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Casting the first stone: the ‘palace coup’ of August 1945

By the middle of 1945, it was becoming clear to anyone who cared to pay attention that Imperial Japan was doomed. With it, the status of those Khmer nationalists who had colluded with the Japanese in disarming the Vichy French administration became increasingly uncertain. Son Ngoc Thanh, who had returned from Japan early in 1945 to become a minister in the new ‘independent’ administration, was in a particularly difficult position, having been closely associated with the Japanese, although he had also managed to cause some irritation to them by raising the issue of the return of Kampuchea Krom. Moreover, the young figurehead King, Norodom Sihanouk, was untested politically: there was no reason to suppose he would be any less compliant to foreign powers than his predecessor Sisowath Monivong. Desperate times, in the opinion of some of Thanh’s young supporters, seemed to call for desperate measures.

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’.

2010 02 10 lb Stuff Comments (1) Permalink

Piglets and sloganeering in Kompong Speu

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.

2010 02 06 lb Stuff Comments (8) Permalink

New Post: Tong Reasathea

The offer to contribute to this blog dedicated to the history of Khmer Communism and the culmination of some of its tendencies in the state of Democratic Kampuchea, came to me unexpectedly, but it is probably something that I almost readily agreed upon, due to feelings of competence to do so. Democratic Kampuchea has occupied my thoughts and fascinated me since the very time I read a short biographical note in a Soviet encyclopedia which stated that “Pol Pot – leader of a levacky (which is a variation of the Russian word for “left” but with a vulgar undertone) group called the Red Khmers, as well as with old news shots showing a pile of human skulls collected inside a building ruined by war.

Who were Khmer Rouge and what their contribution was (is) to us is an interesting topic to research. I think I’m well equipped as an author, or at least I’ll be trying his best. Hopefully there will be no disappointment. Besides, I have a blog dedicated to the building of a new man utilizing the Cambodian experience of communism, left matters, Buddhism, Traditionalism, healthy living. Here, however, I will contribute exclusively to Cambodian and Khmer Rouge topics as the name of the blog indicates – padewat.info. Information about padewat, and nothing else.

It is not just about all the killing in the name of abrogating multi-formed suffering, besides there were other influences and factors which fed into what happened, and if there had been none of the above, my fascination with Democratic Kampuchea would be the same. What Democratic Kampuchea was, and could have been, is worthy of interest not only because of its genocidal “practices.” On the contrary, to understand the killing, it requires that decent attention be given to the ideological choices made by the Khmer Communists in creating their new polity.

I want to single out here the words of the French traditionalist Rene Guenon who said that to be human is a “transitory and contingent modification of being” and Friedrich Engels once wrote that’ “life is the mode of existence of protein bodies.” Democratic Kampuchea was a state where oppression of the individual became the corner stone of its policy. An individual was a mere “contingent modification,” “a fertilizer.” “Death is either the dissolution of the organic body, leaving nothing behind but the chemical constituents that formed its substance… Living means dying.” It makes Democratic Kampuchea very close to some religious sects and its brand of communism akin to some sort of state religion. But a religion without the scriptures! This was so unusual for most of the other Communist-ruled states. An Orwellian reference can be made, for we all know that where there is a Big Brother, so too in the Cambodian context, is the Brother Number One, or bong ti muy. Also to quote Andrei Platonov from his dystopian novel Chevengur: “We might organize some grief. Communism must be caustic, a little bit of poison in the soup is good for the taste”.

Accidentally, the heroes of Chevengur were worried by the same problems as those faced by the Khmer Rouge – on how to build the purest brand of communism. And the former and the latter didn’t know the “classics.” There’s going to be a good comparison article of Platonov’s Chevengur and Democratic Kampuchea.

Even today Democratic Kampuchea stays aside. It’s a unique experience which deserves to be studied. What has attracted David Chandler, Ben Kiernan, Stephen Heder, Michael Vickery and others? Of course it’s much deeper than a remark made by Chandler that “those people were just stupid.” There’s going to be two different worlds between that of a Western professor and an uneducated farmer turned guerilla and revolutionary. You can never know 100 percent, even though you might guess, or you might construct, recreate times and places, all the variables which contribute to the motivations of people.

