King
Norodom Sihanouk 
regular script 
(born 31 October 1922) was
the
King of Cambodia until his abdication on 7 October 2004. He is now "King-Father (Khmer:
Preahmâhaviraksat) of Cambodia," a position in which he retains many of his former responsibilities as constitutional King.
The son of King
Norodom Suramarit and Queen
Sisowath Kossamak, Sihanouk has held so many positions since 1941 that the
Guinness Book of World Records identifies him as the
politician who has served the world's greatest variety of political offices. These included two terms as King, two as sovereign prince, one as president, two as
prime minister, and one as Cambodia's non-titled
head of state, as well as numerous positions as leader of various
governments-in-exile.
Most of these positions were only honorific, including the last position as constitutional King of Cambodia. Norodom Sihanouk's actual period of effective rule over
Cambodia was from 9 November 1953 (full independence granted to Cambodia) to 18 March 1970 (
Lon Nol and the National Assembly depose Sihanouk).
Names and titles
Since his abdication, Sihanouk's official
Cambodian title is:
Preah Karuna Preah Bat Sâmdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk PreahmâhaviraksatIn
Khmer:
The
literal translation of the title :
- Karuna ("compassionate," referring to the Buddhist concept karuna)
- Sâmdech ("lord, prince, excellency")
- Sihanouk (given name of Sihanouk; it is a contraction of siha-, "lion," from Sanskrit , cognate of singa- in Singapore; and -hanouk, from Sanskrit hanu, "jaws")
- Preahmâhaviraksat (preah, "sacred"; -mâha-, Sanskrit "great," maha- in maharaja; -vira-, Sanskrit "brave or eminent man; hero; chief," this Sanskrit word is cognate to many words in Latin like vir, viris, English virile; -ksat, "warrior, ruler," cognate of the Indian word Kshatriya).
The word "father" does not appear in the Cambodian title, but in Western languages his title is translated as "his Majesty King-Father Norodom Sihanouk," to distinguish from the title of his son the new King, which is "his Majesty King Norodom Sihamoni."
Despite the great ritualism surrounding the Cambodian monarchy, Sihanouk has always maintained close relations with the Cambodian people, and when addressing him, or talking about him, they most often call him
,
Sâmdech Euv, which literally means "Prince Dad," "My Lord Dad" (French:
Monseigneur Papa).
Early life
King Norodom Sihanouk received his
primary education in a
Phnom Penh primary school. He pursued his
secondary education in
Saigon (now
Ho Chi Minh City),
Vietnam at "Lycée Chasseloup Laubat" until his coronation and then later attended Cavalry military school in
Saumur,
France. When his maternal grandfather,
King Sisowath Monivong, died on 23 April 1941, the Crown Council selected Prince Sihanouk as King of Cambodia. At that time, Cambodia was part of
French Indochina. His coronation took place on September 1941.
Leadership turmoil
Prime Minister
After
World War II and into the early 1950s, King Sihanouk's aspirations became much more nationalistic and he began demanding
independence from the French colonists and their complete departure from
Indochina. This echoed the sentiments of the other fledgling nations of French Indochina: the
State of Vietnam, the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the
Kingdom of Laos. He went into exile in Thailand in May 1953 because of threats on his life by the French and only returned when independence was granted on 9 November 1953. On 2 March 1955, Sihanouk abdicated in favor of his father, established the
Sangkum and took the post of
Prime Minister a few months later, after having obtained an overwhelming victory in the
parliamentary elections on September 1955. Following his father's death in 1960, he won
general election as head of state, but received the title of prince rather than King. In 1963, he made a change in the constitution that made him head of state for life. While he was not officially crowned as King, he had created a constitutional office for himself that was exactly equal to that of the former kingship.
