History of Cambodia

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Rice fields in the Angkor area

The history of Cambodia begins with the first settlements, the first traces of which date back to 4200 BC. Can be dated. In a narrower sense, it encompasses the period of the last 1200 years during which the Khmer (spoken: kmer ) empire developed, as Cambodians call themselves and their language .

Early days

Remnants of pottery found in a cave in northwestern Cambodia indicate settlement of Cambodia since at least 4200 BC. Chr. Further archaeological finds indicate the settlement activity of a Neolithic culture in the 2nd millennium BC. BC, whose relatives immigrated from Southeast China to what is now Cambodia. They built stilt houses along the Mekong , made a living from fishing and growing rice, kept pets and were already able to do primitive earthworks .

Funan Empire (1st - 7th centuries)

In the 1st century BC The Kingdom of Funan arose in the Mekong Delta and along the coast. It was heavily influenced by Indian culture , but also came into contact with the cultures of China , Malaysia and Java through the emerging sea trade . At the beginning of the 3rd century AD, Funan reached its greatest extent until it became a vassal state of China in 357 . At the beginning of the 5th century, Shivaism from India became the state religion under King Kaundinya. It was not until the 6th century that Funan's decline began, which was ended by merging into the Chenla Empire with the capital Isanapura at the beginning of the 7th century.

Chenla Empire (7th-8th centuries)

The Chenla Empire presumably consisted of a number of relatively independent principalities that extended around various cultural centers, including Sambor Prei Kuk . As early as the 8th century, the association split into a northern and a southern kingdom, from which further smaller units split off by 715. The Sailendra of Java took advantage of the resulting weakness and brought the coastal areas under their influence. In 790 Jayavarman II , who later became the first king of the Khmer Empire, was able to return to the mainland from exile in Java and begin to successfully unite the splintered principalities.

Khmer Empire (9th - 15th centuries)

The Khmer Empire in the 10th Century
Apsaras on a wall of Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat (12th century)

The beginning of the Khmer empire of Angkor (khmer: 'city'), called "Kambuja" by the Khmer themselves, is usually given as the year 802, the year in which Jayavarman II, according to tradition, became Deva-raja (for example: "King of kings") was raised. He united the Khmer under his rule, made the empire independent from the sea kingdom of Java and founded with Hariharalaya the first capital in the region of Angkor. In the reign of the important Yasovarman I (889-910), however, the capital was moved to Yasodharapura.

1177 Angkor was from the neighboring first Cham taken from the realm of Champa, but much more threatening were the Thai -Nations that in the course of the 13th and 14th centuries to the state structures of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya banded together and shake off the rule of the Khmer began. These empires were initially vassal states, but Angkor was gradually pushed back until the empire was finally conquered by Ayutthaya in 1431. Angkor was abandoned as the capital after the Siamese took the area. Individual temples, such as Angkor Wat , were still visited, but the majority of the structures were overgrown by the tropical vegetation and fell into disrepair. The transfer of the last Khmer king into Siamese captivity in 1594 marked the end of the approximately thousand-year-old high culture of the Khmer.

The remains of Angkor became known to a wider public in the west in the late 19th century after researchers such as Henri Mouhot brought illustrated travelogues and looted works of art to Europe. These explorers eventually prepared the French access to Indochina .

In its greatest expansion, Kambuja encompassed what is now Cambodia , the Mekong Delta , southern Laos and lower Thailand (Siam) to the Isthmus of Kra . Economically, the empire was based on agriculture , in particular the cultivation of rice , which was very successfully operated through artificial irrigation , and fishing . Angkor is close to the fish-rich Tonle Sap , the largest lake in Southeast Asia . There was also trade with neighboring empires and especially with China. The Khmer culture was strongly influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism , the latter still being a key element of Cambodian society today.

Dependence on Thailand and Vietnam (15th - 19th centuries)

Zones of influence in Indochina around 1540

In 1431 Cambodia had become a vassal of the Thai. After Angkor was surrendered, Chaktomuk (today's Phnom Penh ) became the capital, in the 16th century it was moved to Longvek , and from the first half of the 17th century the residence was in Udong .

From the 17th century, when the Annam Empire (Vietnam) was formed in the east , pressure on the Cambodian state grew from there too, as Annam also demanded tribute. In the late 18th century, Annam conquered Cochinchina , which until then had been dependent on Cambodia. In the west, Cambodia lost provinces to Siam. In 1807 the united Vietnam established a protectorate on Cambodian soil. The capital of the protectorate was still Udong (also spelled Odongk).

In 1840/1841 an uprising against Vietnamese supremacy in Cambodia led to a Vietnamese-Siamese understanding, according to which the country should be jointly ruled by both neighbors. The reign of King Ang Duong was overall a time of peace and moderate prosperity. In order to defend himself further against the influence of the Thai and Vietnamese, Ang Duong turned in 1854 with a request for protection to the French Emperor Napoleon III. but a meeting between the king and the French in 1856 was thwarted by the Siamese observers at court.

King Norodom I , who ascended the throne in 1859 with the help of Siam against the troops of his half-brother Sisowath I , moved the capital to Phnom Penh . In order not to remain a pawn between Siam and the Empire of Vietnam and to protect himself against his half-brothers, he turned to the Second Empire like his father and asked for protection. France, now in possession of Cochinchina , accepted this request because it saw Cambodia as a suitable strategic buffer against Thailand. The focus for Paris remained on the colonization of Vietnam, while the traditional structures of rule in Cambodia remained unaffected and the exploitation of raw materials remained at a low level.

