Beijing: Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia’s former king and independence hero who was twice exiled and twice returned to the throne, died here on Monday of natural causes. He was 89.
“Our former King died at 2:00 am early Monday in Beijing due to natural cause. This is a great loss for Cambodia. We feel very sad. The former king was a great king that we all respect and love him,” Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Nhik Bun Chhay said.
Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni and Prime Minister Hun Sen arrived in Beijing this afternoon to bring home the body of King-Father Norodom Sihanouk.
Sihanouk was born on October 31, 1922. He suffered from various forms of cancer, diabetes and hypertension and had been treated by Chinese doctors in Beijing for years, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Sihanouk ascended the throne in 1941 and led Cambodia to independence from France in 1953. Despite long periods of exile and his abdication in 2004 due to ill health, in favour of his son and present king Sihamoni, he remained an influential figure.
After the country fully gained independence from France on March 2, 1955, Sihanouk abdicated in favour of his father, established the Sangkum Reasniyum regime and took the post of prime minister a few months later, after having obtained an overwhelming victory in the parliamentary elections in September 1955.
Sihanouk finally becoming “head of state” following the death of his father in 1960. He was named the Father of Independence, Territorial Integrity and Khmer Unification. Sihanouk’s actual period of effective rule over Cambodia was from November 9, 1953, when France granted independence to Cambodia, until March 18, 1970, when Lon Nol and the National Assembly deposed him.
On March 18, 1970, while Sihanouk was out of the country, the then Prime Minister Lon Nol convened the National Assembly, which voted to depose Sihanouk as head of state. After he was deposed, Sihanouk fled to Beijing.
It was from there that he struck an ill-fated deal with the emerging Maoist rebel force, the Khmer Rouge. When the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975, Sihanouk returned as head of state but was subsequently detained.
He remained confined to the royal palace for most of the four years of the regime’s rule, during which time an estimated 1.7 million people died. Sihanouk later condemned the Khmer Rouge for the deaths of the Cambodians, including of several of his own children.
When Vietnamese forces ousted the Khmer Rouge, Sihanouk went again to Beijing. He abdicated the second time due to ill health. (PTI)
