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BEIRUT — A huge car bomb detonated on a residential street in Beirut at Friday rush hour, killing at least eight people including the nation's intelligence chief.

Scores were wounded in the heavy damage of the largely Christian district, many of whose residents support opponents of President Bashar al-Assad in neighboring Syria.

Pan-Arab and Lebanese media reported that Wissam al-Hassan, who was in charge of a top intelligence unit, was killed and likely targeted. He led an investigation into a recent bomb plot that resulted in the arrest of a pro-Syrian Lebanese politician. He also led the probe that implicated Syria and the Hezbollah faction in the killing of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

No one took immediate responsibility for the blast and Syria condemned the bombing.
Christian neighborhood

The blast was set off in the Sassine Square area of Beirut’s Achrafiyeh neighborhood, close to a branch of the Syrian-owned Bank BEMO and a small office of Lebanon’s Christian Phalange party, a vocal opponent of the Assad regime in Syria.

"We saw a bright flash through the window and a loud noise,” said a young woman who works at Pharmacie Achrafiyeh, which is on the same street as the explosion. "I thought it was an earthquake. We didn’t think this was possible here."

Two blocks from the blast site is the former Beirut headquarters of the Phalange Party, which now mostly serves as a 24-hour vigil to the one-time commander of the Christian Lebanese Forces militia, Beshir Gemayel, who was assassinated there by a bomb planted by Syrian loyalists in 1982, during the Lebanese Civil War.

In an apartment about 15 meters from the blast site, a middle-aged woman sat distraught on a debris covered floor.

"I am just lucky I wasn't home," she said.

Couches and beds were overturned, and wooden shutters from two balconies were blown inside the apartment. Neighbors from nearby flats wandered the apartment building's darkened hallways in a daze. A thick layer of dust and debris covered the stairs.

Broken glass from car windows was strewn about on streets nearly 500 meters from the blast site.

But several blocks away, next to the upscale ABC Mall, street cafes were doing brisk business as people gathered to drink coffee and smoke as they would on any other evening.

A 24-year-old man, who would only give his name as Paul, said he heard a second explosion shortly after the car exploded, but guessed "it was probably a gas canister."

Standing on the street where the blast happened, he said that the block was mostly inhabited by elderly people. Several elderly men and women were seen being removed from nearby apartment buildings on stretchers and taken to ambulances.

Call for blood donations

Several feet from the blast, a construction site for one of Beirut's new luxury residential towers was converted into a makeshift Red Cross field hospital. A young female Red Cross worker at the scene could only say, "We just need people to donate blood."

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland says there is no justification for such violence and expressed Washington's sympathies for the victims and their families.

Friday's blast comes amid fears of spillover from the civil war in neighboring Syria. Several outbursts of violence have taken the lives of dozens of Lebanese this year, and attacks by Syrian army forces on Lebanese border towns are almost a daily occurrence.

Anti-Syrian politicians, including Mustapha Allouche of the opposition March 14th Coalition, accused Syria of orchestrating the bombing.

Allouche said that Syrian President Assad has threatened on several occasions to “set fire to the whole region,” if the conflict in his country continues.

Dory Chamoun, who heads Lebanon's National Liberal Party and whose home is located in Achrafiyeh, called the explosion a “political message.” He said that the conflict in Syria was causing collateral damage in Lebanon and would stop only when the Syrian crisis ends.

“There is no doubt that the longer the situation lasts in Syria, the more we're going to have some spillovers into Lebanon, but we just hope that things will go faster and normalize faster in Syria and things will be better for everyone concerned,” Chamoun said.

The attack Thursday also brought back memories of high-profile political assassinations in Lebanon, such as that of former Prime Minister Hariri, who was killed by a truck bomb attack on his convoy in Beirut in 2005.

His son, former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, condemned the Friday bombing.

“The cowardly terrorist attack which targeted Achrafiyeh today is an attack against all of Lebanon and all the Lebanese people," he said. "It is a cowardly act against the country’s stability and security.”

Some people at the scene feared that the days of attacks like that were back.

"We never got out of the bad times," Paul said. "But it was just a matter of time."

Edward Yeranian contributed to this report from Cairo.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that members Lebanon’s Christian Phalange party support Syrian President Bashar al Assad. VOA regrets the error.

Dan Robinson

October 19, 2012

The third and final U.S. presidential debate takes place Monday in Boca Raton, Florida, devoted entirely to foreign policy.  It remains to be seen what impact it will have on voter assessments of President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney less than three weeks before the U.S. election.

In their first two debates, both men sparred over the Middle East, the killing of Americans in Libya, the U.S. response to Syria's civil war, Iran's nuclear ambitions, and trade with China.

Their final encounter could bring a somewhat deeper examinations of these issues.  For President Obama, a key question is whether his perceived advantage on national security matters will bring any more strength in polling numbers.

Dewey Clayton, professor of political science at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, says questions about how President Obama has handled Libya and Syria have given Romney an opening.

"There is clearly plenty of fodder out here to have a spirited debate on foreign policy, I think clearly it will give both candidates an opportunity to talk about how they may do things differently, whether it is withdrawing troops from Afghanistan or whether it is just clearly talking about maintaining a strong national defense," said Clayton.

On Libya, Romney has been on the attack, asserting that the president has mishandled events there and in the broader Middle East.

"There were many days that passed before we knew whether this was a spontaneous demonstration or actually whether it was a terrorist attack.  And there was no demonstration involved, it was a terrorist attack and it took a long time for that to be told to the American people," said Romney at the second presidential debate at New York's Hofstra University.

Some analysts say Americans, and people in other countries, have been left wondering how Mitt Romney's approach would differ from President Obama on, for example, Iran's nuclear program or the U.S. response to the Arab Spring. 

Danielle Pletka, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

"I think for outsiders who are trying to get a grip on either what does the next four years mean for us if Barack Obama is re-elected, what does the next four years mean for us if Mitt Romney is elected, you're not quite sure where it's going," Pletka said.

Tamara Cofman Wittes of the Brookings Institution Saban Center for Middle East Policy, says each candidate constructed a narrative about the Middle East:  Governor Romney warning about American weakness, President Obama emphasizing closure of an earlier chapter of U.S. policy. 

Cofman suggests this potential negative side effect.

"The notion of trying to use events in the Middle East to build a narrative that is helpful to your election campaign, might well be dismaying to people living in the region, to see events on the ground that are of such magnitude for Arab citizens treated as, in essence, a political football in our election campaign," Cofman explained.

Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center, points to what he calls a bigger question hanging over each side's arguments.

"There is a bigger question here about what is the role of U.S. leadership post-Arab Spring and how do others in the region perceive that leadership," said Hamid.

On the campaign trail, President Obama emphasizes accomplishments such as ending the U.S military role in Iraq, drawing down U.S. forces in Afghanistan, eliminating Osama bin-Laden, and decimating al-Qaida's leadership.

Governor Romney says Obama's Middle East policy is "unraveling", while on other issues such as trade relations with China he pledges to get tougher than the president has been.

Daniel Serwer, of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, says the most serious foreign policy discussion may not come until after the election.

"The level of generality and the level of polarization don't lend themselves to a lot of serious discussion," said Serwer.  "In an odd sort of way, you see that in the Romney stance, because Romney while criticizing the administration on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on Iran has put forward very few distinct proposals on those subjects and the reason for that is it is hard to think up better things to do."

While the American public remains primarily focused on the economy and job creation, opinion surveys suggest Mitt Romney may have chipped away somewhat at President Obama's dominance on national security and foreign policy issues.

A CNN poll after the second debate showed Obama leading Governor Romney 49 to 47 percent on the question of ability to handle foreign affairs.

2012-10-18

The Cambodian opposition leader hopes to return home to honor his fallen former king.

RFA

Monks in Siem Reap gather to pray for former King Norodom Sihanouk, Oct. 17, 2012.

Exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy has requested a special “intervention” order from Cambodia’s king and prime minister to allow him to return home to pay his last respects to the country’s former monarch, who passed away earlier this week.

The 63-year-old president of the National Rescue Party (NRP) has sent letters to this effect to King Norodom Sihamoni and Prime Minister Hun Sen as Cambodia plunged into mourning following the death Monday of former King Norodom Sihanouk.

Sam Rainsy could be imprisoned on his return following convictions for various offenses he has said were part of a campaign of political persecution.

"On the occasion of national mourning, as a Cambodian citizen, I think it is important for me to strengthen national reconciliation and unity by helping to resolve Khmer issues according to the [former] King's wishes when he was alive," Sam Rainsy wrote in the letters dated Oct. 17 and distributed by his aides.

