1953 – 69
[Th e monarchy and the Buddhist religion] are the irreplaceable factors of unity, but they must be complemented by the birth or rebirth of a constructive dynamism permitting the country to engage in the mode of modernisation.
Prince Norodom Sihanouk1
Between 1947 and 1954, Cambodia, like the other countries of French Indochina, was wracked by political insecurity. Much of the insecurity was caused by brigandage and warlordism and some of it by Viet Minh activity in collaboration with a few Khmer Issarak (independence) groups of similar political persuasion. Jean Delvert was conducting his seminal study in Cambodia at the time and he gave eyewitness accounts of the impact of the war between the French expeditionary forces and the Khmer Viet Minh on human settlement patterns. Rural populations in the eastern rice-growing provinces of Cambodia, especially Kampot, Takeo and Kompong Cham, were displaced and then regrouped along major roads. Th e typically dispersed habitat of the Cambodian farmers gave way, Delvert wrote, to very grouped habitat and once peace was restored it was rare for the farmers to return to their former dwellings. “Th e main advantage in their eyes,” he suggested, “is not from regroupment in itself as groupment on a communication route; in future, they will benefi t from all the advantages of travelling.”2
Generally speaking, the struggle for independence was not a wide-spread or mass movement. King Norodom Sihanouk claimed that it was
Chap 2 (73-126).indd 75
Chap 2 (73-126).indd 75 6/15/10 12:08:43 PM6/15/10 12:08:43 PM
76 Economic History of Cambodia
his “royal crusade,” a series of diplomatic manoeuvres, that won political and military independence for Cambodia in November 1953, about eight months before the political settlement achieved at the Geneva Conference ended the First Indochina War. On 1 January 1955, indepen-dence was completed when Cambodia won full sovereignty in monetary, commercial and fi nancial aff airs, and before the end of that year, the currencies of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam were eff ectively separated from the piastre.
By 1954, it was not only the member states of Indochine that had regained their independence; throughout South and Southeast Asia, as well as in Africa and the Middle East, former colonial possessions were demanding, and winning or still fi ghting for freedom from foreign domi-nation. Consequently, by 1960, apart from the main contenders in the Cold War arena, there was also a “Th ird World” consisting of some forty newly independent states with a total population of 800 million that united with older nations like those in Latin America with a shared colo-nial past in demanding equal participation in global economic prosperity and social justice for their citizens. In the tense Cold War environment, instability caused by rapid decolonisation made the threat of social revolutionary movements loom large. Modernisation, those on the right argued, would contain the threat of communism. Michael Latham notes,
“Th eorists placed Western, industrial, capitalist democracies, and the United States in particular, at the apex of their historical scale and then set about marking off the distance of less modern societies from that point …. [T]hey stressed the ways the United States could drive ‘stagnant’
societies through the transitional process.”3
At the beginning of 1955, King Norodom Sihanouk abdicated in order to take full executive control of the government. Former contending political parties were brought together under one umbrella political movement, the Sangkum Reastr Niyum (Popular Socialist Community), led by the now Prince Sihanouk. By shrewdly manipulating the offi cial foreign policy of neutrality, the prince tried to steer the economy towards modernisation while avoiding his country being drawn into the in-creasingly complex political and military confl ict that had developed across the border in South Vietnam. Th ese eff orts would inevitably fail, but for about a decade, the Sangkum delivered both progress and hope for a peaceful future. For the people, it restored the prestige of their country within the international community. Among older Cambodians, the Sangkum is regarded nostalgically, if not entirely accurately, as Cambodia’s aspirational model for economic prosperity.
Chap 2 (73-126).indd 76
Chap 2 (73-126).indd 76 6/15/10 12:08:43 PM6/15/10 12:08:43 PM
Post-Independence Economic Change, 1953 – 69 77
Policies
Although Cambodia was politically and commercially independent of France by the end of 1955, foreign trade and the banks were still in foreign hands, largely French and British. Th e production of electrical energy, the supply of petroleum products and the water supply were controlled by foreigners, as were the few major industrial establishments. Th e big rubber plantations, the principal source of foreign currency revenues, were the property of foreigners. National infrastructure, including roads, bridges and irrigation systems, had been neglected during the period of insecurity and was in need of repair. Th e French had never realized their plan for a deepwater port on the coast, and Cambodian exports from the port of Phnom Penh still had to transit an increasingly unstable South Vietnam.
