The Kampuchea Situation: An Interview with Prince Norodom Sihanouk

Abstract

On 1 December 1983, Prince Norodom Sihanouk granted a film inter view to Peter Schier of the Institute of Asian Affairs, Hamburg. High lights of the interview will form part of a documentary about the conflict in and around Cambodia which is being directed and produced by Christian Scheinpflug. The West German second TV programme, ZDF, will televise this film in spring 1984. As the documentary will only contain parts of the interview, Prince Norodom Sihanouk and the two film authors have agreed to publish the complete text of the interview separately for the benefit of politicians, diplomats, scholars, and journalists concerned with the developments in Southeast Asia. The interview was conducted in English and only minor corrections have been made for this complete written version. Prince Sihanouk has not read ? and hence not authorized ? the written version of the interview as published here so that any mistakes in the wording are the author's. Peter Schier: Monseigneur, the public has got only very little in formation about the territorial situation in your country. Wtjat is the territorial share under the control of the coalition government of Democratic Kampuchea and can you give us some figures of the popu lation staying there? Prince Norodom Sihanouk: According to the joint general staff of the coalition armed forces of Democratic Kampuchea, we have now under our control, in particular during the rainy season which has just ended in November, about one-third of the territory of Cambodia. We have sanctuaries near the border of Thailand, in the southwest of Cambodia near the sea, the Gulf of Thailand, and in the provinces of Battambang and Siem Reap. In the northwest and the northeast, we are succeeding in liberating some villages. Some of these villages are deep inside Cambodia near the Tonle Sap, the Big Lake, Laos and South Vietnam itself. 484