French colonial rule (1863–1953)

In 1863, France declared Cambodia a protectorate. The French provided the king with military aid to put down a rebellion. At the same time, France demanded prospecting rights and the right to explore the area, since in Cambodia - as in Laos - large gold deposits were suspected. In 1867 France signed a treaty with Siam, according to which the Siamese were granted sovereignty over Battambang and Siem Reap , but in return France's interests in the former Siamese vassal state of Cambodia were recognized.

Map of the region around 1888

The French influence initially remained small. It wasn't until 1884 that a French gunboat brought a governor to Cambodia who was supposed to negotiate a treaty. The agreement included extensive reforms, including the abolition of slavery (actual abolition in 1884) and the introduction of the right to own private land. King Norodom hesitated, but eventually had to agree. Despite the conclusion, the treaty had no consequences until Cambodia became part of the newly formed Indochina in 1887 .

Indochina consisted of Tongking , Annam-Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, which was incorporated in 1893. Since 1897 the governor general (résident général) acted on behalf of the king. The French colonial administration viewed Vietnam as the heart of Indochina, and Cambodia received less attention. If local people were employed in the administration, the Vietnamese dominated. This fact intensified the centuries-old conflict between Cambodians and Vietnamese. In 1907 Siam had to declare in a treaty the renunciation of the provinces Battambang and Siem Reap, which came to Cambodia and thus to Indochina.

France largely shielded Cambodia from outside influences, especially against Vietnam and later communism. At the time it was very rural, and only 15% of the population lived in cities. The majority of the farmers operated subsistence farming or produced rice for the local markets. The ethnic composition was initially relatively homogeneous, with the Chinese and Vietnamese dominating business life. The French colonial policy with its border shifts led to the fact that ethnic, non-integrated minorities emerged in Cambodia, such as Vietnamese, Chinese, Laotians , Thai , Muslim Cham and other smaller ethnic groups, so that the Khmer made up 80% of the population at that time . Some of these minorities settled in strategically important regions such as border areas or on rivers, which formed the main traffic routes. On the other hand, the border shifts in Thailand and Vietnam each created minorities of one million Khmer. With the exception of the Muslim Cham, Catholic Vietnamese and some animistic hill tribes, Cambodia remained Buddhist, especially since the French colonial government had banned the increasingly popular Caodaism in the 1920s . The educational system remained rudimentary until the end of French colonial rule and could not replace the Buddhist monastery schools, which were losing influence . By 1954, only 144 Cambodians had successfully completed secondary education and there was no tertiary education at all.

During World War II , the French Vichy regime signed the Henry Matsuoka Treaty in September 1940 , which granted Japan the right to station troops in Indochina. This made Indochina dependent on Japan. After the Franco-Thai War , France ceded the two provinces of Battambang and Siem Reap back to Siam (from 1939 "Thailand") in 1941. In the same year, the French put Prince Norodom Sihanouk on the Cambodian throne. In July 1942, after the arrest of two Buddhist monks, the first political demonstrations in modern Cambodia took place. In the spring of 1945 the Japanese encouraged the king to declare Cambodia independent, which the king did on March 13, 1945. However, after Japan capitulated on August 15, the French returned to Indochina.

After the Second World War, Paris tried, with the support of the United States, to hold French Indochina as long as possible, which led to an increasing number of Cambodians in favor of an anti-colonial alliance with Vietnam despite the historical opposition. On June 4, 1949, the French colonial administration separated the Kampuchea Krom area with the Mekong Delta from Cambodia and its protectorate Cochinchina . This made it part of what is now Vietnam as a result of the Indochina Conference in 1954 . Later attempts by the Khmer Rouge to retake Kampuchea Krom failed. About 12 million ethnic Khmer people live in the area today.

On November 8, 1949, Cambodia received formal independence within the framework of the French Union , and on November 9, 1953, complete independence from France. On July 20, 1954, the Geneva Indochina Conference confirmed the full sovereignty of Cambodia.

Independent Kingdom of Cambodia (1954–1970)

The flag of the Kingdom of Cambodia, identical to the current one

Foreign policy

Southeast Asia became more and more the scene for the conflict between the superpowers China, USSR and the USA, represented by the pro-western neighbors South Vietnam and Thailand on the one hand and communist North Vietnam on the other. The small Cambodian army founded after independence from France with around 35,000 soldiers was poorly equipped and poorly trained and would not have been able to withstand any of the neighboring countries in the event of a serious conflict.

King Norodom Sihanouk feared that his country could lose the independence it had just gained in this conflict and that it would be crushed between neighboring countries. He saw the only chance for Cambodia to survive as a sovereign state in the long term in a strict neutrality modeled on Switzerland and economic independence from abroad. In its Buddhist mentality, Cambodia should become "the friend of all countries and blocs".

This form of neutrality was viewed with disbelief by the USA and the pro-American neighbors Thailand and South Vietnam, and every contact between Cambodia and North Vietnam or the People's Republic of China was viewed as a confrontation against the USA and partisanship.

