Anti-Colonial and Civil Conflict in Cambodia: From the First World War to the First Indochina War

Abstract

In 1915–1916 and 1925, Cambodia experienced outbreaks of anti-French peasant protest, in turn peaceful and violent. Colonial taxes remained high, and the impact of the Second World War brought new pressures and new forms of resistance. Vichy French rule, Thailand’s seizure of Cambodia’s northwest provinces, and Japanese military occupation saw the birth and growth of the Khmer Issarak (“Independent Khmer”) movement. After Japan’s surrender, the returning French proved unable to suppress this movement; their attempts drove some of its members into alliance with the neighbouring communist-led Việt Minh. Meanwhile three successive post-war elections also showed the strength of Cambodia’s new pro-independence Democratic Party, before King Norodom Sihanouk suppressed it with French support. Cambodian anti-colonialism experienced its own civil conflicts and divided along political lines. The French and Sihanouk were able to persuade some of the more traditional Issarak chiefs to surrender in return for grants of territorial fiefdoms. But the more radical wing of the Issarak movement founded the Khmer People’s Revolutionary Party in 1951 and fought on until independence and the 1954 French withdrawal.