Democratic Socialists

"Sihanouk was an extraordinary personality, highly intelligent and full of energy and joie de vivre. He had the airs and graces of an educated French gentleman, with allt he accompanying gestures and mannerisms, and spoken English the French way. Medium in height, a little rotund, he had a broad face with flared nostrils like the stone carvings on the temples around Angkor Wat."

"[Sihanouk is] an intelligent man but vain and flighty... He appeared to me totally unrealistic about the problems his country faced."

"This reactionary prince always cooperates with imperialists and world reactionaries against the Kampuchean revolution."

"Sihanouk is a finished man. And I do not have any need to add anything else!"

"Hearing him speak is so fun, reassuring I dare say. You can say all you like about Sihanouk: that he's an atrocious liar, a madman, a fraud, a swashbuckler, an international blot. You may think that, but you cannot deny how in this age in which the political arena seems to generate only dull, obtuse and boring characters with no imagination, he's a kind of miracle."

"I don't want Cambodia to be a carbon copy of the Philippines, Formosa, South Vietnam or South Korea. I don't even want a Cambodia which exports cameras like Japan. I want a decent Cambodia, a Cambodia like China. If that makes it a bit too austere, too bad. If this takes away the happiness I cultivated with my films and my songs, too bad. But, they say, there's the problem of individual freedom, freedom of thought. Yes, that's true. But where's the alternative? Nowhere. Let's use our common sense here: even if there was another solution, the Cambodian communists would never relenquish power."

"I want my country to be independent, always independent. I have to defend my convictions as a patriot and as a national leader. I have done my best, but as a human being I cannot be perfect, nobody is perfect."

"The Chinese, in their infinite wisdom, have taught me that one must know when to choose between the primary and secondary enemy. For China, the primary enemy is the Soviet Union, and the secondary one is America. Therefore, they deal with the Soviet Union first, and America later. For me, the primary enemy is American imperialism and Lon Nol's fascism. My secondary enemies are the communists. Thus, I choose to ally myself with the secondary enemy to defeat the primary."

"In Cambodia, Sihanouk was immensely popular. We barely noticed his faults, like allowing corruption to go unpunished, and keeping incompetent people in the government. Few of us were educated enough to care. When he spoke to us in his loud, high-pitched voice, shouting and gesturing wildly, eyes bulging with excitement, we listened with respect."

"… between Lon Nol's corrupt regime and the Khmers Rouges' serious one, the choice is obvious. If you were in my place, if you were a Cambodian patriot, if you were a Sihanouk who loves his own country more than anything else in the world, you'd say the same... It's only proper to congratulate the Cambodian communists and tell them: "Well done. You deserve power for ever, and no one must ever replace you. Not even Sihanouk. Sihanouk must not govern in your stead anymore, as he's been unable to do what you've achieved. He wanted to, and dreamed about it, but he couldn't do it. After all, Sihanouk counts for nothing. It's Cambodia that counts.""

"I'm not a communist, but I'm not anti-communist either. I'm not afraid of communists, and declare that if a country wants to be communist, it has the right to be so."

"Sihanouk told us again and again that we were an "island of peace," the envy of the world. He said we were much more civilized people than the Vietnamese and the Thais. What he told us made us feel good about ourselves, but he never encouraged us to travel outside Cambodia to make our own comparisons. If we had, we might have seen how pitiful our economy was, how weak our military was, how inefficient our bureaucracy was. If we had known, and if Sihanouk had truly been interested in development, we might have been able to do something about it."

"Everyone knows now that it was Nixon who wanted me liquidated. For a long time, the Americans dreamed of doing to me what they failed to do against Fidel Castro during the Bay of Pigs incident."

"Oh, I'm not entirely without blame! It was a mistake to have chosen Lon Nol as my right-hand man, my chief of staff, my prime minister, without ever suspecting that he was a traitor in league with the CIA. I thought he was a patriot... Who would have thought the Americans would use him? After all, he was a complete idiot! He never understood a damn thing, always staring at me with those bovine eyes of his, and spending all his time praying."

"History is full of traitors, and what's happened to me with Lon Nol is no exception. However, traitors are usually intelligent, not cretins like Lon Nol! I'm ashamed of my race for having begotten an idiot like Lon Nol. But the biggest idiot here isn't Lon Nol. It was Sihanouk who chose Lon Nol."

"… I hate them. Them and their false democracy, their false liberty, their imperialism conducted in the name of christian civilisation, their coups, like the coup which they started against me..."

"Do you really believe that a man like me, who suffers for a country where B52s make 260 incursions a day, could miss the good life and jazz orchestras? I don't miss anything. I'm in mourning, and I don't even think of the carefree days of back then. What's done is done. If I had my Lancias, my Alfa Romeos and my Mercedes, I wouldn't know what to do with them now."

