Civil war  
King Sihanouk overthroned

With the escalation of the Vietnam War, Sihanouk began to fear the United States and US-backed governments in Southeast Asia. He allied with North Vietnam and China, allowing Viet Cong soldiers to use Cambodia in its fight against the US. People resented how much freedom of movement the Vietnamese soldiers received in Cambodia. While Norodom Sihanouk was in France in 1970, Lon Nol staged a coup to gain control of the government with the help of the United States. In an effort to rebuild his influence, Sihanouk moved to Beijing with his government and began to work with Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese soldiers to fight the new government.

The fall of Phnom Penh

US and South Vietnamese forces joined in the fight for control of Cambodia. This turmoil resulted in half the country being occupied by Khmer Rouge and Viet Cong forces. For four years, the US government carpet-bombed the eastern part of Cambodia in an effort to route Vietnamese forces. This led to many civilian deaths and mistrust in the US-backed Lon Nol regime. In addition, corruption influenced much of the government’s actions and Lon Nol was viewed as a weak leader. Phnom Penh resisted a siege for two years but eventually fell on April 17, 1975. This marked the beginning of the Khmer Rouge’s control of the country under the head of Pol Pot.

The Pol Pot Regime

The day that the civil war ended many people celebrated because the brutality of war had come to an end. This jubilee ended quickly as every one in all the cities in the country were evacuated at gunpoint by Khmer Rouge soldiers. The country was completely restructured as a socialistic agrarian society. People had to work 12-15 hours a day in the rice fields and on social projects with minimal food. Disobedient workers, former urbanites, educated, politicians, Christians, and others were identified and executed by commune chiefs throughout the country. People were also dying of starvation and disease.

The Vietnam Occupation

Everyone lived in fear because of the brutality and control of the Khmer Rouge forces. The eastern region presented the most resistance and many who fled from here to Vietnam returned later to run the post Khmer Rouge government. Over the course of the Khmer Rouge control, as many as two million people died due to the brutality of the regime. There are very few families who did not lose a family member during this period. When people had lost all hope, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge lost control of the country at the beginning of 1979.

Refugee camps

Throughout the Pol Pot regime and the famine that followed, many began to flee to refugee camps in Thailand to get food and to avoid the ongoing fighting between Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge forces. Relief aid did not get distributed effectively during this time and the Khmer Rouge was able to secure many of its supplies from Thailand so that it could continue fighting. This did not bother Thailand because the Khmer Rouge forces served as an effective barrier between the Thai and Vietnamese military.

Land mines

People from the refugee camps in Thailand were in danger of being recruited by the Khmer Rouge to work for them on some of their more deadly tasks. From the time of Pol Pot’s reign through this period of Vietnamese control, many land mines were placed throughout the country. This is a problem that still plagues Cambodia today since many of the mines remain in place and people are still being maimed by them.