Cambodia in the South-East Asian War, by Malcolm Caldwell and Lek Hor Tan (Monthly Review, £6.45)
My War with the CIA, by Norodom Sihanouk and Wilfred Burchett (Pelican, 60р)
James Rebell Nearly four months after the signing of the Paris ceasefire agreement, the war in Indochina continues — and continues to get worse for the Americans and their native allies.
On 16 April American planes officially started to bomb Laos again, and threats of a resumption of American bombing in Vietnam itself lie behind the new talks botween Kissinger and Le Due Tho. Nowhere has the situation deteriorated more for the Americans than in Cambodia, which makes the recent publication of these,two books all the more timely. Both centre around the attempt of ex-King Sihanouk to chart a neutral course for Cambodia, an attempt which ended abruptly with Lon Nol's ClA-backed coup on 18 March, 1970. were all of this variety.
What these leaders tried to do was to develop state-owned (and hence partially planned) industry, particularly beavy industry, which they could then use to industrialise their countries. In order to get sufficient capital, however, they had to obtain aid from capitalist countries, particularly from the United States - and the United States is only interested in the development of private enterprise economies. Within the countries capitalist class which, backed by the US, demanded the denationalisation of state Industries for the benefit of privute capital Balanced between American imperialism and native capitalism on the one hand, and the anti-imperialist sentiments of the predominantly peasant masses on the other, the 'charisma' of these leaders had to give way sooner of later to imperialism - or take the side of the revolution.
Sihanouk's skill allowed him to balance longer than the other leaders of his type — a difficult feat indeed when Cambodia was both directly and indirectly involved in the Vietnam war. But the inevitable showdown came: the coup of March 1970 was the culmination of over a decade of similar attempts, and was expected by everyone but Sihanouk himself. Sihanouk is exceptional only because unfike his counterparts he chose to side with the forces of the revolution - the Cambodian peasants and the Cambodian communists (Red Khmers). The overthrow of Sihanouk was to turn intoone of the biggest American disasters of the ally tries to tetain his intellectual neutrality. If the mother and the teacher are the only charac ters portraved in depth it is because the play is not about the people in it. They are only given as is necessary to explain the process of revolution.
SOCIAL ORDER nonm Stanouk: Touring liberated areas. entire war. Two months after Lon Nol's coup, US and Saigon troops were forced to intervene, supposedly to destroy the "Vietnamese Pentagon' in Eastern Cambodia. The international upsurge of the anti-war movement which this provoked was paralleled within Cambodia by a rapid reinforcement of the Cambodian Iberation fighters and a humiliating withdrawal of the South Vietoamese troops. In July 1970 the liberation forces were able to claim control of 50 per cent of Cambodia; the figures today are over 80 percent, with most of the rest of the territory disputed, and 5 million of the total population of 7 million. In contrast to Laos and Vietnam there is no ceasefire agreement. Indeed, shortly after the January agreements the Cambodian liberation forces launched their most successful offensive. forces had cut off all supply routes. While the Americans desperately tried to construct a more 'representative government, Sibunouk was concluding a triumphant week-long journey through the liberated areas. Both books are excellent in providing a back. ground to the prosent avents in Cambodia. They take up such questions us the use of American 'aid' as a tool of imperialist aggression; the absence of a developed, stable national bourgeoisie; the impossibility of any neutrality otber than an 'anti-imperialist neutrality" (Sihanouk's phrasc); the role of the CIA and its native clients; the close relationship of events in Cambodia to developments cisew here in South-East Asia. In addition, both books point out the particularly parnicious role of the Soviet Union, whose recognition and support of the Lon Nol regime derives from the bureaucracy's conception of "peaceful co-existence' and the rivalry with China. The emphasis on Sihanouk leaves some unanswered questions about the exact nature of the revolutionary process taking place in Cambodia and the forces shaping it, What is the role of the Red Khmers, for instance? Only with such knowledge can one fully assess the current role of Sihanouk und his Chinese backers.
Nevertheless, the main lesson, learned the hard way by Sibinouk, is there for all to see: In the end it was the Americans who drove home tbe bitter lesson that imperialists leave only one road to freedom, once they have marked a country down as their prey: that is the road of armed struggle as defined by Ho Chi Minh.