increasing popularity of the website - norodomsihanouk.info

The increasing popularity of the website - norodomsihanouk.info - might reflect the fact that the communicative king is using it to comment on the political crisis in the country, with no new government formed since general elections last July. His messages - sometimes worried, sometimes mocking - appear on the site as handwritten notes in French, with frequent comments on the political and other problems of his kingdom, including corruption, deforestation and, recently, the subject of his own death and the vexed question of his successor. Local commentators believe he is the only head of state to use the internet daily as a means of communicating with his subjects as well as people outside the country. The royal site also details royal activities - state visits, aid to the poor - and some of Cambodia's modern history. The beloved Sihanouk has seen much of Cambodia's recent trials as a king, a politician and an exile, including independence from the French, the rule of the genocidal Khmer Rouge, democratic elections - and, perhaps in the near future, genocide tribunals.