Thailand and Khmer Issarak(01)

Thailand and Khmer Issarak(01)

The Khmer Issarak adopted a red flag

with a yellow five-towered Angkor Wat silhouette.

After World War II, in conducting a policy of a policy designed to keep intact the territories in Indo-China, Thai decision-makers were well aware of their military and economic weakness in comparison with the French and also of the rise of militant nationalism in Indo-China. The Thais therefore sought to draw the Indo-Chinese independence movements into Thailand’s scheme of things as a source of countervailing power. These movements were the Lao Issara (Free Lao), Khmer Issarak (Free Cambodia), and Viet Minh (League for the Independence Vietnam) .

Cordial Thai-Free Cambodian relations had existed before the outbreak of the Pacific War. Thailand under Prime Minister Phibunsonggram had already exploited the Cambodian independence movement in the interest of a greater Thai movement. In 1940, just before the outbreak of the shorted-lived Franco-Thai war, Pock Khun (Phra Phiset), a retired Cambodian official, came to Bangkok and founded a Khmer Issarak (Free Cambodian League) for the purpose of regaining Cambodian independence.

Members of the League were recruited among the Cambodian minority including those who had newly escaped from Cambodia before the outbreak of the Franco-Thai war. The military wing of the Khmer Issarak were trained and organized, along with the Vietnamese and Laotians, into an alien battalion affiliated to one of the Thai armies which was sent to occupy Cambodian territories during the Franco-Thai war.

After the Pacific War, despite their memories of bitter pre-colonial relations with Thailand, the Cambodian nationalists turned to the Thai leaders for assistance. Before son Ngoc Thant, the Cambodian prime minister under the control of Japan, was arrested by the British on October 16, 1945, Pridi Banomyong, then the Regent of Thailand, received a letter from him dated October 7, 1945, the letter indicated  that  Khmer agreed completely with the ideas expressed by the United Nations at the San Francisco conference and wished to co-operate sincerely with the United Nations.

Thailand and Khmer Issarak(02)

Thailand and Khmer Issarak(02)

Dr Son Ngoc Thanh

(1908-1977)

 

The peace proclamation of Regent Pridi on August 16, 1945, the letter further stated, corresponded with the feelings of the Khmer people, who wished that the Regent would convey to the United Nations their desire that the independence  of Cambodia be assured. In the same letter, Son Ngoc Thanh, in an attempt to use Thailand as a bridge in contact with the United Nations, wrote;

…trusting in the traditional ties of cordial fiendship (that exists) between our two countries, I have the honor to send your Excellency’s government my representative, the Oknha Oudon Montrey-Pann Young-,(who is)  charged with presenting to the highest competent authorities of the United Nations the ardent wish of the people of Khmer of seeing the national independence of Cambodia assured.

Son Ngoc Thanh’s representatives led by Pann Yung were warmly received in Bangkok. The Thai rulers were not in position to help Son Ngoc Than seek an assurance from the United Nations of the national independence of Cambodia. However, the Thai government entered into an agreement with the Cambodian mission to sell arms and ammunition to resist the re-entry of the French into Cambodia. In the meantime, the French had entered Cambodia. But the association was continued and the arms obtained were employed by the Issaraks to attack the French.

In early 1946 Pock Khun‘s Khmer Issarak strength was considerably increased, when they were joined by Son Ngoc Thanh’s followers led by Pan Yung, who were anti-French in their views. Pannn Yung was then Presidenent of the Khmer Issarak, which styled itself the Provisional Government of Free Cambodia.

In early 1946, the headquarters of the issarak was at the house of the mother-in-law of Pock Khun (Phra Phiset) in battambang; the latter then served as the  Issarak’s representative in Bangkok. The Issarak was recognized semi-officially by the Thai authorities in the disputed territories, who allowed it to function. and supplied arms to the movement only when the French entered the retro-ceded territories.

Thailand and Khmer Issarak(03)

Thailand and Khmer Issarak(03)

Apart arms freely supplied by the Thai government, the Issaraks bought arms from private agents in Bangkok. For example, in May 1946, they sent their agents to buy arms with baht 20,000 drawn from the profits of a theatrical company sponsored by the party. Thai people who had various weapons in large numbers at that time were said to be members of the free Thai movement who had failed to distribute them during the Pacific War and had kept them with a view to selling them at a  high price. Many such weapons passed into the hands of the Kmer Issaraks as well as Viet Minh and Laos Issara troops in Indo-China.

In Battambang, the Issaraks, in conjunction with the Viet Minh and the free Laotians, indulged in an anti-French propaganda, on the ground that the French were weak and that Cambodia was a powerful country in Indo-China and should remain independent. For the Thais, the presence of the Khmer Issaraks served Thailand’s vital interests.

The fomenting of disorder along the border, in the event of the French re-occupying any ceded territory was calculated to impress the United Nations and world opinion that only under Thai rule could law and order be maintained in the disputed territories. Furthermore, the well-armed Khmer Issaraks, who were reported to have numbered around 10,000, could serve as a front-line force, as they could attack across the frontier before the return of the French to  the disputed territories.

Thailand’s reluctant return of the Cambodian provinces to the French in November 1946 did not discourage Thai leaders from granting assistance to Khmer Issaras. Realizing that the presence in Thailand of the Issaraks was valuable in view of Thailand’s non-recognition commission on June 27, 27,1947, the Thai leaders accordingly invited the Free Cambodian Provisional Government to Bangkok and allowed it to set up a committee to co-ordinate  its activities there.

Thailand and Khmer Issarak(04)

Thailand and Khmer Issarak(04)

The Issarak movement was replaced by new leaders headed by Houl Vongse-arnuphab as Prime Minister and Ta Ta Rajatipvongse as Deputy Prime Minister. In September 1946, Houl’s group was recognized by Thailand as the Free Cambodian government. The Issaraks were able then to buy arms, raise money, and even publish a newspaper in Bangkok.

The Khmer Issaraks suffered from the rise to power of Phibunsonggram. The coup d’etat in 1947 had shattered the Khmer Issarak movement in Thailand.  The training camps which it had established there had to be abandoned, and their trainees dispersed along the Cambodian frontiers. The Thai military clique clamped down on the Issaraks, and their propaganda, purchase of arms, and collection of funds had to be carried on in a clandestine manner.

After Phibunsonggram became Prime Minister, Houl Vongse-arnuphap, Prime Minister of the Free Cambodian Government, was arrested on a charge of having illegally sold an automobile. In the meantime, negotiations were going on between the French and former Khmer Issaras which aimed at returning the Bangkok dissidents to Cambodia. Some did return to Cambodia while other had to look to Viet Minh for support, despite their long-standing fear of Vietnamese expansionism.

Even Pock Khun (Phra Phiset), the founder of the Khmer Issarak in 1940, was reported to have co-operated with the Viet Minh and the Communists. In March 1949 he stated that the result of the Chinese civil war was the main question in South-East Asia. If the Chinese Communists offered, in Pock Khun’s words, “us arms to drive out the French, we will accept them even if it means going red.”