While China initially maintained an advisory friendship with Cambodia, border conflicts with South Vietnam continued to arise. Cambodia's strict neutrality and its refusal to join the SEATO (American-led military alliance of Southeast Asian countries) led to the end of American military aid and an economic embargo on Cambodia by South Vietnam and Thailand. Finally, in 1959, South Vietnam and Thailand staged an unsuccessful military coup against Norodom Sihanouk with the help of the USA.

Economic situation and reform policy

Around 90 percent of the population lived on agriculture and fishing in the countryside. Trade and finance were in the hands of Chinese minorities, while Vietnamese minorities made up most of the public administration. On the one hand, Cambodia had rich mineral resources in the form of the largest continuous (and extremely fertile) cultivation areas and the fish stocks in the Tonle Sap, on the other hand, most of the smallholders were deeply in debt and the agricultural development and infrastructure were outdated and ailing. In contrast to the situation in most other Asian countries, the Cambodian smallholder farmers were also landowners, but the areas under cultivation were often too small to cultivate effectively. The irrigation system for rice cultivation in many parts of the country had not been modernized for many years and was in a desolate state.

In terms of economic policy, King Norodom Sihanouk sought a way to slowly transition from an agriculturally dominated economy to a combination of agriculture and industry, without becoming dependent on foreign countries or disrupting Cambodia's cultural traditions. His vision for Cambodia consisted of a neutral, Buddhist socialism. In addition to the modernization of agriculture, this also envisaged the establishment of a state education and health system and an industry. Progress has been made particularly in education and in the transport and irrigation infrastructure. The population, especially in the countryside, revered Norodom Sihanouk like a god-king at that time. The women's suffrage was introduced 1956th

Development towards the first civil war (1966–1970)

From 1966 onwards, a series of events intensified which led to the takeover of power by Prime Minister and Defense Minister General Lon Nol in 1970 . The Vietnam War , which had raged in the neighboring country since 1965, had a particularly destabilizing effect .

Foreign policy

Increasing border crossings through Thailand, South Vietnam and the US Army stationed in Vietnam made the policy of neutrality that Sihanouk tried to pursue more difficult. Violent clashes broke out between the Cambodian and US armies as the Vietnamese guerrillas of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army used Cambodia as a retreat and distribution space for weapons and soldiers.

After Sihanouk's attempts to maintain the neutrality of Cambodia and to have the territorial sovereignty and independence of Cambodia confirmed by the great powers USA, China and the USSR failed, Cambodia broke diplomatic relations with the USA and took up diplomatic relations with North Vietnam and the Vietcong on. American soldiers who were on Cambodian territory were captured. The US feared that by recognizing Cambodia's territorial borders and the country's neutrality and sovereignty, it would anger its partners Thailand and South Vietnam. Diplomatic relations between Cambodia and the USA were not restored until 1969, but at the same time the USA began with initially secret area bombing of Viet Cong bases in Cambodia.

Domestic politics

Domestically, the young kingdom was particularly troubled by the activities of the first forerunners of the Khmer Rouge , between whom and the government army there were also isolated armed confrontations. The country's elite found themselves in increasing opposition to Sihanouk's government program. The right-wing elite was bothered by its socialist sections, while the left-wing intelligentsia criticized corruption above all. Because of the discontinuation of American military aid, members of the army were also bad at talking about Sihanouk, who, however, continued to enjoy godlike veneration among the rural population.

The intelligentsia consisted to a large extent of the students whom Sihanouk had sent abroad with scholarships as part of his socialist program in order to make Cambodia independent of foreign advisors and specialists. Among these foreign students was the man who would later lead the reign of terror of the Khmer Rouge under the name Pol Pot . When these students returned, on the one hand, they found few vacancies and, on the other hand, many positions were filled on the basis of loyalty rather than expertise. In addition, Prince Sihanouk was too tolerant of corruption in his government and administration and his own family, which led to further dissatisfaction among the left-wing intelligentsia.

Lon Nol seized power

The United States provided massive economic and military aid in Thailand and South Vietnam, and Cambodia's economic elite feared that Prince Sihanouk's strict neutrality would leave this boom behind. The nationalization of private banks and export trade as part of Prince Sihanouk's socialist program fueled this discontent.

During a trip abroad, Prince Sihanouk was surprisingly voted out of office by the right-wing parliament in 1970. The previous Prime Minister and Defense Minister General Lon Nol then took power in Cambodia. Due to the very close contacts between his representative and the American government, it is still suspected that this deselection was staged by the USA, but, in contrast to the coup attempt in 1959, there is no evidence of this.

A few days after General Lon Nol came to power, joint attacks by the Cambodian , American and South Vietnamese armies began against Viet Cong bases in Cambodia, and Cambodia declared war on the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army.

On the advice of the People's Republic of China, Prince Sihanouk founded the Cambodian Liberation Front in his exile in Beijing together with representatives of the Khmer Rouge and called on the people of Cambodia to resist the Cambodian government under General Lon Nol in radio speeches . The Khmer Rouge declared Prince Sihanouk to be the official leader, but they only allowed him to perform this role externally from his exile. The People's Republic of China, North Vietnam and the Viet Cong began equipping and training the Khmer Rouge.