"During this mourning occasion, I would like Samdech [Hun Sen] to intervene by showing empathy and allowing me to return to pay my respects to the [former] King in Phnom Penh," he said, using the honorific title for the prime minister.

Speaking by telephone from self-exile in France, Sam Rainsy told RFA’s Khmer service that he would return home as soon as possible to pay his respects to Sihanouk depending on Sihamoni’s response.

“In the two letters, I have asked for the King and Samdech Hun Sen’s interventions to allow me to return to Cambodia to pay my last respect to the former King—I would like to see his face one last time,” the opposition leader said.

The Cambodian government has not responded to his letter.

The government had said previously that Sam Rainsy, who served former King Norodom Sihanouk as a minister of finance for the royalist Funcinpec Party in 1993, will be thrown in jail if he returns to Cambodia.

Call for amnesty

Sam Rainsy faces a total of 11 years in prison. He was sentenced to 10 years in absentia in 2010 for publishing a false map of the border with neighboring Vietnam, though the punishment was later reduced to seven years.

He was also handed a two-year sentence for inciting racial discrimination and uprooting border markings with Vietnam in a 2009 incident.

Last year, he was given another two-year jail term for accusing Cambodian's foreign minister of having been a member of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s.

Prince Sisowath Thomico, King Sihanouk’s longtime private secretary and nephew, declined to comment on Sam Rainsy’s request. However, he acknowledged that the exiled politician had been a loyal servant to the former king.

The prince called on the Cambodian government to consider an amnesty for the country’s political prisoners and to allow them to see their former king’s body, flown back to Cambodia on Wednesday from his “second home” in Beijing where he succumbed to a heart attack while undergoing treatment for cancer.

“My personal view during this period of national mourning is that if we truly respect the former King as a promoter of national independence, reconciliation and national unity, all political prisoners should be pardoned,” Prince Thomico said.


Cambodians gather in front of the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh to honor King Norodom Sihanouk, Oct. 17, 2012. Credit: RFA

Honoring a king

While the ineffectual King Sihamoni has wielded little power since taking over from his father in 2004, many Cambodians still revere the country’s monarchy.

Hundreds of thousands of mourners lined the streets to pay respects to Sihanouk when his body was flown home Wednesday and escorted through the capital on a golden float.

Hun Sen has declared a week of mourning and ordered that Sihanouk’s body lie in state at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh for three months during which time the public can pay respects before it is cremated according to Buddhist ritual.

Chinese medical experts have been called in to embalm the former king’s body in order to preserve it to enable three months of public viewing beginning Friday.

“Chinese doctors are embalming the body to preserve it for three months. There will be a traditional seven-day funeral,” the prince said.

A national committee has been established to manage the lavish state funeral, he said, with one of its primary responsibilities being to ensure that diplomats, world leaders and others in mourning will all have a chance to pay their respects.

The prince called on Cambodians to submit their requests to honor the king during the funeral.

Phnom Penh Municipality Police Chief Chhoun Sovann said authorities will seal off roads around the Royal Palace starting Thursday for the duration of the national funeral.

Reported by RFA’s Khmer service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

The grounds between the Royal Palace and the confluence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers were full of mourners Thursday, most wearing white.



Mourners gather to pay their respects to Cambodia's late King Norodom Sihanouk at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thursday Oct. 18, 2012. The body of Sihanouk returned to his homeland on a plane from China on Wednesday, welcomed by tens of thousands of mourners who packed tree-lined roads in the Southeast Asian nation's capital ahead of the royal funeral.


Heng Reaksmey, Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer

18 October 2012
PHNOM PENH, WASHINGTON DC- Thousands of mourners continued to gather before the Royal Palace Thursday, burning incense, praying and remembering their former king, Norodom Sihanouk, and his leadership.

Sihanouk’s body was interred at the Royal Palace Wednesday, where it will lie in state for three months before it is cremated.

The grounds between the Royal Palace and the confluence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers were full of mourners Thursday, most wearing white.

Pich Dara, a monk from the Mekong Delta, said he had shaved his head for Sihanouk’s passing, only the third time done so in his life: once when he became ordained and once when his own father passed away.

Sihanouk died in Beijing Monday, after years of illness and a retreat from the public eye and the turbulent politics of post-war Cambodia.

His influence, personality and legacies have been widely discussed, with some observers critical of his role supporting the Khmer Rouge but most pointing to his political desire for peace, independence and unity.

Sok Touch, head of Khemarak University, in Phnom Penh, told VOA Khmer Thursday that the country’s current leaders should serve the people as the king had.

“It is a tragedy when politicians are like Pol Pot, who died [and was cremated] on a tire with a bundle of flowers,” he said.

Political analyst Chea Vannath said Sihanouk would be remembered as a talented statesman and “great hero” to Cambodia, who grew Cambodia after independence into international recognition during his Sankum Reastr Niyum reign.

“What Cambodia need to learn from the Sankum Reastr Niyum is to do whatever it takes to build the country, towards helping people with warmness, dignity, and living with highest the highest pride as Cambodians,” she said. “That’s what we need to do consistently.”

She compared Sihanouk to Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, as well as the 12th-Century Khmer King Jayavarman VII.

Venerable monk Hok Sovann, the head of the Cambodian Temple, in Montreal, said he had been shocked to learn of Sihanouk’s death. But he said he hoped Cambodian leaders would view him as a good example.

“The Cambodian people—men and women, young and old—must study about some heroes who did great work, in order to value them,” he said. “Don’t be wrongly angry, and then say there were wrong about everything. This is ungenerous. Generosity is knowing when one is wrong and when one is right.”

He praised Sihanouk’s leadership, especially his willingness to hold court each week and hear the grievances of the people. The current government, and the courts, would do well to follow such an example, he said.

Sam Rainsy is facing at least 10 years imprisonment if he returns to Cambodia, on charges related to destroying border markers near Vietnam in 2009.

A Buddhist monk holds flowers as he joins others waiting for the coffin of the former king Norodom Sihanouk to arrive at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh October 17, 2012. Tens of thousands poured into Cambodia's capital to witness the procession on Wednesday.

Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer

18 October 2012
PHNOM PENH - Sam Rainsy, the exiled leader of Cambodia’s opposition, has written the prime minister seeking permission to return to the country to mourn the passing of the former king, “and see his face for the last time.”

Sam Rainsy is facing at least 10 years imprisonment if he returns to Cambodia, on charges related to destroying border markers near Vietnam in 2009.

He has claimed the charges against him are political and that a political solution will be possible for his return ahead of 2013 elections. Prime Minister Hun Sen has said otherwise.

In his Oct. 17 letter to Hun Sen, Sam Rainsy said he should be allowed to return in the spirit of reconciliation and national unity in the wake of Sihanouk’s passing.
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“He can come as he wants,” government spokesman Khieu Kanharith told VOA Khmer Thursday. “But we cannot give any orders to the court.”

Political analyst Chea Vannath told VOA Khmer that the administration should consider amnesty for convicted people in exile, such as Sam Rainsy.

THE NATION October 19, 2012 1:00 am

After causing an uproar by mistakenly stepping on a photograph of late Cambodian King Sihanouk while covering his funeral, Channel 3 reporter Thapanee Ietsrichai is in trouble again - this time it is for not taking her shoes off while apologising at the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok.
Messages posted on Cambodian websites and the social media dubbed her apology as being insincere, claiming she was "not genuinely penitent". One message posted by a Cambodian student called for a protest to be held at a roundabout near the Aranyaprathet border checkpoint in Sa Kaew province.

An image released by the Cambodian mission shows Thapanee kneeling before a portrait of the late king with her shoes on. Neither Channel 3 nor Thapanee issued any statements in response to the renewed attacks as of press time yesterday.

Meanwhile, the student's call for protests at the border town has prompted the mobilisation of security officials. Thai officials spoke to their Cambodian counterparts, who said they had heard of the online posting, but said protests in Cambodia could not be held without permission. So far, no requests for such protests have been filed so far, Thai officials quoted Cambodian authorities as saying.

Thai Army and police commanders gathered and paid their respects at a makeshift marquee put up in honour of the late king at the Poi Pet checkpoint yesterday.

Cambodia's king was many things, including an early advocate of marriage equality

By Will O'Bryan
Published on October 18, 2012, 8:47am |

Monday, Oct. 15, was Cambodian ''King-Father'' Norodom Sihanouk's last day on this mortal plain. It's okay, don't be sad. He was 89, after all.

