Norodom Sihanouk—The End of an Era
By Michelle Vachon - October 17, 2012 King Father Norodom Sihanouk, the flamboyant, tireless monarch who led Cambodia to independence in 1953, watched it descend into genocide and civil war, and reigned once more as the country struggled to its feet, died Monday in Beijing . The monarch who peacefully won Cambodia’s independence from France, rallied political factions in the 1980s to achieve peace against all odds and, when crowned for a second time, mediated the country’s conflicts out of crisis in the 1990s, Norodom Sihanouk will be remembered as one of the foremost Southeast Asian leaders of the past 60 years. “His Majesty the King Father…was truly the father of his country and the legendary figure we meet only once in our lifetimes,” Gordon Longmuir, a former Canadian ambassador to Cambodia, wrote in a message on Monday. “One of the indisputably great figures of the 20th century, and a champion of his people always, His Majesty will be deeply mou