Khmer Rouge troops captured Phnom Penh on this day in 1975, bringing an end to the war between government troops and the communist insurgents that had been raging since March 1970, when Lt. Gen. Lon Nol ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk in a bloodless coup and proclaimed the establishment of the Khmer Republic.
Between 1970 and 1975, Lon Nol and his army, the Forces Armees Nationale Khmer (FANK), with US support and military aid, battled the communist Khmer Rouge for control of Cambodia. During the five years of bitter fighting, approximately 10% of Cambodia’s 7 million people died. When the US forces departed South Vietnam in 1973, both the Cambodians and South Vietnamese found themselves fighting the communists alone. Without US support, Lon Nol’s forces fought on but eventually succumbed to the Khmer Rouge. With the surrender, the victorious Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh and set about reordering Cambodian society under the leadership of Marxist dictator Pol Pot, whose e Khmer brutal regime lasted till 1979.
Pol Pot’s attempts to create a Cambodian “master race” through social engineering ultimately led to the deaths of more than 2 million people in the Southeast Asian country. Those killed were either executed as enemies of the regime or died from starvation, disease or overwork. Historically, this period—as shown in the film The Killing Fields—has come to be known as the Cambodian Genocide.
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Photo Caption – Skulls of Khmer Rouge victims – Adam Carr
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