2010 02 05 Tong Reasathea Stuff Comments (5) Permalink

Between Town and Country

Here’s some more film footage below, taken from a French documentary on Democratic Kampuchea. I’m unsure as to its content though, regarding the footage used. Identifying what is exactly official government footage and that which was filmed during the visit made by Yugoslav journalists, including Nikola Vitorovic, in 1978. You see, I haven’t been lucky enough to see this film Kampucija 1978. Only little bits of footage here and there used in other films. The tractors seen in the film below are, I think, those shipped to DK by the Yugoslav government in 1977. I like the scene of improvisation, with a rice paddy complete with cattle, against the backdrop of whitewashed modernist buildings about forty-seven seconds into it. A not necessarily backward transformation of the urban. It represents a little the problems, in practice, that were caused by the ideological choices made by the DK government, and what they were wanting to achieve by way of them: the creation of another variant of a relatively modern ‘Socialist’ state. If the regime had survived, it is interesting to speculate on whether the towns would have been repopulated at some point. That isn’t to say they were completely devoid of human activity, as poor peasants who had proved themselves to the tasks of revolution during the war, were brought in to work the various repaired and reopened factories. Such places of course were not only to produce goods, but workers. And as you can see below, the improvisation of modern technology is evident, for American army jeeps have been modified so their engines can act as water pumps.

‘Proletarianisation,’ would be part and parcel of reforging the less-than-favourable section of the population, creating infrastructure for expanded food production in the countryside. Similarly, regarding commodity exchange, or in plain English, stuff like money. Perhaps it would have been recirculated after the bulk of the population’s rural rebirth had coincided with the completion of this new infrastructure, with which to begin the process of industrialisation. After all it wasn’t until 1976 that it was decided to do away with it. And if Democratic Kampuchea had indeed ‘moved forward’ by a substantial distance, then although claiming to be non-aligned, with heavy Chinese influence, this small Communist-ruled state would have been incorporated somewhere into the old Communist world bloc, with its networks of trade, surely? As early as 1972, there was discussion among the Communist Party leadership on the matter of introducing a new currency into the liberated areas, where the money of the Khmer Republic had been withdrawn. Sample notes were printed in China, which were inspected by the Khmer Communists, who after some agreement decided to postpone its introduction until they had defeated the Lon Nol government and won control of the whole country. The notes of this revolutionary currency were indeed circulated in one or two trial areas for a short period after April 1975, before their withdrawal, never to be used again by the Communists, and which these days serve as curious items for collectors.

In practice, the Khmer Communists didn’t copy the Soviet or the Chinese models in a linear fashion, despite borrowing from both, but the government, when not being coy about its very existence and intentions described itself and its policies in Leninist terms, and the development and expansion of their cooperative system, and through which total collectivisation would be attempted, had (in their eyes) accelerated the creation of conditions ripe for the building of socialism, and beyond. I don’t believe their logic, present in the ideological framework they used, would have allowed them to get to that beyond bit, though. That is, full-blown communism. It would have eventually bumped into the brick wall all other ‘transitional’ Socialist states had, at some point, arrived at. And paradise on earth is subject to Party postponement. Look at the spin Brezhnev gave to the reality of stagnation in the USSR. Real existing socialism had ‘matured,’ so much so, that it had begun to stink like a piece of blue cheese. Had the regime survived, then it might have begun to resemble in some ways Enver Hoxha’s Albania, or Kim Il-Sung’s North Korea. Albania had been, in some respects, more peasant than Russia, and like Cambodia, reliant on outside help for its development (despite Khmer claims to the contrary). And Korea was a place where at one point during a period of war, planes were grounded because there were no longer any targets to drop bombs on. An ugly state beyond socialism – or even stagnation for that matter – it might still be, but it was built from ruins. My guesses are uneducated, and what ifs, although interesting for the imagination, still fall squarely on the reality that although supreme confidence meant only success after success, victory after victory could be expected, the Khmer Communist version of a Great Leap landed somewhere quite different, and horrific, for that matter.

Some official DK footage showing the use of modern agricultural equipment. You get to see those Yugoslav tractors again. Thrilling, I know.

2010 02 02 Pineapple Stuff Comments (4) Permalink

National Anthem of Democratic Kampuchea

Dap Prampi Mesa Chokchey

Glorious April 17

(Non-versified translation)

Bright red blood, which covers the towns and plains
Of Kampuchea, our motherland,
Sublime blood of workers and peasants,
Sublime blood of revolutionary men and women fighters!

The blood changes into unrelenting hatred
And resolute struggle,
For on April 17, under the flag of revolution
It frees us from slavery!

Long live, long live glorious April 17!
A glorious victory with greater signification
Than the times of Angkor!

We are uniting to edify,
A splendid and democratic new Kampuchea and new society,
With equality and justice,
Firmly applying the line of independence, sovereignty
And self-reliance.
Let us resolutely defend
Our motherland, our sacred soil,
And our glorious revolution!

