Witness to a Nation's Death
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A 12 Thursday, Slay 8,1975 THE WASHINGTON POST WXPoct MAY F 1975 Witness to a Nation's Death Distraught Premier Sought Newsman's Advice By Jean-Jacques Cazeaux Long Boret looked every Agence Prance-Presse inch a beaten man. He low- ready at the gates of Phnom BANGKOK, May 7—Long ered his head, as if to beg Penh. Boret, the last premier of my pardon for the trouble the Cambodian Republic, The question was no he was causing by asking longer bne of "proposing spoke in hushed tones as we me to come to see him. walked together from the any sort of political solu- Then he admitted to me that tion" but one of surrender. sitting room to the dining all was lost for him. room. "I asked you to come It was a time to accept real- As one of the seven ity. here so that you could tell "super-traitors" condemned me..." to die by the Khmer Rouge, Perhaps, I suggested, this He fell silent for a few was not the moment to men- "... What I there was noting that could moments. be saved "except, assuredly, tion the "last resolution of should do." , the General Assembly of the It was 11 p.m. on April 15. many human lives." He told me he was ready to do any- United Nations" (in which Only on that day did Long the Lon Nol government Boret, who had flown back thing. He was ready to leave: not kept Cambodia's seat at the to an almost-certain death in United Nations and in which Phnom Penh seven days ear- to save himself, for now he the assembly called for ne- lier from a safe exile with hoped for death, but to pre- gotiations between the two former President Lon Nol, vent others from dying. warring factions). realize for the first time The monologue was a pa- thetic one as he laid bare Besides, I said, it was al- that everything was coming ready too late for such apart. his desperation. Nobody at the table touched the tradi- hopes. The time was 1 a.m. The fighting fronts were on April 16. crumbling everywhere and tional Cambodian dishes. In- the Khmer Rouge were al- stead, each watched for any The exhausted vice pre- ready in the outskirts of the sign of a reaction from me. mier, disheartened by this, capital. Desperately, the It was close to midnight. left us and went over to a Cambodian premier sought Then the premier drew a corner of the reception any kind of honorable way typewritten sheet of paper room to sleep. Long Boret out—for he still feared the from a green folder and and I continued our discus- power of some government handed it to me, asking my sion. generals determined to fight opinion of his latest appeal At 1:30, he decided to re- to the end. for peace. He said it "must write his text, adding a deci- Long Boret had known me be sent quickly to Peking." sion to declare Phnom Penh for four years. He asked me The text he handed to me an open city. to come to see him. For the seemed to bear no relation This was tantamount to next 48 hours, I was an eye- to the situation. To me, unconditional surrender. A witness to the distintegra- there seemed nothing that paragraph then had to be tion and death of the Cam- could suggest that there was added dealing with an im- bodian republic. any question of these lost mediate ' transfer of pow- When I reached the pre- men conducting any sort of ers" after the capitulation. mier's official residence, a negotiations with Prince No- Long Boret carefully re- bodyguard sat hunched over rodom Sihanouk in Peking wrote his message. Then he a telephone in the main re- or with the Khmer Rouge al- asked for the last time ex- ception room and an elderly actly what the term "open lady sat in a armchair. A city" meant and said he did vice premier smile& wanly not command the authority as I entered. to order a unilateral cease- Long Boret offered a fire and to order the troops drink. All the others slipped back to their barracks. away silently. It was 2 a.m. when the The preliminaries take a premier, acting on my sug- long time to dispose of in gestion, summoned his min- Asia. It was almost two isters to him one by one. I hours later, at the moment excused myself, pleading ex- we were invited to the din- haustion, and was driven ner table, that the reasons for the premier's call to me were made clear. back to my hotel. late and that it no longer Prince Sihanouk had sent Four hours later the tele- no reply. phone rang again. Long meant anything. Boret told me the text had At 3 p.m. the text of the Reports from the front undergone some changes message was tapped out in came pouring in, confirming and there was now no men- Morse code over the radio the collapse of the regime. tion of the decision to make of the International Com- It was 1 a.m. on April 17 Phnom Penh an open city mittee of the Red Cross. It Within an hour many of "because my generals will went to Geneva to be sent the generals had disap- not hear of anything to do on to Peking by the Swiss peared from the headquar- with unconditional surren- Foreign Ministry. ters. The next clay, we dis- der." From 4 p.m. on, the tele- covered that they had fled The omission, as he put it phone in the Phnom Hotel without so much as a by- to me, seemed no more than rang repeatedly to ask your-leave. Their sudden a minor detail to him. But it whether "any reply has discovery of the naked truth wiped out all hopes—if come over the AFP of the situation made them there had been any in the teleprinter?" forget their dignity. first place—that the appeal Until that moment, Long But Long Boret refused to would be heeded by the Boret had asked me not to go. He was one of those other side. inform my agency of the who, like former. Prince Si- I went to the premier's of- sowath Sirik Matak, Prince fice, accompanied by a U.N. message in order to head off any reaction by army head- Sihanouk's cousin and one official and the head of the of the main plotters of his International Red Cross mis- quarters "which must re- main in ignorance of a per- overthrow in 1970, were will- sion in Cambodia, who had ing to admit that they had also been summoned by sonal initiative on my part which could be judged to be lost a war but not their Long Boret. honor. Long Boret reread his defeatist." Now, however, he seemed Twelve hours later when message. "It really cannot Phnom Penh had been cap- say anything more . be- anxious to give it full pub- licity. He felt it necessary to tured, Long Beret went in cause of the generals." It person to hand over power was 11 a.m. and he wanted lay out the main points of his message to me. to the new authorities, al- to sign the text. ready installed at the infor- I reminded him that he Long Boret sent his car to mation ministry. did not have the constitu- pick me up after I had sent tional power to sign the doc- news of the appeal to Paris. Seeing me there, he took ument. Only the head of I stayed with him at army my hand and held it for a state enjoyed such power. headquarters until late in long time. "Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you," he Long Boret agreed. He the night. repeated. summoned a metting of tht At 9 p.m. he turned to me. Supreme Council formed af- "It is hardly 48 hours since Then he learned that the ter Lon Nol's departure. you said it would last two 30,000 government soldiers It was almost 2:30 p.m. be- days. I think you were defending Phnom Penh had thrown down their arms to fore Long Boret reappeared. right." The signature of the acting surrender to about 200 men president of the republic, Throughout the evening, led by Hem Keth Dara, a Gen. Sak Suthsakhan, was the field telephones rang maverick "general" of 29 on the bottom of the paper. and rang. The news was who was not even part of But everyone knew by now worse and worse. the Khmer Rouge: that the message was too Some of the ministers Long Boret lowered his acted stunned, asking what head once again until his they ought to do: flee or do chin rested on the sports the honorable thing by stay- shirt he had worn for the ing to the end. previous three days. By that time, all had ac- "I don't understand it," he cepted defeat and knew that said. .