Word: conge
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Through the anguished years of the Viet Nam War, Cambodia and Laos have been strictly sideshows. Cambodia has almost entirely escaped the storm of steel that so far has cost the lives of an estimated 610,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops, 175,000 South Vietnamese troops, and more than 42,000 Americans-not to mention some 300,000 Vietnamese civilians. The conflict in Laos, though bloody enough, has not approached the scale of the war in Viet Nam. Now the situation is suddenly changing. Events in Laos and Cambodia last week may well prove to be a watershed...
Developments in neighboring Cambodia were equally unsettling. In Phnom-Penh, anti-Communists led by Premier General Lon Nol and Deputy Premier Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak deposed Prince Norodom Sihanouk as chief of state and ordered North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops out of Cambodia. In a number of border clashes with Communist troops, the Cambodian army called for - and got - help from U.S. and South Vietnamese forces. With the war continuing in South Viet Nam and with the North wrestling with the grave problems that have grown out of the conflict, all four states of Indochina were on the boil...
...Vang Pao have been able to withstand them. In Cambodia, it was North Viet Nam's freewheeling use of Cambodian territory that finally precipitated Sihanouk's ouster. With the U.S. withdrawal under way, Sihanouk grew increasingly alarmed that the presence of so many North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers would encourage Cambodia's own Communists, the Khmer Rouge, to act more boldly. For all his diplomatic dexterity, however, the ebullient prince had found it impossible to persuade his unwelcome guests to leave, and power was seized by men who may try harder. Of course, many observers familiar...
Back in Phnom-Penh, Lon Nol and Sirik Matak had been doing their best to make Kosygin's allies uncomfortable. They sent pro forma notes of apology to the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong for the damage to their embassies but at the same time handed the Communists an ultimatum: all of their troops must be out within three days...
...enforce it. In fact, they made a point of announcing that Cambodia would maintain its traditional policy of neutrality and nonalignment. U.S. sources in Saigon reported some increase in the number of enemy troops crossing into South Viet Nam about the time the ultimatum expired, but the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese are still estimated to have close to 40,000 men in Cambodia...