His life was also full, to say the least, though not necessarily unblemished. Some consider him a collaborator to the Khmer Rouge genocide, which included some of his children as victims. It might well have included him. Others regarded him as a pointless playboy. Seems he did like a good time.

Generally, I have a distaste for royalty. I'm not one to tune in for jubilees, coronations or royal weddings. I'm an American. I believe in democracy. I'm reflexively suspicious of anything handed down by familial ties, whether it's a seat on the board or a royal title.

Cambodia, however, has a little spot wedged into my worldview. When I was a child, my Army dad would return from Southeast Asia with stories of Cambodia. He'd done time in Vietnam in the early 1970s, too, but mostly spoke of Cambodia. He brought me these fantastical papier-m?ch? masks of ghastly Cambodian characters. When I was older, he told me about a Cambodian woman who was essentially his concubine, minus the Madame Butterfly romanticism. He guesses that when the Khmer Rouge came to power, she would've been executed if for no other reason than her association with him. Of course, when possibly a third of a country is killed – whether by execution, hunger or being worked to death – nobody's chances are very good.

When I was older still, my father having gone the way of his Cambodian girlfriend, a close friend began doing fieldwork in human rights and rule of law in Phnom Penh. She collected so many frequent flier miles on these long Cambodia trips she was able to bring her sister and me to join her for a week in Thailand in 2000. Though Cambodia beckoned across the border, I didn't make it that far. I instead explored Cambodia through some books, particularly When Broken Glass Floats, in which Chanrithy Him recounts surviving the Cambodian Holocaust.

In 2004, I crossed paths with Cambodia in a new way. It was then that Sihanouk came out publicly in favor of marriage equality. Maybe not such a big deal for a king of a small and poor country, a figurehead with no formal power. It was an endorsement that caught my attention nonetheless. In 2004, marriage equality was hardly as common as it is today. It was watching the front lines of the marriage fight – in particular, San Francisco issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, later voided by the California Supreme Court – that prompted Sihanouk's advocacy. He was not pestered to take a stand. He was hardly on the world stage at the time. He wasn't even in Cambodia, but getting medical attention in China. But spending his life adapting to unusual circumstances, in the 21st century he'd adapted to the Web and was a busy blogger. So that's where he announced his support for equality.

With this rare and welcome expression putting Cambodia in front of me once again, I felt compelled to send an email to cyber-savvy King Sihanouk thanking him. I was surprised to receive an email response – complete with signature image – a few days later.

''It was very kind of you to send me a warm message of appreciation and greetings following my declaration of support for same sex marriages,'' the king wrote. ''With my sincere thanks and best wishes for happiness, please accept the assurance of my cordial consideration.''

He signed it, ''Sincerely, Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia; Beijing, February 27, 2004.''

Sihanouk may be remembered. Maybe not. Even in Cambodia, it seems he'd already become a sort of relic, revered by the old, but irrelevant to the young. But I'll always remember my royal correspondence and the king who learned at least by his last years to stand on the right side of history.

PHNOM PENH - ASEAN+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) youth leaders'symposium was held on Thursday, aiming at strengthening and broadening friendly relations between the two sides. 

Addressing the two-day meeting, Pit Chamnan, secretary of state at Cambodia's Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, praised the close cooperation between ASEAN and Plus 3 countries.

"The symposium is an important opportunity for ASEAN+3 youth leaders to meet and tighten friendship relations because they could be future leaders in their respective countries," he said.

The event was part of a series of activities to celebrate the 15th anniversary of ASEAN+3 Cooperation. It would offer an opportunity for ASEAN+3 youth leaders to discuss and exchange views on ASEAN+3 cooperation in political, security, economic, financial, social and cultural affairs, he added.

They would also discuss the future direction of cooperation between ASEAN and Plus 3 countries.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

By Eang Mengleng and Simon Lewis - October 17, 2012

Authorities in Phnom Penh are expecting at least 100,000 people to line the city’s streets today as the body of King Father Norodom Sihanouk arrives back in Cambodia and embarks on a 10-km procession from the airport to the Royal Palace.

The return of the retired King—who died aged 89 of heart failure early Monday morning in Beijing—will herald the start of a week of national mourning, during which entertainment venues are being asked to tone down revelry out of respect to the late King Father.

A statement issued by the Council of Ministers yesterday announced that the week of mourning would begin today and end on October 23.

“During this time, all government and private organizations and the public nationwide, must lower the national flag to a third of its normal height,” the announcement said.

It also orders “national and private TV and radio stations, as well as concert venues, bars and nightclubs, to suspend any joyful activities during the seven days.”

As part of the week of mourning, people are being asked to wear a black ribbon on their clothing to remember the late monarch and to put up pictures of Norodom Sihanouk as a sign of their mourning.

After the procession finishes toward the end of the afternoon today, the King Father’s body will lie in state for at least three months during which all members of the public will be able to pay their respects. No date has yet been set for the King Father’s cremation.

“For three months, civil servants, the public and all foreigners can visit and express their deepest condolences,” the Council of Ministers statement said.

Prince Sisowath Thomico, the late King Father’s chief of cabinet, said a special flight carrying Norodom Sihanouk’s body would arrive at about 3 p.m. today at Phnom Penh International Airport.

“Her Majesty the Queen Mother, His Majesty the King, the Prime Minister [Hun Sen] and all the government officials will be on the same plane with the body of the King Father,” Prince Thomico said, adding that Queen Mother Monineath would return to live at her and Norodom Sihanouk’s quarters in the grounds of the Royal Palace.

“We are expecting the Queen Mother to go back to Beijing from time to time for her own medical checkups,” he said. He also said he was unsure if the King Father’s overseas residences in Beijing and Pyongyang would be kept in royal hands.

While the municipality is making plans for 100,000 people taking to the streets to welcome the King Father’s body back to Cambodia, Prince Thomico said he believed the turnout for the procession could be even higher. By late yesterday afternoon, roughly 1,000 people had gathered to pray, lay flowers and write condolences in front of the Royal Palace.

“I believe it’s going to be a spontaneous movement…. They have started coming to the palace and praying at the palace,” Prince Thomico said. “There will be more and more.”

Portraits of the King Father were being hurriedly printed to adorn the streets, the palace itself and government buildings, Prince Thomico said.

Phnom Penh Municipality spokesman Long Dimanche said that City Hall was preparing for tens of thousands of people, including students, teachers and civil servants to turn out along the route from the airport to the Royal Palace.

“We have planned for 100,000 people to attend this ceremony and City Hall will be in charge of security for the ceremony,” he said.

Chea Sokhom, secretary-general of the National Committee for Organizing National and International Festivals—which is charged with arranging the public events to mark the King Father’s death—said that preparations for the procession had begun yesterday.

The grounds of the Royal Palace were already being prepared so that local and international dignitaries could pay their respects to Norodom Sihanouk after his body begins its three months of lying in state.

Mr. Sokhom also said that the Water Festival should be canceled as it would clash with events to mark Norodom Sihanouk’s death.

“To my mind, the Water Festival this year should be canceled because the ceremony will interrupt the condolences. They play music and cheer at fireworks,” he said, adding that this would be subject to a decision from Minister of the Royal Palace Kong Sam Ol, who is currently in Beijing.

Prince Thomico said such a move would be unnecessary because the official mourning period would already be over.

“It will give the opportunity to the people who are coming from the provinces to come and give their respects to the King Father at the Royal Palace,” Prince Thomico added.

King Father Norodom Sihanouk, the flamboyant, tireless monarch who led Cambodia to independence in 1953, watched it descend into genocide and civil war, and reigned once more as the country struggled to its feet, died Monday in Beijing.

The monarch who peacefully won Cambodia’s independence from France, rallied political factions in the 1980s to achieve peace against all odds and, when crowned for a second time, mediated the country’s conflicts out of crisis in the 1990s, Norodom Sihanouk will be remembered as one of the foremost Southeast Asian leaders of the past 60 years.

“His Majesty the King Father…was truly the father of his country and the legendary figure we meet only once in our lifetimes,” Gordon Longmuir, a former Canadian ambassador to Cambodia, wrote in a message on Monday.

“One of the indisputably great figures of the 20th century, and a champion of his people always, His Majesty will be deeply mourned and greatly honored by all Cambodians and the many friends of the Kingdom abroad.”

For people throughout the world, the former King will remain to this day the face of Cambodia, his legendary smile one of the country’s best-known images.

