ABSTRACT

The government of Indonesia convened an international conference on Cambodia in Jakarta on 16 May 1970. It acted out of concern for the possible impact on national security of the extension of the Vietnam War to Cambodia after the deposition of its head of state, Prince Norodom Sihanouk in March 1970. The motivation was complex, however. Some military officers sought to exploit the conflict by transferring a stock of outmoded rifles to Cambodia in return for the United States replacing them with modern weapons. Professor S. Jayakumar assumed the office of minister of foreign affairs in Singapore on 2 January 1994. By then, he had been engaged in Singapore's political life for more than a decade, having entered Parliament for the ruling People's Action Party in 1980. Shunmugan Jayakumar was born on 12 August 1939 in Singapore and was educated at the elite Raffles Institution and then at the Law Faculty of the University of Singapore.