To a mixed chorus of reverberating Buddhist gongs and an authoritative 101-gun artillery salute, one of the oldest monarchies on earth was pronounced dead last week. In ceremonies before a joint session of the Cambodian Parliament, the President of Cambodia's National Assembly declared: "I, In Tam, officially proclaim the Khmer republic. Our country is indivisible." The fabled Khmer empire—begun in 802, conqueror of much of Southeast Asia a millennium ago, creator of the glories of Angkor Wat—was no more. In the newly named Place de la République near the former Royal Palace, Premier Lon Nol raised the banner of the new republic: a square blue flag with a smaller red square in the upper left-hand corner overlaid with the three main towers of Angkor; in the right corner were three stars symbolizing honor and progress, Buddhism and the republic.
In Peking, exiled Head of State Norodom Sihanouk, a prince of the Khmer line who abdicated the throne in 1955 to get closer to his people, declared the republic a "monstrous swindle."
Growing Support. It was only a few days after Sihanouk was deposed last March that those Cambodians who had long wanted to replace the monarchy with a republic began implementing their plans. Pictures of Sihanouk's mother, Queen Kossamak, a nonruling monarch but a symbol of royal permanence, were quickly stripped from government buildings. Pictures of Sihanouk were defaced or destroyed. When Lon Nol's government polled Cambodians on whether the monarchy should be abolished and replaced with a republic, the answer was reported to be an overwhelming yes. For all that, Lon Nol felt that the time was not right.
It was no accident that he changed his mind last week, roughly six months since the chaotic days following Sihanouk's ouster and the subsequent American-South Vietnamese invasion. Cambodia is hardly a model of stability and permanence today, and martial law still prevails. But Lon Nol seems to have impressed many of his countrymen with his honesty and courage. Deputy Premier Sisowath Sirik Matak has won respect as a shrewd and sophisticated politician, and the government is no longer seen as a here-today, gone-tonight proposition. Particularly noteworthy is the support it enjoys among Cambodia's embryonic professional and middle classes, and among the country's students.
A further indicator that the regime may outlast pessimists' predictions is the army, which has grown from 35,000 to 140,000 men. It is still a ragtag force, ill equipped with a bewildering array of Communist and American weapons. But, as it demonstrated in its recent relief of Kompong Thom and its stand at Taing Kauk, the army is capable of slugging it out with the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong.