Sihanouk's Juggling Act

...The Communists, he claimed, had not yet "found proof that the government has betrayed the nation and sold it to the Americans...

...The Cabinet appears eager to improve the faltering economy, burdened with a deficit budget in 1966 for the first time since 1963, and to cut down on rampant corruption among government officials...

...REPORT FROM CAMBODIA Sihanouk's Juggling Act By Donald Kirk Phnom Penh Being preoccupied with politics and bombings, correspondents sometimes neglect to report that this city is charming and delightful...

...Sihanouk hailed the games as proof of "the solidarity of those countries and peoples" who opposed "the monstrous ambitions of the American imperialists," but he also took pains to attack Cambodian Communists for "falsely accusing non-Communist people of being corrupt agents" of the Americans...

...The delegates would "denounce before the world the acts of the U.S...

...One mosaic showed the "emerging forces" knocking a helmet off a likeness of President Johnson...

...Only three weeks before, in early November, Sihanouk declared that he did not fear the consequences of com-munization of Cambodia and might have been a Communist himself were he not of noble blood...

...imperialists, who are imposing the law of the jungle on Asian countries...

...another depicted them firing at the American flag...

...Claiming it could not function effectively against such strident opposition, the government offered to resign last November...

...They will do whatever he says...

...He promised to release four of them arrested for distributing anti-government pamphlets but expressed the hope that they would "hereafter write to me if they are not satisfied with something...

...Then, fearful of the Right, he seized on the notion of the counter-government...

...Some Western Cambodia-watchers, perhaps with excessive optimism, interpreted Sihanouk's attack on the Communist powers as indicative of a transition toward true neutrality, which the Prince has always claimed to espouse...

...The Prince insists the Vietcong do not take refuge in Cambodia, at least not with his approval or knowledge, although Cambodians now supply the guerrillas with the bulk of their rice...

...Other equally experienced observers, however, believe the Prince may have lost some o?his control over the government and, what is more, that he has finally realized the dangers of developing close ties with China...

...Sihanouk has accused the Americans of repeatedly violating Cambodian integrity by bombing and ground attacks on villages near the South Vietnam border...

...The Prince then urged the Assembly to form its own government, unfettered by his recommendations...

...We will not let them do so...

...Th.- Prince's mother holds the nominal title of Queen...

...If nothing else, in fact, the political controversy in Cambodia has focused attention here on strictly internal problems...

...The Prince's defense of Communism, in turn, contrasted with his experiment in Western-style democracy, launched in mid-September with general elections for some 80 seats in the National Assembly...

...One of Nol's strongest disagreements with the Prince is said to focus on Cambodia-American relations...

...Nol and other military men generally identified with the Right particularly want American support for their 30,000-man Army, which is hard-pressed to defend Cambodia's borders against the threat of incursions from Thailand on the west and South Vietnam on the east...

...Phnom Penh, indeed, comes as a distinct surprise to the American visitor forewarned that Cambodia is a "police state" and that secret agents may follow him from the moment he gets off his plane...

...The Opposition's main avenue for publicity is Le Contre-Gouvernement, a daily news bulletin distributed in competition with Agence Khmere de Presse, the official government news agency...

...But after the demonstrations the Prince decided the Communists, like the Rightists, needed trimming to size...

...China was generally known to have financed not only the games but even the transportation of teams from Pakistan and Ceylon, which otherwise would not have been represented...

...There was no doubt, however, that the United States remained his bete noire...

...Although officially Nol claims his policies are identical with the head of state's, he is fairly strong-minded and may gradually erode Sihanouk's influence...

...American officials are certain that Cambodia not only harbors Vietcong guerrillas but lets them use trails through northeastern Cambodia for transporting materiel into South Vietnam...

...The Prince, in shirtsleeves, stomped into the Assembly hall at the end of the second day of meaningless debate, rebuked the delegates for wasting time and urged an immediate vote...

...When they cannot dissolve the Opposition government, they try to dissolve themselves," said the Prince...

...The Prince has postponed his "anti-conference" several times and, at this writing, appears willing to let it drop...

