Norodom Sihanouk, the former Cambodian monarch who has died at the age of 89, was both a perpetrator and a victim of the successive tragedies that overtook his country in the second half of the 20th century.
By turns infuriating and charming, absurd and shrewd, Sihanouk was a fervent nationalist who nevertheless spent much of his life in Beijing – where he died from a heart attack yesterday – and the North Korean capital Pyongyang.
Sihanouk made official pronouncements in flowery French prose rather than the Khmer language. He claimed to be loved by Cambodians, but was protected by North Korean bodyguards provided by his friend, the late Kim Il-sung.
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