Twice forced into exile and twice proclaimed King, Norodom Sihanouk never failed to be larger than life. His ebullient personality and leadership style were the perfect complement to his dramatic life, and he played up the drama in books with brash titles such as “My War With the CIA” and “Prisoner of the Khmer Rouge.”

In the 1980s, he was the leader that Cold War superpowers trusted and believed could bring an end to decades of civil war in the country. And for Cambodians in the early 1990s, Norodom Sihanouk became the symbol of an era that had known peace before the turmoil of the early 1970s, the Khmer Rouge nightmare.

Norodom Sihanouk once called himself the country’s “natural ruler.” He often referred to his people as “my children” in French and “grandchildren” in Khmer. And biographers say he commonly identified himself as the embodiment of Cambodia. The retired King’s admirers say that attitude spurred him to work tirelessly for the country’s interests, his critics that he was hugely intolerant of criticism. But even his detractors would admit that Norodom Sihanouk was a unique and mercurial, character—charming, self-dramatizing, unpredictable, sometimes self-indulgent. He mixed shrewd diplomatic skills with a disarming frankness that never failed to make a strong impression on those who met him.

“His deep love for the Cambodian people—not shared throughout history by any other Cambodian ruler that I know of—was sincere and moving,” historian David Chandler said on Monday. “His impatience with dissent and his narcissism are also important ingredients of his behavior. Interestingly, unlike other Cambodian rulers before and since, he did not get rich during his years in power.”

Norodom Sihanouk was “a chief of state unlike I had ever met,” wrote New York Times reporter Henry Kamm in his 1998 book, “Cambodia: Report From A Stricken Land.”

“He blurted out with disregard for conventional hypocrisy truths that statesmen are supposed to keep to themselves…. Moreover, he dwelt on his country’s weakness rather than praising pretended strength. He laughed at his own remarks more uproariously than his audience.”

This acute awareness of his country’s fragility in the face of stronger neighbors and self-centered superpowers may give a clue as to how the late King Father kept Cambodia out of the war in neighboring Vietnam for many years, though ultimately the country was drawn into the conflagration in the final years of his reign, which was ended by a military coup in 1970.

“In a world without pity, the survival of a country as small as Cambodia depends on your god and my Buddha,” Norodom Sihanouk told Mr. Kamm, explaining why he hewed to a neutralist policy as neighboring Vietnam was engulfed in flames.

Born on October 31, 1922, Norodom Sihanouk admitted to being a mostly solitary child during his education in a French primary school in Phnom Penh and a French high school in Ho Chi Minh City. He was still a quiet boy of 18 when he was selected as King, and he reportedly wept at the thought of ruling.

Chosen by the French administration for what they took as docility, he would end up playing a major role in ending French Indochina.

“The French chose me because they thought I was a little lamb,” Norodom Sihanouk once wrote. “Later they were surprised to discover that I was a tiger.”

On the death of King Monivong in 1941, Cambodia’s French administrator Admiral Decoux recommended the Cambodian prince, who was studying at a Ho Chi Minh City high school, as the King’s successor.

Numerous French documents of that era remain sealed today but, according to historians, the main reason for selecting Prince Sihanouk was that the prince seemed more malleable and less prone to independent action than other candidates.

France would have ample ground to regret that decision when the young King Sihanouk lobbied world press and leaders to force the French government’s hand and give the country independence in 1953.

The official explanation when he was selected would be that, as a descendent of both royal families—Norodom on his father’s side and Sisowath on his mother’s—choosing Prince Sihanouk would put an end to squabbles between the two competing families. So in October 1941, as war raged in Europe and Cambodia was under Japanese military control through a French administration loyal to Axis powers Germany and Japan, King Sihanouk acceded to the throne.

Thus began the reign of a man that Time magazine in 1999 called one of the most influential Asian leaders of the 20th century, a fascinating ruler and consummate politician whose actions—at times brilliant and often controversial—will be debated by historians and political analysts for decades to come.

Yet the King that Norodom Sihanouk was to become took time to emerge.

When France put him on the throne, nothing had prepared the young prince for this role, writes Mr. Chandler, the historian.

At first kept under strict control by the French, Norodom Sihanouk admitted that, prior to 1952, he was more concerned with female conquests than affairs of state. By the time he was 24 he would have six children; by 1954, he would have 13 children to five different women.

But he was also learning his trade as the nation’s leader, as he demonstrated after the adoption of Cambodia’s 1947 constitution and the 1951 national election.

In January 1953, King Sihanouk asked the National Assembly for special powers, saying that the country was in danger. Refused, he had troops surround the National Assembly building, dissolved the assembly, had about 10 politicians jailed and, holding full powers, concentrated on his “Royal Crusade for Independence” to fulfill the promise he had made to the country to gain Cambodia’s independence within three years.

“[Norodom] Sihanouk’s own sense of confidence and his unshakeable belief that he knew what was best for Cambodia was to be the hallmarks of his rule until his hold on Cambodian politics began to slip in the late 1960s,” historian Milton Osborne writes.

Pursuing his promise, he left for France in February 1953. Once there, he petitioned the French government for independence. But his plea was not taken seriously. After several high-level meetings including a luncheon with French President Vincent Auriol, he was finally told by the French commissioner for associated countries, Jean Letourneau, that his request was “inopportune.”

Rebuffed, he took to the world stage, traveling to the U.S., Canada and Japan to give interviews to muster support for independence. He was interviewed by the Canadian television network CBC in Montreal; The New York Times; and received editorial support in The Washington Post.

The French, wearied from waging a losing battle in their war with Vietnamese nationalists next door, agreed to talks for a peaceful transition to independence in Cambodia. On November 9, 1953, Norodom Sihanouk was able to declare independence for his country. Indochina dissolved the following year.

The young King Sihanouk, and now Father of Independence, had his own vision for Cambodia and was not satisfied to be a constitutional monarch. In 1955, he took the bold step of stepping down as King and, while his father acceded to the throne in his stead, entered the political arena by founding the political party Sangkum Reastr Niyum, which would hold power until 1970.

During those 15 years in power, Norodom Sihanouk embarked on an ambitious program that turned Phnom Penh into one of the most dynamic capitals in the region.

The period was the beginning of what many older Cambodians recall as a golden age. In the post-independence years, education blossomed with the construction of thousands of elementary schools. More than 1 million students received primary education, and nine universities were built for an estimated 10,000 students. New hospitals and clinics were constructed. Cambodia’s brilliant post-independence architects, such as Vann Molyvann, developed a distinctive style of architecture whose work still inspires to this day.

In 1961, war broke out between North and South Vietnam, and Norodom Sihanouk began a tightrope walk that kept Cambodia neutral for nine years.

“His most positive contribution to Cambodian history, I think, was to keep Cambodia out of the Vietnam War for as long as he did,” Mr. Chandler said.

As Sihanouk sought foreign support for his neutralist position, he became a leader within the Non-Aligned Movement of countries such as India, Egypt and Indonesia, which refused to take sides in the Cold War. And while Norodom Sihanouk became a hero of the international left, he also suppressed the growth of left-wing parties in his own country through surveillance and arrest.

At the same time, the 1960s were the heyday of the highlife for Phnom Penh’s elite, crowned by Norodom Sihanouk’s flamboyance.

Playing saxophone and clarinet, Prince Sihanouk would lead a band mostly composed of his fellow princes, which played into the early hours of the morning with a mix of 1930s swing, French pop and the prince’s own songs. Diplomats would sip vintage champagne and dance all night at the Royal Palace soirees, historian Mr. Osborne recalled.

Yet the Koh Santepheap, or “oasis of peace” as Cambodia was known during those years, also contained the seeds of the prince’s downfall. His unspoken policy of vanquishing his political opponents bred resentment.

After arrests of left-wing intellectuals and repression of their publications, leftists fled into the jungle, later to re-emerge as the deadly Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile, the universities produced well-educated graduates who had few job opportunities and who were angered by the corruption in the capital.

Neither backing the U.S. nor the Eastern bloc entirely, his political allegiance led some diplomats and commentators to view him as unreliable, while others saw his unpredictability as a strategy in itself.

“The key to understanding Sihanouk,” wrote Bernard Krisher, publisher of The Cambodia Daily and longtime friend of Norodom Sihanouk, “is that when you are the leader of a small and defenseless country in need of foreign aid, and when competing big powers will help only at the price of your joining their camp, then the only meaningful strategy is to be unpredictable—to play one side against the other and keep everybody guessing. It was a delicate art and Sihanouk was a master.”

But his high-stakes balancing act was not to last.