Republic of Khmer and First Civil War (1970–1975)

The flag of the Khmer Republic
The US Army invades Snuol, Cambodia, on May 4, 1970

After General Lon Nol came to power, Cambodia was renamed the Khmer Republic (République Khmère) and officially transformed into a presidential system of government .

Cambodia left its neutral position in the Indochina conflict and joined the US, Thailand and South Vietnam. North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, on the other hand, no longer had to take into account the neutrality previously pursued by Prince Sihanouk and supported by the People's Republic of China, and they moved their troops deep into Cambodia. The Cambodian army was completely overwhelmed with this situation. The only two offensives (Operation Chenla 1 and 2) failed with great losses to the government army.

Until 1973, the fight was almost exclusively carried out by the North Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong, which controlled around four-fifths of Cambodia as early as 1971. During this time, the Khmer Rouge gained the support of the rural population and equipped themselves militarily. Villages were divided into communist cooperatives and communications between the villages were controlled by the Khmer Rouge. After the Khmer Rouge had completed their training and equipment through the Viet Cong and North Vietnam in 1973 and secured their support from the rural population, the Khmer Rouge and the Viet Cong separated and there were initial differences. At almost the same time, the government army attacked Vietnamese civilians. Around 300,000 Vietnamese immigrants were expelled from Cambodia, and numerous Vietnamese were also murdered.

Shortly after the seizure of power, some 20,000 American soldiers marched into Cambodia in search of bases for the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (FNL). This drew considerable political opposition to widening the war in the USA and led to the withdrawal of soldiers. The USA then stepped up its initially secret area bombing in Cambodia. From March 1969 to August 1973 around 3,500 B-52 area bombings were flown by the US Air Force , dropping 539,129 tons of bombs, sometimes with up to 200 sorties per week. This equates to about three tons of bombs per square kilometer, or twice the amount of bombs dropped on Japan in World War II, and cost the US about $ 7 billion. Estimates of casualties among the Cambodian civilian population range from 200,000 to 1.1 million. Most of the Cambodian farmland was destroyed.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk (1956)

At the same time, from 1971 to 1975 the USA transferred around $ 1.1 billion in military aid in the form of weapons, equipment and pay to Phnom Penh. As early as 1973, the US Senate estimated the number of war refugees in Cambodia at two million people. Even so, weapons, ammunition and pay were still being delivered to Phnom Penh for a million dollars each day, while humanitarian supplies for the refugees amounted to just three million dollars a year. Phnom Penh's population grew rapidly during this period. Corruption was a rampant problem. Much of the arms shipments were sold directly to the Viet Cong by generals of the government army. The equipment ended up on the market in Phnom Penh, and entire divisions existed only on paper. The pay went straight into the commanders' pockets. The simple government soldiers fought barefoot, provided they had no money to buy the equipment intended for them at the market, and took their families with them to the fighting areas, as they were only paid with rice and could not otherwise support their families.

The US area bombing not only ensured widespread support from the rural population for the Khmer Rouge, but also left behind numerous war orphans who were taken in by the Khmer Rouge and trained as child soldiers . Conversely, numerous refugee children in Phnom Penh were picked up by the government army and forced into uniform. The fighting between government soldiers and the Khmer Rouge became increasingly cruel. The mutual killing of wounded opponents and cannibalistic practices, in addition to the area bombing, fueled the rural population's hatred of the urban population, which emerged in the later dictatorship of the Khmer Rouge and led to the almost complete extermination of the former urban population.

From his exile in Beijing, Prince Sihanouk, with the help of the People's Republic of China, represented the Khmer Rouge to the world as the national liberation organization for Cambodia. He turned down recurring offers for peace negotiations.

After the end of the American area bombing in 1973 and the withdrawal of the FNL and the North Vietnamese army from Cambodia, the war nationalized itself into an intra-Cambodian conflict, which, however, is only continued through the arms deliveries from the People's Republic of China to the Khmer Rouge and the US military aid for the government army could. The population of Phnom Penh increasingly had the impression that the war was only going on to enrich the generals. Food shortages and inflation led to decreased support from the urban population. Many were faced with the choice of fleeing the city and submitting to the Khmer Rouge or starving in the city.

In April 1975 the roughly two million inhabitants of Phnom Penh surrendered. About 20,000 Khmer Rouge soldiers occupied the city. The average age of the soldiers was 13 years. Initially, the Khmer Rouge were enthusiastically received as liberators, as the urban population believed that Prince Sihanouk, as the official representative of the Khmer Rouge, would ensure reconciliation between the urban and rural population of Cambodia. However, the Khmer Rouge feared an uprising by the urban population and drove the people into the countryside by force of arms within three days. City dwellers hiding in their homes were killed. After a week, Phnom Penh was a ghost town.

Dictatorship of the Khmer Rouge (1975–1979)

The flag of Democratic Kampuchea
Skulls of victims of the Khmer Rouge tyranny

The Khmer Rouge vision envisaged the resurrection of the Angkor Empire . In terms of foreign policy, this meant the reclamation of land that had fallen to Thailand and Vietnam over the centuries , and domestically, the establishment of a communist- Maoist peasant state that would be largely independent from other countries ( self-sufficiency ).

