“Our African American Brothers”

Abstract This article explores Cambodia's ties to US Third World leftists during the 1950s and 1960s while also highlighting how these international alliances contrasted with Cambodia's domestic law-and-order practices during this period. Two years after Cambodia's independence from France in 1953, King Norodom Sihanouk abdicated from the throne and formed his own political party—the Sangkum Reastr Niyum (People's Socialist Community)—that sought to reshape Cambodia through Buddhist-Socialism. As part of its Buddhist-Socialist (Khmer Socialism) political program, the Sangkum Party declared itself to be anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, and anti-racist. The party argued that the racialized nature of the Cold War helped advance the nefarious schemes of the United States and the other “Great Powers.” To counter, it advanced an anti-imperialist platform that brought it into collaboration with groups such as the Nation of Islam, the Young Lords, and the Revolutionary Action Movement. The article considers the “lumpy” history that connects Cambodia's anti-imperialist foreign policies and repressive domestic practices through the perspectives of US Third World leftists, law-and-order initiatives in Cambodia, alternate approaches to Cold War nuclear questions, and the global dynamics of the US civil rights movement.