A quick history lesson...

            I knew pretty much two things about Cambodia before I decided that I wanted to come here (1) it is a country (2) it is somewhere in Asia. I didn’t learn a whole lot more information before actually getting on a plane other than looking it up on a map and reading some things on Wikipedia. Based on my own complete lack of knowledge about Cambodia I figured it might be helpful for those interested to share a little of what I’ve learned. So here’s a basic summary of what’s been going on here over the last 50 years or so. (I’m sure my dad will look it all up though and let me know everything that I got wrong.)

            Cambodia has a history of great kingdoms hundreds of years ago but the real issues in Cambodia began in the 1970s. That’s when genocide was committed and almost half of the population was killed. That’s the reason that Cambodia to this day is filled with organizations such as UNICEF, where I will be working this summer.

During the Vietnam War, upheaval was caused in the entire region, not just Vietnam. The Cambodian government was allowing North Vietnam to enter Cambodia and hide from U.S. troops and kind of regroup before going back into Vietnam and fighting. The U.S. got involved in Cambodian politics because they didn’t like the fact that Cambodia was aiding Vietnam forces. So the U.S. started funding rebel groups in Cambodia to overthrow the Cambodian government. The U.S. then funded a military backed party of Lon Nol’s army. While the U.S. supported this new government Cambodians did not.  The U.S. then started a blind bombing campaign in which they would basically fly over Northern Cambodia and drop bombs (pretty much without any strategy whatsoever) as a result the U.S. ended up bombing tons of villages and killing around 500,000 Cambodian civilians that had nothing to do with the conflict or with Vietnam. According to documents released during the Clinton administration, the U.S. dropped more bombs on Cambodia than the allies dropped during WWII. Lon Nol ended up being a terrible dictator, and his rule coupled with the bombing from the U.S. was almost too much for Cambodians to handle.

Rebel groups started forming in the jungles. One of these was the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge was a communist group led by Pol Pot. Pol Pot and other leaders had been educated in Paris where they gained their appreciation for communism. Pol Pot took advantage of the terrible state Cambodia was in and recruited soldiers from the countryside, many of them were children.

In 1975 when the Khmer Rouge marched on Phnom Penh and took over the city, Lon Nol had already evacuated. The majority of Cambodians had no idea who the Khmer Rouge were but they cheered as soldiers dressed in black entered Phnom Penh to liberate them from Lon Nol’s dictatorship. The Khmer Rouge was a very secretive organization and did not reveal who was in charge of the regime until well into their occupation. 

On April 17th, 1975 the Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh, the capital city. They told people they needed to leave because the American were going to bomb the city and the only way they would be safe was to leave for a few days, they brought nothing with them and many didn’t even put on shoes. Those that did not leave immediately were shot. They evacuated the hospitals; even the incredibly sick had t leave. The Khmer Rouge divided everyone in the city into four groups based on their current location in the city and had them march into the jungle. Those that were in the northwest corner went northwest; those in the southeast corner went southeast, etc. While the people thought they would return to Phnom Penh in a few days, it would be 3 years before the city was occupied again, and many would never return. 

The goal of the Khmer Rouge was to return Cambodia to year 0. They wanted to bring back the simplicity of Cambodian life. They believed that anyone in the city was capitalistic and needed to be taught the real Cambodian way, which could only be learned in the jungles. As the people marched out of the city the Khmer Rouge began picking out people who had been members of the former government and killing them.

By May 20, 1975 (now known as the Day of Anger) commune structures were implemented in the countryside for people to live in. The Khmer rouge began systematically killing off people who they thought of as threats. It started as anyone with an education. They would hold dinners and ask people as they arrived what their profession was. If the people were professionals or intellectuals they were told to sit at a table and served nicer food, while those who did labor jobs or more blue collar work were told to sit on a mat and eat. After the meal they would tell all the people at the table to remain seating for dessert but would tell the people on the mat they had to leave because they didn’t get dessert. After those on the mat left they killed everyone at the table. It got to the point where they were killing people who wore eyeglasses because they were thought to be bourgeois intellectuals. And their paranoia only grew.

They were cutting Cambodia off from the outside world. They killed anyone who wasn’t a native born Cambodian. They killed everyone living along the border of Vietnam because they were thought to be influenced by Vietnamese ideals. They planted landmines all along the borders of the country so that no one could get in or out. Many of the landmines are still there today and people are still killed as a result. I think the UN has put landmine deaths at over 100,000.

Those that weren’t killed were made to work. Everyone who could would work 15-hour days of hard manual labor, planting rice, building dams, harvesting. Food production was at an all time high but people were dying of starvation. All of the food that was produced had to be handed over to the Khmer Rouge who then sold it to China in exchange for weapons. 

The exact numbers of those that died during the Khmer Rouge regime are still uncertain. However, even the most modest figures place the death toll at over 2 million people. In about a 3-year period ¼ of the population was wiped out. One in four Cambodians were dead. 

Apparently it took years before people even realized what was happening in Cambodia. There are stories of people looking over the hills from Thailand and seeing clouds of smoke coming up from land all over Cambodia, they were destroying villages. But after the Vietnam War, no one wanted to get involved. The U.S. and other countries turned a blind eye.

The Khmer Rouge got so paranoid that they started killing of their own soldiers, anyone who was thought to not completely respect Angkar (“the organization”). Many Khmer Rouge defected and fled the country into Vietnam.

In 1978 Vietnamese troops and former Khmer Rouge invaded Cambodia and took over. Fighting in Cambodia over power continued for another decade. In 1991 a comprehensive peace settlement was created with the help of the UN. They set up the United Nations Transnational Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC).  In 1993 they restored Prince Sihanook to power and sponsored Cambodia’s first ever democratic elections.

For a while Cambodia had co-prime ministers but in 1997 Hun Sen ousted the non-communist parties in government. Hun Sen continues to reign in a very controversial and corrupt system. The NY Times actually wrote an interesting article on Hun Sen right before I came to Cambodia that gives a better background than I could. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/opinion/10000-days-of-hun-sen.html?_r=1