CAMBODIAN CRISIS ‘Lon Nol forms new Cabinet'

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32588, 23 April 1971, Page 9

CAMBODIAN CRISIS ‘Lon Nol forms new Cabinet'

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

PHNOM PENH, April 22.

General Lon Nol, who resigned on Tuesday giving his poor health as the reason, formed a new Cabinet today, according to sources close to the Government, the Associated Press reported. There was no immediate confirmation of the report. But the sources said that General Lon Nol, Cambodia’s only four*star general, had bowed to the entreaties of several leading Army officers to continue at the head of the Government even though he has only partially recovered from a stroke he suffered two months ago.

The names of members of the Cabinet were not available.

United Press International said that Cambodia’s Chief of State, Mr Cheng Heng, accepted General Lon Nol’s resignation but then asked him to form a new Cabinet because of “the grave situation in which our country presently finds itself.”

The official Radio Cambodia announced the moves yesterday, which appeared to confirm statements on Tuesday by Genera] Lon Nol’s brother. Colonel Lon Non, that the resignation was little more than a formality.

The Cambodian broadcast announced that the National Assembly, meeting yesterday morning, unanimously approved the promotion of General Lon Nolto the rank of Marshal of the Cambodian

Armies and gave him the title of “national hero.”

“Considering the grave situation in which our country presently finds itself and in compliance with the wide spectrum of public opinion, the Chief of State, after consulting the Chairman of the National Assembly and the Council of the Republic, decided today to request General Lon Nol to form a new Cabinet according to the demands of the situation," the broadcast said. General Lon Nol submitted his resignation in a move that caught almost everyone in Cambodia by surprise, and his Cabinet resigned en masse soon after. The Prime Minister's brother said on Tuesday that the resignations were required constitutionally because General Lon Nol had decided, after returning from two months convalescence in Honolulu from a stroke, to

dismiss the majority of his ministers.

He gave the growth of corruption in the Government as a reason for the dismissals. Th Communications Minister (Mr Oum Sim) a rising power in the Government, said that the severe inflation in Cambodia was another reason.

Beyond that a number of problems have developed since February 8, when General Lon Nol suffered his stroke, which might have caused dissatisfaction with the Government’s performance.

These include the padding of payrolls in the Army, a huge increase in black market exchange rates for the local currency, the riel, and the poor performance of some military commanders in terms of resisting Communist efforts to harass the Government by closing communications routes.

Nevertheless, in view of almost all diplomats and most Cambodian politicians who made themselves available yesterday there was no genuinely serious crisis involved in the manoeuvres.