Norodom Sihanouk Quotes

I am asking the U.S.A and Great Britain if, just for once, they will kindly consider the problem of Cambodia from the viewpoint of the Khmers instead of that of the French... My people will tell you: 'We don't know what communist slavery means. But the slavery imposed by the French we know well, for we are now living under it. If we fight alongside the French against the Viet Minh and the Issaraks, we are simply strengthening the chains of that slavery...' [The problem is that] in Indochina, you are either a communist or a lackey of the French: there is no middle course. We are not allowed to hope for an independence like that of India or Pakistan within the British Commonwealth... The question is: Does French military power on its own have any chance of defeating communism in Indochina? To fight without having the autochtonous population on one's side makes no sense... What is at stake in this struggle, and what will determine its outcome, is the [native] population. The Viet Minh have understood that from the start. If we [who oppose communism] wish to have the population with us, we must... make [our country's] independence... real and unquestionable, so that [no one] will listen any more to the Viet Minh propaganda about 'liberation'... This is the whole problem. It is a political matter. It has nothing to do with the science of war... If France does not boldly face up to [this]... then one day, sooner or later, it will be forced to abdicate from Indochina.

Oh, I'm not entirely without blame! It was a mistake to have chosen Lon Nol as my right-hand man, my chief of staff, my prime minister, without ever suspecting that he was a traitor in league with the CIA. I thought he was a patriot... Who would have thought the Americans would use him? After all, he was a complete idiot! He never understood a damn thing, always staring at me with those bovine eyes of his, and spending all his time praying.

History is full of traitors, and what's happened to me with Lon Nol is no exception. However, traitors are usually intelligent, not cretins like Lon Nol! I'm ashamed of my race for having begotten an idiot like Lon Nol. But the biggest idiot here isn't Lon Nol. It was Sihanouk who chose Lon Nol.

There are two injustices which revolt Me! First, that which makes the people believe that those responsible for the [Franco-Khmer] treaty and who continue to have dealings with the French are traitors. Secondly, that which holds that... all who do not openly insult and struggle against the French are traitors... For Myself, I refuse [this logic]... If I am a traitor, let the Crown Council permit Me to abdicate!... I can no longer stand by and watch My country drown and My people die... Over these last few months we have no longer dared look each other in the face. In our offices and schools, everywhere people are discussing politics- suspecting each other; hatching plots; promoting this person, bringing down that one, pushing the third aside; doing no constructive work while, in the country at large, killing, banditry and murder hold sway. Chaos reigns, the established order has ceased to exist... The military and the police... no longer know where their duty lies. The Issaraks are told that they are dying for Cambodia, and so are our soldiers dying in battle against them... Each day threatens [to engulf us in] a veritable civil war... This is how things now stand gentlemen. The time has come for the Nation to make clear whether it desires to follow [the way of the rebels], or to continue in the path that I have traced.

Cambodia only protests against the destruction of the property and lives of Cambodians. All I can say is that I cannot make a protest as long as I am not informed. But I will protest if there is any destruction of Khmer life and property.
Here it is - the first report about several B-52 bombings. Yet I have not been informed about that at all, because I have not lost any houses, any countrymen, nothing, nothing. Nobody was caught in those barrages - nobody, Cambodians.

From now on, any individual or any political party that opposes My policies will be declared a traitor to the Nation and... punished [accordingly].

The Chinese, in their infinite wisdom, have taught me that one must know when to choose between the primary and secondary enemy. For China, the primary enemy is the Soviet Union, and the secondary one is America. Therefore, they deal with the Soviet Union first, and America later. For me, the primary enemy is American imperialism and Lon Nol's fascism. My secondary enemies are the communists. Thus, I choose to ally myself with the secondary enemy to defeat the primary.

We don't want any Vietnamese in Cambodia.... We will be very glad if you solve our problem. We are not opposed to hot pursuit in uninhabited areas. You would be liberating us from the Viet Cong. For me only Cambodia counts. I want you to force the Viet Cong to leave Cambodia. In unpopulated areas, where there are not Cambodians,- such precise cases I would shut my eyes.

I'm not a communist, but I'm not anti-communist either. I'm not afraid of communists, and declare that if a country wants to be communist, it has the right to be so.

I may live in Peking rather than Phnom Penh, but I'm still the same old Sihanouk. A little original, or bizarre if you prefer. A little misunderstood, or incomprehensible if you prefer. But his convictions are intact and his personality's unaltered. For instance, I haven't become a communist: I continue to define myself as pink rather than red. I've not sewn my mouth shut: I continue to shout what I think about everything and everyone, without thinking of the consequences. And I've no intention of ending up as an exiled playboy.

Do you really believe that a man like me, who suffers for a country where B52s make 260 incursions a day, could miss the good life and jazz orchestras? I don't miss anything. I'm in mourning, and I don't even think of the carefree days of back then. What's done is done. If I had my Lancias, my Alfa Romeos and my Mercedes, I wouldn't know what to do with them now.

For God's sake! If I ran a dictatorship, then what is Lon Nol running? I renounced my throne to show the masses that there's no such thing as divine right, that no one descends from the heavens to rule the people.

He's the truest friend I've ever had. What's more, he's an exquisite man, full of kindness and sophistication, the most aristocratic aristocrat one can meet. To those who can't understand how I, a non-communist, could be friends with Zhou Enlai, I say: "But he's a prince more princely than I am!"

[I'm as naïve] as a child sometimes. People think I'm like Machiavelli. And yet I'm an even bigger sucker than Machiavelli was... In diplomatic manoevering, I seem devious and diabolical in my intentions, when in reality I'm not even that clever.

I don't want Cambodia to be a carbon copy of the Philippines, Formosa, South Vietnam or South Korea. I don't even want a Cambodia which exports cameras like Japan. I want a decent Cambodia, a Cambodia like China. If that makes it a bit too austere, too bad. If this takes away the happiness I cultivated with my films and my songs, too bad. But, they say, there's the problem of individual freedom, freedom of thought. Yes, that's true. But where's the alternative? Nowhere. Let's use our common sense here: even if there was another solution, the Cambodian communists would never relenquish power.