On the night of August 9-10, a group of students and government functionaries assembled outside the palace in Phnom Penh, backed by a crowd of monks. Seven pro-Thanh activists then forced their way into the palace: Mam Koun, Neth Laing Say, Kim An Dore, Hem Savang, Mey Pho, Mao Sarouth, and Thach Sary. Most of the men were low-level clerks; Sary, for example, was a secretary to Kubota, the Japanese consul – the degree of Japanese responsibility for events remains uncertain – while Mey Pho was a palace official, perhaps the group’s ‘inside man’.

Sihanouk was, however, absent: his mother had received some advance notice of events, and the King had safely hidden himself in a nearby pagoda. While the ‘coup’ was decidedly small in scale, there was some excited waving of pistols, and Sihanouk’s personal secretary Nong Kimny was wounded. By 3 a.m. the conspirators had rounded up the entire cabinet, with the exception of Thanh and Sisowath Monireth, and made clear their demands. The key point was the introduction of a ‘progressive government’, as opposed to the usual mixture of minor princes and dusty francophil civil servants: ‘Progressive’, in this context, meant Thanhist and nationalist.

Despite the favour shown to them by the conspirators, the wound sustained by Kimny alarmed Thanh and Monireth, and they ordered the release of the captive cabinet members; Monireth and the Queen Mother then negotiated personally with the group. It seemed, however, an exciting moment for Cambodian self-determination; Keng Vannsak, in an interview, described a group of students waiting up all night for news of the ‘coup’. By the morning of the 10th, Sihanouk had agreed to appoint Thanh as Prime Minister, fulfilling one of the demonstrators’ main demands.

At this point, Thanh made a curious decision: he ordered the arrest of the leading ‘coup’ conspirators. All were jailed, although several were to escape from prison within a short time. Moreover, although Thanh was able to appoint some allies in government posts, notably his old nationalist colleague Pach Chheoun, and began to make overtures in the direction of greater cooperation between Vietnam and Cambodia, much of the administration remained the same.

Within a matter of weeks, events were to turn against Thanh. The French and British colluded with Defence Minister Khim Tit and Monireth, and with the likely acquiescence of Sihanouk (who, as at so many crucial points in Cambodian history, managed to absent himself from the capital) arranged for the Prime Minister to be bundled unceremoniously into a car and driven off to face French justice. Cambodia was, once more, very firmly within the grasp of France.

While the 1945 ‘coup’ was in some ways an amateurish and small-scale event, in this respect it only reflected the small scale of Khmer political activity at the time. Its ultimate significance was much greater, however. This was the first time that nationalist demonstrations had taken on an actively modernist character, previous events (such as the 1942 ‘Umbrella War’) having centred on more traditional expressions of Khmer identity. Beyond this, it created a complex series of betrayals at the heart of the developing political system. Central to these was the betrayal of forward-thinking nationalist Khmers, stitched up by those who believed the French colonialist rhetoric of ‘civilisation’, or were simply determined to hang on to their priveleges. Thanh, in particular, was considered to have betrayed the activists who had placed such trust in his ability to stand up to the traditionalists, while simultaneously earning Sihanouk’s lasting hatred for associating with the plot: as long as Sihanouk remained in power, Thanh and his particular brand of nationalism would never be able to re-establish a foothold in the country. Monireth, passed over as King by the French for his independent-mindedness, would similarly prove a disappointment to those who saw him as an agent of change, and himself likely betrayed Thanh by colluding with the French. And outside storing up resentments for the future, the ‘coup’ was an important step in the radicalisation of sections of the small educated class. Some of those involved in the ‘coup’ reappeared in the Khmer Republic years: Sary joined the armed forces, drifted towards a right-wing brand of nationalism, and (by then a FANK brigadier-general) was to be executed after the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh in 1975, while Kim An Dore also became a Lon Nol associate. The others, however, surfaced in the Issarak movement and some, such as Mey Pho, were among the first wave of Khmers to become members of the Indochinese Communist Party: Neth Laing Say was killed in action as a leftist insurgent in the late 1940s. And although his degree of involvement remains unproven, French intelligence sources believed that the radical Khmer Krom Achar, Mean – later to adopt the name Son Ngoc Minh – had been present among the many monastic supporters of the ‘coup’.