Long live, long live, long live
A Democratic and prosperous new Kampuchea,
Let us resolutely raise high
The red flag of revolution!
Let us edify our motherland!
Let us make her advance in great leaps,
So that she will be more glorious and marvelous than ever!

2010 01 25 Pineapple Stuff Comments (8) Permalink

Encirclement of Phnom Penh

The slow death of a shrinking republic.

From the 15th of August 1973 forward, both foreign and Khmer observers witnessed the growing war between the Khmer themselves, that is between the FANK of the Khmer Republic and the forces of the Khmer Communists. The land, the high seas, the rivers and lakes, the skies clear and cloudy were all criss-crossed by ships, vehicles, and aircraft flying the emblem of the Republic as they went in search of the enemy prey. It was also the date when the FANK began to operate independently of all assistance from foreign forces and it was for that reason that the date 15 August was chosen as Armed Forces Day for the FANK, an occasion which the Khmer Republic celebrated for the first and last time on 15 August 1974 before the esplanade of the sacred Stoupa of the Great Teacher Buddha Sakhyamoui.

    Lt. Gen. Sak Sutsakhan

2010 01 18 Pineapple Stuff Comments (19) Permalink

Revising History

One of us must kill thirty Vietnamese … So far, we have succeeded in implementing this slogan of one against thirty … We need only two million troops to crush the fifty million Vietnamese, and we would still have six million people left.

    Radio Phnom Penh broadcast, 10 May 1978

Well, the DK government’s confidence was severely shaken in December of that year. Thirty thousand of the best RAK troops weren’t much use against the meticulously planned Vietnamese invasion, with its inside information, Russian tank spearhead which sped down the country’s highways, and the swift application of the Blooming Lotus tactic. A move that either destroyed or sent the DK forces scurrying about the countryside like confused insects without a nest. A strategic withdrawl to the western border areas ensured survival for these ultra-nationalists. With a shared hatred of the Yuon, but unlike their old enemy Marshall Lon Nol, they didn’t bother drawing a circle of coloured and supposedly magical sand around the perimeter of Phnom Penh, but instead decided to leg it. During the Cambodian Civil War, Lon Nol, with his mumbo-jumbo Neo-Khmerisme, believed it would somehow protect the capital city from attacks by Khmer Rouge units, like the animal tooth and claw necklaces worn by his oft-stoned soldiers. He needed all the help he could get. The roaring jets of B-52s were no longer causing those in rural areas to lose control of their bodily functions in the nether regions. Obviously keeping that letter from Richard Nixon in his pocket, as if it was some kind of talisman, didn’t help because by August 1973 the bomb supply had dried up. Forward again to December 1978, and early January 1979, final victory for the Vietnamese was only delayed when the tank units only stopped short of their target for want of fuel. Also in that year 1978, the soon to be toppled group of self-regarding but incredibly sensitive Khmer intellectuals were trying to get to the bottom of the problems that had befallen their attempt at state building. Without, of course, blaming themselves. They produced an unintentionally amusing but interesting document which, while being crammed with facts, is an ample demonstration of how facts can be bent to suit the needs of ressentiment. This document is called the Black Paper or Livre Noir. Now, chauvinist attitudes bordering on racism have long been a clichéd aspect of Khmer-Vietnamese relations, but the Black Paper at least tried to paint a serious picture of grievance, some of its content genuine, some of it fanciful, and about which the Vietnamese, when apart from producing their weaker Dossiers, remained quiet on the history of hostilities between Communists in the region.

In 1980 an English-translation of a paper produced by French sociologist Serge Thion, was published in the journal Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (Issue 4 in the 12th volume), named The Ingratitude of the Crocodiles. In his usual wry style, he offered a critical assessment of the Black Paper’s content. The DK document is rich in information, Thion’s paper is rich in its informed and detailed piss-taking of it, but this is a blog post by an amateur, and not a school essay, so there are only going to be a few choice snippets for you to perhaps chuckle at — on Khmer-Vietnamese relations during the war, quoted below. By no means the most interesting of items which can be picked out of course. Pages and pages could be written in discussion on other matters regrading the bad feeling felt between the Khmer and Vietnamese Communists and what is found in the Black Paper. That’s what the comment function is for I suppose. Its okay to laugh you know. It’s good for you. But firstly, here is Thion on the actual word Kampuchea and its origins.

