I figured that it would only make sense to share the history of Cambodia with you so that you can better understand the country and the people, and some of the tours that we have been on that I will later discuss with you.
In 1970, an open civil war began between Lon Nol’s government and Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. Most people joined the Khmer Rouge because they were unhappy with the American bombings and the new government. America provided supplies, weapons and money to the Lon Nol government. However, Lon Nol was losing the civil war and when America lost the Vietnam war, they stopped providing aid to Cambodia.
A short time later, in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge took the capital of Phnom Penh, forcing everyone out of every city in Cambodia. Everyone was forced into farming communities in the countryside. The Khmer Rouge began to kill anyone associated with Lon Nol’s government or his military. They also killed educated people, teachers, and doctors because they thought they had been corrupted by Western thinking. In addition, they killed religious people such as Buddhist monks and over ninety percent of the Christians.
Conditions were extremely hard. People had to work long days in the fields and sometimes got as little as one cup of rice each day. Starvation and disease began to grow.
By the end of the Khmer Rouge rule, as many as 2 million people died, which was almost 1/3 of the population. This was all in the time span of 4 years.
In December 1978, the Khmer Rouge invaded Vietnam. By January 7, 1979, Vietnamese troops had taken control of Phnom Penh and the government. After successfully invading Cambodia, Vietnam set up a new government under their control. The Khmer Rouge fled to the Thai border and continued to fight from there. Eventually, Cambodians began to go to refugee camps to get supplies to bring back to their families because there was such a need. However, there were thieves and the roads were dangerous so the Cambodians began to just move to the refugee camps. Many resistance fighter groups formed along the border to fight against the Vietnamese-controlled government. The Khmer Rouge had placed landmines, but the Vietnamese and resistant fighter groups placed even more to prevent each other from attacking easily. Therefore, Cambodia became one of the most heavily land mined countries in the world.
In 1989, Vietnam backed out of Cambodia for financial reasons. Then the resistant fighter groups along the border began to fight each other for control of the government. At the end of 1990, the United Nations had these fighting groups sign a peace treaty to work together and form a new government. Every group signed except for the Khmer Rouge who backed out and continued to fight
In 1993, the UN elections were held and the royalist party, FUNCINPEC, won the election. However, Hun Sen, the leader of the Cambodian People’s Party and prime minister during the Vietnamese era, demanded to be in control of the new government.
Four years later, in 1997, Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, died of natural causes.
Elections for prime minister occur every 5yrs in Cambodia, so elections were held again in 1998. Hun Sen won the elections, but there was a lot of arguing about the results which ended up in fighting. During 1998, the Khmer Rouge officially disbanded as a political and military force and ended its fighting against the Cambodian government. Therefore, 1999 was the first year of peace since 1969.
