When was khmer rouge

By the end of , the Vietnamese withdrew from Cambodia and turned the major responsibilities for the war over to the CPK. From January to August , the Khmer Republic government, with assistance from the US, dropped about half a million tons of bombs on Cambodia, which may have killed as many as , people. By early , about 85 percent of Cambodian territory was in the hands of the Khmer Rouge, and the Lon Nol army was almost unable to go on the offensive.

However, with US assistance, it was able to continue fighting the Khmer Rouge for two more years. April 17, ended five years of foreign interventions, bombardment, and civil war in Cambodia. On this date, Phnom Penh, a major city in Cambodia, fell to the communist forces. A few days after they took power in , the Khmer Rouge forced perhaps two million people in Phnom Penh and other cities into the countryside to undertake agricultural work.

Thousands of people died during the evacuations. The Khmer Rouge also began to implement their radical Maoist and Marxist-Leninist transformation program at this time. They wanted to transform Cambodia into a rural, classless society in which there were no rich people, no poor people, and no exploitation. To accomplish this, they abolished money, free markets, normal schooling, private property, foreign clothing styles, religious practices, and traditional Khmer culture.

Public schools, pagodas, mosques, churches, universities, shops and government buildings were shut or turned into prisons, stables, reeducation camps and granaries. There was no public or private transportation, no private property, and no non-revolutionary entertainment.

Leisure activities were severely restricted. People throughout the country, including the leaders of the CPK, had to wear black costumes, which were their traditional revolutionary clothes.

During this time, everyone was deprived of their basic rights. People were not allowed to go outside their cooperative. One of the places where this competition was most intense was Southeast Asia. Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos, which were collectively known as Indochina under French colonialism, became enmeshed in this struggle as they wrestled free from colonial rule. Sihanouk was a charismatic character with a taste for writing, music, and especially filmmaking.

He was also ever adaptable to the changing tide that continuously swept through his nation. Many Cambodians generally recall the Sihanouk period as a time of harmony and co-operation, and he did much to expand education in Cambodia and build up and modernize the capital city of Phnom Penh. Figure 1: Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

But his 17 years of rule were also a time of vast corruption and social and economic inequality. The division between the urban areas and the countryside became more severe; while the cities developed into modern cosmopolitan meccas offering education and opportunities to their residents, life in the countryside for the much larger number of peasants was relatively unchanged.

In addition, the Cambodian government under Sihanouk did not tolerate ideological and political dissent, including dissent by communist groups that were forming within the country.

This conflict began in , escalated in the s, and ended when the U. This conflict was a proxy war between North Vietnam, which was supported by the Soviet Union and China, and South Vietnam, which was supported by the U. The North Vietnamese, under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, sought to create bases and supply trails through Laos and Cambodia in order to send troops and supplies to their supporters in the south. This route became known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The U. Map 2: Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Through the tumultuous post-independence years, Sihanouk pursued a policy of neutrality between the communists i. At the time, however, some had suspected that he was showing preference to the communist cause by allowing the North Vietnamese to set up bases within Cambodia.

Amid these growing political tensions, Sihanouk was ousted in a bloodless coup in while he was out of the country. The man who replaced him was his prime minister, Marshal Lon Nol.

The Khmer Rouge, with support from the North Vietnamese, were already fighting in the Cambodian countryside and eventually began taking control of territory from the Lon Nol government. Other renegade groups of Cambodian fighters were also engaged in the struggle for control of the country. Adding to the violence and chaos in the countryside, in , the U.

Out of a total of , tons of explosives dropped by the U. By comparison, the U. Many times, the American B bombers missed their targets, resulting in the death and destruction of entire Cambodian villages. While estimates are unclear as to the number of Cambodian deaths that resulted from these bombings, they range between 50, and , Map 3: Mass burial sites from Khmer Rouge period, Unsurprisingly, the bombing fostered anger and fear among the Cambodian people, driving some from the countryside to seek shelter in the capital city of Phnom Penh.

But there was another significant factor in nudging more Cambodian peasants towards the Khmer Rouge: after Sihanouk was overthrown in , he joined the Khmer Rouge from exile in China and, through a radio broadcast, called on his fellow Cambodians to join him.

Of course, not all people freely chose to join the Khmer Rouge. When the Khmer Rouge took control of an area, they would simply draft those old enough to fight or serve the movement in other ways. To resist would mean death. By , the Khmer Rouge had gained control of most of the countryside and started requiring villagers to live in co-operatives and engage in large-scale agricultural projects.

As the majority of the countryside came under Khmer Rouge rule, the situation in the capital city of Phnom Penh became increasingly dire. The Lon Nol government could no longer hold its ground against the Khmer Rouge, especially after the U. The last helicopter carrying the remaining U. Initially, some in Phnom Penh expressed relief that the war had come to an end. But any sense of relief they felt quickly vanished.

The rationale they gave was that now that they had taken over the capital, the Americans would most certainly bomb the city. Hundreds of thousands died from disease, starvation or damage to their bodies sustained during back-breaking work or abuse from the ruthless Khmer Rouge guards overseeing the camps. Those seen as intellectuals, or potential leaders of a revolutionary movement, were also executed. Legend has it, some were executed for merely appearing to be intellectuals, by wearing glasses or being able to speak a foreign language.

During what became known as the Cambodian Genocide , an estimated 1. The Vietnamese Army invaded Cambodia in and removed Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge from power, after a series of violent battles on the border between the two countries. Pol Pot had sought to extend his influence into the newly unified Vietnam, but his forces were quickly rebuffed.

After the invasion, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge fighters quickly retreated to remote areas of the country. However, they remained active as an insurgency, albeit with declining influence. Vietnam retained control in the country, with a military presence, for much of the s, over the objections of the United States.

Over the decades since the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia has gradually reestablished ties with the world community, although the country still faces problems, including widespread poverty and illiteracy. Prince Norodom returned to govern Cambodia in , although he now rules under a constitutional monarchy. Pol Pot himself lived in the rural northeast of the country until , when he was tried by the Khmer Rouge for his crimes against the state. The trial was seen as being mostly for show, however, and the former dictator died while under house arrest in jungle home.

The stories of the suffering of the Cambodian people at the hands of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge have garnered worldwide attention in the years since their rise and fall, including through a fictional account of the atrocities in the movie The Killing Fields. BBC News. The Cambodian Genocide.

United to End Genocide. Cambodian Genocide. World Without Genocide. Mount Holyoke College.