A lot of smart pedants straightaway renounced the dirty colonialist word Cambodia for a rejuvenated Kampuchea, free of its past, for better or worse. Can such a grotesque rush to this cheap symbol be attributed to ignorance? Who can not see that Cambodia and Kampuchea are one and the same word, that they simply come from different phonetic contexts? When what used to be French Sudan rebaptized itself Mali, albeit a historical mistake (the Mali Empire was in another part of West Africa), this was at least a real change, the recovery of a political past which had been abolished by a colonial presence. But the Cambodia case is nothing like this. The term Kampuchea is found in Sanskrit writings around the seventh and eighth centuries, when the ruling dynasty settled in Angkor. Previously, the country had been known only by the name given it in Chinese annals, Chen La.

The Portuguese navigators again tried to find a written form that corresponded to what they had heard, and came up with Cambogia. The first French missionary in the country tried to do the same thing: in 1783 he wrote “Kamphoxa.” It was the French version of the Portuguese transcription that was adopted by the first travellers and Orientalists. But also, how can one render the true sound of the Khmer word? The transcription is an approximation which, moreover, has been in use for a very long time. Prince Sihanouk, who often mixes French and Khmer in his speeches, had used it quite a lot. Similarly, he named a monthly magazine that he ran Kambuja, which is the Sanskrit transcription later modified to suit Cambodian phonetics. Should we end this squabble over transcriptions by proposing a new one just a bit closer to the original, and henceforth write “Kampoutchi”?

As to the origins and meaning of the word itself, we are rather in the dark. Khmer myths claim a certain Kambu as an eponymous ancestor who is said to have united with a serpent goddess. There are many reasons to think that this is a case of the Khmers remoulding mythical material which, like much of the local culture, originates in India. Although, we do not know anything about the local origins of the name, in the geography of classical India it is quite well known that there was a region of the northwest periphery, perhaps roughly what is Afghanistan, named Kamboja. It seems highly probable the Indianization, reinforced by the subsequent diffusion of Buddhism, transferred to Southeast Asia a geographic representation based on India and its Gangetic center. (The name Mekong is probably a doublet of Ganges.) In his remarkable work on Cambodian chronicles, Michael Vickery demonstrates the existence of this transfer by the fact that other regions of Burma and Thailand were called Kambojoa during certain periods: “What is certain is that in medieval Burmese and Thai traditions “Kamboja” does not refer to Cambodia, and that the confusion is not due to the fact that Khmers once ruled over central and southern Siam, as Coedes believed, but rather from the displacement of classical geography.

One could give a thousand examples of this kind of phenomenon. Greeks and Romans easily transposed their own toponyms to the peoples they subjugated. The Crusades brought us a good number of Biblical place-names which became scattered over the map of Europe. Europe’s colonial expansion littered the world map with New Scotlands, New Hebrides, New Caledonias, New Yorks, New Amsterdams, etc., not to mention the bewildering toponymy of the United States. That the Northwest part of classical India should thus be transferred at an early time to the Northwest of what was undoubtedly the first center of Hinduization in the Indochina peninsula, in the lower Mekong Delta, seems highly probable. This is how history mocks fledgling nationalisms. After all, what does France owe a few handfuls of Germanic warriors who crossed the Rhine in 454? Nothing, just its name.

Into the twentieth century and the escalation of the Second Indochina War. With a silly rewriting of developments there was, it seems, a dastardly long-devised plan by the Vietnamese to take control of Cambodian territory for the purposes of settling their own people there. But here is where ugly chauvinist tendencies of the Khmer left and right meet one another and say hello:

According to the Black Paper the “manoeuvers used by the Vietnamese” to annex Cambodian territory were of several types, including the sordid use of young girls and drawing maps, as we have seen. But there were others as well. In 1966-67 the Hanoi and Viet Cong authorities are said to have been planning to bring hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese nationals into the country and settle them along the rivers and in the border zones. It seems the Black Paper is alluding here to the refugees who fled the escalation of the war in South Vietnam that followed the introduction of American combat units. This paragraph, which describes the setling of the Vietnamese, contains a phrase which I find interesting: “If measures had not been taken, they would have totally annexed the districts of Saang and Koh Tom.”

Naturally, the Black Paper never states what everyone knows, which is that Vietnamese nationals were almost all expelled from Cambodia immediately after the Communist Party took power. They are estimated to have totalled 300,000, of whom some were evacuated by special river convoys which came from Vietnam for this purpose. But the reference to Saang, which is not far from Phnom Penh, recalls another evacuation, the one Lon Nol troops provoked in 1970 when they launched their anti-Vietnamese pogroms. Saang had been taken by the guerilla forces and, to get it back, General Sosthene Fernandez’ troops advanced behind rows of Vietnamese hotsages from the local Catholic community. The others were shoved into camps. Does the Black Paper, in recalling “the measures taken” to avoid “the total annexation” of Saang, wish to congratulate the Lon Nol regime?

