I’m reminded that it was Harben who did the ‘box’ test on a map of Cambodia, and realised that a B-52 strike on any area of central Cambodia would inevitably hit populated areas. Made worse by the fact that outdated intelligence didn’t allow for the Khmer Rouge relocating and then concentrating significant chunks of the population within their liberated zones.

“A rumor circulated about a possible assassination attempt against the Marshal. I halfheartedly checked it with one of his ministers, who laughed and said, “The enemy would burn alive anybody who touched a hair of the Marshal’s head. He’s the greatest asset they have. Any of the servants in the palace would kill him for 2000 riels. You can wander in there and run into him sunning himself in the garden. The guards won’t stop you.”

I dropped this bit of news in the staff meeting and met with icy stares. The fact was that both we and the enemy were protecting Marshal Lon Nol, and one of us was wrong”

Unfortunately Tong, being the uncultured fellow that I am, I’ve not read a word of Platonov. The only Russian literature I’ve read, are a few books from the nineteenth century, including the badly written What is To Be Done? by Chernyshevsky; and some twentieth century revolutionary-era literature such as Aleksei Tolstoy’s Aelita, or The Decline of Mars, made into a fantastic Soviet-era silent film directed by Yakov Protazanov (witness the creation of a Martian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics!), and proletarian writer Fyodor Gladkov’s Cement.

I’ve seen it stated that Chau Dara was, in fact, Lon Nol under a pseudonym….

Another almost-forgotten aspect of the Khmer Republic was that the Cham were given quite a prominent role, again via the visible presence of Kosem, El Brahim, and their associates; Nol had himself photographed with Cham community leaders quite often. I assume this was another extension of Lon Nol’s pan-Khmerist fantasies.

I wonder if foreginers, as you say, like Cambodia or Thailand perhaps because of the greater Indic influence on their culture, as opposed to the Chinese influence on Vietnamese society. Westerners seem to have little understanding of Chinese culture in general, and particularly of the Confucian structure underlying it.

Khmers look down on those people, they are called “monus prey” people of the forest, but “barang” or Chinese of Korean- they are too happy with them. Even Vietnamese, I saw many Khmer tourists coming to Vietnam, for treatment, for pleasure, so globalism even if I can’t stand it, makes me to accept some part of it, at least people become friendlier to Vietnamese, and more and more people do not use “youn” when speaking about Vietnamese, as the word “youn” makes it feel like an object or an animal towards them.

I feel attracted to sheer poverty of Vietnamese, they are always so poor, even in Canada! And they never can master English too, always an accent.

PINEAPPLE

I read Tchevengur of Andrei Platonov, have you read it? Do you think in that novel are hell of too many parallels with Khmer communism? I have to practically mark every page for a further reference point. Platonov’s language great too, when I’m done with Russian original I’ll try to get an English translation just to see whether it as good as the source.

I’m glad you’ve found this post interesting, and yes manur, I’m aware of his disgrace. With this post I’m not validating historical revisionism regarding the attempt to exterminate a people from the face of a continent. Thanks for bringing this up, and I’ve had this pointed out here previously. His writings on Southeast Asia, and particularly Khmer Communism, are deeply knowledgeable, not to mention witty. If it’s felt that there is moral concern over even mentioning his name or his work here, then I’ll take it on the chin. I wouldn’t say Thion, at least when he grew older, was an ultra-leftist though. The way he has poured scorn on Maoism, for example, calling it a “pseudo-theory” etc. Unless what you mean by that is something outside the left end of the liberal democratic spectrum. And old Marxist-Leninists, say, have their own uses for the term ultra-leftism.

I’m sure Sutsakhan and Son Sann were probably well-intentioned enough, but they couldn’t even agree amongst themselves on whether to cooperate with Sihanouk or not, let alone be a coherent ‘third force’. The chaotic, incestuous factionalism of the Khmer Republic had effects long after its demise.