Cambodia

Cambodia (Kampuchea) A country sandwiched between Vietnam and Siam (Thailand), it was subject to the domination of these two countries from the fifteenth century until 1884, when it became a French protectorate, and 1887, when it was incorporated into French Indochina. Of the different Indochinese territories, Cambodia was the most docile, not least because of its long history of foreign domination. The French built an infrastructure and created a rudimentary education system. In 1941, the Vichy French colonial government welcomed the Japanese, and appointed the young Sihanouk King.

After World War II, Sihanouk cautiously welcomed back the French troops. Cambodia was involved in the subsequent Indochina War, mainly through the Vietminh-supported Khmer Issarak (Free Khmers). Resistance to the French also came from the National Assembly, created after Cambodia had become an autonomous member of the French Union in 1946. As the French lost ground throughout Indochina, and as Sihanouk himself became more insistent on independence, the French granted independence in 1953, and confirmed it in the 1954 Geneva Agreements. In 1955, Sihanouk abdicated in favour of his father, and focused on politics instead. As Prime Minister, he founded his own movement, the Sangkum Reastr Niyum, and pursued moderately capitalist policies. He also sought to remain neutral, which enabled him to draw on competing Soviet and US assistance in the light of the Cold War and the escalating conflict in Vietnam.

It was the Vietnam War which made Sihanouk's neutralism untenable, as Cambodia was used by Vietminh and Vietcong forces as a supply route from North to South Vietnam, and received its fair share of US carpet bombing in return. Encouraged by the North Vietnamese, the radical Communist Khmer Rouge began to wage a civil war against the government, which continued after Sihanouk was deposed in a coup by the pro-American Lon Nol. His Khmer Republic was defeated by the United Front, a somewhat odd alliance between the Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk, though the real power in the newly proclaimed Democratic Kampuchea was Pol Pot.

Pol Pot tried to realize a unique, authoritarian vision of Communism which relied on certain elements of Maoism, dissolving the cities and forcing people to work in agricultural communes, abolishing money and introducing a barter economy, and killing everyone who did not appear supportive of the new order. He also started an ill-judged war with Vietnam, encouraged by his Chinese allies, in 1977. The Vietnamese forces entered Pnomh Penh and forced his retreat in January 1979, though he continued to offer stubborn resistance in the countryside. Within a decade, almost two million people had died, as a result of civil war (750,000 dead and over three million refugees) and subsequent genocide (over one million dead).

A new Communist government was formed under Heng Samrin, which focused on restoring basic food supplies—a difficult task, since more than half of the country's cultivatable area was mined. With mixed success, it also attempted to overcome the social and economic trauma of the Khmer Rouge regime. Supported by the Vietnamese, it was attacked by residual Khmer Rouge guerrillas, and was opposed by the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK), formed in 1982. Chaired by Sihanouk, the CGDK became the internationally recognized government in exile. The country was helped by the financial and military exhaustion of the Vietnamese, and the end of the Cold War, which led to a cooperation among foreign powers in an effort to resolve the conflict. The Vietnamese army withdrew in 1989, and in 1991 four of the parties involved in the conflict concluded a peace treaty, under UN mediation. Sihanouk became President once again, and in 1993 he was made King. He had two co-Minister Presidents, but in 1998 the Communist Minister President, Hun Sen, deposed his royalist colleague, Prince Ranariddh, on charges of contacts with the Khmer Rouge. The coalition between Communists and royalists continued, however, and the ensuing political stabilization was helped by the surrender of the last Khmer Rouge units in 1999. In 2001, the government and the UN finalized plans for an international tribunal for those responsible for the genocide under the Khmer Rouge.