Abstract
The overthrow of Prince Norodom Sihanouk on 18 March 1970 marked a watershed in Cambodian history. Under Sihanouk’s 16 years of effectively dominating the newly independent Cambodian state, the small Southeast Asian nation had struggled to maintain its neutrality amidst the growing pressure of war in neighbouring Vietnam. While Sihanouk had wavered in his loyalties to the Americans on the one hand and the Vietnamese communists on the other, his successor, General Lon Nol, clearly placed himself in the American camp.
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Notes
Elizabeth Becker. When the War was Over (New York, 1986), p. 153
David Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History (New Haven, CT, 1991), pp. 199–202
David Chandler, The Times, 28 March 1970; New York Times, 22 March 1970, 24 March 1970, 25 March 1970, 6 May 1970.
Ben Kiernan, How Pol Pot Came to Power (London, 1985), p. 302
Hal Kosut (ed.), Cambodia and the Vietnam War (New York, 1971), pp. 66–7.
Kiernan, How Pol Pot, pp. 284–303; New York Times, 1 November 1972.
Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars 1945–1990 (London, 1991), pp. 20–36
Raymond F. Betts, France and Decolonization 1900–1960 (London, 1991), pp. 89–91.
David Joel Steinberg (ed.). In Search of Southeast Asia: A Modern History (Honolulu, 2nd edn, 1987), pp. 375–6; Kiernan, How Pol Pot, pp. 156–61
David P. Chandler, The Land and People of Cambodia (New York, 1972), pp. 125–6
Milton Osborne, Politics and Power in Cambodia: The Sihanouk Years (Victoria, Australia, 1973), pp. 55–69
David P. Chandler, A History of Cambodia (Boulder, CO, 1983), pp. 185–8.
Kiernan, How Pol Pot, pp. 118–24; Shawcross, Sideshow, pp. 239–43; Chandler, Tragedy, pp. 51–6; David P. Chandler, Brother Number One (Boulder, 1992), pp. 27–31, 34–42.
Khieu Samphan, Cambodia’s Economy and Industrial Development, translated by Laura Summers (Ithaca, NY, 1979), passim.
Kiernan, How Pol Pot, pp. 190–8; Kiernan, “Origins”, p. 177; R. A. Burgler, Eyes of the Pineapple: Revolutionary Intellectuals and Terror in Democratic Kampuchea (Saarbrücken, 1990), pp. 14–15; Chandler, Brother, pp. 61–4.
Shawcross, Sideshow, p. 244; Timothy Carney, Communist Party Power in Kampuchea (Ithaca, NY, 1977), p. 3. The US airlift had supplied approximately 80 per cent of Phnom Penh’s total food supply, and the State Department estimated that rice stocks available at the time of the US departure would feed the population of Phnom Penh for at most three months. See Assistant Secretary McClosky to Representative Robert Edgar, 13 August 1975, FOIA P750132–0308, declassified 2 May 1995.
Osborne, Power and Politics, p. 110; Abdulgaffar Peang Meth, “Cambodia and the United Nations: Comparative Policies under Four Regimes” (University of Michigan PhD thesis, 1980), pp. 211–13; New York Times, 20 May 1964; Chandler, Tragedy, p. 143.
Ralph Smith, “The Negotiation of Peace Versus Expansion of the War: North Vietnam, China and Cambodia, 1969–71”, paper delivered at the International Conference convened by the Department of War Studies, King’s College, London, 20–21 January 1994, p. 9.
Hanne Sophie Greve, Kampuchean Refugees “Between the Tiger and the Crocodile,” International Law and the Overall Scope of One Refugee Situation (unpublished manuscript, 1988), p. 20; Norodom Sihanouk, and Wilfred Burchett, My War with the CIA: Cambodia’s Fight for Survival (London, 1973), p. 139.
Ben Kiernan, The Samlaut Rebellion and its Aftermath, 1967–1970: The Origins of Cambodia’s Liberation Movement (Melbourne, 1975), passim; Chandler, Tragedy, pp. 163–7; Chandler, Brother, pp. 81–4.
