How long has cambodia been communist

From , the Khmer Rouge held onto its seat in the U. General Assembly, and was recognized as the only legitimate representative of Cambodia. When Pol Pot died in , he was only just about to face the possibility of trial before the world. Cambodia historian David Chandler says that, as time wears on, Cambodians are steadily overcoming the trauma. Cambodia is a young country, with nearly half its population under the age of Most Cambodians have no direct experience of the conflict.

That idea extends to attitudes toward the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. Contact us at letters time. By Casey Quackenbush. Get our History Newsletter. Put today's news in context and see highlights from the archives. Please enter a valid email address. Please attempt to sign up again. Anyone thought to be an intellectual of any sort was killed. Often people were condemned for wearing glasses or knowing a foreign language. Ethnic Vietnamese and Cham Muslims in Cambodia were also targeted.

Hundreds of thousands of the educated middle-classes were tortured and executed in special centres. The most notorious of these centres was the S jail in Phnom Penh, Tuol Sleng, where as many as 17, men, women and children were imprisoned during the regime's four years in power. Hundreds of thousands of others died from disease, starvation or exhaustion as members of the Khmer Rouge - often just teenagers themselves - forced people to do back-breaking work.

The Khmer Rouge government was finally overthrown in by invading Vietnamese troops, after a series of violent border confrontations.

The higher echelons of the party retreated to remote areas of the country, where they remained active for a while but gradually became less and less powerful. In the years that followed, as Cambodia began the process of reopening to the international community, the full horrors of the regime became apparent. Survivors told their stories to shocked audiences, and in the s the Hollywood movie The Killing Fields brought the plight of the Khmer Rouge victims to worldwide attention.

Pol Pot was denounced by his former comrades in a show trial in July , and sentenced to house arrest in his jungle home. But less than a year later he was dead - denying the millions of people who were affected by this brutal regime the chance to bring him to justice. The UN helped establish a tribunal to try surviving Khmer Rouge leaders, beginning work in Only three Khmer Rouge leaders have ever been sentenced.

Those seen as intellectuals, or potential leaders of a revolutionary movement, were also executed. Legend has it, some were executed for merely appearing to be intellectuals, by wearing glasses or being able to speak a foreign language.

During what became known as the Cambodian Genocide , an estimated 1. The Vietnamese Army invaded Cambodia in and removed Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge from power, after a series of violent battles on the border between the two countries. Pol Pot had sought to extend his influence into the newly unified Vietnam, but his forces were quickly rebuffed. After the invasion, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge fighters quickly retreated to remote areas of the country.

However, they remained active as an insurgency, albeit with declining influence. Vietnam retained control in the country, with a military presence, for much of the s, over the objections of the United States.

Over the decades since the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia has gradually reestablished ties with the world community, although the country still faces problems, including widespread poverty and illiteracy. Prince Norodom returned to govern Cambodia in , although he now rules under a constitutional monarchy. Pol Pot himself lived in the rural northeast of the country until , when he was tried by the Khmer Rouge for his crimes against the state.

The trial was seen as being mostly for show, however, and the former dictator died while under house arrest in jungle home. The stories of the suffering of the Cambodian people at the hands of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge have garnered worldwide attention in the years since their rise and fall, including through a fictional account of the atrocities in the movie The Killing Fields.

BBC News. The Cambodian Genocide. United to End Genocide. Cambodian Genocide. World Without Genocide. Mount Holyoke College.

Cambodia: The World Factbook.