In 1970, as he was on a trip abroad, Norodom Sihanouk was ousted by the pro-U.S. Lon Nol government.

Told that he could stay in France as long as he remained out of politics and receiving a lukewarm reception in the U.S., he accepted China’s invitation to reside in Beijing and head the opposition movement to the Lon Nol regime that consisted of Khmer Rouge forces backed at the time by North Vietnam. In that capacity, Norodom Sihanouk launched on March 24, 1970, from Beijing a radio appeal to Cambodians to join the “maquis” guerrillas to fight the Lon Nol government and restore him to power.

By leading the movement, he had formed a strategic alliance with the Khmer Rouge insurgents who pledged to support him. Nonetheless, in 1973, he told a New York Times reporter of his fear that when the Khmer Rouge no longer needed him they would “spit him out.” Sure enough, soon after taking power in 1975, the Khmer Rouge imprisoned Norodom Sihanouk, Princess Monineath and Prince Norodom Sihamoni in his own palace in Phnom Penh. He was often in fear of execution during his stay in what he called his “gilded prison.” The Khmer Rouge eventually killed many members of his family who were still in Cambodia.

Just ahead of Vietnamese forces who toppled Pol Pot in January 1979, Norodom Sihanouk, Princess Monineath and Prince Sihamoni were put on a plane bound for Beijing.

The 1980s saw a protracted civil war between a tenuous alliance composed of Khmer Rouge, royalist and republican forces based on the Thai border and the Hanoi-backed government in Phnom Penh. But by 1987, as Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev was introducing policy that would lead to the end of the Cold War, Norodom Sihanouk began peace talks with Prime Minister Hun Sen.

As Cambodia’s most prominent and respected figures, Norodom Sihanouk was at the center of negotiations with the various factions to finally end the Cambodian conflict—one of the last hangovers from the Cold War. Reconciliation led to the Paris Peace Agreement in 1991, and Norodom Sihanouk returned from exile that year to Phnom Penh where he was greeted with a hero’s return. He rode together with Mr. Hun Sen in an open top limousine from Pochentong Airport to the Royal Palace.

The next year, the $2 billion U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) began its operation to bring peace, stability and democratic elections to the war-weary country. Though it failed to disarm the Khmer Rouge, UNTAC did usher in elections, which were won by the royalist Funcinpec party, chaired by Norodom Sihanouk’s son Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

During the 1993 elections, Norodom Sihanouk was determined to remain neutral. But he soon became associated with the Funcinpec party he had previously founded, and turned into the royalist party’s biggest asset, bringing it to victory.

After the defeated CPP threatened a return to civil war, Norodom Sihanouk took charge. Always pragmatic with a profound understanding of his people and politics, Norodom Sihanouk sealed a compromise to the relief of the U.N. and the world’s superpowers: The CPP and Funcinpec would share power with Prince Ranariddh acting as first prime minister and Mr. Hun Sen as second prime minister. This arranged marriage would end in armed combat in the streets of Phnom Penh in 1997.

In September 1993, 38 years after leaving the throne, Norodom Sihanouk was crowned King yet again. The new post-UNTAC Constitution assigned him ceremonial powers, specifying that he was to reign, but not rule.

Until his retirement in 2004, Norodom Sihanouk continued to appeal to the international community to support the country’s development. He also kept mediating conflicts among Cambodia’s various parties.

In 1993, he tried to broker an agreement between the new Cambodian government and the Khmer Rouge who had resumed fighting shortly after signing the Paris Peace Agreement and were controlling western portions of the country.  He even suggested offering “acceptable” Khmer Rouge leaders government positions if they surrendered and gave up control over zones they were occupying. That offer, however, did not extend to Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Nuon Chea or Ta Mok. As observers mentioned, Norodom Sihanouk believed that Khmer Rouge with government positions would be easier to control.

In a March 1994 message, he suggested a cease-fire and peace talks between government and Khmer Rouge leaders. Otherwise, the country could be in “mortal danger” of remaining in a state of perpetual war, he said. Peace talks did take place in June 1994 but failed to end the hostilities. On January 18, 1995, King Sihanouk made another appeal for national reconciliation and suggested to extend the government’s amnesty policy to Khmer Rouge defectors. The government announced 10 days later that it endorsed his suggestion except in the case of Pol Pot and Ta Mok, who would have to leave the country. This second attempt also failed.

With heavy fighting depleting the Cambodian army, the government contemplated conscription, a measure for which King Sihanouk strongly disapproved. Obligatory military service would cause social injustice because, he wrote in February 1996, “children from rich and powerful families would always find a way to escape [it].”

That same year, he spoke in favor of a Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal, describing Pol Pot as a monster.

Regarding his granting of amnesty to Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary in September 1996, the late King explained that, even though he did not agree with it, he had to comply with the request of the government and the majority of the National Assembly who approved the move.

Shortly after the amnesty for Ieng Sary, he announced his intention of granting pardon to the largest possible number of prisoners on the occasion of his 74th birthday, saying that since he had given a free pass to a Khmer Rouge leader whose regime had caused the death of nearly 2 million people, he had to pardon those who had committed far less serious crimes.

It was only in December 1998 that the last Khmer Rouge forces would surrender and war in the country would finally end.

In 1999, Norodom Sihanouk criticized the Cambodian government for rejecting the concept of a joint war crimes tribunal dominated by U.N.-appointed judges and prosecutors which, he said, would not infringe on the country’s sovereignty as the government claimed.

The late King’s comments would often put him at odds with Mr. Hun Sen and, prior to his retirement, this would lead to him toning down his comments for a few weeks or months for the sake of good relations with the prime minister. Norodom Sihanouk’s old friend Ruom Rith, however, would often take over and continue to publicly voice criticism of the government.

In 2004, Norodom Sihanouk stepped down, which paved the way for his chosen heir and son, King Norodom Sihamoni, to be crowned King.

The King Father’s death marks the end of an era for Cambodia. An era that saw the country buffeted by the powerful forces of colonialism, the Cold War, civil war and genocide. It was an era unique in the scope and scale of the brutality and devastation suffered by a small country and its people.

In 1985, the French intellectual, Helene Cixous, wrote a play about Norodom Sihanouk that portrayed him as a tragic hero with the stature of a king in a William Shakespeare play. Upon seeing it, the King Father remarked that it was not he that should be portrayed as a tragic hero; it was all of Cambodia.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Laos Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong will visit Cambodia on Friday to pay their last respects to late King- Father Norodom Sihanouk, according to media statements from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday.

One statement said Nguyen Tan Dung will lead a high-level delegation to pay tribute to the King-Father on Friday afternoon at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, and the other statement said Thongsing Thammavong will also pay homage to late ex-King Sihanouk on Friday afternoon.

The most revered ex-King Norodom Sihanouk died of illness at the age of 90 in Beijing on Monday and his body was transported to Phnom Penh by an Air China jumbo jet on Wednesday afternoon. Hundreds of thousands of mourners tearfully welcomed the return of his body.

Cambodia announced a week of mourning from Oct. 17 to 23, and the body of the King-Father will be exhibited for at least 3 months at the Royal Palace before it is cremated.

Born on Oct. 31, 1922, Sihanouk reigned the country from 1941 to 1955 and again from 1993 until his voluntary abdication on Oct. 7, 2004 in favor of his son, the current King Norodom Sihamoni.

He was the king who led the country to gain independence from France in 1953. He was a presence through decades of political and social turmoil in Cambodia, despite long periods of exile overseas.

He suffered from various forms of cancer, diabetes and hypertension and had been treated by Chinese doctors in Beijing for years before his death.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen (L) meets with Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Oct. 18, 2012. (Xinhua/Ding Lin)


PHNOM PENH, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- China and Cambodia agreed on Thursday to further advance their comprehensive relations of strategic cooperation and partnership in accordance with the will of late Cambodian King-Father Norodom Sihanouk.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen told visiting Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo on Thursday morning that Cambodia "will firmly adhere to a friendly policy toward China and push the comprehensive relations of strategic cooperation and partnership between the two countries up to a new high along with China."

Dai arrived here on Wednesday afternoon for escorting the coffin of Sihanouk back home.

Hun thanked China's meticulous arrangements for Sihanouk. "China's care for King-Father Sihanouk during the past years has erected a monument of Cambodia-China friendship in the hearts of the Cambodian people," he said.

He also told Dai that Cambodia attaches importance to cooperation with China on regional and multilateral affairs. Cambodia will host a series of meetings of East Asian leaders next month. "Cambodia is willing to work closely with China for the success of the meetings," he said.

