Kampodia
18-07-2007, 06:07
Voice of America Radio; South East Asia Section:
Good evening, this is Donald Hudson in Bangkok. The evening news at six o' clock.
The main story this hour is the change in government that took place earlier today in Kampodia. The capital city of Kampodia, Phnom Penn, was calm and there were no reported disturbances today, in marked contrast to the street rioting and student unrest that has besieged Phnom Penn in recent weeks.
Tonight, for the next hour, we shall be analysing the reasons behind the coup, the urban unrest in Phnom Penn and the ongoing civil war in Kampodia between the government and the radical communist rebels of the Khmer Rouge and their secretive leader, Pol Pot.
The Kampodian coup began at 10:00 AM this morning inside the National Assembly. The King of the Kingdom of Kampodia, Norodom Sihanouk, was stripped of his royal title, his executive powers as head of state, his royal allowance, his personal royal bodyguards and his control over the country's Armed Forces. This was done by way of an emergency vote of confidence by representatives of the National Assembly, under the instigation of the current Prime Minister, General Lon Nol and King Norodom Sihanouk's brother, Prince Sisowath Matak, himself a representative in the National Assembly.
Upon removing the King from power, the National Assembly went on to vote for the abolition of the Kampodian monarchy and it's replacement with the newly established Republic of Kampodia.
General Lon Nol has given up his office as Prime Minister and has taken up the post of the first President of the Republic of Kampodia and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Kampodia. His coup partner, Prince Sisowath Matak, has been named as the new Prime Minister. Apart from these two changes, all ministers in the government who held their positions prior to the coup have kept their offices, given that the cabinet was opposed to ex-King Sihanouk and are all allies of Lon Nol and Matak.
The ex-King Sihanouk was informed of the coup and according to sources in Phnom Penn, Lon Nol asked the ex-King by telephone to leave without resistance and causing any trouble, upon which it can now be confirmed the ex-King agreed to.
By 1:30 PM the ex-King and his family, along with his household staff, boarded a plane at Phnom Penn airport and have now taken up exile in Paris.
Unlike most coups, which involve a heavy military contribution and have seen widescale bloodshed, the Kampodian coup has been carried out in a very legalistic and constitutional manner. It must be stated that this coup has not actually broken Kampodian law, given that the National Assembly does have the right to force a King's abdication and/or declare a Republic, provided the National Assembly can do this with a two/thirds majority, which it had today.
The reason for the coup and Sihanouk's fall from power are many.
The most pressing issue and one that concerned Lon Nol as a Prime Minister in Sihanouk's former royal government was the incompetence that the Kampodian Armed Forces has shown in the civil war that is raging across Kampodia against the rebels of the Khmer Communist Party (KCP) or the "Khmer Rouge" as Sihanouk called them.
The KCP have for almost a decade been a miniscule rebel group numbering no more than a few hundered. However over the last two years the stagnent economy and the crash in agricultural commodity prices have caused untold hardship and poverty for the rural farming population, whom make up over sixty percent of the Kampodian population. With their radical Maoist propaganda and their vision to build an agricultural "utopia", as expressed in many KCP leaflets, many thousands of farmers and peasants have flocked to join and fight alongside the KCP. Recent battles have seen the outright defeat of government soldiers in battle, with corruption, desertion, low morale, poor leadership, lack of funds and lack of weaponary and supplies the norm for most government soldiers in Kampodia. This alongside a growing KCP whose fighters have a fanatically high level of morale and whom usually fight to the death meant that sooner or later the balance in this growing civil war would go to the communists.
Recently it has been known that the KCP rebels have also gained support from the 250,000 strong ethnic minority Vietnamese population, most of whom live in the eastern part of the country along the banks of the Mekong River.
Two weeks ago, students in Phnom Penn belonging to the far-right Kampodian Anti-Communist Alliance (KACA) attacked a number of shops and small businesses in the capital belonging to members of the Vietnamese minority. The students and KACA have both accused Vietnamese shopkeepers of using their money to fund the communists. After those attacks, rioting raged for two weeks up until three days ago. The total death toll from that has been calculated at over 200 Vietnamese, 12 students and 2 police officers.
During the rioting, Lon Nol gave orders to the police not to stop the students but to turn a blind eye to the anti-Vietnamese violence. Ex-King Sihanouk made public his dissaproval of this and many in the government began to suspect that this was due to Sihanouk's wife being of Vietnamese decent herself.
All of that and the long standing personal rivalry between Sihanouk and his brother, Prince Matak, have in the eyes of most analysts been the main reasons for todays events in Kampodia.
