In March 1970, during Sihanouk’s absence in Europe, the National Assembly in Phnom Penh withdrew its support, and he was removed from office by a coup d’état planned by his pro-Western cousin Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak and executed by the previously loyal General Lon Nol, the Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. The monarchy was abolished and Cambodia declared a republic. Sihanouk fled to Beijing , and Sihanouk proceeded to denounce “the tools of American imperialism” and to ally himself with the extreme pro-Chinese communist group of Cambodian revolutionaries, the Khmer Rouge, whom he himself had driven into exile. His “Royal Government of National Unity” (known as GRUNK), based in Beijing, was dedicated to the defeat of Lon Nol.