Dai again expressed condolences and sympathy over the death of King-Father Sihanouk, commending the late king as "a great friend of the Chinese people."h He said the Chinese people will firmly stand side by side with the Cambodian people and believes that the Cambodian people can build up a better country by inheriting King-Father Sihanouk's will.

He also spoke highly of the mutual trust, mutual support and earnest assistance between the two countries.

China supports Cambodia in hosting the East Asian leaders' meetings next month and will work together with Cambodia to make sure that the meetings, featuring solidarity, cooperation and development, will promote regional peace, stability and prosperity, he said.

Dai also met with Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hor Nam Hong and exchanged views with him on bilateral ties and regional issues of mutual interests.

Nation farewells Sihanouk: 'Godfather of Cambodia' Take Control of Your Super Special Offer Ends Soon. Apply Now! Final journey ... a phoenix float carries the casket with the body of Norodom Sihanouk through Phnom Penh Final journey ... a phoenix float carries the casket with the body of Norodom Sihanouk through Phnom Penh Photo: AP PHNOM PENH: Tens of thousands of mourners have packed the roadsides of Phnom Penh to witness the final return of Norodom Sihanouk, the former Cambodian king who was a pivotal figure through much of the country’s troubled recent history. The body of King Sihanouk, who died Monday in China, arrived from Beijing yesterday aboard an Air China jumbo and was driven through the streets of the Cambodian capital under a scorching tropical sun. He was the father, and we are the children. ‘‘He was the father, and we are the children,’’ said Pich Ravy, a vegetable seller who travelled to the Royal Palace, where King Sihanouk’s body will lie in state for the next three months. ‘‘He was one of Cambodia’s greatest kings.’’ Mourners burn incense and offer prayers at the Royal Palace. Mourners burn incense and offer prayers at the Royal Palace. Photo: AFP King Sihanouk’s death at 89, after six decades of deep involvement in Cambodia’s often devastating post-independence politics — marked by long years of war and the bloody rule of the Khmer Rouge — signalled the end of an era for Cambodia. But what the new era, and the monarchy, will look like is a subject of heated debate. Amid the official praise and remembrances, Cambodians discussed competing visions for the role of future kings. Advertisement To some, King Sihanouk’s death underscored the end of an activist monarchy where the lines between king and politician were blurred, and where a monarch could use the prestige of the throne to exert influence and power, as King Sihanouk, who ceded the throne to his son in 2004, often did. To others, his death highlighted a vacuum of moral authority and the highly concentrated and lopsided power of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has presided over the Cambodian government for the past 33 years, making him one of the longest-serving leaders in the world. ‘‘This is a new era for Hun Sen,’’ said Lao Moung Hay, a former civil servant and professor of law and economics. ‘‘There is no force to restrain him any more — there are risks for the country.’’ King Sihanouk, who was crowned in 1941, had gradually withdrawn from public life in recent years. In his long, colourful and complex rule as king and politician, he was praised by historians for his role in obtaining independence from France and criticised for providing legitimacy to the Khmer Rouge and assisting their rise to power. Some 1.7 million people are estimated to have died under the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s. But among mourners in Phnom Penh yesterday, King Sihanouk was remembered mostly as someone concerned with the plight of the poor and powerless. ‘‘The king did everything for the people,’’ said Som Srey Pao, 49, who travelled to the Royal Palace with her three children yesterday. ‘‘He sacrificed himself for the people.’’ The king’s elaborate coffin was placed on a gilded carriage shaped to represent a mythical birdlike creature. Mourners remained quiet and reverential, many of them kneeling as the carriage wheeled past. Trailing it was the black Mercedes of the current king, Norodom Sihamoni, who reluctantly took the throne when his father abdicated in 2004. King Sihamoni, 59, is a former ballet instructor who remains under the long shadow of his father. He is unmarried and seen as unlikely to produce an heir. Although kings can be chosen from among hundreds of descendants of prior kings, the lack of an obvious successor to King Sihamoni has raised anxiety among some royalists. ‘‘The king should be away from political activity,’’ said Cambodia’s Secretary of State Phay Siphan. ‘‘The king does not rule the people — the king is respected by the people.’’ He called King Sihanouk a ‘‘well-respected politician’’ and suggested he be described as the ‘‘godfather of Cambodia.’’ But he said the nation had moved on. ‘‘The king played two roles, one as a king and one as a politician,’’ he said. ‘‘This was a mixed message for the nation.’’ 

The New York Times

October 17, 2012

by: Mark Memmott, NPR
Tens of thousands of Cambodians gathered in Phnom Penh today to watch as the body of former King Norodom Sihanouk returned to the nation he dominated for more than half a century. He will lie in state for three months. Sihanouk died Monday in China.
One of the thousands of mourners today in Phnom Penh as the body of former King Norodom Sihanouk was brought home.

One of the thousands of mourners today in Phnom Penh as the body of former King Norodom Sihanouk was brought home.
Nicolas Asfouri /AFP/Getty Images

Tens of thousands of Cambodians gathered in the streets of Phnom Penh today to watch as the body of former King Norodom Sihanouk returned to the nation he dominated for more than half a century.

"Mourners dressed in white lined the 6-mile route to welcome the return of Sihanouk, the flamboyant former monarch who died at 89 of heart failure on Monday in Beijing, his residence since abdicating eight years ago," Reuters writes.

NPR's Anthony Kuhn, who has been monitoring the news from Jakarta, tells our Newscast Desk that Sihanouk's body was accompanied on the trip from China by his son, Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni and Prime Minister Hun Sen.

"He was the father, and we are the children," Pich Ravy, a vegetable seller who came to the Royal Palace, where Sihanouk will lie in state for three months before being cremated, told The New York Times. "He was one of Cambodia's greatest kings."

As the Times recalls:

    "King Sihanouk, who was crowned in 1941, had gradually withdrawn from public life in recent years. In his long, colorful and complex rule as king and politician, he was praised by historians for his role in obtaining independence from France and criticized for providing legitimacy to the Khmer Rouge and assisting their rise to power. Some 1.7 million people are estimated to have died under the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s."

In a report this week for All Things Considered, Anthony noted that:

    "Cambodia's French colonial rulers assumed he would make a good puppet king when they put him on the throne in 1941. Instead he helped Cambodia win its independence in 1953.

    "In the 1960s, Sihanouk tried to balance the big powers in a futile attempt to keep Cambodia neutral. He tacitly allowed Vietnamese communists to base troops in eastern Cambodia. He also tacitly allowed the U.S. to covertly bomb those bases if there were no Cambodians in the area. ...

    "In 1970, Sihanouk's trusted supporter Marshal Lon Nol ousted him in a coup d'etat. Sihanouk alleged that the CIA was behind the plot.

    Sihanouk then allied himself with the communist Khmer Rouge movement to fight Lon Nol. Opposition lawmaker Son Chhay says Sihanouk bears some responsibility for the genocide under the Khmer Rouge's rule from 1975 to 1979, during which they wiped out up to a quarter of Cambodia's population. ...

    "Sihanouk spent most of the Khmer Rouge era as a prisoner in his own palace. He eventually returned to the throne in 1993, but real power has remained in the hands of Hun Sen, the current prime minister. ... Sihanouk abdicated the throne to his eldest son, Norodom Sihamoni, in 2004."

Cambodia prepares to receive the body of former king Norodom Sihanouk, who died at the age of 89. Sarah Charlton reports.

For the past seven decades King Norodom Sihanouk has embodied the soul of Cambodia and its people, but his passion for duplicity and intrigue also made him the author of many of the dark chapters in the Southeast Asian nation’s grim history.

Sihanouk died on Monday aged 89 in Beijing, where he spent long periods taking medical treatment after he abdicated the Cambodian throne in favour of one of his sons, Norodom Sihamoni, in 2004.

He was a man of enormous charm and a compelling raconteur, brimming with humorous stories and racy gossip. He had an emotional link to the bulk of Cambodia’s seven million people like no one else on the political stage.

But Sihanouk was also a malevolent political force. As head of government he was incompetent, he blocked the development of multi-party democracy on several occasions, supported the rise of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, and facilitated the creation of what is in effect a one-party state under current Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Yet for all its errors and horrors, the Sihanouk story is compelling. This, after all, is a man who never should have been king, a position he held twice. He was also president once, twice prime minister and twice sovereign prince.

Sihanouk’s rise to dominate public life in Cambodia and from time to time Southeast Asia in the last 70 years began as a mistake.

When Sihanouk’s maternal grandfather, King Sisowath Monivong died in April 1941, the French colonial administrators of Cambodia cast around among the plentiful supply of princes in the royal seraglio for a malleable puppet to put on the throne.

