whose wounded filled
the provincial hospitals. Hundreds
of people were killed between March
26 and 28 along the road leading from

Cambodia’s third largest town ®
Kompong Cham to the capital, many’
of them. shot down in the outskirts °

Phnom Penh itself.

On April 24 and 25, 1970, 4
Summit Conference of the Indochines®
Peoples was held “in a locality of thé
Laos-Vietnam-China” border area.
The Cambodian delegation was heade® —
by Prince Sihanouk; the Laotian bY
Prince Souphanouvong, president °
the Lao Patriotic Front: the South
Vietnamese delegation by Nguye?
Huu Tho, president of the NLF of South
Vietnam; and the North Vietnamese bY
Prime Minister Pham Van Dong:
The. essence of the agreement reache
dealt with the current tasks of unitiné
to fight an expanded war in Indo
china, the principles of applyiné
this unity, and the basis of futuré
relations between the various com
ponents. It is a wise and moderate
document which affirms that the fund
amental positions of the three peoples :
have not been modified because of the —
extension of the war. Thus:

“The Cambodian, Lao and South
Vietnamese parties affirm that thell
combat objectives are independence,
peace, neutrality, the prohibition of the
presence of all foreign troops or mili- :
tary bases on their soil, non-partich —
pation in any military alliance, prohl
bition of the use of their territories
by any foreign. country for the purpose
of aggression against other coul-
tries....The people of the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam fully respect
these legitimate aspirations am
unreservedly support the struggle
for these lofty objectives.”

In other words, despite the great
ly changed situation, neutrality remains,
with all the implications for an auton
omous South Vietnam as a partner in 4
neutral zone together with Laos an
Cambodia: