headquarters in Saigon imploring the Japanese to send an army to overthrow the French and implement his demands. By the end of the year he realized his requests would not be met, and he left the country. In January he flew from Bangkok to Tokyo, where he remained for three years. There he was trained by the Japanese, and given the rank of captain in the Japanese imperial army. In Japan Thanh more easily accepted Japanese rationales for holding off the coup he wanted so determinedly. Thanh wrote to his colleagues back in Cambodia: âWe must wait. Only Japanâs complete victory in Asia will resolve all the Asian problems to which the lot of our Cambodia is linked.â
The Cambodians arrested by the French met a far worse fate. A few leaders were sent to Saigon, where they were sentenced to imprisonment on the notorious penal island Puolo Condore with Cheav. The now legendary monk died in that prison three years later, reportedly saying in his final days: âI will die happy if I were sure that my country will be liberated from the foreign yoke. I pray for freedom.â
Those who survived and returned to Cambodia brought back stories of sympathy with their fellow Vietnamese prisoners who pleaded with them to join their Vietnamese communist movementâthe Indochinese Communist Party (ICP)âand âbashâ the French. Others who fled the July demonstration ultimately accepted the invitation. Achar Mean, a teacher of Pali at a
Phnom Penh monastery, fled to Kompong Cham province and later to Vietnam. After World War II, he became the first Cambodian known to have joined the ICP, under the pseudonym Son Ngoc Minh.
The temporary alliance between the Buddhists and the elite was over. With Thanh in Japan, Cheav imprisoned in Vietnam, and other Buddhists afraid to return to Phnom Penh, the key figures that had propelled the drive against French colonialists were gone from Phnom Penh. The elite and the Buddhists dropped their contacts and went in separate directions. Ultimately the aristocrats of the Sisowath alumni group would become leaders of independent Cambodia under Sihanouk while some of the key Buddhists became communists.
The monk who became known as Son Ngoc Minh, a combination of the names Son Ngoc Thanh and Ho Chi Minh, was only the first of dozens of Buddhists who abandoned Phnom Penh and sought aid for an independence movement from the Vietnamese.
Thus by 1942 there were all kinds of foreigners eager to encourage rebellion in Phnom Penh. To the east, the solidly anti-Japanese Vietnamese communists had tried to recruit Cambodians for years, but with little success. Ho Chi Minh founded the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930 with directives from the Comintern in Moscow that he build a party incorporating the communist movements in Cambodia and Laos as well as Vietnam. But there was no communist group in Cambodia, and the ICP found recruits to their party only among the Vietnamese coolies working the rubber plantations in eastern Cambodia. But once the independence drive took hold in Phnom Penh and the French suppressed the Buddhists, the ICP finally began to have hopes of recruiting Cambodians into the party.
In the West, the Issaraks grew more quickly. Moreover, the Issaraks cooperated with the Japanese at first in a secret, informal alliance against the French. The Issaraks also depended on the hospitality of the Thai government for safety from the reach of the French colonial police and for the arms and ammunition needed to lead a revolt.
Both the Vietnamese-controlled communist movement in Cambodia and Thai-supported Khmer Issarak won new recruits following the 1942 disturbances. A large number of nationalists who fled Phnom Penh eventually joined the Issaraks in western Cambodia; some established contacts with the ICP in the east.
The French retained control in Phnom Penh. However, Japan began to suffer defeats in the Pacific, and in 1943 the Japanese changed their strategy. They
The Cambodians arrested by the French met a far worse fate. A few leaders were sent to Saigon, where they were sentenced to imprisonment on the notorious penal island Puolo Condore with Cheav. The now legendary monk died in that prison three years later, reportedly saying in his final days: âI will die happy if I were sure that my country will be liberated from the foreign yoke. I pray for freedom.â
Those who survived and returned to Cambodia brought back stories of sympathy with their fellow Vietnamese prisoners who pleaded with them to join their Vietnamese communist movementâthe Indochinese Communist Party (ICP)âand âbashâ the French. Others who fled the July demonstration ultimately accepted the invitation. Achar Mean, a teacher of Pali at a
Phnom Penh monastery, fled to Kompong Cham province and later to Vietnam. After World War II, he became the first Cambodian known to have joined the ICP, under the pseudonym Son Ngoc Minh.
The temporary alliance between the Buddhists and the elite was over. With Thanh in Japan, Cheav imprisoned in Vietnam, and other Buddhists afraid to return to Phnom Penh, the key figures that had propelled the drive against French colonialists were gone from Phnom Penh. The elite and the Buddhists dropped their contacts and went in separate directions. Ultimately the aristocrats of the Sisowath alumni group would become leaders of independent Cambodia under Sihanouk while some of the key Buddhists became communists.
The monk who became known as Son Ngoc Minh, a combination of the names Son Ngoc Thanh and Ho Chi Minh, was only the first of dozens of Buddhists who abandoned Phnom Penh and sought aid for an independence movement from the Vietnamese.
Thus by 1942 there were all kinds of foreigners eager to encourage rebellion in Phnom Penh. To the east, the solidly anti-Japanese Vietnamese communists had tried to recruit Cambodians for years, but with little success. Ho Chi Minh founded the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930 with directives from the Comintern in Moscow that he build a party incorporating the communist movements in Cambodia and Laos as well as Vietnam. But there was no communist group in Cambodia, and the ICP found recruits to their party only among the Vietnamese coolies working the rubber plantations in eastern Cambodia. But once the independence drive took hold in Phnom Penh and the French suppressed the Buddhists, the ICP finally began to have hopes of recruiting Cambodians into the party.
In the West, the Issaraks grew more quickly. Moreover, the Issaraks cooperated with the Japanese at first in a secret, informal alliance against the French. The Issaraks also depended on the hospitality of the Thai government for safety from the reach of the French colonial police and for the arms and ammunition needed to lead a revolt.
Both the Vietnamese-controlled communist movement in Cambodia and Thai-supported Khmer Issarak won new recruits following the 1942 disturbances. A large number of nationalists who fled Phnom Penh eventually joined the Issaraks in western Cambodia; some established contacts with the ICP in the east.
The French retained control in Phnom Penh. However, Japan began to suffer defeats in the Pacific, and in 1943 the Japanese changed their strategy. They
Similar Books