Genuine independence required that administration and services should be staff ed by Cambodian personnel, but higher and technical education had been neglected by the colonial authorities so that local engineers, doctors, agricultural scientists, and so on could be counted in single fi gures in 1955. Cambodia would need to depend on foreign per-sonnel for some time until its own education system could take up the slack and train suffi cient cadres and specialists for its modern economy.
Th ere were, however, no fi nancial means to undertake national recon-struction and economic modernisation.
As deliberate interim policy, therefore, Cambodia accepted “econo-mic coexistence” with foreign interests.4 Th is policy applied to technical assistance, that is the hiring of foreign personnel with the expertise to maintain and manage those posts formerly staff ed by the French Admin-istration, as well as to continued recognition of foreign-owned businesses, including the rubber plantations. “Our … principle,” the Director-General of Plan explained, “has been to conduct this economic decolonisation fi rmly but equitably for foreigners. In all our previous steps for taking the economic reins, we have avoided being accused of illegal dispossession and we will not break the confi dence in us of foreigners who continue to work in our country.”5
For practical reasons, he acknowledged, Cambodia had to rely on foreign aid to fi nance its modernisation goals, especially “to achieve rapidly the large-scale works necessary to free us from our constraints vis-à-vis Vietnam for our foreign trade and especially to undertake economic construction of an independent state.”6 At the same time, there was awareness of the political perils of aid dependency, particularly in the Cold War environment, so the principle of self-help was employed to
Chap 2 (73-126).indd 77
Chap 2 (73-126).indd 77 6/15/10 12:08:43 PM6/15/10 12:08:43 PM
78 Economic History of Cambodia
mobilise national energy and resources through manual work, community development schemes, voluntary contributions, and so on. Local private capital also had to be generated for the cause of national development.
Th e key term that defi ned policy during the era of the Sangkum was “neutrality.” Neutrality in foreign policy, it was believed, would both protect Cambodia from external threats and guarantee external assistance from a multiplicity of sources. Neutrality was synonymous with balance or equilibrium. While sangkum niyum translated as “socialism,” spokes-people for the government repeatedly stressed that its meaning did not imply Marxist socialism or communism. Th e economic policy of the Sangkum was explained in an offi cial communiqué in 1961 in this way:
Our socialism, it must be repeated, diff ers profoundly from Marxist socialism or communism…. Neutrality in the political domain consists of staying outside blocs, between capitalism and communism. On the economic plane, it suggests a balanced adaptation of the two systems for the organisation of the country.7
It was state policy to foster a stable equilibrium between public action and private action. Th e concrete application of this policy was the
“mixed-economy enterprise” which merged individual capital and enter-prise with state capital and supervision, thereby safeguarding national interests against what the communiqué termed “privileged capitalists, national or foreign.” Th e state reserved full control over the key economic sectors, including energy, transport and mines, but mixed businesses were preferred to private businesses in all other areas of industry, agriculture and commerce. Th e licence granted to these businesses, it was hoped, would stimulate collective and individual savings to generate growth. Th e policy applied at both private and state levels of industry, the important stipulation being that Cambodian capital had to represent a majority share in all mixed enterprises. Th ere were, for instance, Khmer-Yugoslav projects for the fi shing industry, a Khmer-Czech tractor-assembly plant and rubber tyre factory, Khmer-Chinese enterprises for maritime navi-gation, and so on. Th e state created its own enterprise, OROC (Offi ce Royal de Coopération), in an attempt to break the centuries-old monopoly of local Chinese merchants in purchasing agricultural products and selling consumer goods to villagers. State cooperatives in the countryside would also eventually operate their own credit programmes, thus breaking, it was hoped, yet another Chinese monopoly.