To this end, the Khmer Rouge introduced a number of measures:

Isolation of the land

  • All communications from Cambodia to other countries are cut off and the borders are closed
  • Isolation of the few remaining foreign embassies in Phnom Penh
  • Destruction or confiscation of all means of communication (radio, telephone, radio) in the country

Isolation of people from one another

  • Displacement of city dwellers to rural areas
  • Isolation of Villages from One another - Visits between villages required approval from the local Khmer Rouge.
  • Separation of families - men, women and children were divided into different work brigades and some were deported to different parts of the country.
  • Introduction of forced marriages , whereby the Khmer Rouge chose the spouse that they considered suitable.
  • Political education and use of children to monitor adults (including monitoring their own parents)
  • Prohibition of assembly with the exception of one's own political assembly

Abolition of all classes and differences between people

  • All Cambodians had to wear the same haircut and clothes
  • Prohibition of religious activity
  • Education of children in political schools
  • Political training and adult gatherings every evening
  • Targeted murder of all intellectuals and later of all Cambodians of Chinese or Vietnamese descent
  • Introduction of communal kitchens and ban on eating outside a communal kitchen
  • Introduction of community kindergartens
  • Prohibition of expressions of emotion (crying, laughing, mourning), unless they were intended to cheer party measures
  • Prohibition of all personal property
  • Establishment of teams of three as the smallest work unit with the requirement of mutual monitoring - if one team member escaped, the remaining two team members were killed
  • Standardization of personal address and greeting. Every form of personal address such as “Mama”, “Papa”, “Aunt” etc. has been replaced by the word “Comrade”.

Development of the peasant state:

  • Displacement of all city dwellers to rural areas
  • Abolition of money, markets and barter
  • Destruction of all technical equipment with the exception of equipment that can be used by the military
  • Destruction of hospitals and medical equipment
  • Construction of new irrigation systems and clearing of the jungle without technical equipment and planning
  • Division of the rice fields into uniform parcels of the same size and the same type of rice, regardless of whether this made technological sense

Unification of the judicial system:

  • Except for the death penalty, all other penalties have been abolished. The death penalty was initially carried out by shooting, later to save ammunition by putting a plastic bag over the head and sealing it or by killing it with a field hoe. The corpses were placed in the fields as fertilizer.
  • Initially, these penalties were pronounced within assemblies, in which in some cases only warnings were issued, but the death penalty followed immediately after the first warning. Later, the killings were carried out without warning or gathering.
  • Prisons, such as Tuol Sleng, were also set up where prisoners who were hoped to be given information were systematically tortured to death. For example, the bellies of pregnant women of former government employees were slit open and the fetuses were thrown for food in front of the mothers' eyes. Infants and toddlers were hurled with their heads against walls or trees in front of their parents until their skulls burst. If someone survived torture in such a prison, they may be released, but fewer than a dozen reports of surviving prisoners have been reported. Of the tens of thousands of inmates in the Tuol Sleng Torture Prison, only seven survived.

In the beginning, the rural population was largely spared from these measures, while the former urban population was largely directly affected. The killing of people by the Khmer Rouge was initially carried out in secret. However, as the control of the Khmer Rouge increased, particularly through the political education of children and the use of these children as armed guards or controllers, the rural population was more and more fully hit by these measures, and the murder of people later took place in full public . Overall, deportation , forced collectivization and murders on the killing fields led to the genocide in Cambodia .

In order to have enough weapons for their foreign policy goals, the Khmer Rouge signed a treaty with China that provided for the delivery of weapons for rice. This required a tripling of the planned and in any case not achieved rice production. The resulting pressure on local officials and the increased famine caused by the drought led to revolts in isolated cases, despite the totalitarian control, which were brutally suppressed. Just as mercilessly, those who falsified the numbers were punished to pretend that the target had been achieved. The Khmer Rouge leadership viewed non-compliance with the targets as sabotage by local officials and led to repeated political cleansing operations within the Khmer Rouge's own ranks.

In terms of foreign policy, the Khmer Rouge repeatedly attacked border areas in Thailand and Vietnam without success. During this period, Vietnam severed its political ties with the People's Republic of China and intensified its ties with the USSR (Friendship and Assistance Pact in November 1978), while the Khmer Rouge deepened its ties with the People's Republic of China. After all, the Khmer Rouge concentrated its attacks primarily on Vietnam, which the world public viewed as a proxy war between the USSR and the People's Republic of China. The Communist Party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam had lost all influence on its former co-thinkers.

Due to the isolation of the country, hardly any reports about the situation reached the world, and the few reports were declared unreliable or, alternatively, Vietnamese or American propaganda.

After massive attacks by the Khmer Rouge on Vietnamese villages, the Vietnamese army marched into Cambodia and occupied the country within a few days. The Khmer Rouge fled to the inaccessible mountain areas on the border with Thailand and started a guerrilla war against the Vietnamese occupiers with the support of the People's Republic of China, the USA and Thailand.

In the almost four-year dictatorship of the Khmer Rouge, an estimated two to three million Cambodians died from disease, hunger and political mass murder.

Vietnamese occupation and second civil war 1979–1989

Due to the absolute control of all communications by the Khmer Rouge, most Cambodians knew nothing about the war with Vietnam or the invasion of the Vietnamese army in Cambodia. In some villages the Khmer Rouge simply disappeared overnight and left the villagers ignorant, other villages turned without warning into battlefields between the Vietnamese army and fleeing Khmer Rouge, with the Khmer Rouge numerous Cambodians as "living shields" and "work slaves" kidnapped the inaccessible mountain regions on the border with Thailand.