They picked 18-year-old Sihanouk, who at first seemed to be all the French wished for. With the enthusiasm of youth Sihanouk took at least six wives and several concubines. He fathered 14 children and managing the inevitable contests for power among his offspring and their mothers provided a daily family soap opera of epic proportions for the rest of his life.

But even in those early years in the 1940s Sihanouk demonstrated a capacity for political intrigue and shifting loyalties that would characterize his life.

Cambodia was under the control of the Vichy French regime allied to Nazi Germany. With the liberation of France and Germany’s defeat, Sihanouk declared Cambodia independent and an ally of Japan.

But when Japan was defeated in 1945 Sihanouk swiftly re-pledged his loyalty to France and welcomed the returning colonial power with great ceremony and enthusiasm.

When French rule in other parts of its Southeast Asia empire, especially Vietnam, came under attack from communists and nationalists, Sihanouk in 1953 persuaded Paris to give Cambodia independence without violence.

Two years later Sihanouk abdicated the throne in favour of his father and became prime minister, leading his People’s Socialist Community party to overwhelming victories in elections that featured vote rigging and violent suppression of opposition parties.

In 1960 Sihanouk’s father died and he had himself made head of state, as Prince Sihanouk, as well as prime minister.

Sihanouk tried to keep Cambodia out of the United States’ wars in Southeast Asia.

But in the late 1960s the Americans saw that the Vietnamese communists were running supply routes across Cambodia with, at the very least, Sihanouk’s acquiescence.

In 1970 Sihanouk was overthrown in a coup led by Gen. Lon Nol who had American backing.

Sihanouk fled to Beijing where the Chinese government persuaded him to give his backing to the Cambodian communist insurgents, the Khmer Rouge.

Although Sihanouk had persecuted the Khmer Rouge unmercifully while in power, he now gave the organization and its leader Pol Pot his unstinting support.

When the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia in 1975 Sihanouk accepted the title of president.

But the murderous regime of the Khmer Rouge, in which about two million Cambodians died, among them five of Sihanouk’s sons, was too much for the prince president.

Sihanouk resigned after a year. He and his now exclusive consort, Princess Monique, were put under house arrest in one of his palaces.

He was liberated when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1979 and put a puppet government in place under Prime Minister Hun Sen.

But Sihanouk preferred Cambodian murderers to Vietnamese liberators. Over the next 12 years he continued to give public support to the Khmer Rouge that both prolonged what had become a civil war and gave the Khmer Rouge more political credibility than it deserved.

The United Nations negotiated an end to the civil war in 1991 and Sihanouk returned to Cambodia from exile in China and North Korea to a wildly enthusiastic welcome in Phnom Penh, the capital.

This appeared to rekindle his passion for power and the royalist political party, Funcinpec, led by Sihanouk’s son Prince Ranariddh, was clear victor in the May 1993 elections against the Cambodian People’s Party led by Hun Sen.

But then Sihanouk betrayed his own son and Cambodia’s hopes for a functioning multi-party democracy.

Sihanouk, as head of state again, sided with Hun Sen, who was threatening to restart the civil war. He persuaded the UN to make Ranariddh and Hun Sen co-prime ministers.

And in 1997 Hun Sen, apparently with Sihanouk’s approval, launched a coup that removed Ranariddh and has seen the Cambodian People’s Party securely in power since.


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The Friends of Veera-Ratree group and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) have urged Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to raise the plight of two Thai activists jailed in Cambodia during her visit to Phnom Penh next month.

Ms Yingluck will meet Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen while in Phnom Penh for the Asean summit. They hope she will ask if the pair could be sent home.

Veera Somkwamkid, coordinator of the Thai Patriots Network, and his secretary Ratree Pipattanapaibun have been imprisoned in Cambodia since December 2010, after being found guilty of illegal entry and espionage.

Both activists remain unwavering and are adamant that they did nothing wrong, said Niran Pitakwatchara, a human rights commissioner, who visited the pair in prison on Oct 5.

Mr Veera still believes he was walking on Thai territory, not Cambodian soil, Dr Niran told a meeting of the Friends of Veera-Ratree group yesterday.

"It's about human dignity. We want to explain to all sides that the pair support justice. They were not spying on anything or for anyone," said Dr Niran.

The NHRC is also worried about the fate of up to 50 other Thai prisoners in prisons in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. It is campaigning to have prison conditions there improved.

Dr Niran said the fate of the two Thai activists seems to be in the hands of Hun Sen.

Phra Dusadee Methangkuro, abbot of Thung Phai temple in Chumphon, said Mr Veera was more concerned about his 73-year-old mother's health than his own predicament when he visited the activist last week.

"He is not allowed to read or write. His basic human rights are being violated. His further detention will make Hun Sen illegitimate in the eyes of justice and democracy lovers," said Phra Dusadee, who saw Mr Veera on Oct 12.

Phra Pohput Chanthasettho, known as Than Chan from the Santi Asoke sect, said Thailand and Cambodia shared the same religious heritage of Deravadha Buddhism, so Cambodian leaders should show compassion to people of good nature like Mr Veera and Ms Ratree.

Both the monk and the commissioner said the two prisoners were willing to serve their remainder of their sentence in Thailand.

Jaran Ditapichai, adviser to the House committee for foreign affairs, said the Veera-Ratree case should also be argued on humanitarian grounds, and not dismissed as a mere case of trespassing.

Paskorn Siriyaphan, head of the Foreign Ministry's Department of East Asian Affairs, said the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh is helping the two activists.

The Foreign Ministry has stepped in to clear the air over a social media posting of a well-known Channel 3 reporter appearing to stand over photos of the late Cambodian King Sihanouk on the ground.

Cambodia's social media network was abuzz yesterday with a photo of Thapanee Eadsrichai, a well-known reporter from Channel 3, appearing as if she was standing on newspaper photos of the late King Sihanouk spread on the ground.

The photo, carrying the caption "Thai TV3" and "Our King", attracted several hundred critical comments from from both Cambodians and Thais.

Calling an urgent briefing yesterday, Paskorn Siriyaphan, an outgoing head of the East Asian Affairs Department, expressed regret over the incident to Phnom Penh. He said Thais shared the feeling of loss as Cambodians mourn the death of their former king. "We did not want [the incident] to happen. We love and respect the Cambodian monarchy the same way as we adore and revere our own institution of monarchy," said Mr Paskorn, who will soon take over the Thai ambassadorship to Indonesia.

In a statement issued after her return to Thailand from Phnom Penh, Ms Thapanee insisted she did not step on the photo as alleged in the social media posting. The reporter said that before filing a report on the late king, she put her belongings on the ground including her mobile phones, notebooks and local newspapers featuring news and a photo of former king Sihanouk.

She insisted she placed all the items far from herself, but the photo that appeared on Facebook might have been shot from an angle that made it look like the items were laid on the ground close to her.

She apologised nonetheless and said she had no intention to show disrespect to the late Cambodian king. Channel 3 management also expressed their sincere apologies to Cambodia's royal family. They said they hoped that the issue would not affect bilateral relations.

Mr Paskorn said he believed Channel 3 would send the statement to the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok or directly to Phnom Penh.

Mr Paskorn said the Thai ambassador to Phnom Penh, Sompong Sanguanban, went to explain the situation to vice-minister for foreign affairs Ung Sean.

Mr Paskorn was in Phnom Penh during the 2003 torching of the Thai embassy sparked by comments falsely attributed to a Thai actress about the ownership of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

Mr Paskorn said he believed the explanation had been conveyed to the deputy prime minister and foreign minister Hor Namhong.

Norodom Sihanouk would have left a proud legacy had he been allowed a free hand. Photo: AP

A wise ruler, the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote, is selfless, hard working, honest, able to time when to act, fair in handling conflict and willing to empower others. Even if Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia's former king who died in Beijing on Monday aged 89, had been hugely blessed with these traits, greatness would have eluded him and his people. Persistent foreign interference created circumstances that led to flawed decisions. The country now in mourning has been left poor, divided and corrupt.

Outsiders have many descriptions for Sihanouk, among them mercurial, self-indulgent and unpredictable. That he was at times a master politician, there is no doubt: he deftly steered his country to independence from the French colonial yoke, gave up the monarchy to enter politics and outmanoeuvre rivals to become an autocrat and made a comeback after years in the wilderness to be a peacemaker and again king before abdicating in 2004 in favour of his son. All the while, his underlying objective was unity for Cambodians. But he also made devastating errors of judgment, the gravest being to trust the murderous Khmer Rouge regime.

