Cambodia History and Government
During the Second World War, Cambodia was particularly affected, together with Laos, by the Tōkyō agreement of 9 May 1941, which forced it to cede a large strip of territory (69,000 sq km) on the northern border to Thailand, including the important centers of Battambang Popet and Mongkol Boray.
Already in September 1940, the Thai government had asked France to cede some Indochinese territories, including the area of Cambodia, located west of the Mekong River. Rejected, it caused several border incidents, and Thai planes flew over Indochinese territory and bombed French troops. The United States intervened to recommend the maintenance of the status quo, but since the incidents did not cease and on January 16, 1941 there was even a naval clash, near Xochange, where the battleship La Motte Picquet sank some Thai units, Japan interposed its mediation.. Thus an agreement was reached with the assent of the Vichy government.
Mutilation was probably the main reason for the pro-French attitude maintained by Cambodia in the immediate post-war period, hoping it to regain, with the help of the government of Paris, the lost territories. In fact, the dispute was resolved in favor of Cambodia on November 17, 1946. As for its relations with France, after the stipulation of a modus vivendi (January 7, 1946), Cambodia was proclaimed an independent state on December 23, 1947 in within the Indochinese Federation and the French Union. According to the 1936 census, Cambodia (181,000 sq km) had 3,046,000 residents; the capital Pnom Penh, 103,000. For economic news, see. Indochina (in this App.).
History and order
According to Cancermatters, the first Cambodian parliament, which proved not very efficient in its functioning, was dissolved by King Norodom Sihanouk in 1953 and replaced with a Consultative Assembly. As a consequence of the Indochina War (see Vietnam) in Cambodia there was the activity of various local rebel groups and the infiltration of irregular troops from the Vietminh; but on 2 October 1955, for the application of the Geneva agreements (1954), both the troops of the French Union and those of the Vietminh were evacuated from Cambodian territory. In the general elections of September 1955, meanwhile, the People’s Socialist Community, led by the former king Norodom Sihanouk who on March 2 of that same year had abdicated in favor of his father Norodom Suramarit, had gained all 91 seats in the Consultative Assembly. As soon as it took office, the new Assembly unanimously approved an amendment to the constitution under which Cambodia is no longer an “autonomous state belonging to the French Union as an associated state”, but an “independent and sovereign” state. Other provisions concerning the establishment of regional assemblies; the creation of an upper house or council of the kingdom; the extension of suffrage to women; and the limitation of French (or any other foreign language) to diplomatic, administrative and technical uses only, led to a complete revision of the 1947 constitution, which in its new form was proclaimed in January 1956. The general elections of the March 1958 again assigned all seats in the Assembly to the party of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. In April 1960, King Norodom Suramarit passed away and royal powers were exercised by a regency council.
Physical characteristics
The territory is occupied by the alluvial lowland built by the Mekong and its tributaries, the main one being the Tonle Sap ; on its edges there are fragments of the ancient Indochinese hoof, of paleozoic formation, mostly with a tabular structure (Monti Dangrek, 663 m, to the N; Monti Cardamomi, 1813 m, SW; extreme offshoots of the Annam chain, 1200 m, E). The reliefs, particularly the south-western ones, influence the climate, retaining a good part of the humidity of the monsoon air masses that discharge up to 5000 mm of rain on the Cardamoms (May-October), while in inland regions the rainfall does not exceed 1500 mm per year. Average temperatures are around 27 ° C, with very limited excursions, except in some coastal stretches (Kompong Som: 5-6 ° C between January and July). The result is a vegetation cover mainly consisting of the tropical forest, which is replaced by the rainforest in the external mountainous areas, the latter heavily degraded, however, by the impact and above all by the industrial cut. Marshy areas remain in the central basin. The floods of the Mekong are formidable, which quadruple the flow rates compared to the lean period (up to 60,000 m 3 / s in October), flooding the entire plain, despite the fact that the Tonle Sap basin receives part of the excess water, so the surface of the homonymous lake (a few hundred square kilometers in the dry season) reaches up to 10,000 km 2. The most fertile soils are the central alluvial ones, while the more marked seasonality favors the laterization processes in the northern plateaus.
