The Future of Cambodia

Neither Lon Nol nor President Nixon has left Cambodians any alternative to armed struggle and revolution-a struggle and revolution whose object is to enable our people to regain their freedom, our nation to recover its dignity and our country to become independent again.

Before taking up the fundamental questions regarding my country which are of especial interest for Americans, I would like to cite some significant American statements about "the Cambodian tragedy."

In an address to the U.S. Senate on "the Cambodian tragedy" on April 16, 1970, Senator Mike Mansfield said: "What was for a decade and a half the only oasis of peace in Indochina has been turned into a bloody battlefield in the space of one month. . . . The conflict already involves the potential of an ugly genocide by government-stimulated mob action against the several hundred-thousand Vietnamese civilians-for the most part farmers, fishermen and tradesmen-who come from both North and South Vietnam and who have lived for decades in reasonable peace in Cambodia. In short, the Pandora's box which was held shut by the leadership and diplomacy of Prince Sihanouk is now wide open. For years Cambodia was in the eye of the Indochinese hurricane; now it is swept up in the full fury of a racial, ideological and militarist storm. . . . We do know, or ought to know on the basis of experience that even with a massive infusion of American equipment we are likely to have minimal constructive effect on that upheaval and we will open the door to another destructive impact on our own national interests."

Like an echo to Senator Mansfield's warning, The New York Times, in an editorial the next day, wrote: "Evidence of government-inspired mass murder of Vietnamese civilians living in Cambodia should provoke second thoughts in Washington about the stability as well as the morality of the régime that recently displaced Prince Sihanouk in Phnompenh. Evidence of appeals to the ancient prejudices of the Khmers against a neighboring people is a sign of desperation on the part of a government trying to shore up a shaky political base."

Thirteen days after the publication of this editorial President Nixon ordered United States armed forces stationed in South Vietnam to invade Cambodia, and permitted the armed forces of the Saigon Generals Thieu and Ky to accompany them in order, he said, to wipe out the "Vietcong sanctuaries" there.