"Ah, China is a formidable country. An Asian can't help but love China and take pride in it. China doesn't export tanks and men. It exports dignity and respect."

"[I'm as naïve] as a child sometimes. People think I'm like Machiavelli. And yet I'm an even bigger sucker than Machiavelli was... In diplomatic manoevering, I seem devious and diabolical in my intentions, when in reality I'm not even that clever."

"He's the truest friend I've ever had. What's more, he's an exquisite man, full of kindness and sophistication, the most aristocratic aristocrat one can meet. To those who can't understand how I, a non-communist, could be friends with Zhou Enlai, I say: "But he's a prince more princely than I am!""

"I am asking the U.S.A and Great Britain if, just for once, they will kindly consider the problem of Cambodia from the viewpoint of the Khmers instead of that of the French... My people will tell you: 'We don't know what communist slavery means. But the slavery imposed by the French we know well, for we are now living under it. If we fight alongside the French against the Viet Minh and the Issaraks, we are simply strengthening the chains of that slavery...' [The problem is that] in Indochina, you are either a communist or a lackey of the French: there is no middle course. We are not allowed to hope for an independence like that of India or Pakistan within the British Commonwealth... The question is: Does French military power on its own have any chance of defeating communism in Indochina? To fight without having the autochtonous population on one's side makes no sense... What is at stake in this struggle, and what will determine its outcome, is the [native] population. The Viet Minh have understood that from the start. If we [who oppose communism] wish to have the population with us, we must... make [our country's] independence... real and unquestionable, so that [no one] will listen any more to the Viet Minh propaganda about 'liberation'... This is the whole problem. It is a political matter. It has nothing to do with the science of war... If France does not boldly face up to [this]... then one day, sooner or later, it will be forced to abdicate from Indochina."

"My personal indignation cannot be compared with the magnitude of my concern for the sad fate of our country! These traitors have thrown the country - which had a good reputation as an island of peace - into the furnace of the American's war! The freedom and solidarity of the nation have been completely destroyed. Millions of our fellow countrymen will rise up to liquidate the reactionary group of Lon Nol and Sirik Matak and their American masters!... I call on all my children, both military and civilian, who cannot stand to remain under the traitor's power, and who are courageous and determined to liberate the fatherland, to fight our enemy. If the children already have weapons, I will bring the ammunition and even new weapons to strengthen them. If the children have no weapons and want to undergo training, I will take measures to help them leave for the military school, deep in the jungle to avoid enemy detection. For those children who are in Europe and wish to serve, come to Moscow or Peking to see me. Long live Cambodia!"

"There are two injustices which revolt Me! First, that which makes the people believe that those responsible for the [Franco-Khmer] treaty and who continue to have dealings with the French are traitors. Secondly, that which holds that... all who do not openly insult and struggle against the French are traitors... For Myself, I refuse [this logic]... If I am a traitor, let the Crown Council permit Me to abdicate!... I can no longer stand by and watch My country drown and My people die... Over these last few months we have no longer dared look each other in the face. In our offices and schools, everywhere people are discussing politics- suspecting each other; hatching plots; promoting this person, bringing down that one, pushing the third aside; doing no constructive work while, in the country at large, killing, banditry and murder hold sway. Chaos reigns, the established order has ceased to exist... The military and the police... no longer know where their duty lies. The Issaraks are told that they are dying for Cambodia, and so are our soldiers dying in battle against them... Each day threatens [to engulf us in] a veritable civil war... This is how things now stand gentlemen. The time has come for the Nation to make clear whether it desires to follow [the way of the rebels], or to continue in the path that I have traced."

"I may live in Peking rather than Phnom Penh, but I'm still the same old Sihanouk. A little original, or bizarre if you prefer. A little misunderstood, or incomprehensible if you prefer. But his convictions are intact and his personality's unaltered. For instance, I haven't become a communist: I continue to define myself as pink rather than red. I've not sewn my mouth shut: I continue to shout what I think about everything and everyone, without thinking of the consequences. And I've no intention of ending up as an exiled playboy."

"We don't want any Vietnamese in Cambodia.... We will be very glad if you solve our problem. We are not opposed to hot pursuit in uninhabited areas. You would be liberating us from the Viet Cong. For me only Cambodia counts. I want you to force the Viet Cong to leave Cambodia. In unpopulated areas, where there are not Cambodians,- such precise cases I would shut my eyes."

