THE COLD WAR IN CAMBODIA (KAMPUCHEA)

Khmer Rouge Come to Power The withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam also led to the collapse of the government in neighboring Cambodia. Khmer Rouge Come to Power. In 1975, Cambodian Communists, known as the Khmer Rouge, seized control of Cambodia, changing the country's name to Kampuchea. Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader, carried out a policy of genocide (mass murder) against city-dwellers and all people suspected of being unsympathetic to the Communist cause.

Pol Pot General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea

Khmer Rouge Make Changes Khmer Rouge Make Changes. City-dwellers were forced into the countryside, where they faced starvation and disease. All foreigners were expelled from Cambodia, embassies were closed, and any foreign economic or medical assistance was refused. The use of foreign languages was banned. Newspapers and television stations were closed, and telephone usage was limited. Money usage was forbidden. All businesses were shuttered, education halted, and health care eliminated. In effect, Cambodia was cut -off from the world.

The Killing Fields The Killing Fields. Millions of Cambodians were forced into slave labor in "killing fields" where they soon began dying from overwork, malnutrition and disease, on a diet of one tin of rice per person every two days. It is estimated that the Khmer Rouge killed as many as four million Cambodians between 1975 and 1978. Pol Pot and his followers were finally overthrown by the Vietnamese army in 1978, when it intervened to end these atrocities. The United Nations sought to put the offenders on trial, but Cambodia resisted. Agreement was finally reached in 2001, but a lack of funds by the Cambodian government placed a permanent roadblock to the start of the tribunal.

Clothing to keep control of the people A commemorative stupa filled with the skulls of the victims at the Killing Field