Sihanouk Predicts Communist Win

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31109, 12 July 1966, Page 22

Sihanouk Predicts Communist Win

(N.Z.P. A. -Reuter —Copyright/

TOKYO, July 10. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the Cambodian Chief of State, forecasts that his country will be swallowed up by Communism, in a letter published today in the “Asia Magazine,” a Sunday supplement for an English language newspaper in Asia.

Prince Sihanouk, commenting on an article on Cambodia in a recent issue of the magazine, quoted it as saying that one day communism will “Impartially swallow up both Western client states and the Cambodian monarchy—Sihanouk with it.”

He wrote today: “I am perfectly aware of this and I have even written to this effect in the review, *Kambuja’.” “Kambuja” is a Cambodian publication in which the Prince often discusses national policy.

“I have no Illusions about the fate that awaits me . . . when the Communists triumph,” he wrote. “At least, until that day, my people will have known a peace and progress that those countries, dragged into civil war by the ’free world,’ could never have known. “Whatever happens to me at that time, I will rejoice at having seen those renegade leaders who wished to hand Asia over to the West swept away, and at having seen our continent evacuated of those who so disdained it." Prince Sihanouk also wrote: “I also oppose the fallacy that the Chinese are the ‘patrons' of Cambodia. “We are a proud race, who after having regained our national independence, swore that we would rather die than accept a ‘patron.’ “The United States wanted to be our patron’ and it was for this reason that we broke off relations with them. “If we are friendly with China, it is because they have always respected our sovereignity.”