The Cambodian Civil War, 1970-5
It was not enough on its own and when American bombing of Cambodia was halted by order of the US Congress in June, 1973, it was inevitable that defeat for Lon Nol would arrive.
The Outcome
In power, the Khmer Rouge installed a fascist-extremist communist governmental system that drove everyone out of the towns and cities into large agricultural communes, with forced labour, arbitrary executions and regular denunciations resulting in the deaths of a million or more Cambodians. Sihanouk was imprisoned by Cambodia's new ruler, Pol Pot.
Communist victories in Laos and Vietnam seem to herald an unified region of communist states. However, armed clashes on the Vietnam-Cambodia border provoke a successful Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and Pol Pot's evil regime is ended. This leads to international condemnation and the launching of a war against the Vietnamese by China. Nevertheless, the Vietnamese installed puppet regime, while being far from perfect, ruled Cambodia much less disastrously in the ten years of its presence than had occurred under Pol Pot.
References and Further Reading
Perhaps the most useful and accessible single volume treatment of Cambodian history is David Chandler's A History of Cambodia, second edition, updated (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1998) and published by Westview Press in 1996.
A helpful overview of the modern period of Cambodian history is Henry Kamm's Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Land (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1998).
Another useful multipurpose book is Duncan Stearn's Chronology of South-East Asian History 1400-1996 (Dee Why, NSW: Mitraphab Centre Pty. Ltd., 1997).
There are now biographies of many of the prominent figures in this tragic chapter of history, three of them are:
Milton Osborne, Sihanouk: Prince of Light, Prince of Darkness (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1994).
Harish C. Mehta, Warrior Prince: Norodom Ranariddh, Son of King Sihanouk of Cambodia (Singapore: Graham Brash (Pte.) Ltd., 2001).
Harish C. Mehta and Julie B. Mehta, Hun Sen: Strongman of Cambodia (Singapore: Graham Brash (Pte.) Ltd., 1999).
Pol Pot and others of the Khmer Rouges will be the subject of future articles.
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