...The Prince regarded his little summit as a fitting answer to both the Manila conference of the United States and its allies in Vietnam and the meeting of non-aligned leaders in New Delhi...

...The Assembly's choice for Prime Minister was General Nol, the Defense Minister, a one-time leader of the old Rightist Renovation party, outlawed in 1955 when Sihanouk abdicated as King and formed as well as headed the United Cambodian Political Bloc (sangkum...

...Although most of the participating countries were hostile to the United States, the poster displayed a large color photograph of obviously American youths cavorting on a beach, soda bottles in hand...

...There has been some speculation that the Prince expected a landslide for the Left that would have amounted to a popular vindication of his Socialist stance of the past few years and a mandate to continue to govern as before...

...From the grassy banks of the Mekong to the concrete and glass athletic complex a couple of miles away, the visitor walks down wide, tree-shaded streets lined with rows of French-built stucco homes in pleasant pastel colors...

...Whatever his logic may have been, "Her Majesty's Opposition" thoroughly disconcerted the government with a series of statements attacking it for practically everything from corruption to inefficiency...

...According to some veteran observers here Sihanouk, a wildly popular politician, rules Cambodia with the skill of a juggler tossing a dozen balls at once...

...In the future, our Cambodia will apply a Communist system so as to develop more quickly," he said two days before the first student demonstration...

...For all the support from the Prince, the Vietnamese National Liberation Front has angered and disappointed him lately by its reluctance to sign a border agreement...

...Behind the bright facade of downtown Phnom Penh shopfronts, merchants complain that sales and profits have deteriorated, and the government is losing money too...

...The Prince also appeared disillusioned with his Communist friends abroad...

...One theory holds that the Prince staged the open elections and let a Right-wing government in power to offset the threat of a powerful Left-wing which, Frankenstein-like, might ultimately destroy him...

...I say this government will not fall before November of 1967...

...The shadow cabinet, headed by Ung Hong Sath, former Assembly president defeated in the vote for prime minister, would provide "semi-official, constructive opposition" and "make suggestions, criticize and when appropriate commend" the government...

...Some 20,000 schoolchildren, excused from classes for several months to rehearse for the occasion, jammed one side of the stadium and holding placards formed a series of human mosaics...

...Besides cringing at the extravagant display of Chinese influence in his own capital, the Prince had reservations about the coarsely anti-American tone of opening day festivities...

...After one candidate publicized such a picture, Sihanouk insisted on posing with every other candidate in the district...

...The Prince also rebuked Cambodian students for staging two demonstrations in early November at the urging of Communist sympathizers and attacking a police station...

...The Reds would like to transform the Khmer (Cambodians) into lackeys of the Viet Minh, China and the Soviet Union," he said...

...The counter-government consists mainly of Leftists, some of them former ministers who had failed to win re-election to the Assembly...

...So eager was he to prove his lack of influence on the elections that he forebade the 400-odd candidates from displaying old photographs of themselves with him...

...We do not want to be lackeys of anyone...

...Come Alive With Pepsi" was the slogan beneath announcements for the Games of New Emerging Forces (ganefo), the series of Olympic-style sporting events sponsored here by Communist China late last November and early December to rival the "imperialist" Asian games held in Bangkok...

...But he hoped that Sihanouk, with his instinct for compromise, would listen long enough to new voices in government to do what was best for Cambodia...

...The streets are less crowded than those in most other Asian cities, the shopkeepers are affable, even the pedi-cab drivers do not seem so eager as elsewhere to cheat the impressionable foreigner...

...The conference, he said, would "defend international rights and the right of all countries to independence and self-determination...

...Refuting the charges that his people lacked genuine freedom to vote as they pleased, the Prince proclaimed the field open for politicians of all persuasions...

...Or he heads toward the central market along boulevards crowded with tall apartment buildings, smart, gaily-colored shops, and French-Chinese restaurants sporting striped awnings and offering delicious menus...

...I will never let it fall...

...The masses love the Prince," one shopkeeper told me...

...At least two of the 16 ministers are regarded as Leftists, but the real Left refused Nol's invitation to nominate its own candidates and actually is not represented...