That shared chauvinism rears its head, even when bitter enemies are trying to annihilate one another and history with the ‘truth’ it contains is all tangled up. The Khmer Rouge must have missed those scores of Vietnamese corpses, their hands and feet tied, heads with bullet holes, bobbing up and down the Mekong when they were waiting along the riverbanks for Phnom Penh-bound supply boats to blow up. Fernandez was a FANK General and war criminal of Khmer-Filipino descent, who in an attempt to retake Saang from the enemy, thought it would be a good idea to have his troops follow behind a procession of poor Vietnamese civilian prisoners, this shield of flesh forced to approach the town in the hope that their Communist compatriots wouldn’t shoot. The Vietnamese forces present at Saang, in the words of Philip Short, weren’t impressed and opened fire. You can guess the rather unpleasant result. Those Vietnamese nationals who were interned didn’t escape massacre either. It was a poor mistake for Lon Nol to instigate these ugly pogroms, for when Operation Junction City wound down its failed mission to destroy the Communists’ Central Office for South Vietnam, and American soldiers withdrew, undisciplined South Vietnamese troops stayed behind, marauding around the countryside with vengeance on their minds. Looting villages, stealing livestock and raping girls and women didn’t exactly endear these allies of the Khmer Republic to the local populations they terrorised. The Khmer Rouge can’t have been referring to their Khmer wartime enemies when “measures were taken” to avoid annexation, surely? But in reality at the time, they themselves couldn’t have “taken measures” against the Vietnamese, not when they were beneficiaries (with some grudging thanks) of further North Vietnamese and NLF military penetration into Cambodia, when the Sangkum became defunct in 1970 and their complexes of border camps crucial to the war effort, and which the United States Air Force had been hammering for years, were now exposed at the rear. It is also worthwhile to note that the earlier 1960s maquis in the Northeast was where the Ho Chi Minh Trail reached the country, and the Khmer wannabe guerillas must have found it quite comforting to have a shield of Vietnamese forces protecting them, even if indirectly. The Sihanouk regime by the 1960s, with its ‘independence,’ and as conservative and corrupt as it was, had proven to be an effective bulwark against US imperialism and kept the US military out of the country, much to the pleasure of the Vietnamese. And so, below is an illustration of the arrogance faced by the maquisard skulkers who after being refused help in earlier times, now got it in small doses with a condescending pat on the head:

We all know that relations between communist powers are generally characterized by flippant cynicism. The revelation of Sino-Soviet relations and the Yugoslav stories about the 1948 confrontations taught us a lot. The way the Chinese dumped the Albanians, like brushing an insect off their sleeve, set off some interesting revelations in Tirana. Around 1965 and later, the Vietnamese would have needed an almost inconceivable supply of urbanity to treat their Khmer comrades without a hint of condescension, given their own prestigious past, long experience of struggle and political-military resources that bear no comparison with the several hundred ragged guerillas, who had experienced more hardship than success. In an April 1970 internal document, an officer from a Viet Cong-North Vietnamese security unit in Cambodia notes that

Forces are available but the ideology and sense of organization of our [Cambodian] friends are poor. Therefore, we must be patient in providing help for their movement. (Because their capability of learning is slow we must use explanations that suit their level of understanding when we request their help, they request us to provide them with weapons, medicine, food, provisions, etc.)

Harumph! Cleaning out other people’s latrines and doing the washing up is not not what Paris-educated intellectuals expected. They had a sense of entitlement. They were leaders. Some among them had developed a political line in direct opposition to the one pushed by the Vietnamese and older Hanoi-oriented comrades of the KPRP, then turned that organisation into a pseudo-Communist Party. The poor buggers just lacked experience and guns. And although grumbling about the Vietnamese, they reaped the positive results of political and military collaboration because, well, the Khmers really needed the Vietnamese, particularly in military matters for the first two years of the war. For example, it wasn’t the Khmers who in a daring night-time raid on the Pochentong airfield in January 1971, destroyed nearly all the planes and helicopters of the Khmer Republic’s Air Force, but 97 soldiers of an elite North Vietnamese Dac Cong brigade.

Lastly, one of my favourite bits, where the unqualified Khmers, like stroppy teenagers, come out with a rather sexist comment in an attempt to assert that “Yeah yeah, fuck off fancy pants, we’re better than you, so ner.” The CPK leadership visited Peking and Hanoi for meetings on cooperation and aid, through March and April 1970, following the Lon Nol coup, and when the changed political situation in Cambodia called for more Vietnamese involvement in assisting the armed struggle of the Cambodian Communist movement.

