MONATIO, short for Mouvement National (French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 for 'National Movement') was a short-lived, supposedly nationalist

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

, political faction in Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...

. The exact nature of the group is still obscure. On April 17, 1975, as the revolutionary forces came closer to the capital, this group took out a motor-cavalcade on the streets of Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. Located on the banks of the Mekong River, Phnom Penh has been the national capital since the French colonized Cambodia, and has grown to become the nation's center of economic and industrial activities, as well as the center of security,...

 welcoming the arrival of the Khmer Rouge

Khmer Rouge

The Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...

 guerrillas. According to François Ponchaud's eye-witness report, the group consisted of a handful of soldiers, dressed in black uniforms, accompanied by a number of students. He claims MONATIO was led by Hem Keth Dara (the whole group in turn manipulated by Lon Non

Lon Non

Lon Non was a Cambodian politician and soldier who rose to his greatest prominence during the Khmer Republic .Non was the younger brother of Prime Minister Lon Nol...

, brother of deposed Lon Nol

Lon Nol

Lon Nol was a Cambodian politician and general who served as Prime Minister of Cambodia twice, as well as serving repeatedly as Defense Minister...

). The Khmer Rouge regime later claimed that MONATIO had been a CIA conspiracy against the revolutionary government.

A movie on the events of 1975, called MONATIO, has been made by Norodom Sihanouk

Norodom Sihanouk

Norodom Sihanouk regular script was the King of Cambodia from 1941 to 1955 and again from 1993 until his semi-retirement and voluntary abdication on 7 October 2004 in favor of his son, the current King Norodom Sihamoni...

. According to the movie, the communist forces were hardly pleased to be welcomed by MONATIO, and the MONATIO militias were captured and executed.