thumb|left|190px|Meeting in [[Beijing: from left
Mao Zedong,
Peng Zhen, Sihanouk,
Liu Shaoqi ]]
When the
Vietnam War raged, Sihanouk promoted policies that he claimed to preserve Cambodia's neutrality and most importantly security. While he in many cases sided with his neighbors, pressures upon his government from all sides in the conflict were immense, and his overriding concern was to prevent Cambodia from being drawn into a wider regional war. In so doing he made difficult choices of alliances in pursuit of the least dangerous course of action, within a political environment where genuine neutrality was likely impossible at the time. In the spring of 1965, he made a pact with the
People's Republic of China (China) and
North Vietnam to allow the presence of permanent North Vietnamese bases in eastern Cambodia and to allow military supplies from China to reach Vietnam by Cambodian ports. Cambodia and Cambodian individuals were compensated by Chinese purchases of the Cambodian rice crop by China at inflated prices. He also at this time made many speeches calling the triumph of Communism in
Southeast Asia inevitable and suggesting Maoist ideas were worthy of emulation. In 1966 and 1967, Sihanouk unleashed a wave of
political repression that drove many on the left out of mainstream politics. His policy of friendship with China collapsed due to the extreme attitudes in China at the peak of the
Cultural Revolution. The combination of political repression and problems with China made his balancing act impossible to sustain. He had alienated the left, allowed the North Vietnamese to establish bases within Cambodia and staked everything on China's good will. On 11 March 1967, a revolt in
Battambang Province led to the
Cambodian Civil War.
Deposed, exile, return
On 18 March 1970, while Sihanouk was traveling out of the country,
Lon Nol, the Prime Minister, convened the National Assembly
which voted to depose Sihanouk as head of state.
Emergency powers were given to Lon Nol and with the support from the Americans, the
Khmer Republic was created. Prince
Sisowath Sirik Matak retained his post as
Deputy Prime Minister. In 1941, the Prince had been passed over by the French government in favor of his cousin Norodom Sihanouk's leadership role.
After he was deposed, Sihanouk fled to
Beijing, formed the
National United Front of Kampuchea (Front Uni National du Kampuchéa - FUNK) and began to support the Khmer Rouge in their struggle to overthrow the Lon Nol government in
Phnom Penh. He initiated the
Gouvernement Royal d'Union Nationale du Kampuchéa (Royal Kampuchean National union Government), which included
Khmer Rouge leaders. After Sihanouk showed his support for the
Khmer Rouge by visiting them in the field, their ranks swelled from 6,000 to 50,000 fighters. Many of the new recruits for the Khmer Rouge were apolitical peasants who fought in support of the King, not for communism, of which they had little understanding. King Sihanouk believed they were doing a good deed for him, he had no idea they were going to betray him. He would later argue (1979) that the monarchy being abolished, he was only fighting for his country's independence, 'even if [his] country had to be
Communist.' During Lon Nol's regime, Sihanouk mostly lived in exile in
North Korea, where a 60-room
palatial residence which even had an indoor movie theater, was built for him. He would later return to his Pyongyang palace after 1979 Vietnamese invasion.
In Khmer Rouge captivity
When the Khmer Republic fell to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975, Prince Sihanouk became the symbolic head of state of the new régime while
Pol Pot remained in power. Sihanouk, who had imagined living like a retired country gentleman and perhaps being 'a
public relations man for [his] country and have [...] jazz parties and do some filming' was to spend the next few years virtually as a hostage of the Khmer Rouge. The next year, on 4 April 1976, the Khmer Rouge forced Sihanouk out of office again and into political retirement. During the Vietnamese invasion, he was sent to New York to speak against Vietnam before
the United Nations. After his speech, he sought refuge in China and in
North Korea.
