The Year One

The new republic was born amid a chorus of gongs and dancing in the streets. Last week Cambodia celebrated the first anniversary of that event. But despite a much improved military situation in the countryside, there were no festivities. They had been canceled in the wake of a new wave of guerrilla-style attacks on Phnom-Penh, the Cambodian capital. The most dramatic occurred late last month, when sappers struck the city's biggest fuel storage depot, burning 1,750,000 gals, of oil. Two weeks ago five persons were killed, including two Americans, when terrorists tossed two grenades during a U.S. embassy softball game.

As the Khmer Republic enters its second year, two overriding problems face the regime of Premier Lon Nol: a war that has claimed 5,000 Cambodian lives and a rising chorus of domestic critics upset by Phnom-Penh's sluggish response to inflation and corruption.

For all its problems, the government can claim some advances. Last year, with the help of U.S.-sponsored training programs and $185 million in military aid, Cambodia managed to expand its army from 35,000 ill-trained men to a creditable force of perhaps 180,000. Though U.S. officials do not believe that the army is yet capable of defending the country alone, Cambodian forces last week did succeed in opening up the city of Kompong Thom, which for more than a year had been receiving supplies only by air and water.

Cambodia has been helped immeasurably, of course, by the North Vietnamese pullback from populated areas into the northeast and east. South Vietnamese troops continued to engage NVA forces along the Cambodia-South Viet Nam border last week, but the operation was viewed largely as a feint in connection with the South's elections. Cambodians are still not happy with the large presence of Vietnamese--from both the North (60,000 troops) and the South (10,000)--on their soil. There have been widespread reports of terrorism, rape, murder and pillaging by South Vietnamese. In an interview with TIME Correspondent Stanley Cloud, Lon Nol acknowledged that his government is negotiating with Saigon for the removal of South Vietnamese troops.

Change of Address. Whether the 57-year-old Premier, who is in remarkably good shape after his near-fatal stroke, can handle his political problems as astutely as his military ones is another question. Criticism from the middle class, civil servants, students and intellectuals has not on the whole been directed against him personally. But his response has been harsh. He fired First Vice Premier In Tam and stripped him of his brigadier general's rank. In Tam is widely respected as an incorruptible politician, but Lon Nol apparently feared that he would be an eventual rival.

The shaky state of the economy has much to do with the unrest. During the past year, prices of many commodities have jumped 100% or more. The black-market rate for the riel is triple the official rate of 55 to a dollar. Another concern is the apparent affluence being enjoyed by the military. "Corruption has changed its address--from the government to the army," goes a popular saying in Phnom-Penh.

Nonetheless, Lon Nol appears buoyantly confident. "We Khmers have always had two very important things in our favor," he said two weeks ago. "First is our race. Second is our religion. Now we have a third: the way we defend ourselves." With, of course, a little help from their friends.

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