On the way back [from Peking], when they stopped off in Hanoi after the March 18 coup d’ etat, the Khmer delegation found a completely changed atmosphere. Hugs and kisses instead of grimaces, “but in the middle of the embraces, Vo Nguyen Giap, ever boorish and undiplomatic, let this remark escape: ‘This is a historic occasion that allows our three parties to unite once again.’” (p. 50.) The proud Cambodians must have shuddered. They saw right away that even though the Vietnamese were grappling with serious difficulties, they “did not for a moment give up their ambition to annex and devour Kampuchea” (p. 51). Try negotiating with such sensitive people ….

However, there were urgent affairs to discuss. The Vietnamese made a number of proposals, the most important of which was the establishment of joint military commands — “which would be joint in name only,” adds the ever perfidious Black Paper (p. 52). The Khmers obviously refused. There then follows a murky story of a telegram from the guerilla zone which was given to Pol Pot in truncated form, which it is hard to know quite what to think about. Further negotiations took place in Cambodia upon return of the leaders. We learn incidentally that the Vietnamese offered a hospital with 200 beds and a full staff, including cooks. “The Vietnamese even wanted to teach Kampuchea how to cook rice,” adds the Black Paper hysterically (p. 54). On the same delirious tone, among the types of cooperation proposed by the Vietnamese the text mentions aid in organizing women, which elicits this vengeful barb:

“Even with regard to work among women, the Vietnamese Nguyen Thi Dinh offered to come and educate the women of Kampuchea, to teach them how to work. In fact, this Nguyen Thi Dinh did not know how to do anything, either housework or mass political work, nor military work. What the Vietnamese really wanted was to control the people of Kampuchea like they did at the time of the fight against the French colonialists” (p. 55).

I will not pass judgement on Nguyen Thi Dinh’s competence at housework, but I recall that she was Deputy Chief of Staff of the Liberation Armed Forces in the South and that she was anything but ignorant of “military work.”

2010 01 15 Pineapple Stuff Comments (24) Permalink

Cambodia’s Economy and Industrial Development

One day he took me out to eat. When we got to the market, he told me to order anything I liked. I ordered duck. When I finished eating it, he asked me, “Was it good?” And I said, “Yes, very good,” His face darkened and he levelled a finger at me. “You ought to be ashamed sitting here eating such good food when most people who work ten tines harder than you have nothing at all.” A few days later, he took me out to eat again and again he told me I could order whatever I liked. When I hesitated, he said, “How about some Vietnanese spring rolls,” and ordered some for me. When I had cleaned my plate, he asked if they were good. They were, of course, but I didn’t want to say so. Instead, I said, “No, not so good.” At that he quietly exploded, again levelling his finger. “How can you eat so well and not appreciate it? What do you think an ordinary peasant would say about food like this?”

From a sincere, respected and admired political activist of the left, trying his best under Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s undemocratic Sangkum, to Democratic Kampuchean minister and Pol Pot front man currently charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Khieu Samphan’s 1959 doctoral thesis. Before the 1975 bid to realise a grand vision of national revival, within the framework of a ‘peculiar’ interpretation of the Leninist paradigm. Download by right-clicking here. Translated by Laura J Summers and published in 1979.

A theoretical and empirical critique of Cambodia’s Economy and Industrial Development would have to take into account the author’s circumspection in the form of unstated or understated political implications. Such a critique will not be attempted here. It seems more important to fix this extraordinary document into the political context to which it belongs in order to demonstrate that recent historical choices made by Kampuchea’s ruling classes were by no means the only ones available to them, and that in rejecting and temporizing with the developmental option, the Sihanouk regime made a fundamental political mistake: it lefts its critics and opponents with only radical alternatives.

With many thanks to Tong Reasathea for doing the hard work in getting the copy together, and of course to Dr. Summers for allowing it to be made available at this site.

2010 01 06 Pineapple Serious Stuff Comments (9) Permalink

Tedium in Death: Kampuchea and Mao’s Funeral

This is just a bit of filler until new and hopefully better posts appear in this New Year. Being the nerd that I am, I own several old copies of publications which some might say border on the kitsch, although unintentionally. Below are snippets taken from the second of three September 1976 editions of the usually once a week Peking Review, all on the death of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. Clunky, hyphenated (Marxist-Leninist) clichés with capital letters also abound when right-clicking the link at the bottom of this page. I mourn the loss of people being able to express themselves as human beings. The file contains messages of condolence sent by the leaders of North Korea, Albania, Romania and Indochina, including the DK leadership, expressing their grief to the Chinese Communist Party and Government (then the Chinese people), followed by their paper ministerial positions. Pol Pot is just the prime minister, instead of Comrade Secretary General of a Communist Party undergoing a troubled period of ‘restructuring.’