Essentially, this policy permitted state intervention in every sector and at every level. Foreign observers were understandably confused about the actual nature of the Sangkum Reastr Niyum. Some referred to it as
Chap 2 (73-126).indd 78
Chap 2 (73-126).indd 78 6/15/10 12:08:44 PM6/15/10 12:08:44 PM
Post-Independence Economic Change, 1953 – 69 79
“state capitalism,” although capitalism, in the common sense of the term, had little to do with the sort of economy envisaged by Prince Sihanouk and the Sangkum leaders. Th ey believed they were creating or reviving an idiosyncratic Khmer or Buddhist socialism, which was essentially agrarian socialism leavened by traditional practices of mutual support.8 With re-gard to agriculture, Sangkum policy was encapsulated in fi ve points:
to assure each peasant family full ownership of the lands which they can develop and the free disposal of the fruits of their work;
to give all rural communities the means to improve their yields by helping each farmer to acquire better equipment and each village to access the minimum means for the mechanisation of agriculture;
to help rural populations to develop resources other than agricultural resources (artisanal trades, forestry exploitation, animal production, fi shery, and so on);
to guarantee farmers the best conditions for sale of their products;
and
to guide peasant collectives in the improvement of their lifestyle through a rationalisation of the ‘social space’ of the village in the framework of community development, in particular by helping them to manage the environment, the health infrastructure, schools, and so on.9
State policy was implemented in two fi ve-year plans.10 Th e plans were supposedly drawn up by the Conseil Supérieur du Plan, with Sihanouk presiding as head of state with other members representing the National Assembly, chief ministers in charge of the technical programmes, the governor of the National Bank of Cambodia, the director of the Offi ce des Changes, and the president of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce. In actual fact, Rémy Prud’homme noted, the plans were drafted by a handful of functionaries and experts without real powers of decision-making, so the role of the Council in the elaboration of the plans was very small and the role of the private sector was nil.11 Prud’homme thought this might have been the reason why the documents were rarely consulted.
Th e main objective of the fi rst plan, 1960 to 1964, was community development. Th e plan aimed for a rather modest three per cent annual GDP growth rate and targeted remedying “the serious imbalance created during the war and the period of insecurity between the incomes of urban populations (which have grown considerably) and those of rural populations which increase only very slowly.”12 Th e plan relied on private investments to the extent of 33 per cent but, as Prud’homme pointed
Chap 2 (73-126).indd 79
Chap 2 (73-126).indd 79 6/15/10 12:08:44 PM6/15/10 12:08:44 PM
80 Economic History of Cambodia
out, “Th e plan does not seek to infl uence the behaviour of private entre-preneurs and outlines no real instrument to assure the achievement of its predictions .… Th e fi rst fi ve-year plan is thus a catalogue of anticipated public investments.”13 He thought that the fi rst fi ve-year plan represented
“a grave technical imperfection” because the means were not adapted to the end. In any case, the plan was not respected in its execution. In 1962, for instance, more than half of public investment was outside the plan, and the trend increased in the remaining years of the Sangkum.
Unplanned projects included the Olympic Stadium, the Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville railway, the Sangkum Lycée, and hydroelectric dams while most of the less prestigious planned projects were abandoned. Th erefore, in a real sense, the economy was not planned at all.
Th e second plan, 1968 to 1972, was less ambitious and more realistic than the fi rst but, in the event, it did not have time to run its course and, in fact, by 1968 the Cambodian economy was in serious recession.
Th e Sangkum policy was deemed a failure well before the monarchy was overthrown in a coup d’état in March 1970.
Administration and Governance
Th e French Protectorate had organised Cambodian territory into 14 provinces. Th e Kingdom of Cambodia reorganised its administration and strengthened its borders by creating fi ve new provinces: Mondolkiri and Ratanakiri in the northeast, Oddar Meanchey and Preah Vihear in the far north, and Koh Kong on the Gulf of Siam in the southwest.
Before independence, the northwestern provinces of Battambang and Siem Reap were returned to Cambodian sovereignty under the terms of the 1946 Treaty of Washington. Border disputes with Th ailand con-tinued, however, specifi cally over ownership of the Angkorian temple, Preah Vihear. In 1958, when Th ai police occupied the temple, Cambodia briefl y cut off diplomatic relations and took the case to the International Court of Justice that ruled in Cambodia’s favour in 1962. Th e remote northern region was the scene of another international incident in 1958 when South Vietnamese forces crossed the border in pursuit of Viet Cong guerrillas. Th is so-called Stung Treng incident was the most serious in a string of similar incursions. Security over the northern boundary was strengthened by the creation of four provinces: Ratanakiri and Mondolkiri, in 1959 and 1960 respectively, Oddar Meanchey in 1962, and after the International Court ruling, Preah Vihear in 1964. Koh Kong province in the far southwest was instituted by a kram of 13 January 1958, when it consisted of two districts, including Kompong Som where
Chap 2 (73-126).indd 80
Chap 2 (73-126).indd 80 6/15/10 12:08:44 PM6/15/10 12:08:44 PM
Post-Independence Economic Change, 1953 – 69 81
the municipality of Sihanoukville, Cambodia’s deepwater maritime port, would later be built.