"Cambodia only protests against the destruction of the property and lives of Cambodians. All I can say is that I cannot make a protest as long as I am not informed. But I will protest if there is any destruction of Khmer life and property. Here it is - the first report about several B-52 bombings. Yet I have not been informed about that at all, because I have not lost any houses, any countrymen, nothing, nothing. Nobody was caught in those barrages - nobody, Cambodians."

"I don't want to become a kind of Hirohito who produces cameras, or an Elizabeth of England who cares only for horses. Even less do I want to turn out like Juan Carlos, who's just a ghost of Franco. I have no personal ambitions."

"For God's sake! If I ran a dictatorship, then what is Lon Nol running? I renounced my throne to show the masses that there's no such thing as divine right, that no one descends from the heavens to rule the people."

"From now on, any individual or any political party that opposes My policies will be declared a traitor to the Nation and... punished [accordingly]."

"For the first time in my life, I have to grab the monks by the throat. Me! The most religious man in the Kingdom! Because I've had enough- more than enough! My subjects and the elite among my subjects must obey!"

"It's not Mao Tse-tung who threatens southeast Asia, nor is it Ho Chi Minh. If all of Indochina becomes communist, we can thank America, its mistakes, blunders, crimes and imperialism which protects or launches invariably corrupt, dictatorial and unpopular regimes simply because they are anti-communist."

"New Labour, New Black Rod."

"Tell the House of Lords to go to hell."

"Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the 1970s and a lot of the 1980s, we would have thanked our lucky stars in the coalfield areas for growth of 1.75 per cent.? The only thing growing then were the lines of coke in front of boy George and the rest of them."

"When I called the Right Hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) a pompous sod, Mr. Speaker said to me, 'You had better withdraw that'. I said I would withdraw 'pompous', but said, Mr. Speaker 'That's not the word I'm looking for.' There was laughter in the House and everyone thought that I had hit the nail on the head. I thought that that was a real parliamentary triumph, but Mr. Speaker thought differently. He said, 'Off you go,' and I did not get a chance to reply."

"Skinner: The hon. Member for Edge Hill seems a bit upset about my saying that he was not there half the time. Will he settle for my agreeing that he was there the other half? That is an advance."

"I have noticed not only a change of emphasis but a distinct change of policy, and it may be that the Tories have been conducting some market research with the assistance of the advertising firm which they have engaged. It has a foreign-sounding name. It sounds a coloured name to me—Saatchi and Saatchi. Certainly it does not sound very English."

"Skinner: …it should be placed on record that, according to my hon. Friends who worked tirelessly in the Committee to oppose the provisions of the Bill, including this clause, the Liberal spokesman was not there half the time."

"David Alton: I do not know where the hon. Gentleman gets his facts from. If it is from one of his friends on the national executive committee of the Labour Party, I suspect that the information is probably as spurious and ridiculous as most of the other things said in that body. I can assure him that what he said is certainly not the case, and I hope that he will withdraw that comment immediately. [An exchange takes place between the pair and the speaker, who asks Skinner to keep on topic but not to withdraw the remark.]"

"I have been kicked out of this place about seven times, but I did not have any chance to explain. No one said to me, "Dennis, will you explain why you said that the Right Hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) was lining his pockets when he picked up that non-executive directorship of British Telecom?" I would have loved to tell everyone all about that, but Mr. Speaker said, "On your bike - early bath," and off I had to go."

"I accused the noble Lord, Lord Pym, when he was a Member of this House, of being the Minister for Unemployment because there were nearly 2 million people on the scrap heap - that pile of human misery known as the dole queue. Again, I was not able to make a speech before Mr. Speaker sent me out."

"Those were all genuine statements that I had to make. The Hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne) was kicked out for 20 days because he lined his pockets with about £50,000 and did not put it in the register as he is supposed to do, and now he is whingeing but I reckon he got away with blue murder!"

"She has been let off because she is a Tory."

"The Hon. Gentleman is making pretty heavy weather of the fact that he was kicked out of this gentleman's club for 20 days. I call it a gentlemen's club."

"Is there not something even more sinister in people talking in abstract terms about Britain becoming part of this political union? People may have the impression that we, the 12 countries and perhaps more, are all pals together. The truth is that the real powerhouse of the Common Market lies in Germany. It has just annexed East Germany. It is central to the activities of all the nation states that are falling apart in eastern Europe. Political union spells something much more sinister, and that is German domination. We fought for six years against it in the second world war. If hon. Members allow this political union, they will allow the Germans to win now when they lost in 1945."

"I bet he drinks Carling Black Label.."

"Skinner: "Half the Tories opposite are crooks.""

"Speaker: "Please retract that unparliamentary language.""

"Hands off the BBC."

"Skinner: "OK, half the Tories opposite are not crooks.""