The mismanagement of the Khmer Rouge in rice cultivation, targeted destruction of the remaining rice stocks, rice confiscations by the Vietnamese army, but also the simple flight of the field workers from the former collectives to their home villages led to a nationwide famine, which resulted in death in October and November 1979 led by about 200,000 Cambodians.

The images of the Cambodians fleeing across the border into Thailand, who were little more than living skeletons, triggered a worldwide wave of helpfulness. Under massive pressure from the USA, Thailand finally opened its borders to the refugees and allowed the establishment of refugee camps, which were supplied by the UN, the Red Cross and other aid organizations. Between 1979 and 1992, around 300,000 Cambodian refugees fled to camps on the Thai border. Another 350,000 lived outside of refugee camps in Thailand, and around 100,000 fled to Vietnam. The camps in Thailand were guarded externally by the Thai military and internally largely controlled by the Khmer Rouge. Around 250,000 Cambodians from these camps found acceptance in Europe and the USA over the years (206,052, 84,559 of them in California alone), the others were resettled in 1992 after the UN occupied Cambodia.

But it was not only the shortage of food that hit Cambodia. Phnom Penh quickly filled with people after the liberated, surviving Cambodians moved back to their hometowns in search of their families. There the effects of the terror regime became apparent. Most of the adult men were dead. On average, only one man survived for every three women, and a “men's market” soon developed in Phnom Penh, in which men had to be temporarily rented out by their families or sold entirely to survive. In the course of the following years it temporarily became normal for several women to share a man as a husband without living together within the two families.

After its invasion of Cambodia and the expulsion of the Khmer Rouge regime, Vietnam set up a provisional transitional government made up of Cambodians in exile. These consisted to a large extent of former Khmer Rouge who had fled to Vietnam during the political cleansing of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The head of this government (Revolutionary People's Council) was Heng Samrin . At the same time, Vietnam stationed around 225,000 soldiers in Cambodia and occupied all important positions with Vietnamese.

Around 30,000 Khmer Rouge fled to the surrounding area, mainly to the impassable jungle areas on the border with Thailand. In a blitzkrieg, Vietnamese elite troops from the 5th Division advanced to the Thai border. The expulsion of the Khmer Rouge and the occupation of Cambodia by Vietnam were viewed by the USA, the People's Republic of China and the pro-Western ASEAN countries as an attempt at Vietnamese expansion with Soviet support in Asia. Under pressure from these states, the UN did not recognize the new Cambodian government, gave the Cambodian seat in the UN to the Khmer Rouge and demanded the immediate withdrawal of all Vietnamese troops from Cambodia. The occupation of Cambodia by Vietnam was officially regarded by the UN as the only problem facing Cambodia until 1988, while the threat to the Cambodian people from the Khmer Rouge did not fit into the conflict of the Cold War and was therefore ignored for political reasons.

Although the expulsion of the Khmer Rouge by the Vietnamese army was a salvation and a rescue from certain death for many Cambodians, the country was a long way from returning to the global community as it once again became the plaything of the superpowers. A proxy war began. The Soviet Union had signed a friendship and assistance pact with Vietnam in November 1978 and was Vietnam's main supplier of arms. After the Vietnamese invasion, China initiated punitive action in which Chinese troops crossed the Vietnamese border. Since the Soviet Union was considered the main enemy at the time, the US sided with the Khmer Rouge and eventually began to support Pol Pot with arms deliveries in his fight against the Cambodian government. Human rights considerations against the Pol Pot terrorism played no role on either side.

The economic embargo of the western world against Vietnam was therefore transferred to Cambodia under pressure from the USA and the refugee Khmer Rouge was declared as a non-communist resistance group and legitimate government of Cambodia. The attitude of the US and the UN and the complete ignorance of the crimes of the Khmer Rouge inside and outside Cambodia embittered the Vietnamese and the new Cambodian government. This in turn led to a deep distrust of all Western organizations and a blockade of all aid deliveries through the West to the interior of the country. Western aid was largely distributed to the refugee camps controlled by the Khmer Rouge on the Thai border or in the bases of the Khmer Rouge in the mountainous region of Cambodia near the border. As in the period between 1970 and 1975, many Cambodians faced the choice of starving to death or going to the Khmer Rouge-controlled areas as work slaves.

Despite the attitude of the UN, more and more reports of the genocide of the Khmer Rouge came to the world public and made further support of the Khmer Rouge by the USA impossible. As a political solution, Prince Sihanouk founded a joint liberation front together with the Khmer Rouge and another Cambodian exile group in 1982 under pressure from the USA, the People's Republic of China and the ASEAN states. Prince Sihanouk replaced the leader of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, as the exiled president of Cambodia. This pushed the Khmer Rouge into the background and the world public could continue to focus on the occupation of Cambodia by Vietnam. While Prince Sihanouk, with the support of the USA and the People's Republic of China, took on the political face of the government in exile, the Khmer Rouge received extensive arms deliveries from China, some of which were financed by the USA, and formed the armed front.

