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Ghost Town. As the battle moved closer to Phnom-Penh, military police used rifle butts in a futile attempt to control the mobs of refugees flowing into the city. After a disaffected air force pilot bombed the military command headquarters (killing seven), a 24-hour curfew was imposed for one day while police went from house to house to search for infiltrators. Hospitals were crowded to two and three times their capacity. The small French community, anticipating the imminent arrival of the insurgents, began affixing the Tricolor to their houses; Paris had already recognized the Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile, the evacuated U.S. compound looked like a ghost town, picked clean of all movable objects by the Cambodian employees and police assigned to guard it.
By midweek, Phnom-Penh radio admitted that the situation "is boiling hotter and hotter." The insurgents had moved their 105-mm. howitzers close enough to shell downtown Phnom-Penh. The army's ammunition was nearly exhausted. "The end is fast approaching," a Cambodian employee of TIME cabled. "All is about to be lost. There will be no more escape."
Belatedly, the regime sought some political alternative to complete surrender. Only hours after interim President
Saukham Khoy fled Cambodia along with the U.S. diplomats, Long Boret announced a three-month suspension of the National Assembly and the creation of a seven-man "Revolutionary Committee," headed by Armed Forces Chief of Staff Sak Suthsakham, to rule the country. The committee offered the rebels a cease-fire if they would permit national elections to determine the future government of the country. The insurgents ignored the proposal.
With the military situation rapidly deteriorating, the government dropped its demands for elections. Via the Red Cross, it sent an urgent message to Prince Sihanouk, who had been titular head of the Khmer Rouge. The government offered a complete cease-fire and full transfer of powers to the insurgents. Its only condition: no reprisals. From Peking, where he lives in exile, Sihanouk spurned the proposals. He denounced the members of the Revolutionary Committee as "traitors who deserve hanging and should try to escape while they can." He urged the government's soldiers to "lay down their arms, raise the white flag and surrender." With that, the government surrendered completely and unconditionally.
It is expected that Khieu Samphan, 43, will quickly emerge as the major figure in the new government (see box below). For most of the war, the French-educated Samphan was Deputy Premier to Sihanouk, but it was clear all along that it was he who held the power, not the exiled prince.
A soft spoken Marxist, Samphan is expected to try to transform his nation into a one-party Communist-dominated state. In fact, in those areas that have been controlled by the insurgents for some time, there have been zealous efforts to sweep away the traditional easygoing habits of old Cambodia. A highly politicized, regimented life has been stressed, peasants have been herded into communes, and the state has acquired a dominant authority over private activities.