...If this was the case, he was disappointed...

...As usual, the Prince's position appeared to contradict some of his previous pronouncements...

...Nol had a clearcut majority over three other candidates, including the former Prime Minister, Prince Kahthol, a close relative and Sihanouk yes-man who reportedly was tired of his job and glad to resign...

...We are now in discord because the Leftists lean too far to the Left and the Rightists lean too much to the Right...

...As part of the act of balancing factions against each other, Sihanouk, as leader of sangkum, announced the formation of a "counter-government," calling it "Her Majesty's Opposition...

...We must take the nationalist and Buddhist path and not the line set forth by Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Lenin, Karl Marx or Engels," he declared in mid-November...

...A number of experts view Sihanouk's diminishing enthusiasm for a conference as a concession to Lon Nol's government...

...Moreover, the remarks of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the head of state, do not always contribute to the foreignDonald Kirk is a freelance correspondent who reports 'from Asia...

...Having read Sihanouk's anti-American tirades and declarations of faith in Socialism, I was not prepared to find the Cambodian capital so dedicated to "free enterprise" and capitalist advertising...

...Sihanouk publicly advised "those Red gentlemen not to take others for monkeys or puppets and not to humiliate me too much, for they must know that Sihanouk is not inferior to them, even though they hold university degrees...

...Nol would not conceive of publicly supporting a resumption of the ties with the United States that Sihanouk severed in May 1965, but he has privately reminded the Prince of the advantages of American aid...

...We will then have genuine justice for the entire nation...

...er's understanding...

...Noting that the Vietcong had postponed discussion of the issue until after the war, Sihanouk asserted, "These gentlemen have already seized much of our territory, and have only to say that they recognize our existing borders...

...Rightist and conservative elements captured nearly three-fourths of the Assembly, with only 20 seats going to a group of Leftists ranging from extreme doctrinaire to mildly pink...

...While it seems hard to believe that Sihanouk as host before 60,000 spectators did not mastermind the show, I was told that he was taken aback by the sight of banners proclaiming, "Down with the Imperialists," "U.S...

...It is unjust to say this government must resign when it has worked for only two weeks...

...Sihanouk's own pro-Communist statements were partly responsible for the Communist reaction...

...Indeed, the Prince at one stage planned an "anti-imperialist" conference of delegates from Cambodia, North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front...

...General Nol's Cabinet, chosen by votes of the Assembly, includes a number of Renovation hands as well as a couple of former members of the old conservative Democratic party, also outlawed in 1955...

...The Prince, for instance, was said to have been embarrassed by the manner in which Communist China turned ganefo into a palpable propaganda spectacle for Peking...

...Ironically, the Assembly, having elected a Right-wing government, failed to give it a vote of confidence for two days, largely because of the Left-wing's objections...

...Go Home" and "Vietnam for the Vietnamese...

...The specific reason for the Prince's attack, delivered the day before the games opened, was that local Communists had accused him of favoring the country's supposedly Right-wing Prime Minister, Lieutenant General Lon Nol, and the national Police Chief, Dy Bellong...

...The Prince would have none of it...

...The Assembly complied in less than an hour, strengthening the view of those who contend that he had complete control all the time...

...Previously the Prince was fond of contrasting the Vietcong's attitude toward Cambodia with that of the Saigon regime, which he has often criticized for frontier violations...

...The advertisements are only one of many paradoxes in Cambodia, the most baffling being Prince Sihanouk????the hypersensitive, sometimes brilliant, leader who deeply resents references to his Kansas-sized country as a "pocket kingdom" but often displays the simple arrogance of a feudal prince...

...The former, said Sihanouk, "completely distorted the facts" while the latter "failed to draw a line between the attacker and the attacked," Cambodia included...

...Chinese athletes, easily outdistancing the competition in most contests, attributed their success to "Mao's creative thinking," and Chinese weight-lifters hefted volumes of Mao's works before pressing the bar bells...

...One step contemplated by some ministers is to ease restrictions and high prices imposed by the government import-export company, formed two years ago as part of the Prince's scheme for Socialism...