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The Samlaut Uprising, otherwise called the Samlaut Rebellion or Battambang Revolts, consists of two significant phases of revolts that first broke out near Samlaut in Battambang Province and subsequently spread into surrounding Provinces in Cambodia during 1967-1968.The revolutionary movement was largely made up by the dissident rural peasantry led by a group of discontented leftist intellectuals against Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s political organization –the Sangkum regime. The rebellion first erupted in early 1967 in the Samlaut subdistrict when hundreds of frustrated peasants who were fed up with the government policies, treatment by local military, land displacement, and other poor socio-economic conditions, revolted against the government, first killing two soldiers on the morning of April 2.〔Hinton, 2004, p.53〕 In the following weeks, the revolt quickly expanded with much more destruction brought upon government property and personnel. By June 1967, 4,000 or more villagers fled their homes in Southern Battambang Province into the marquis (forest) to join the growing group of rebels and escape the military troops sent by Sihanouk.〔Kiernan, 1982, p.166〕 Following after in the early 1968, Cambodia experienced a more organized and matured second uprising that had expanded both geographically and politically through months of re-grouping, recruitment and propaganda processes, and was much more widespread and destructive than the first occurrence.〔Kiernan, 1982, p.166〕 According to some academics such as Ben Kiernan and Donald Kirk, the Samlaut rebellion is seen as the initial beginnings of the Cambodian revolutionary movement (the Cambodian Civil War) that eventually led to victory of the Communist forces Khmer Rouge and the establishment of the Democratic Kampuchea. Kiernan says that the rebellion was the “baptism of fire for the small but steadily growing Cambodian revolutionary movement”〔Kiernan, 1982, p.166〕 while Kirk mentions that it was “a prelude, in a microcosm, of the conflict that would sweep across the country three years later.”〔Kirk, p.78〕 ==Causes, Background & Origins of the Rebellion== It is important to note that there have been differing constructed narratives of this rebellion due to the problematic political alignments involved in the Cambodian struggle. Firstly, the Republican government wanted to portray the Cambodian revolutionary movement as largely a foreign (mainly Vietnamese) transplant and preferred to gloss over the significance of indigenous leftist activity from 1967.〔Kiernan, 1975, p.ii〕 Alternatively, F.U.N.K.(National United Front of Kampuchea) wanted to demonstrate unity between Sihanouk supporters and the Khmer Rouge, understating the extent of the development of the revolutionary opposition to Sihanouk before his overthrow.〔Kiernan, 1975, p.ii〕 In recent scholarship by prominent historians such as David Chandler and Milton Osborne, their general understanding of the rebellion was that it was primarily a localized action. According to Chandler, the revolt “sprang from local grievances against injustice and social change, corruption, and ham-fisted government behavior” and that the participants “did not respond to orders from the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) central committee”.〔Chandler, 1991, p.166〕 Milton Osborne writes that the rebellion “was more an outbreak of largely spontaneous resistance to government actions than the first orchestrated challenge from the radicals”.〔Osborne, 1994, p.191〕 Apart from Sihanouk’s strong-handed and corrupt Sangkum regime that fueled peasant grievances, there have been diverging strands contributing the origins of this rebellion. For instance, the rebellion was identified to have communist roots as it was the first part of Pol Pot’s social and political two-phased strategy executed by the CPK.〔Chindawongse, 1991, p.138〕 Furthermore, even the Prince himself was ignorant to this highly internalized and localized conflict, believing it bear foreign instigations.〔Kiernan, 1982〕〔Osborne, 1994, p.193〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Samlaut Uprising」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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