King a changing constant

Returned to the throne ... Norodom Sihanouk in in 1973.

October 17, 2012
Telegraph, London

NORODOM SIHANOUK, 1922-2012

Norodom Sihanouk was the King of Cambodia, although only intermittently a monarch. However, for more than half a century, he played a leading part in the tragic postwar history of his country.

Sihanouk's character was as unpredictable as his fortunes, for he combined the characteristics of an educated Frenchman and an Oriental despot. His generosity and good humour were genuine, and enabled him to pose with some conviction as the father of his people. On the other hand, he was capable of ruthlessness and a disregard for the processes of law, as in the execution of political opponents.

Samdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk was born in Phnom Penh on October 31, 1922, the scion of two much-intermarried royal families, the Norodoms and the Sisowaths, who had ruled Cambodia for several hundred years. His father, Prince Norodom Suramarit, was the grandson of King Norodom, ruler of the turbulent vestigial kingdom when the French first imposed their protectorate in 1863.

Sihanouk was educated in Saigon and Paris. In 1941, when he was chosen to succeed his grandfather King Monivong, he was still at the Lycee Chasseloup Laubat in Saigon.

French Indochina was then under Japanese hegemony, though the influence of Tokyo was kept precariously at arm's length by the pro-Axis policy of Vichy, but, after World War II, as Indochinese independence became imminent, Sihanouk skilfully disentangled himself from the French and exchanged the easy, futile life of puppet king for the risky role of national leader.

At first, the French refused to give Cambodia the full independence that Sihanouk was demanding. But, in February 1953, after they had tried to fob him off with a lunch at the Elysee with President Auriol, he flew to Canada, the US and Japan to ventilate his grievances, notably in a flamboyant interview with The New York Times.

Back in Cambodia, Sihanouk stayed out of French control and moved to his villa at Siem Reap, close to Angkor, the capital of his ancient Khmer ancestors. There, in a daring bluff, he stirred up the population in his support.

His threat sufficed to persuade the French to give in and to grant Cambodia full independence on November 9, 1953. And by 1955, when Cambodia became financially viable in its own right, Sihanouk's reputation had been further enhanced.

Sihanouk, though, proceeded to abdicate his throne in favour of his father. His aim, to give himself a more solid political base, abundantly succeeded, for the Sangkum Reastr Niyum, or Popular Socialist Community, which he set up, won 83 per cent of the vote in the election of 1955.

From then until 1970, Sihanouk ruled supreme. When his father died in 1961, he assumed the office of head of state but retained only the title of Samdech Upayuvareach, ''his royal highness, the former king'', styled as Monseigneur. His mother became the ceremonial representative of the ancient monarchy.

Sihanouk strove to solve Cambodia's economic and social problems through the idiosyncratic ideology of ''royal Buddhist socialism''. His aim was ''a democracy comprehensible to the people'', in which the untutored masses would exercise ''a real, direct and continuous control of institutions''.

Throughout the late 1950s and the 1960s, Sihanouk's most serious concern was to keep Cambodia out of the escalating war in Vietnam. This aim involved a hardening of the anti-American prejudice he inherited from the French - even if he continued to accept American aid.

Keen to remain neutral, Sihanouk refused to place the country under the protection of the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation. Instead, he tightened relations with prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India, president Sukarno of Indonesia and president Josip Tito of Yugoslavia. Zhou Enlai, the Chinese leader, became a close friend.

In November 1963, Sihanouk, convinced that the South Vietnamese and the Thais were preparing, with American approval, to invade Cambodia, ordered an end to the US military aid program, cutting off 15 per cent of the national budget. In March 1964, he organised a ''spontaneous'' demonstration of anger against the British and American embassies. Trade was nationalised, private banks were closed. In 1967, the army was ordered to collect much of the rice harvest at an official price and to store it in government warehouses. At Samlaut, near Battambang, peasant resentment turned into armed revolt during which some 10,000 fleeing farmers were killed.

As the situation deteriorated, Sihanouk seemed to lose his political instinct. He also devoted much time to making sentimental feature films, of which he was writer, producer, director and principal actor.

In March 1970, during Sihanouk's absence in Europe, the National Assembly in Phnom Penh withdrew its support and he was removed from office by a coup d'etat planned by his pro-Western cousin Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak and executed by the previously loyal general Lon Nol, the prime minister and minister of defence. The monarchy was abolished and Cambodia declared a republic.

Sihanouk fled to Beijing and allied himself with the extreme pro-Chinese Communist group of Cambodian revolutionaries, the Khmer Rouge, whom he had driven into exile.

His ''Royal Government of National Unity'' (known as GRUNK), based in Beijing, was dedicated to the defeat of Lon Nol and his Khmer Rouge minder was Ieng Sary, later one of the most feared men in Cambodia.

In 1975, the Khmer Rouge, with North Vietnamese military help, captured Phnom Penh and instituted their genocidal regime. The city population was forced out into the countryside - ''the Killing Fields'' - where perhaps more than 1 million Cambodians died in massacres ordered by Khieu Samphan, the Khmer Rouge president, and his prime minister, Pol Pot.

Sihanouk, though nominally head of state, had become a cat's paw in their hands. He was allowed to return to Phnom Penh but was confined with his wife, Monique, to a modest villa in the Royal Palace compound, where he was required to do his own cooking. Six of his children, as well as other members of the royal family, were killed or died from maltreatment.

In 1978, Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia, in a war provoked by Pol Pot. Only hours before the Vietnamese occupation of Phnom Penh, Sihanouk was freed, probably at Chinese instigation, and flown to Beijing, where he gave a six-hour press conference in which he denounced the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnam invasion.

Sihanouk retreated to a palace provided by the North Korean government in Pyongyang. Under pressure from Beijing, he agreed in 1982 to a political marriage of convenience with Khieu Samphan, whom he had condemned to death in the 1960s, and Son Sann, a right-wing Buddhist who expressed contempt for his former king.

Their squabbles continued through a series of abortive international negotiations until, in June 1991, Sihanouk finally persuaded the Cambodian factions to declare a ceasefire. That October the accord was ratified at a Paris conference, which restored Sihanouk as head of state. Soon afterwards, Sihanouk returned in triumph to Phnom Penh.

As the violence continued throughout 1992, Sihanouk protested against the terrorist tactics of his opponents. Nevertheless, in the election of May 1993, Funcinpec, the royalist party led by his son Ranariddh, won 45 per cent of the vote.

There was a fortnight of political chaos, which Sihanouk resolved by declaring himself head of state, prime minister and chief of the armed forces. By early July, he had succeeded in establishing an interim government, with Ranariddh and Hun Sen, leader of the Cambodian People's Party, as joint prime ministers.

Sihanouk pledged that he would resist the popular clamour (led by Ranariddh) to return to the throne but, in September, when the National Assembly restored the monarchy, he found himself compelled to accept their decision.

In 1997, Hun Sen led a successful coup and remains in power to this day. Sihanouk's influence diminished and he abdicated in 2004, citing ill health.

Sihanouk had two official wives, Princess Thavet Norleak (his first cousin) and Princess Monique (nee Izzi), daughter of a French entrepreneur of Italian origin. The elder of Monique's two sons, Sihamoni, succeeded his father as king, and seven other children survive him.