Norodom Chantarangsey, displaying a startling resemblance to Sihanouk.

Another new post from another new author. As the Democratic Kampuchea side of things is already well covered here, I’m hoping to add some information on  the margins – the political context, the Sangkum, what came before and what developed afterwards, in an effort to look at the forces in opposition to which Democratic Kampuchea took shape; first, one of the stranger social connections of Saloth Sar.

The role of traditional elites, as opposed to a mercantile class or the bourgeoisie – in Cambodia’s case, princes and monks – in the development of a nation’s political consciousness is a complex one: in Indochina, such figures were not only present at the outset, but often played a part in events for many years. In Cambodia, the formation of the Democratic Party under Prince Sisowath Yuthevong, a member of the same Parti Communiste that was later to influence Saloth Sar and his Paris associates, is a case in point, as was its subsequent drift leftwards under another princely secretary-general. The more strident brand of middle-class nationalism represented by Son Ngoc Thanh was marginalised, and even repressed, for some time under a variety of traditionally paternalistic interpretations of politics. However, even the royal family could throw up its own political outcasts, of a sort, perhaps the most interesting and dynamic of whom was Norodom Chantarangsey.

Chantarangsey (or Chantaraingsey, Chantarangsy or Chantarangsei, depending on your preferred transliteration) was a descendant of King Norodom through Prince Chantalekha, and therefore well-connected in Cambodian terms. In the period before independence he was associated with Son Ngoc Thanh, and like Thanh chose to collaborate with the Japanese occupiers in the hope of ridding the country of the French: while Thanh spent much of the war in Tokyo masquerading as a Burmese army captain called Chayo (“Captain Hurrah”), Chantarangsey joined the “Greenshirts” militia set up under the Japanese authorities and rapidly developed a taste for military life. At the war’s end he absconded to Thailand and linked up with Poc Khun and other independence-minded Khmers who the Thai government were happy to support, possibly in the hope of destabilising the border provinces. Over the next few years Chantarangsey developed into what Kiernan called a “comprador warlord”, controlling a large and (by Issarak standards) fairly organised group of guerrillas occupying large areas of rural Kompong Speu in a partial accommodation with the French, though also carrying out a half-flirtation with Thanh and Issarak umbrella group the KNLC.

At this stage, Chantarangsey was still viewed in some quarters as a potential channel for modernising, and even socialist, ideas. Saloth Chhay, the older brother of Sar, maintained contacts with him and recommended him to his younger brother. According to Ros Chantrabot, Chantarangsey was cultivated by a Viet Minh commissar, Nguyen Thanh Sonh, who attempted to introduce him both to marxist-leninist thought and Ho Chi Minh’s vision of an Indochinese federation; Sonh seems to have viewed Chantarangsey as a Cambodian version of the Laotian ‘Red Prince’, Souphanouvong. While it’s interesting to imagine what might have happened if the Khmer revolution had proceeded, under Viet Minh direction, in the relatively gradualist manner seen in Laos, this reckoned without Sihanouk, Lon Nol and Chantarangsey himself, who was enough of a pure nationalist to back away from Vietnamese help. After Geneva, Sonh suggested that Chantarangsey join the ‘regroupees’ working on the Cambodian revolution from outside the borders, but he refused. So, while Son Ngoc Minh’s United Issarak Front associates boarded a Polish ship taking them into exile in Hanoi, Chantarangsey returned to Cambodia and threw in his lot with his relative Sihanouk’s new government.

