Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Historical Document: Excerpt of the talk between Alain Peyrefitte and Prince Norodom Sihanouk on the eve of the fall of Phnom Penh

PARIS MATCH
Issue # 1353
May 3, 1975

Article translated from French and posted online

On the eve of the fall of Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, Sihanouk who took refuge in Beijing since he was deposed by the Cambodian National Assembly and the Council of the Kingdom on March 18, 1970, gave a reception to Mr. Alain Peyrefitte, the former minister of General de Gaulle. Their talk was published in the French magazine “Paris Match”, No. 1353, dated May 3, 1975. A large excerpt of this talk is provided below:

“On September 1st, 1966, in Phnom Penh, the capital of a free and peaceful Cambodia, General de Gaulle publicly condemned (he did it confidentially since 1960 without anybody in the world ever heard about it) the US military intervention in Vietnam. He countered this US policy, which he claimed to be doomed with catastrophe, with the exemplary policy of neutrality maintained since 1954 by the young head of state who welcomed him: Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

The US underestimated Norodom Sihanouk’s personality. After chasing him out, he was thrown into the hands of the Khmer Rouge who, up to then, fought against him. When things turn sour, the US tried to separate Norodom Sihanouk from the Khmer Rouge. It was a lost cause! The US have hooked him up with the Khmer Rouge “in life as well as in death (i.e. for eternity)”, as he said it in his own words.

I met the prince in Beijing where he took refuge after the coup d’état perpetrated against him while he was in Moscow.

Since 1971, the Chinese had magnificently installed him in the former French Embassy. He turned this sumptuous palace into the center of Cambodian resistance. He warmly received me, accompanied by Maurice Papon and Albert Marcenet. During two hours, he tiredlessly showed us, with his expressive mimics, his outburst of voice, his picturesque verbal inventions, that nothing would cut into his determination.

“I am General de Gaulle,” he declared to me, “the General de Gaulle in London.” The contrast between this chubby small man and the memory of the thin giant brought smiles to our faces.

“But of course,” he explained to us sharply, “like him, I have only one goal: to free my country, only one mean: to make war, to coordinate the resistance, to revive the courage by talking to the heart of my people. At the beginning, de Gaulle also was alone, nobody believed in him. Little by little, they joined him from all over the places. The Chinese welcome me just like the British welcomed him; I am their guest, I am not their man, no more than he was the host of the British.”

- The Khmer Rouge are communists, I noted.
- That’s true; but they have to go through me because I embody the legitimacy. They need me, and I know that Cambodia needs them. I will tell the Cambodian people and they will believe me.
- Are you becoming communist, Your Highness?
- No, I don’t think so, in our Southeast Asia, communism has its good sides. You can see what is happening in China. Furthermore, there is no choice. After what the Americans did, I have only one choice, that one.
- Fidel Castro in Havana, told me more or less the same thing: “I was never a Marxist-Leninist, but the US embargo took away from me all other possibilities except this one.”

Norodom Sihanouk invited us to pick up the ivory chopsticks to eat fried shrimps. Suddenly pensive, he started again: “After the victory, I will stay only maybe six months. It is not important. I will accomplish my duty. I will have led the resistance. I will have liberated my homeland. I will be able to leave. De Gaulle did not remain either. If the Khmer Rouge think they no longer need me when the enemy will be chased out, and the countrypacified, I will not hold on. I will then ask France to welcome me in the Midi for the rest of my days.”

He took his breath for a short while before continuing with rage, and this time, his rage had a self-criticism tone to it: “There was too much corruption. There has always been, but with the Americans, now, the corruption has triumphed, it has spread all over. They symbolize the corruption. Everybody think only about money. From the top to the bottom, it is embezzlement of public funds, breach of trust, corruption, servitude. They sell their souls for dollars. But every cloud has a silver lining. We were already corrupt and we did not know it. Now, we know and we find the strength to cleanse ourselves. The Americans create the hate of corruption because everything they symbolized is hated.”