For the next ten years the Khmer Rouge attacked the Vietnamese army every year during the rainy season, while the Vietnamese army launched its annual offensive during the dry season. Since the Khmer Rouge settled their bases in the refugee camps, these camps were repeatedly attacked or destroyed by fighting. Each of these struggles drove more Cambodian refugees to the refugee camps in Thailand.

In 1984 Cambodia once again moved into the limelight of the world with the film " The Killing Fields ", named after the Killing Fields where the mass murders took place. Using the example of the Cambodian journalist Dith Pran, the film shows the terror regime of the Khmer Rouge and became an international blockbuster. The main role is played by the Cambodian doctor Dr. Haing S. Ngor , who himself was the only one of his family to survive the terror regime of the Khmer Rouge despite multiple torture in prison and was awarded an Oscar for his role. The Khmer Rouge were then equated with the Nazis in the global public and the term "Killing Fields" became part of common usage. Nevertheless, nothing changed in the behavior of the UN and the West with regard to the continued support and recognition of the Khmer Rouge as part of the government-in-exile and UN representative of Cambodia, and the focus of politics remained on the occupation by Vietnam. Australian proposals to establish an international court to investigate the crimes of the Khmer Rouge were blocked under pressure from the USA, as this would have made the Cambodian government-in-exile and its support by the USA and the People's Republic of China vulnerable. On the part of the USA, in addition to the general conflict with the USSR, the question of the unexplained fate of American soldiers in Vietnam played a role and prevented the normalization of relations between the USA and Vietnam, which also resulted in a more pragmatic attitude to the Cambodia problem would have been possible.

The first breakthrough in solving the Cambodia problem came on the initiative of the USSR. Michael Gorbachev's goal of normalizing relations with the People's Republic of China and the United States led to talks between the USSR, Vietnam, and the People's Republic of China over Cambodia and the Vietnamese commitment to withdraw all troops from Cambodia by 1990.

The personal commitment and intensive cooperation of the Russian diplomat Igor Rogachew and the French diplomat Claude Martin , who both spent parts of their lives in pre-war Cambodia, resulted in direct talks between Prince Sihanouk as President of the Cambodian government in exile and Hun Sen as Cambodian Prime Minister for the first time initiated in December 1987. Further talks between the two politicians followed with further mediation by the two diplomats.

In June 1988 Prince Sihanouk resigned from the office of President of the government-in-exile, thereby ending the coalition with the Khmer Rouge. At the same time, Vietnam withdrew half of its troops from Cambodia. With the increasing resolution of the Vietnamese occupation, the threat of a possible further takeover of power by the Khmer Rouge became more important. For the first time, the UN changed its stance and, in addition to the withdrawal of the Vietnamese troops, also demanded a plan to prevent the Khmer Rouge from coming to power again. The Cambodian seat in the UN was awarded to Prince Sihanouk, and after talks with the Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze , the People's Republic of China announced that it would stop any aid to the Khmer Rouge after the withdrawal of the Vietnamese troops.

Attracted by the economic potential, Thailand also changed its position under a new prime minister and on the one hand built up intensive diplomatic ties with the Cambodian government and on the other hand began to influence the USA with regard to a political solution to the Cambodian problem.

The efforts of France and the USSR bore fruit, and in July 1989 the Foreign Ministers of the United States, the USSR and the People's Republic of China agreed that the Khmer Rouge should not be given a position of power in a new Cambodian government. In September 1989 Vietnam finally withdrew all troops from Cambodia. According to Vietnam, 55,300 Vietnamese soldiers were killed in fighting with the Khmer Rouge during the occupation of Cambodia.

The withdrawal of Vietnamese troops, increasing pressure from the Thai army and the prospect of a poorly equipped Cambodian army led the Khmer Rouge to withdraw into Cambodian territory. Within a short period of time, the Khmer Rouge took the provincial capitals of Pailin and Battambang. While Pailin is one of the most important gemstone mining areas in Asia, Battambang is Cambodia's rice chamber. The Khmer Rouge repeatedly attacked other parts of Cambodia and abducted Cambodians as work slaves in the areas they controlled. With the help of corrupt Thai military, a lucrative trade in rice and precious stones from the areas occupied by the Khmer Rouge for weapons from Thailand quickly developed.

At the end of 1989 Australia presented a plan to occupy Cambodia by the UN and to disarm all political parties with subsequent elections. This plan was laid by the Russian diplomat Igor Rogachew and the French diplomat Claude Martin in intensive joint work as the foundation stone for the later UNTAC mission.

UN administration and third civil war (1990–1998)

  • 1991: Resumption of fighting between the government and the Khmer Rouge.
  • 1992–1993: Cambodia is temporarily placed under the supervision of the UN (see also UNTAC ).
  • 1993: In Cambodia, under UN supervision, the first free elections take place in more than 20 years (turnout: 90 percent), which are boycotted by the Khmer Rouge.
  • September 24, 1993: The country receives a new constitution as a constitutional monarchy. Norodom Sihanouk becomes king again.
  • 1994–1996: New clashes with the Khmer Rouge.
  • 1997: Pol Pot is convicted in a public trial and dies shortly afterwards. Whether by suicide or natural death has not yet been fully clarified, but suicide is likely.

