King Attacks Book’s Account Of His Ties to Khmer Rouge

In his 12th letter attacking the book “Warrior Prince,” King Nor­odom Sihanouk called the book’s account of his cooperating with the Khmer Rouge against the Viet­namese during the 1980s false and insulting.

The book, a biography of Prince Norodom Ranariddh by Bangkok-based journalist Harish Mehta, says the prince was “filled with disgust on realizing his fa­ther had reversed his earlier re­fusal to cooperate with the Khmer Rouge, and was now ready to form a united front with his former jailers and the murderers of his children.”

The book goes on to say that the People’s Republic of China pressured the King to join forces with the Khmer Rouge.

“Here, the book adds insult and scorn…to a lie,” the King wrote,  flatly denying that China pressured him to form any such united front.

The King also wrote that it was a group of Asean leaders in Paris that persuaded him to head an anti-Vietnamese Cambodian liberation coalition, comprised of Son Sann’s Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, the Siha­nouk­ists and the Khmer Rouge.

The King wrote that “before all that, I sent three letters in succession to my old and great friend, Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, to ask his government to permit me to convey myself to Hanoi to negotiate Cambodia’s return to sovereignty and the Cambodian people’s recovery of their inalienable right to self-determination.”

The book is based on 18 hours of interviews Prince Ranariddh gave in 1997. In recent days he has expressed his disapproval of the book.

 

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