Sihanouk was all too happy to coopt the former Issaraks when it suited him, including Chantarangsey’s old KNLC colleague “Dap” Chhuon, a murderous warlord who claimed to be protected against bullets and sharp objects thanks to his possession of two venerated statues. Resisters who failed to lay down their arms were another matter; Chuuon managed to finally ambush and execute his old rival Kao Tak, while Son Ngoc Thanh’s tiny band of nationalist gunmen was vilified in Sihanouk’s propaganda as the instrument of hostile foreign powers, and pursued mercilessly. Even Chantarangsey found himself rapidly accused of lese-majeste and sent to prison for three years, where (if Chandler’s sources are correct) he passed his time writing romantic novels. Eventually released, the former Issarak reinvented himself as a businessman, making a healthy profit after Sihanouk made him head, under a pseudonym, of the casino that opened in the late 1960s to cater to a growing gambling obssession. He was also rumoured, after funding a school, to have helped the younger brother of his old acquaintance Saloth Chhay into his first teaching post.

It was Lon Nol, however, who was to thrust Chantarangsey back into a form of political life, after the 1970 coup. Engaging him as the commander of a new 13th brigade of the FANK, which Chantarangsey proceeded to raise amongst his old Issarak supporters and their sons, the Marshal sent Chantarangsey  – soon promoted to General – to ‘pacify’ his old fief of Kompong Speu. This he proceeded to do with such apparent effectiveness that his military administration rapidly developed into its own statelet, run in the personalist fashion depressingly familiar to students of the period, but with a Sihanoukesque flair. Chantarangsey gained a certain prominence in the reports of foreign correspondents during the Civil War: this was, in part, as he shared Sihanouk’s gift for the theatrical side of publicity, for grand gestures, and for sloganeering. Sydney Schanberg, in an article published in the New York Times on Christmas Day 1972, reported that Chantarangsey arranged tours for foreign representatives that were “models of public-relations expertise”, featuring a jeep-escorted journey from the capital, elephant rides, welcome speeches by the General himself, an official brigade photographer, and generally a long and alcohol-lubricated lunch – it was doubtless at one of these slightly surreal events that the journalist James Fenton gained the material for his poem “Dead Soldiers”. However, Chantarangsey clearly remembered enough from Sonh’s Viet Minh education sessions, at least in matters of publicity, to intertwine military organisation and populist politics in a way uncommon elsewhere in the Republic. Earlier in 1972 the NYT had reported him railing against “all those people in Phnom Penh who play at politics”, while by the time of Schanberg’s visit, he was able to report that the 13th Brigade had through its labour programmes built 16 clinics, a hospital, roads, reservoirs, and community centres, prominently featuring signs stating “Donation to the economic life from the 13th Brigade to the people”. Chantarangsey had also distributed 1,300 piglets – “I got a pig from the Mister. I am happy now”, commented a rice farmer. Somewhat less charitable treatment of refugees was hinted at by James Fenton, relayed to him by Saloth Chhay, now acting as the General’s aide.

The General was accused of padding his payroll, much as other FANK officers did, to finance his programmes. But he was also stated to have sold his own property to ensure that his men were actually paid properly – a relative rarity in the Republic’s army. While he went about unarmed to inspire ‘confidence’ – Communist forces in the area staying quiet nearby – he made sure that his own brigade was properly armed, partly by buying up weapons from other less paternalistic officers. Eventually he became too strong for Lon Nol to control, matters having come full circle in Kompong Speu.

It was an odd end for someone once put forward as Cambodia’s Souphanouvong, but the careers of such marginal figures are an interesting illustration of the context in which Cambodian politics developed, and how the activity of the traditional elites could impact on them. Unlike most other Republic officials, Chantarangsey did not escape the country, or surrender, when Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge, but decided to continue the war. Disappearing into the Cardamoms, parts of his 13th Brigade were still causing trouble for the RAK in 1977. Chantarangsey himself may have been killed in an ambush somewhere along Route 4 early in 1976, but a large number of other accounts exist, appropriately enough for a figure whom the credulous peasantry believed to have supernatural powers.

No film, yet, though I’m sure some is out there somewhere.