This is Donald Hudson reporting from Bangkok.
Good evening, this is Donald Hudson in Bangkok. The evening news at six o' clock.
The main story this hour is the change in government that took place earlier today in Kampodia. The capital city of Kampodia, Phnom Penn, was calm and there were no reported disturbances today, in marked contrast to the street rioting and student unrest that has besieged Phnom Penn in recent weeks.
Tonight, for the next hour, we shall be analysing the reasons behind the coup, the urban unrest in Phnom Penn and the ongoing civil war in Kampodia between the government and the radical communist rebels of the Khmer Rouge and their secretive leader, Pol Pot.
The Kampodian coup began at 10:00 AM this morning inside the National Assembly. The King of the Kingdom of Kampodia, Norodom Sihanouk, was stripped of his royal title, his executive powers as head of state, his royal allowance, his personal royal bodyguards and his control over the country's Armed Forces. This was done by way of an emergency vote of confidence by representatives of the National Assembly, under the instigation of the current Prime Minister, General Lon Nol and King Norodom Sihanouk's brother, Prince Sisowath Matak, himself a representative in the National Assembly.
Upon removing the King from power, the National Assembly went on to vote for the abolition of the Kampodian monarchy and it's replacement with the newly established Republic of Kampodia.
General Lon Nol has given up his office as Prime Minister and has taken up the post of the first President of the Republic of Kampodia and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Kampodia. His coup partner, Prince Sisowath Matak, has been named as the new Prime Minister. Apart from these two changes, all ministers in the government who held their positions prior to the coup have kept their offices, given that the cabinet was opposed to ex-King Sihanouk and are all allies of Lon Nol and Matak.
The ex-King Sihanouk was informed of the coup and according to sources in Phnom Penn, Lon Nol asked the ex-King by telephone to leave without resistance and causing any trouble, upon which it can now be confirmed the ex-King agreed to.
By 1:30 PM the ex-King and his family, along with his household staff, boarded a plane at Phnom Penn airport and have now taken up exile in Paris.
Unlike most coups, which involve a heavy military contribution and have seen widescale bloodshed, the Kampodian coup has been carried out in a very legalistic and constitutional manner. It must be stated that this coup has not actually broken Kampodian law, given that the National Assembly does have the right to force a King's abdication and/or declare a Republic, provided the National Assembly can do this with a two/thirds majority, which it had today.
The reason for the coup and Sihanouk's fall from power are many.
The most pressing issue and one that concerned Lon Nol as a Prime Minister in Sihanouk's former royal government was the incompetence that the Kampodian Armed Forces has shown in the civil war that is raging across Kampodia against the rebels of the Khmer Communist Party (KCP) or the "Khmer Rouge" as Sihanouk called them.
The KCP have for almost a decade been a miniscule rebel group numbering no more than a few hundered. However over the last two years the stagnent economy and the crash in agricultural commodity prices have caused untold hardship and poverty for the rural farming population, whom make up over sixty percent of the Kampodian population. With their radical Maoist propaganda and their vision to build an agricultural "utopia", as expressed in many KCP leaflets, many thousands of farmers and peasants have flocked to join and fight alongside the KCP. Recent battles have seen the outright defeat of government soldiers in battle, with corruption, desertion, low morale, poor leadership, lack of funds and lack of weaponary and supplies the norm for most government soldiers in Kampodia. This alongside a growing KCP whose fighters have a fanatically high level of morale and whom usually fight to the death meant that sooner or later the balance in this growing civil war would go to the communists.
Recently it has been known that the KCP rebels have also gained support from the 250,000 strong ethnic minority Vietnamese population, most of whom live in the eastern part of the country along the banks of the Mekong River.
Two weeks ago, students in Phnom Penn belonging to the far-right Kampodian Anti-Communist Alliance (KACA) attacked a number of shops and small businesses in the capital belonging to members of the Vietnamese minority. The students and KACA have both accused Vietnamese shopkeepers of using their money to fund the communists. After those attacks, rioting raged for two weeks up until three days ago. The total death toll from that has been calculated at over 200 Vietnamese, 12 students and 2 police officers.
During the rioting, Lon Nol gave orders to the police not to stop the students but to turn a blind eye to the anti-Vietnamese violence. Ex-King Sihanouk made public his dissaproval of this and many in the government began to suspect that this was due to Sihanouk's wife being of Vietnamese decent herself.
All of that and the long standing personal rivalry between Sihanouk and his brother, Prince Matak, have in the eyes of most analysts been the main reasons for todays events in Kampodia.
This is Donald Hudson reporting from Bangkok.