Lon Nol

It had been unable to resist the lunar pull of the extraordinary violence of neighbouring Vietnam.

And in Cambodia itself, there had been a brutal struggle between the US-backed government of General Lon Nol and the insurgent forces of the Khmer Rouge, led by the communist revolutionary Pol Pot, supported by China.

By that spring, 1975, the capital was overflowing with refugees.

Its resources were stretched thin, its people exhausted by bombardment and hunger and uncertainty.

Well, it was, but a lot of the profits were being taken by smugglers.

Both the government and the peasants were finding conditions quite difficult, and the effect on the Cambodian economy and then on the Cambodian politics, which although it was already a one-party state, it was not particularly oppressive.

But by 1966, Sihanouk appointed the general of the army, Lon Nol, as prime minister, and cracked down on the left and the leading left-wing parliamentarians who were elected in the '66 elections.

Uh, one of them with 78% of the vote, but they felt they had-- were in danger, and they had to flee.

So it was the right play.

Lon Nol was not the right man to be installed after the removal of Sihanouk.

But beggars can't be choosers.

You work with the mentioned material you have, including the leadership element.

He stands out again because of his pale complexion, but that's only stands out owing to hindsight.

You know, otherwise he'll just be an oddity.

The, uh, people believed too, at least throughout the first, uh, several years of what came to be called the Cambodian Civil War, which pitted Lon Nol's government, you know, which again was this client regime of Washington against the Khmer Rouge.

The leading Cambodian communist intellectual was Khieu Samphan.

By 1970, that stability had collapsed.

General Lon Nol came to power following a coup in March and Cambodia descended further into civil war.

The economy deteriorated under the combined pressures of fighting, displacement, disrupted agricultural production and weakened government institutions.

Then came April 17th, 1975.

Then, uh, US came, finished Japan.

He worked for Lon Nol army, support by US.

And then, uh, f- uh, uh, finished, uh, 1975, Khmer Rouge win, and he came to join with the Khmer Rouge soldier to be the trainer, 12 man.

That's my teacher.

The struggle was class warfare now, and the people and lands that had been liberated were going to be put to work for the revolution.

The number of enemies the party saw would extend well beyond just the Americans and Lon Nol's troops.

You've basically got that first image that these people might have had in their mind in 1970 of freedom fighters led by Robin Hood, bringing back the prince, fighting for justice.

That's all over.

Vietnam signed, Laos signed, the bombing stopped in both places, and the state of play it left behind was hugely in their favor.

Everyone else took it, so why not the Khmer Rouge? Why fight on knowing full well that fighting on means the bombs keep falling on the Khmer Rouge and the rest of the countryside? Well, there were three reasons, and Pol Pot says that he gave one of them to the Vietnamese back in October 1972, months before the accords were actually signed, and he talks about it in the black paper.

He says, if the party ceased fire, quote, "Even for just one day, Lon Nol's clique would have time to recover its breath." End quote.

So what he's saying there is that while the fighting is going on, the Americans and Lon Nol can't really get a grip.

So, uh, this was the group, uh, that took over there in, uh, 1975 at the end of the Cambodian Civil War, in which I must say, to our shame, the American Congress cut off support to the government that was, uh-

The government of Lon Nol

...

the government of, uh, Lon Nol.

Well, he had left by then, but anyway, the, uh, uh, the government of, uh, of Cambodia.

Nobody, in fairness to those people who, uh, who did this, nobody could imagine what would happen.

They discovered the points.

And I started thinking that there's even a case where Macedon went to treat the prime minister of Cambodia, Lon Nol, where he saw like a vein on the middle finger at the proximal joint and the distal joint.

And then he needled the point and the president felt his legs getting warm.

So in the book, there are two books describing two times that he traveled to treat the prime minister and he causes the undefined acupuncture point.

Okay.

He discovered it then because he saw some changes on the skin of the finger and then he's got a result.