Independence, reconstruction and restoration of the monarchy (since 1998)

  • July 26, 1998: Free elections are held in the country, which the European Union supports with a cost of 11 million US dollars.
  • 2003: In February 2003 there was massive resentment with Thailand when angry Cambodians set fire to the Thai embassy and several Thai hotels in Phnom Penh. The trigger was the statement by the Thai actress Suwanan Kongying Angkor Wat actually belongs to Thailand. The well-known German journalist Ralph Wagner barely escaped an attack. Thailand builds an airlift with military machines and flies its citizens out before the unrest ends after two days. It later emerges that the alleged radio interview was a TV clip taken from a soap episode. There are suspicions that the Cambodian government launched this dispute in order to do better in the upcoming elections.
  • October 7, 2004: In a letter from Beijing, King Sihanouk asks to accept his resignation as head of state and calls on the government to convene the 9-member council of the throne, which is provided for in the constitution, to appoint a successor. The king has been seriously ill for years, but it is believed that the reason for his resignation is dissatisfaction with the disputes between the country's leading parties.
  • October 13, 2004: Cambodia becomes a member of the WTO .
  • October 14, 2004: King Norodom Sihanouk abdicates. The new king is his son Norodom Sihamoni .
  • 2005: An international Khmer Rouge tribunal is due to start work in Phnom Penh. The aim of the tribunal is to convict leaders of the Khmer Rouge who were responsible for the mass murders during the Pol Pot regime from 1975 to 1979.
  • July / August 2007: First indictment by the UN tribunal of human rights abuses after the detention of Duch ( Kaing Guek Eav ), who was the head of the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, where 16,000 people were tortured and then taken to the killing fields .
  • April 2009: Three decades after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, a member of the leadership team took responsibility for the murderous crimes in the notorious S-21 torture prison . He wanted to express his "regrets and his sincere repentance," said the former head of S-21, Kaing Guek Eav, called Duch . The prosecution said they wanted to bring 1.7 million victims of the regime in Cambodia to later justice. "History demands that," said prosecutor Chea Leang. Duch has to answer for crimes against humanity, torture and murder before the UN-supported tribunal. The 66-year-old at the time of the trial was in charge of the Tuol Sleng torture camp in the capital Phnom Penh, known as S-21, where 16,000 men, women and children were brutally tortured and ultimately killed outside the city gates. He confessed and at the beginning of the preliminary negotiations in February asked for forgiveness for his actions.

See also

literature

  • Martin F. Herz: A Short History of Cambodia from the Days of Angkor to the Present. Frederick A. Praeger, New York 1958.
  • A. Forest: Le Cambodge et la colonization française, 1897-1920 . L'Harmattan, Paris 1980, ISBN 2-85802-139-2 .
  • A. Dauphin-Meunier: Histoire du Cambodge. PUF, Paris 1983.
  • Michael Freeman , Claude Jacques: Ancient Angkor . Asia Books, Bangkok 1999, ISBN 974-8225-27-5 .
  • Karl-Heinz Golzio : History of Cambodia . Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49435-8 .
  • David P. Chandler : A History of Cambodia. 4th edition. Westview, Boulder 2007, ISBN 978-0-8133-4363-1 .
  • A. Goeb: Cambodia. Traveling in a traumatized country . Brandes & Apsel, Frankfurt am Main 2007.
  • Bernd Stöver : History of Cambodia: From Angkor to the present . CH Beck, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-67432-7 .
  • William J. Rust: Eisenhower and Cambodia. Diplomacy, Covert Action, and the Origin of the Second Indochina War . University Press of Kentucky, Lexington 2016, ISBN 978-0-8131-6742-8 .

Web links

Commons : History of Cambodia  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b David Chandler: A History of Cambodia. Westview Press, Boulder Colorado 2008, ISBN 978-1-57856-696-9 , p. 13.
  2. ↑ Gerd Albrecht, Miriam Noel Haidle, Chhor Sivleng Heang Leang Hong, Heng Sophady, Heng Than, Mao Someaphyvath, Sirik Kada, Som Sophal, Thuy Chanthourn, Vin Laychour: Circular Earthwork Krek 52/62: Recent Research on the Prehistory of Cambodia . In: Asian Perspectives . tape 39 , no. 1-2 , 2000 ( jhu.edu [accessed July 14, 2018]).
  3. ↑ Daniel Bultmann: Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge: The creation of the perfect socialist . Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2017, ISBN 978-3-506-78692-0 , p. 24.
  4. ↑ Ben Kiernan: The Pol Pot Regime. Race, Power and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79. 2nd Edition. Yale University Press, New Haven (CT) 2002. (Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai (Thailand) 2005, ISBN 974-9575-71-7 , pp. 5, 6)
  5. ↑ a b Ben Kiernan: The Pol Pot Regime. Race, Power and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79. 2nd Edition. Yale University Press, New Haven (CT) 2002. (Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai (Thailand) 2005, ISBN 974-9575-71-7 , p. 12)
  6. ^ Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A world history. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , page 438
  7. ↑ ECSC-EG-EAEC : Cambodia. Common foreign and security policy (14/31). In: Bulletin EU 6-1998. European Commission , April 20, 1999, p. 1.4.14. , accessed September 19, 2012 .
  8. ↑ Thailand accuses Cambodia of security failures after unrest. In: News.at . January 30, 2003, accessed March 2, 2012.