His chopsticks quickly dropped in my plate some pieces of roast duck: “ Phnom Penh,” he continued, “wallowed itself up in collaboration. It is an infected wound on the innocent face of Cambodia. Queen-Mother who abandoned me when I had my back turned, I will humiliate her. The middle-class of Phnom Penh who had betrayed their leader and their homeland, I will humiliate them; to punish them, I will not enter the capital with the troop, I will have them chased out first. I do not want to re-establish there after the Liberation. Instead, I will have a wooden hut built for me in the forest of Angkor, and it will be there that people will come to visit me. Phnom Penh is Vichy. Lon Nol is Laval. I will have him shot, of course. But, since he is Khmer, and that all Khmer people are my children, I will have him shot with tenderness.”

We have to recognize that the prophecy is realized in large part. Lon Nol escaped the firing squad but not his brother, it was said: Phnom Penh will be indeed humiliated, emptied of its inhabitants. And Sihanouk will put his legitimacy and his asset to the service of communism, maybe without too much illusions on the duration and the nature of his role.

He told me, with his flair for paradox which only serves to dress up his inner thoughts: “I do not hold a grudge against the Americans. They would have been the agents of the Providence. They will allow Cambodia to redeem itself. But I hold a grudge against France. Do you recall: de Gaulle held a grudge against the Americans for maintaining an embassy in Vichy ? How can you maintain an embassy with the Phnom Penh puppets, and none with me?” I noted to the prince that we do not recognize regimes, but countries. The presence of an embassy in Phnom Penh simply meant that it is taking care on the spot of our citizens and our interests. “It’s the same,” he insisted, “I will see if France will have a friendly gesture towards me.”

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is the true Seihaknouk,why we would like the justice because it won't be fair if The UN lose with Hun Sen s' tact and our Cambodia going to look bad on the international point of views, I know no one can't stop UN if they wanted it too,look at Panama president they put him on trial twice ,now he stay in Europe jail ,so Seihaknouk just splash the mud on US through out his website,then US gave him back some lessons,so in my observation to get Hun Sen on trial,N .Seihanouk has to so his gut as the former hero king for our kids and grand kids to learn a good sample.

Anonymous said...

Sometime I don't even know what this Khmer Rouge or Khmer Vietminh is all about! Is it about the killing of Cambodian people? So they said it is a genocide that the Khmer Rouge or the Khmer Vietminh is on trial for. So let go back to basic. Let define what genocide is.

Genocide is systematic killing of a racial or cultural group. http://www.onelook.com/?w=genocide&ls=a

How can this be because the Khmer Rouge or the Khmer Vietminh killed many Cambodian people including Cambodian minorities and foreigners!

If you are talking about killing, there are many foreign leaders who are also responsible for killing Cambodian people too!

North Vietnamese used Cambodia to evade the South Vietnamese and American bombing and Cambodian people were killed in the process!

United States used B-52 to drop ton of bombs on Vietcong sanctuary in Cambodia also help killing Cambodian people in the process!

Thailane allowed US B-52 bombers to launch attack from their air base also help killing Cambodian people!

China supplied those weapons to the Khmer Rouge or the Khmer Vietminh also help killing Cambodian people!

Soviet Union supplied the weapons to the Vietcong which help spread the Vietname War into Cambodia also help killing Cambodian people!

If you really connected all the dots and you will see that Cambodian people are born to be killed!

The only issue now who kill Cambodian people more that constitutes genocide?

Anonymous said...

Hahhaahahahhaahhaha some times it take time to find a small thing, search it harder you will find it.

Anonymous said...

This is clear demonstration of human society, not too far from animal, only the strongest survive. Since Khmer does depend on other countries for help, weapons, especially, Khmer will have to pay the price for these weapons. In this case, Khmer lifes for weapons. 208PM keep trying to connect the dots, and you will realize that Khmer was just a puppet of war in Indochina. Sad isn't, but we have to learn from this lesson. If Srok Khmer has nuclear weapons, I garauntee you...we will not be easily pushed around. I am not preaching that we should have nuclear weapons in Srok Khmer, what I meant we need to demonstrated our strenght to world, but we don't, we will falls into the same traps every century.

Anonymous said...

It is very easy to kill khmer people because nobody want to protect us and Sihanouk is especially the great murderer of cambodians. Some people say that Sihanouk is the reincarnation of a former king of champa who was killed by JAYAVARMAN VII : his goal is to destroy cambodia.