Th e terminology of Cambodia’s administrative structure was also clarifi ed. Under the French, the word srok had been variously applied to provinces and districts. By way of further confusion, Paul Collard had referred to the commune chief as a mésrok who was “the village chief.”14 Now the khet (province), was divided into srok (districts), and subdivided into khum (communes). Th e village (phum) was not an administrative unit but was tied, however loosely, to the khum for administrative purposes.
As previously noted, the political insecurity of 1947–54 had caused large populations of rural dwellers in the rice-growing plain to the south and east of Phnom Penh to be regrouped along the main communication routes. Th e formerly dispersed habitat typical of the Cambodian rice farmer gave way, in this heavily populated zone, to relatively large, grouped settlements. Th is aff ected the administration, particularly that of the communes. Jean Delvert thought that the communes had become too big. “Most of the communes have more than 3,000 inhabitants,” he com-plained, and this had severe administrative repercussions because the commune chief (mékhum) was usually illiterate and incapable of con-ducting a census or supervising anything like a local civil service.15 Th e very existence of the commune seemed to annoy Delvert. It did not correspond, he thought, “to any human reality.” At the whim of the central government or for administrative ease, it could be carved up or doubled in territorial size:
All this shows how artifi cial this commune is, created out of nothing fi fty years ago. Th e French Administration of the Protectorate found itself in front of the void: an unorganised peasant mass, even inorganic, in the vague historical framework of the srok (at that time called khet) which was a feudal principality led by a high mandarin or given in apanage to a member of the royal family…. In Cambodia, the basic cell does not exist; it still does not exist. Th is is perhaps the most serious problem of political life in the country.16
Th e much-amended 1947 Constitution of the Kingdom of Cam-bodia made no mention of the commune.17 In accordance with the existing law, however, Cambodian peasants elected deputies (between 8 and 16 councillors in proportion to the number of villages) to the commune council, but the commune chief was appointed by the provin-cial administration, “without exception,” according to Delvert. An eff ort was made to give a bigger life to the commune, but these reforms faced major diffi culties. Delvert thought this failure was due to the funda-mentally artifi cial character of the commune.
Chap 2 (73-126).indd 81
Chap 2 (73-126).indd 81 6/15/10 12:08:45 PM6/15/10 12:08:45 PM
82 Economic History of Cambodia
Elections were held for the fi rst National Assembly in December 1947 and again in September 1951. In June 1952, citing Article 21 of the constitution that all power emanated from the king, Sihanouk dismissed the elected government, named himself Prime Minister and formed his own cabinet. In March 1955 he abdicated, placed his father on the throne and assumed full executive authority in order, he explained, to remodel a political system that was bogged down in unproductive rivalries and squabbling.18 Th e Sangkum Reastr Niyum was created the following month.
It was a broad political movement and it had initial success but, as Milton Osborne observed, it lacked cohesion “and was shot through with the perennial Cambodian problem of political factionalism.”19 Th ere were nine ministries between the September 1955 general elections and those of March 1958 in which women voted for the fi rst time. Th e Sangkum gained 99 per cent of the vote in those elections; the leftwing economists, Hou Yuon and Hu Nim, were among the successful candidates. In 1960, Sihanouk’s father died. In a deft political move to avoid a constitutional crisis, Sihanouk had himself sworn in as chief of state while his mother
“symbolised” the throne.
Th e next three years represented modest prosperity and witnessed the construction of large-scale infrastructure works, thanks to the infusion of foreign aid. Th e road network was extended, most importantly with the construction of Route 4, the all-weather highway that ran between the capital and the new sea-port of Sihanoukville. Th e highway was built with American aid, and the port with French funding. French and German loans helped to build the railway to Sihanoukville. An international airport was opened in Phnom Penh, the airstrip at Siem Reap was upgraded to handle heavy aircraft and small airports were built around the country.
Th e next three years represented modest prosperity and witnessed the construction of large-scale infrastructure works, thanks to the infusion of foreign aid. Th e road network was extended, most importantly with the construction of Route 4, the all-weather highway that ran between the capital and the new sea-port of Sihanoukville. Th e highway was built with American aid, and the port with French funding. French and German loans helped to build the railway to Sihanoukville. An international airport was opened in Phnom Penh, the airstrip at Siem Reap was upgraded to handle heavy aircraft and small airports were built around the country.