The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in December 1978 ousted the Khmer Rouge. While welcoming the ousting of the Khmer Rouge genocidal regime, he remained firmly opposed to the Vietnamese-installed
Heng Samrin government of
People's Republic of Kampuchea. Hence, Sihanouk demanded Cambodia's seat in the
UN be left vacant, since neither Pol Pot regime nor Heng Samrin represented the Khmer people. Although claiming to be wary of the Khmer Rouge and demanding that the Khmer Rouge representatives that still held Cambodia's UN seat be expelled, Sihanouk again joined forces with them in order to provide a united front against the Vietnamese occupation. It has been argued that one of the reasons was the
US pressure to work with the Khmer Rouge. In 1982, he moved completely into opposition of the Vietnam-supported government, becoming president of the
Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK), which consisted of his own
Funcinpec party,
Son Sann's KPNLF, and the Khmer Rouge. The Vietnamese withdrew in 1989, leaving behind a pro-Vietnamese government under ex-Khmer Rouge cadre
Hun Sen to run the
People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK).
United States support
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Sihanouk's opposition forces drew limited military and financial support from the
United States, which sought to assist his movement as part of the
Reagan Doctrine effort to counter
Soviet and
Vietnamese involvement in Cambodia. One of the Reagan Doctrine's principal architects, the
Heritage Foundation's
Michael Johns, visited with Sihanouk's forces in Cambodia in 1987, and returned to
Washington urging expanded U.S. support for the KPLNF and Sihanouk's resistance forces as a third alternative to both the Vietnamese-installed and supported Cambodian government and the Khmer Rouge, which also was resisting the government.
Restoration as king
Peace negotiations between the CGDK and the PRK commenced shortly thereafter and continued until 1991 when all sides agreed to a comprehensive settlement which they signed in Paris. Prince Sihanouk returned once more to Cambodia on 14 November 1991 after thirteen years in exile.
In 1993, Sihanouk once again became King of Cambodia. During the restoration, however, he suffered from ill health and traveled repeatedly to Beijing for medical treatment.
Sihanouk's leisure interests include music (he has composed songs in
Khmer, French, and English) and film. He has become a prodigious
filmmaker over the years, directing many movies and orchestrating musical compositions. He became one of the first heads of state in the region to have a personal website, which has proven a cult hit. It draws more than a thousand visitors a day, which constitutes a substantial portion of his nation's Internet users. Royal statements are posted there daily.
Exile and abdication
Sihanouk went into self-imposed
exile in January 2004, taking up residence in
Pyongyang,
North Korea and later in
Beijing,
China. Citing reasons of ill health, he announced his
abdication of the throne on 7 October 2004. Sihanouk was diagnosed with B-Cell
Lymphoma in his
prostate in 1993; the disease recurred in his stomach in 2005, and a new cancer was found in December 2008. Sihanouk also suffers from
diabetes and
hypertension.
The constitution of Cambodia has no provision for an abdication.
Chea Sim, the
President of the Senate, assumed the title of
acting Head of State (a title he has held many times before), until the throne council met on 14 October and appointed
Norodom Sihamoni, one of Sihanouk's sons, as the new King.
Family
Sihanouk reportedly has had several wives and concubines, producing at least fourteen children in a period of eleven years. According to
Time (30 June 1956), however, his only legal wives have been Princess Samdech Norleak (married 1955) and Paule Monique Izzi (married 1955), who is a step-granddaughter of HRH Prince Norodom Duongchak of Cambodia and the younger daughter of Pomme Peang and her second husband, Jean-François Izzi, a banker. A profile of Sihanouk in
The New York Times (4 June 1993, page A8) stated that the King met Monique Izzi in 1951, when he awarded her a prize in a
beauty pageant.
According to Royal Ark's genealogy of the Cambodian royal family, however, Sihanouk has been married seven times, his consorts being:
- HRH Princess Sisowath Monikessan (née HRH Princess Sisowath Naralaksha Munikesara, 1929-1946; married 1944)
- HRH Princess Samdech Preah Reach Kanitha Norodom Norleak (née Princess Devisa Naralakshmi, born 1927; married 1946 and "more formally" on 4 March 1955)
- HM Queen Norodom Monineath Sihanouk (née Paule Monique Izzi, born 18 June 1936; married 12 April 1952 and "more formally" on 5 March 1955)
Books
- Norodom Sihanouk, My War with the CIA (1973, ISBN 0-7139-0449-6, ISBN 0-394-48543-2)
See also
