Cambodia's Identity Crisis

...These cases were not important in themselves, but they reflect the authorities' fear of sinister plots...

...Finally, the government tried another colonel and sentenced him to death for failing to successfully defend the northeastern town of Kratie, overrun by North Vietnamese troops last spring...

...Thus Sirik Matak may again officially assume the title of deputy prime minister, but he is likely to retain much of his recently acquired power...

...Black limousines with American seals on the sides cruise the streets en route from the U.S...

...As he stepped off the airplane, smiling and waving to gathered military officers, the partial paralysis of his left side was plainly visible...

...The existence of a blacklist, never officially acknowledged by the Cambodian government, is reminiscent of Norodom Sihanouk's carefully maintained separate files on journalists he liked and journalists he hated...

...they would prefer to maintain not only the blacklist against foreign journalists but many other accouterments of Sihanouk's reign...

...The Prince, who never bothered to index me despite my rather critical articles, loved to discuss his attitude toward foreign reporters on those rare occasions when he opened his kingdom to them...

...military aid, totaling some $185 million this fiscal year, is expected to exceed $200 million next year...

...The Communists have easily driven Cambodian soldiers into largely defensive positions in major towns while strengthening their own hold over the northeastern provinces...

...The general, insisting upon anonymity and assuring me he personally did not oppose the acting premier, said he knew "two or three people" who did...

...so far the traffic ,has been almost entirely in Chinese-made ak-47s, Russian or Czech sks rifles, and possibly a few carbines acquired under the old U. S. aid program before Sihanouk canceled it eight years ago...

...That probably is an understatement...

...Then there was the case of the lieutenant general who was secretly arrested for having sold arms to the Vietnamese Communists...

...Nonetheless, it might increase as officers opposed to Sirik Matak find it expedient, both financially and politically, to do business with the enemy...

...It has refused to tell me why I am suspect, but it knows that a year ago I reported the massacre of Vietnamese civilians by Cambodian soldiers...

...These troops are expected to persist in efforts to cut off, if not overrun, Kompong Cham, protected by Cambodia's best equipped units...

...That logic may be sound for the remainder of 1971, but the Vietnamese Communists are not seeking quick military victory or immediate change of government in this country...

...Cambodia's Army of nearly 200,000 men may be able to defend the capital and some of the surrounding countryside, but in the process of fighting off the enemy elsewhere in the country the government could lose its independence, which Sihanouk claimed he was preserving by allying with the Communists against the U.S...

...Once a movie actor said in an interview that he saw frogs in his soup at the hotel in Angkor Wat," Sihanouk announced at one of his press conferences...

...Those who were closest to the Prince--uncles who sat in his cabinets or ran the palace--remain noncommittal...

...The entire royal family, including Sihanouk's aging mother, has been moved from the palace to comfortable villas on nearby streets...

...By pursuing a strategy of protracted war, the North Vietnamese can slowly stifle Cambodian initiative at relatively little cost to themselves...

...The correspondents applauded...

...In the Elephant Mountains, for example, a regiment of no more than a thousand men has cut off Route 4, the main road from Pnompenh to the port of Kompong Som...

...Tough-looking technicians, many of them soldiers in civilian garb, buy drinks at inflated prices at the "Miami" and "Amigo" bars...

...it is a total loss of integrity resulting from overreliance on American and South Vietnamese aid for survival...

...In this atmosphere, military officers and politicians are likely to plot in earnest for the installation of a new "neutral" regime...

...I discovered that Cambodia still keeps its fabled blacklist of correspondents forbidden to enter the country when I recently applied for a visa and was told I would first have to obtain special permission from authorities in the capital...

...The military doubts that Cambodians have been tempted to sell new American weapons...

...Donald Kirk regularly reports in these pages from Southeast Asia...

...But if he goes away, there will be trouble...

...What if Lon Nol, the 57-year-o!d general who might not have led the military against Sihanouk without considerable prodding by Sirik Matak, recovers sufficiently to want to return to power, as some think he might...

...The extent of Sihanouk's future support within government ranks will depend largely on how well the Cambodians succeed in fending off Communist guerrillas...

...Illicit arms trade, like undercover opposition among members of Sihanouk's family, has not yet proved very widespread...

...South Vietnamese and Cambodian troops briefly reopened the highway in late January, but the North Vietnamese quickly rendered it impassable for ordinary commercial traffic...

...Now that Sihanouk is the government's worst enemy, officials claim they are reversing his old practices...

...Some of them, like Norodom Chantarangsey, an Army colonel, boast that they invested their own private fortunes in the campaign to oust Sihanouk...

...At the same time he has made enemies, particularly in the ranks of those who still secretly support Sihanouk...