This kind of thing is only interesting for demonstrating the two-sided attitude of the Democratic Kampuchean government when it came to revealing bits and pieces about themselves, or more specifically their political outlook — whether for an accurate reflection of their ideological adherence to certain kinds of ‘thought,’ passed down to them in an apostolic line from one thinker to another; or otherwise going through the motions of ritual and merely paying lip service. As a ‘non-aligned’ Communist-ruled state in the making, outward relations with friends in the Communist world bloc stressed the importance of this or that influence of orthodox Marxist-Leninist theory and/or political positions. It was indeed a 1976 radio broadcast in China, and not the speech made at the 1977 Khmer Party’s Congress, which mentioned for the first time the supposed Marxism-Leninism of the Khmer Communists (read that as being the Pol Pot group in power); although this kind of utterance was largely absent internally, inside DK, except for the consumption of cadres. But the ugly chauvinism and absurd confidence of the Khmer Communists was expressed plentifully, with the fanciful idea that given the uniqueness of the Kampuchean Revolution, a social upheaval without any known precedent, it was something which had made the whole world lift up their heads, and take notice of a ruined bombed-out country undergoing a doomed transformation with an ‘awesome’ and ‘clear-sighted’ Angkar at the helm. But for all their viewing of foreignness as an affront to Kampuchean pride, along with their domestic self-regard reeking of impudence, China and North Korea weren’t slagged off by the CPK.

For those of a sensitive disposition, please be aware there is an image of saddened children below. After wiping away their tears, the industrious little mites no doubt carried on the fight against Teng Tsiao Ping and right-wing deviationism, until they finally arrived at correct revolutionary verdicts. Or something. With barely-formed consciousnesses, under the influence of cynical manoeuvring or courageously acting like some collective superstructural sweeping brush (take your pick). Unfortunately, when I pop my clogs, I won’t continue to live (forever, I might add) in the hearts of the world’s largest human population.

Perhaps of slightly more serious interest to some of you, Peking Review also published for English-language readers FUNK and GRUNK statements during the Cambodian Civil War (messages from Norodom Sihanouk, Khieu Samphan et al), some of which will be reproduced here on this blog at some point.

Good grief! Download messages of condolence, by right-clicking here.

2010 01 02 Pineapple Stuff Comments (7) Permalink

Going Quite Well, So Far

tung

This, readers (and there are quite a few), will be the last post until we’re into the new year, and so far I think I’ve got enough encouragement to carry on with this small project, or historical hobby, in my spare time. I think it was a reviewer of Ben Kiernan’s comprehensive world study of genocide, Blood and Soil, who remarked that given his grim area of specialism, when attempting to strike up intelligent conversation with an interested member of the opposite sex, he would be deemed a sicko at parties. Alas, I’m not a party person, whether it be the Indochinese Communist Party, Vietnam Workers’ Party, or the Communist Party of Kampuchea. Nor do I possess Kiernan’s experitise or own a jacket with leather elbow patches that academics of a certain age seem to like wearing. I’m in a relationship with a member of the opposite sex, but feel unsure as to whether or not she’s been recently feigning interest … Err, in this blog of course. So, The Eyes of the Pineapple is sort of like a bad tribute band, playing covers in a less than lively pub. The previous incarnation of this site, which lasted for nearly a year, wasn’t so ‘successful’ (dare I use that word even now?) for I misunderstood the more appropriate use of the blog format (bloody young ‘uns having to point this out to me elsewhere); hence my earlier indecision over whether to carry on as a blog, or create a small ‘conventional’ website instead. Let’s face it, the content found here is very niche indeed, but over the last three months, my thus far eleven posts are actually being read by people. Or they’re just watching the videos. But, that is not to mention the many comments that have been left here, meaning some rather good discussion has been had on the themes touched upon in the various postings. Which is also good for the reason that I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about Khmer Communist ambitions regarding modernity.

So there will be future posts; or to be charitable, reheated dishes of history written by other people.

In a pre-emptive action, to prevent the possibility of any more stuffed mailbags blocking the doors of Pineapple HQ, here’s a little explanation of this blog’s address: Padevat.

Some quotes from Serge Thion’s revised paper presented at a 1981 seminar held at Chiangmai, Thailand, where learned beards and leather elbow patches held sway on the possible reasons for why things went pear-shaped in Kampuchea. Called The Cambodian Idea of Revolution:

In pre-colonial Cambodia, as in most traditional polities, the concept of revolution as the replacement of a ruling social stratum by another, was non-existent. But if we take the word in its old European usage, i.e. the violent replacement of a ruler, or a dynasty, by another one, then revolutions did occur. Slight or slow social changes may have followed them, but the distribution of social power remained basically the same.

In Cambodia, there are two sources of the idea of revolution, namely the French school syllabus and the international Communist movement. The two are not unrelated.

Yes, I hear you mutter, but what’s that got to do with those people, you know, nutters dressed in black pyjamas? Well, not only were they armed with Russian or Chinese-made Kalashnikov assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, they had a peculiar take (fully understood or otherwise) on Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s contribution of voluntarism to revolutionary thinking of the Marxist sort. On how to go about making a twentieth-century socialist revolution on social terrain far removed from what a transition to ‘socialism’ could be deemed as being feasible by a bloke with a big beard and a drink problem who lived in the nineteenth-century. Something which, in part, suggests the origins of people like Salot Sar’s political thinking, is their superimposing what is quoted below onto the 1917 Bolshevik revolutionary model, or its later Asian ‘Maoist’ variant, but minus any critiques of it formed by other competing revolutionary currents coming from the working class movements of Europe — the left communists, ‘workerists,’ anarchists of the syndicalist variety etc. Methinks there has been too much use of the suffixes ism and ist there. The mark of a pseud. The Bolshevist (sorry) model, historically unreceptive in central and western parts of Europe being particularly attractive to colonial ‘national liberation’ leaders, in parts of the world where it has proved to be a path to some form of modern change, with also unpleasant results.

The French were very slow in establishing an original educational system in Cambodia. The first French school, in the 1880s “catered chiefly for Chinese and Vietnamese children.” In 1905 probably no more than 500 Khmer children were attending protectorate schools. A Lycee was not established in Phnom Penh until the 1930s, but a handful of young aristocrats, like Sihanouk, generally was sent to Saigon or Hanoi to attend a lycee. Under the centralized French educational system, all pupils, whether in Phnom Penh or any French town, were expected to master the same knowledge. History was taught with no adaptation to local conditions, so that future citizens and colonial subjects alike would identify with French history and with French political values. Since 1870, in the republican education system, the 1789 revolution has appeared as a central event, not only in French, but in world history. It is hailed as the destruction of an archevil ancien regime and the first victory of a universal bourgeosie, representative of the whole population. Every nation is supposed to go through such a redeeming experience. The most subversive ideas, figures and groups are carefully erased from the official picture, so as to make this troubled period more an object of reverence than a source of inspiration.

But never mind imported French colonial arrogance or Russian inspiration. Nor Mao’s blank sheet of paper upon which ‘the most beautiful pictures’ can be painted; what about the local meaning of the word ‘revolution’?

Even before World War II, the very word “revolution” existed in political language, although I am not able to say when it first crept into Cambodia usage. The Khmer word padiwat is derived, as is its Thai equivalent, from Pali pattivattam. The Dictionary of the Pali Language, by R.C. Childers (London, fourth printing, 1909) shows that pati means “towards, back in return, against” and vattam means “going on, continuance, succession,” also “a circle, region, realm,” as in samsaravattam, “revolution or realm of transmigrations.” The general meaning of “moving against,” implying also a circular motion, was then an apt translation, in several Southeast Asian languages, of the Latin “revolution.” It can safely be assumed that this Pali word was first introduced into modern political speech in countries other than Cambodia. Thailand, with the birth of an indigenous CP in the thirties, is a most likely place. The 1932 coup which established both military power and constitutional monarchy was also a padiwat, and many military coups since then have been named padiwat.

So, there you have it.

Lastly, on my list of gifts I want from Father Christmas this year, is the personal account of life under the DK regime, written by an ethnic Chinese Cambodian ‘old-society’ engineer named Ping Ling. It’s called Cambodia: 1,360 Days! Apparently never published, it’s limited to a few copies in manuscript form. If one can’t arrive by reindeer, or FC’s little helpers can’t steal a copy from someone’s bookshelf or storage box, then I’d be willing to part with a considerable amount of cash for it. Thanks in advance. It would be a big improvement on last year. As well as smellies, I received twenty Lambert & Butler.

Above scanned picture taken from the Kampuchean Communist Party journal Tung Padevat (Revolutionary Flags).

2009 12 18 Pineapple Stuff Comments (35) Permalink