Publication of Alain Peyrefitte's article published by the French Paris Match magazine attracts the ire of the Royal Cabinet

Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Royal Cabinet of Preah Karuna Preah Vorreach-Beyda
Preah Bat Samdech Norodom Sihanouk

Announcement

Recently, a small group of Cambodians who really regret the Khmer Republic regime which fell down and vanished on 17 April 1975, have tried hard to (publicize) propaganda to deceive the national and international opinion, with the aim of defaming the honor, the good name of Preah Karuna, the father of the Khmer Nation, by publishing that Preah Karuna, the father of the Khmer Nation, scorned his mother and had a plan to create the exodus of the population from Phnom Penh city, etc…

Regarding this cheap propaganda and this goal of degrade the honor, the good name of Preah Karuna, the father of the Khmer Nation, I have the honor to clarify the national and international opinion (as provided) below, and I am rejecting altogether the lies, the shameless cheating by a small handful of cheap people who have only one desire, that is to destroy the honor, the good names of Preah Karuna, the father of the Khmer Nation, who in his life had dedicated his strength, body, and intelligence to serve the Cambodian nation, homeland, people, (who had) struggled under all circumstances to defend the national independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Cambodia. History had recorded on its golden pages (the following):

• The royal crusade for independence from colonial France, and the achievement of the complete victory on 09 November 1953.
• The construction and edification of the country, and the development in all fields during the Sangkum Reastr Niyum era, and the world named “Cambodia” as “The Island of Peace (Koh Santepheap).”
• The national reconciliation in 1991 which provided to the Cambodian people and homeland, peace and progress.

1- Preah Karuna, the father of the Khmer Nation, respected and extremely loved Samdech Preah Moha Ksatriyani Preah Sisowath Kosamak Neariroth, his mother. Preah Karuna, the father of the Khmer Nation, who is a Buddhist follower, is adhering closely to the teaching of Lord Buddha, our Supreme teacher, to respect and love the living Buddha, that is the “Mother and Father” who gave us life. Since the day that the gang of Lon Nol, Sirik Matak, etc…, undertook the coup d’état (18 march 1970), Samdech Preah Moha Ksatriyani Preah Sisowath Kosamak Neariroth endured hardships and was scorned by the coup d’état gang. Samdech Preah Moha Ksatriyani Preah Sisowath Kosamak Neariroth secretly wrote a letter to provide her total support to the reasonable struggle (led) by Preah Karuna, the father of the Khmer Nation.

I am asking the national and international opinion to reflect and to provide justice to Preah Karuna, the father of the Khmer Nation, to whom this small group of people published the information that he scorned his mother.

2- Regarding the exodus of the people from Phnom Penh City: Following 17 April 1975, Preah Karuna, the father of the Khmer Nation, insisted on demanding to the Khmer Rouge Angkar, on many occasions, to return back to live with his people, however the Khmer Rouge Angkar always rejected (his demand) under the pretext that there is no safety, etc…, therefore, when he returned back to Cambodia, everything was already done according the Khmer Rouge Angkar plan. The Khmer Rouge Angkar did not ask the opinion of Preah Karuna, the father of the Khmer Nation, regarding the exodus of the people from Phnom Penh City, and a number of VIPs who are still alive, can attest as a witness to this issue. The fiction (used) to accuse Preah Karuna, the father of the Khmer Nation, that he has a plan to create an exodus of the people from Phnom Penh city is a scorn on our national history, and it is a black and dirty goal to create a pretext to accuse Preah Karuna, the father of the Khmer Nation, who was a victim of the Khmer Rouge regime with the aim of taking revenge for the complete defeat of the Khmer Republic regime which was a puppet who sold out completely to the foreigners.

I am deeply thanking you.

(Signed) Ké Kimsè
Director of the Royal Cabinet

Phnom Penh 21 September, 2007

Alain Peyrefitte's article is a fiction invented by a small group of people nostalgic of Khmer Republic regime?

Click on each page to zoom in on Alain Peyrefitte's article originally published by the French magazine Paris Match

Click here for the source of the document

Ambassador Julio A. Jeldres' Letter of Clarification on the 03 May 1975 Paris Match Article posted on KI-Media

On 19 September 2007, KI-Media posted an excerpt from an article published on the French magazine Paris Match, dated 03 May 1975, which was translated from French to English. As we indicated in the header of our posting, the article was picked up by one of team members from the Internet bulletin board Camdisc, our team was not involved in the selection of the excerpt, nor did we translate the article ourselves. We apologize if there is any misunderstanding on this issue.

We are pleased to provide below a letter of clarification sent by Ambassador Julio A. Jeldres regarding this article. Please click on each page of the letter to zoom in.

Click on each page of the letter to zoom in

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.”