MONATIO

{{Short description|Alleged political movement in Cambodia}}{{Infobox war faction

|name = Mouvement National

|native_name = MONATIO

|native_name_lang =

|war = Cambodian Civil War

|image = 200px

|caption = Flag used by MONATIO

|active = 17 April 1975

|ideology = Khmer nationalism

|leaders =

|headquarters =

|area =

|predecessor =

|opponents = Khmer Rouge

|battles = Fall of Phnom Penh

|status =

|founders=

}}

MONATIO, short for Mouvement National (English: "National Movement"), was a short-lived, supposedly nationalist, political faction in Cambodia. The exact nature of the group is still obscure. On April 17, 1975, as the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh, this group took out a motor-cavalcade on the streets of the capital welcoming the arrival of the Khmer Rouge.{{cite book|last=Ponchaud|first=François|title=Cambodia Year Zero|publisher=Henry Holt & Co|year=1978|isbn=9780030403064|page=17}}

The group consisted of a handful of soldiers, dressed in black uniforms, accompanied by a number of students. MONATIO was headed by student leader Hem Keth Dara and the whole group in turn manipulated by Lon Non, brother of Lon Nol.{{cite book|title=Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia|last=Shawcross|first=William|publisher=Andre Deutsch Limited|year=1979|isbn=0-233-97077-0|page=365}}

Initially tolerated by the Khmer Rouge, MONATIO members were later rounded up and executed.{{cite book|last=Swain|first=Jon|title=River of Time: A Memoir of Vietnam and Cambodia|publisher=St. Martin's Press|year=1997|isbn=978-0425168059|url=https://archive.org/details/riveroftime00swai|pages=136–7}} The Khmer Rouge regime later claimed that MONATIO had been a CIA conspiracy against the revolutionary government.{{cite book|last=Isaacs|first=Arnold R.|title=Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia|publisher=JHU Press|year=1999|isbn=9780801861079|page=283}}

A movie on the events of 1975, called MONATIO, was made by Norodom Sihanouk.[http://www.norodomsihanouk.info/mes2006/octobre/textes/0510/0510txt5.htm New Page 5] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090109141318/http://www.norodomsihanouk.info/mes2006/octobre/textes/0510/0510txt5.htm |date=2009-01-09 }}