Soldiers and Politics in Southeast Asia: Civil-Military Relations in Comparative Perspective, 1933-1975 by J Stephen Hoadley

Author:J Stephen Hoadley [Hoadley, J Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781351488822
Google: vBw0DwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 39207530
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

Glossary of Indonesian Abbreviations

*A glossary of Indonesian abbreviations used in this chapter appears on page 127.

6 • Cambodia: Marshal LonNol’s Khmer Republic

Cambodia in the 1960s was an obscure nation of about seven million people, eighth largest in Southeast Asia. It was noted mainly for its magnificent Angkor Wat and Angkor Thorn temple complexes, legacies of the bygone Khmer Empire, and its flamboyant quasi-monarch, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, a legacy of the French colonial period. An exporter of rice and rubber, the nation enjoyed the region’s fourth highest per capita income level, and under the prince’s paternalistic leadership the national standards of education and health care rose visibly, as did the number of public works projects. The Chinese, Vietnamese, and Loeu hill tribesmen that made up 15 percent of the population lived in relative harmony with the dominant Khmers (Cambodians). And the prince’s well publicized policy of neutrality kept Cambodia out of the destructive conflicts that characterized its neighbors Laos and South Vietnam during the decade.

But Cambodia in the 1970s has fallen victim to the Indochina war. The nation is now a world famous cockpit of conflict, its population assaulted from the air by American aircraft and on the ground by two opposed Vietnamese armies. Angkor Wat has been damaged by mortar fire and tourism has almost disappeared. Urban youths have turned their attention from liberal arts to military training and from French to English as a second language. Exports are down drastically and the government is now dependent on military and economic aid from the United States. The genial prince is now in Peking heading a government in exile, in alliance with three other Indochinese communist governments. In his place in the capital city of Phnom Penh is a government dominated by army generals and colonels, and supported by an American military aid mission. Like Laos, Cambodia is now divided into communist and noncommunist halves.

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