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Big Brother Hun Xen (L) and King-Father Sihanouk (R) (Photo: Sovannara, RFI)
General Lon Nol (L), Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak (C) and Mr. Son Ngoc Thanh (R)By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News
Ideologically or politically motivated historians can make a study of history confusing. Allowing for some personal bias to affect one's interpretation is understandable. Surely one man's bias is another's objective telling.Nevertheless, careful research will reveal that interpretations motivated by a political viewpoint can turn out to be demonstrably wrong.
The fashion has been to claim the U.S. B-52 bombings of Cambodia and the U.S. invasion of "neutral" Cambodia in 1970 were the primary catalyst for the rise of the Khmer Rouge genocidal regime.
I wrote in this space on Sept. 16 that Cambodia's "neutrality" was destroyed in 1963, and I cited a 1972 KCNA News Service Release and the "Protocol" to the 1965 agreement for China's military aid to Cambodia, allowing the Vietnamese communists' use of Khmer soil in the war against the Americans.
The pre-1970 Cambodian Ministry of Information published an invaluable collection of then Chief of State Sihanouk's speeches, "Les Paroles de Samdech Preah N. Sihanouk."
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