Rumors that Lon Nol is about to appoint a successor and flee the country are flying thick and fast in Pnompenh. A dispatch in the March 23 New York Times said he had already bundled up his belongings and obtained passports for himself and his family. He is reported to have told aides that his departure “will depend on the situation.”
Most of the other rats in Pnompenh have already left or are getting ready to jump from the sinking ship.
The commander of the puppet troops, Gen. Sosthene Fernandez, was dismissed (or resigned) March 11. By March 18 he had arrived in Thailand with his family on the way to France. He was supposedly going to Paris for a three-month health cure for his diabetes, but according to “knowledgeable sources” quoted in the March 20 Washington Post, he was getting a permanent apartment there.
At the U.S. embassy on March 18, the anniversary of the U.S.-backed coup five years ago, officials were burning files in preparation for hasty evacuation.
“Everyone is trying to be casual, but they are packing furiously,” a visitor to the homes of several U.S. diplomats told the Associated Press. By March 17 a giant C-130 transport plane loaded with personal effects and furniture of the embassy staff had left Pnompenh.
The British embassy pulled out March 21, leaving the U.S. embassy as the last imperialist mission in Cambodia. The French, Israeli, Australian, and West German embassies or diplomatic missions had already left. A report in the March 21 New York Times said that the British, like the French and Australians, “will not dispose of the buildings in the expectation of returning under a government of the Communist-led insurgents.”
On March 17 the U.S. embassy asked the main international relief agency, Catholic Relief Services, to evacuate most of its staff “until the situation clarifies a bit.” When the news broke that more than half of the agency’s personnel were leaving, the embassy hastily tried to play it down, denying that it had “ordered” the evacuation, merely “suggested” it.
Dr. Gay Alexander, the agency’s medical director, denounced the U.S. military aid policy as she left Pnompenh:
“They use and manipulate the ordinary people of this country,” she said. “They hold back rice for the highest bidder, while hundreds are dying of malnutrition every day. Economic aid with no U.S. strings attached should continue, but military aid must be stopped now.”
The military situation facing the Pnompenh regime has gotten worse each day.
The barrage of rebel rockets and shells hitting Pnompenh’s airport has led to interruptions of the U.S. airlift. Insurgent gunners scored a direct hit on an ammunition dump at the airport March 13. Two storage sheds and two Cambodian planes were destroyed, and the airport was closed the rest of the day. The airlift was interrupted again March 21, and on March 22 a DC-8 carrying rice and a C-130 transport loaded with fuel were put out of action by rocket fire. The airlift was suspended for three days.
Attempts to push the insurgents out of range of the airport have failed. The puppet troops reoccupied the town of Tuol Leap on March 15, and it was described in the New York Times as “the first major advance by Government troops since the start of the insurgent offensive this year.” The following day, however, Lon Nol’s forces were surrounded and cut off by the same troops they had driven out.
The regime’s only toehold on the lower Mekong River is at Neak Luong, and according to James Fenton in the March 18 Washington Post the town “is expected to fall shortly.” The area held by the Lon Nol forces was reportedly less than two-miles wide, and fighting was taking place in the streets. The airstrip had been captured, and the town was supplied by airdrop, much of which fell behind insurgent lines. For several days even helicopters had been unable to get in and out, according to the March 21 Christian Science Monitor.
The “rice bowl” province of Battambang has been liberated by the insurgents, and the regime’s control of the town of Battambang is now threatened. This region was the last area of any size held by the Pnompenh regime.
In Pnompenh a campus rally by a thousand university students March 19 urged the U.S. Congress to end aid to Cambodia and called for the removal of the Lon Nol regime. A demonstration the day before had been blocked by police.
“Any more aid will not lead to a peaceful settlement but will only prolong the war,” said a student leader. He charged that U.S. aid “went only to the high-ranking officers and officials.” The students said they would back “any government – Communist or not – as long as it brings peace.”
Leaflets denouncing U.S. aid have been circulating in the city. “The Khmer people thoroughly support the American Congress which opposes providing aid to the contemptible Phnom Penh traitors,” said one put out by an organization calling itself the “Voice of the Khmer People.”
The White House request for additional aid is being shuffled back and forth in Congress, but the issue is fast becoming irrelevant as it grows clearer that no amount of military aid will save the regime. Whatever the action of Congress, though, the aid continues. The Pentagon announced March 17 that it had “found” in its coffers a spare $21.5 million that was due Lon Nol. He had been “overcharged” last year.
Leaders of both the Democrats and Republicans in Congress have called for Lon Nol to step down, hoping that a replacement might be able to negotiate a deal of some kind with the insurgents. But even if an appointee is found who will accept the job – understandably the competition for the post isn’t too intense – it won’t save the puppet regime. Norodom Sihanouk responded to rumors that Lon Nol was quitting by stating that anyone appointed by Lon Nol wouldn’t be worth talking to either.
Source: https://www.themilitant.com/Intercontinental_Press/1975/IP1312.pdf#page=6&view=FitV,3