Donald Kirk, Wider War: The Struggle for Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos (London, 1971), pp. 83–92.
George Hildebrand and Gareth Porter, Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution (New York, 1976), p. 20.
Craig Etcheson, The Rise and Demise of Democratic Kampuchea (Boulder, 1984), p. 106.
Cited in Gavan McCormack, “The Kampuchean Revolution 1975–1978”, Journal of Contemporary Asia, vol. 10, no. 1/2 (1980), p. 78.
Donald Kirk, “Revolution and Political Violence in Cambodia, 1970–1974”, in Joseph Zasloff and MacAlister Brown, Communism in Indo-China (Lexington, MA, 1975), p. 216; Kiernan, How Pol Pot, pp. 310–11. See also “Thailand Laos and Cambodia: January 1972”, Staff Report prepared for the Subcommission on US Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 8 May 1972, 92nd Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, 1972), p. 26.
Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy: The War After the War (New York, 1986), p. 67.
The Guardian, 1 June 1973, 2 July 1973, 3 July 1973; The Times, 27 June 1973, 29 June 1973; Grant Evans and Kelvin Rowley, Red Brotherhood at War (London, 1984) p. 102.
Interview with Philip Jones Griffiths, Phnom Penh, 18 November 1991; interview with James Pringle, Phnom Penh, 19 November 1991; interview with Dennis Gray, Phnom Penh, 26 November 1991; interview with Tim Page, Phnom Penh, 26 November 1991; New York Times, 1 April 1970, 23 April 1970, 17 May 1970, 17 April 1970, 2 June 1970, 13 September 1970, 2 May 1971, 6 January 1974, 11 June 1974; Clarence R. Wyatt, Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War (New York, 1993), p. 201. A large number of journalists were killed in Cambodia. Henry Kamm of the New York Times wrote that “compared to Cambodia, covering the war in Vietnam is like touring with American Express”. New York Times, 7 June 1970.
New York Times, 1 November 1973, 3 October 1974, 28 November 1974; Douc Rasy, La Question de la Représentation Khmère a l’O.N.U. (Paris, 1974), passim.
See Daniel C. Hallin, The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam (New York, 1986). pp. 155–8.
James Fenton, “About the Khmer Rouge”, New Statesman, vol. 87, no. 2244 (22 March 1974), p. 288.
“President’s News Conference, March 6, 1975”, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Gerald R. Ford, Book 1, 1975 (Washington, DC. 1977), pp. 322–5; New York Times, 7 March 1975; The Telegraph, 27 February 1975; The Financial Times, 7 March 1975; The Times, 12 March 1975; The Guardian, 14 March 1975; Wall Street Journal, 7 March 1975.
Wall Street Journal, 26 March 1975. This assessment was based on predictions by Stephen Hosmer, an American analyst who had written a book accusing the Vietnamese communists of massive human rights violations and repression. See Stephen Hosmer, Viet Cong Repression and Its Implications/or the Future (Lexington, MA, 1970), passim.
Kieth Buchanan, “The American Way of Death: Genocide in Indo-China”, Journal of Contemporary Asia, vol. 1, no. 3 (1971), p. 104. See also The Progressive, vol. 37, no. 9, (September 1973).
Noam Chomsky, “Human Rights: A New Excuse for US interventions”, Seven Days, vol. 1, no. 8, (23 May 1977), pp. 21–2
Barry Weisberg, Ecocide in Indo-China (San Francisco, 1970), p. 33.
John Swain, “Introduction”, in John Barron and Anthony Paul, Peace with Horror: The Untold Story of Communist Genocide in Cambodia (London, 1977), introduction (unpaginated).
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© 1996 Jamie Frederic Metzl
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Metzl, J.F. (1996). Historical Background: March 1970–April 1975. In: Western Responses to Human Rights Abuses in Cambodia, 1975–80. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24717-2_1
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