Cambodia suffered, and so did Sihanouk: five of his 14 children were among the estimated 1.7 million people who perished. It is a poignant example of how his fate and that of his country were entwined. He saw Cambodians as his children, believing he alone had the right to determine their destiny.

But there was little chance of a bright future. The US dragged Cambodia into the Vietnam war, China backed the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam invaded, occupying between 1979 and 1990. Even after his return to usher in a new era of independence under UN oversight, true democracy was stymied by lingering influences. Generations who lived through the golden years of the 1960s think of him as the King Father, but younger Cambodians see him as an eccentric occupied with making films and partying with the rich and famous. He would have left a proud legacy had he been allowed a free hand.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Mourners packed the roadsides here on Wednesday to witness the final return of Norodom Sihanouk, the former Cambodian king and a pivotal figure through much of the country’s troubled recent history.

The body of King Sihanouk, who died in China on Monday, eight years after ceding the throne to a son, arrived in Phnom Penh, the capital, on Wednesday aboard an Air China jet from Beijing, and was driven through the streets under a scorching tropical sun.

“He was the father, and we are the children,” said Pich Ravy, a vegetable seller who traveled to the Royal Palace, where King Sihanouk’s body will lie in state for the next three months. “He was one of Cambodia’s greatest kings.”

King Sihanouk’s death at 89, after six decades of deep involvement in Cambodia’s often devastating postindependence politics, signaled the end of an era for Cambodia that was marked by long years of war and the bloody rule of the Khmer Rouge.

But what the new era, and the monarchy, will look like is a subject of heated debate in the country. Amid official praise and remembrances on Wednesday, Cambodians discussed competing visions for the future role of kings.

To some, King Sihanouk’s death relegated to the past an activist monarchy that blurred the lines between king and politician.

To others, his death created a vacuum of moral authority and highlighted the highly concentrated and lopsided power of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has presided over the Cambodian government for the past 33 years, making him one of the longest-serving leaders in the world.

“This is a new era for Hun Sen,” said Lao Moung Hay, a former civil servant and professor of law and economics. “There is no force to restrain him anymore — there are risks for the country.”

Prince Sisowath Thomico, King Sihanouk’s longtime private secretary and nephew, said that some Cambodians were worried and afraid after Mr. Sihanouk’s death.

“He had such charisma,” he said in an interview in the Royal Palace. “And now there will be a kind of hiatus. The people of Cambodia will have to wait for the next person who will have that same moral authority.”

King Sihanouk, crowned in 1941, had gradually withdrawn from public life in recent years. In his long, colorful and complex rule as king and politician, he was praised by historians for his role in peacefully obtaining independence from France and criticized for providing legitimacy to the Khmer Rouge and assisting their rise to power. About 1.7 million people are estimated to have died under the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s.

But among mourners in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, King Sihanouk was remembered mostly as someone concerned with the plight of the poor and powerless.

“The king did everything for the people,” said Som Srey Pao, a 49-year-old mother who traveled to the Royal Palace with her three children on Wednesday. “He sacrificed himself for the people.”

The king’s elaborate coffin, draped in a blue royal flag and festooned with flowers, was placed on a gilded carriage shaped to represent a mythical birdlike creature. Mourners clutched incense sticks and lotus flowers. They remained quiet and reverential, many kneeling, as the carriage wheeled past.

Trailing it was the black Mercedes of the current king, Norodom Sihamoni, who reluctantly took the throne when his father abdicated in 2004. King Sihamoni, 59, is a former ballet instructor who remains under the long shadow of his father. He is unmarried and seen as unlikely to produce an heir. Although kings can be chosen from among hundreds of descendants of prior kings, the lack of an obvious successor to King Sihamoni has raised anxiety among some royalists.

Son Soubert, a member of the privy council to the current king, spoke of a “vacuum” following King Sihanouk’s death. He described the current king as much more reserved on many issues than his father.

“Our present king is so neutral that he doesn’t get involved,” Mr. Son Soubert said. “He sticks to his role within the Constitution.”

To allies of Mr. Hun Sen, that is exactly the way it should be.

Phay Siphan, secretary of state in the Council of Ministers, which functions as a cabinet, describes a new era for the monarchy in Cambodia, enshrined in the country’s 1993 Constitution.

“The king should be away from political activity,” Mr. Phay Siphan said in an interview. “The king does not rule the people — the king is respected by the people,” he said.

Mr. Phay Siphan called King Sihanouk a “well-respected politician” and the “godfather of Cambodia.” But he said the nation had moved on.

Critics of Mr. Hun Sen’s government see an effort to monopolize the political arena and the monarchy.

Unlike the royals in Thailand or Britain, the Cambodian royal family is not wealthy and does not have vast landholdings. Kings are largely reliant on the state budget for their activities, giving the government potential leverage over the monarchy.

Depending on the timing of succession, Mr. Hun Sen and his allies may also have considerable say about who becomes the next king. The Constitution puts that power in the hands of a nine-member Throne Council that includes the prime minister and top officials from the National Assembly and Senate, both of which are currently controlled by Mr. Hun Sen’s party.

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Tens of thousands of mourners lined the streets of the Cambodian capital on Wednesday to pay their last respects to revered former king Norodom Sihanouk on his final journey home from China.

The body of the mercurial ex-monarch, who steered his country through turbulent decades of war, genocide and finally peace, returned to Phnom Penh on a special flight from Beijing, where he died of a heart attack on Monday aged 89.

He was accompanied by his widow Queen Monique, son King Norodom Sihamoni and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Robed monks chanted prayers as the coffin was brought off the plane and decorated with white flowers.

Large portraits of a smiling Sihanouk were dotted along the main boulevards in the capital, filled up with throngs of people, young and old, wearing white shirts and holding small Cambodian flags as they waited under a sweltering sun.

"There are more than 100,000 people lining the streets. More are coming," government spokesman Khieu Kanharith told reporters at the airport, where people climbed on walls and car roofs to get a better view.

A convoy was set to take the coffin straight to the royal palace, where Sihanouk will lie in state for three months before an elaborate funeral for the ex-king, who remained popular after abdicating in favour of his son in 2004 citing old age and ill health.

"I hope to see the royal body," said Mean Pichavisa, 16, as he sat outside the palace cutting up black ribbons for his school friends to pin to their shirts in a symbol of mourning.

The teenager, who shaved his head in honour of Sihanouk's passing, said he would spend the day there to witness the late monarch's "historic" homecoming.

"I will remember this day until I die," he told AFP, as white-robed nuns chanted solemnly beside him.

Earlier on Wednesday his coffin was transported through the Chinese capital to the airport in a bus decorated with yellow ribbons and flowers, while flags flew at half-mast on Tiananmen Square in his honour.

The arrival of his coffin in his home country marked the start of a week-long mourning period during which the Cambodian government has ordered radio and television stations not to broadcast joyful programmes.

It has also cancelled the festivities for next month's Water Festival, an annual celebration that usually draws millions of visitors to the capital to enjoy dragon boat races, fireworks and concerts.

Mourners have flocked to the palace in recent days to pay tribute to Sihanouk with lotus flowers, candles and incense sticks, many of them crying as they knelt down to pray in front of the building.

"His death is a great loss for Cambodia," said 66-year-old Thong Bunsy, who described the former monarch as "a hero".

Many elderly Cambodians fondly recall the 1950s and 1960s as a golden era, when Sihanouk -- who ascended the throne in 1941 aged just 18 -- led the country to independence from France and a rare period of political stability.

The self-confessed "naughty boy" and prolific amateur filmmaker -- who abdicated twice, served variously as premier and head of state and spent years in exile -- was a shrewd political survivor.

In his most controversial decision, Sihanouk aligned himself with the communist Khmer Rouge after being ousted by US-backed general Lon Nol in 1970.

After seizing power, the Khmer Rouge put Sihanouk under house arrest in the royal palace. Their 1975-79 reign of terror killed up to two million people, including five of Sihanouk's 14 children.

Before the Vietnamese invaded and toppled the Khmer Rouge, Sihanouk took exile in China, which he saw as a second home.

He continued to push for peace, which eventually came in the 1990s. Sihanouk triumphantly regained the throne in 1993 but his influence diminished as strongman premier Hun Sen extended his grip on power.
In recent years, Sihanouk -- who battled illnesses including cancer, diabetes and heart problems -- spent long periods of time in China undergoing medical treatment, with his devoted sixth wife Monique always at his side.