...These inducements have probably been less enticing, though, than the bribes and payments offered for intelligence information, arms and ammunition...

...That actor is on the blacklist...

...Embassy to appointments with Cambodian officials and generals...

...These men view the onrush of American and South Vietnamese aid with suspicion...

...Judging by all precedents, the campaign will either bog down or achieve only a temporary, limited success before the Communists regroup and attack again...

...and Saigon...

...Contractors, pilots and intelligence agents occupy most of the rooms at the Monorom Hotel...

...They have based elements of three divisions--the 5th, 7th and 9th--in the Chup rubber plantation across the Mekong River from the town...

...Yet a few unpleasant habits obviously linger on, to the embarrassment of Pnompenh's new leaders, raising several questions about whether the men running Cambodia are as firmly in control as might be assumed from their public statements...

...Talk of a "royalist coup" has been fashionable in Pnompenh ever since Sihanouk's overthrow...

...None of them are allowed to leave the country, however, since they could then become roving ambassadors and spokesmen for Sihanouk's government-in-exile in Peking...

...Even if Lon Nol's recovery exceeds present expectations, he will never be able to return to the 18-hour-a-day schedule he kept before his stroke...

...And in the next year or two he may have to confront a coalition of subtly pro-Sihanouk forces, allied perhaps with bureaucrats and officers primarily concerned about the erosion of their positions...

...Now the Cambodians are engaged in a new, cumbersome operation to drive the enemy from the mountains along the road...

...THE CHALLENGE IN PNOMPENH Cambodia's Identity Crisis BY DONALD KIRK Pnompenh "La Liste Noire" survives here, a kind of symbolic memento of the Sihanouk era...

...Although American diplomats tend to belittle the possibility of strife within the country's ruling elite, every day brings new rumors of conflict that could eventually lead to major changes in the government...

...The tragedy, in short, is that Cambodia's leader's are now becoming a de facto board of governors for the region around the capital that they can control militarily, while North and South Vietnamese troops battle for the rest of the country...

...Can Sisowath Sirik Matak, the deputy prime minister who has served as acting premier since Lon Nol's sudden stroke in February, command enough support to remain at the head of the government...

...As long as Lon Nol survives there will be no difficulty," confided a loquacious general, previously allied with Sihanouk, in a moment of indiscretion...

...Perhaps it is no wonder, after all, that the Ministry of Information maintains the same kind of blacklist system for journalists that it had under Sihanouk...

...Instead, they are cutting off roads, harassing towns and occasionally sending sappers into Pnompenh in almost a textbook application of the theory of protracted war expounded by General Vo Nguyen Giap and Party chief Le Duan, Hanoi's leading military tacticians...

...They realize they'll have to stick together for their own good," is the hopeful cliche of American diplomats, who have to defend the officials they are playing with arms and economic assistance...

...To keep Cambodian forces off balance, small North Vietnamese units are simultaneously harassing other roads leading out of Pnompenh...

...Most Norodoms have preferred to profess their loyalty to the government...

...In his efforts to crack down on corruption, tighten up bureaucratic procedures and subtly shift responsibility to certain officials while ignoring others, Sirik Matak has provided the kind of leadership Cambodia needs...

...The blacklist is one small way of showing that not all Americans can come and go as they please in Pnompenh, that the country still clings to some measure of self-determination and freedom from foreign influence...

...The most commonly heard criticism during Lon Nol's absence accused Sirik Matak of inspiring animosity among politicians and military officers with whom the premier was inclined to be conciliatory...

...Yet the most imminent danger confronting the government is not a decisive military defeat...

...The city continues to seethe with rumors of political intrigue and petty corruption...

...Lon Nol flew back to Pnompenh last month after recuperating at an American Army hospital in Hawaii...

...Relatives of the Prince, occupying positions in government ministries and private companies, wield tremendous potential power in a community that respects family and class origins above all else...

...Meanwhile, it appears likely that some members of Sihanouk's family have been attempting to influence disaffected Army men at home by spreading the word that the Vietnamese Communists, eager to establish an indigenous front government over areas under their control, promise sizeable rewards and commands to Cambodian officers who aid them...

...In the meantime, Pnompenh's slow loss of identity can be seen on its main boulevards almost any day of the week...

...It was to forestall such an alliance that the government ordered Sihanouk's son and daughter tried on charges of spreading propaganda on behalf of the Prince...

...The corruption, in the end, will be at the expense of the United States, just as it has been in South Vietnam for many years...

...After a number of imploring cables and messages, the Ministry of Information granted me a 10-day visa...

...U.S...

...The Communists also threaten Kompong Cham, some 45 miles northeast of here...