KINGSHIP

KINGSHIP
A profile
Name: Norodom Sihanouk.
Birth date: Oct. 31, 1922, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Education: Higher studies at the School of Application of the Cavalry and Armored Army in Saumar, France, 1946-1948.
Political career: Two reigns as king: 1941-1955 and 1993-2004; in the 1950s, after Cambodia gained independence from France, he served as prime minister and became a founder of the nonaligned movement of nations seeking middle path between the Cold War powers; elected head of state in 1960, ousted in 1970 in a U.S.-backed coup during the Vietnam War; joined the Khmer Rouge in the early 1970s in a bid to regain power but was later placed under house arrest when the ultra-left dictatorship took over Cambodia; 1982-1990: Led a coalition of guerrillas fighting the puppet government installed by the Vietnamese after they overthrew the Khmer Rouge; eventually helped engineer a cease-fire and steer the country toward peace; after the Vietnamese withdrew in 1989 he led the United Nations-supported structure that ran Cambodia until the 1993 elections. 2004: Gave up the throne citing ill health and was succeeded by his son, Sihamoni. He is now in Beijing for cancer treatment.
Family: He married at least five times -- some say six -- and fathered 14 children. His present wife is former Queen Monineath, with whom he had two sons, including Sihamoni.