Cambodia
The Kingdom of Cambodia
is a country in South East Asia, bordering Thailand,
Laos and Vietnam. In the
south it faces the Gulf
of Thailand.
Cambodia is the successor state of the once
powerful Hindu and Buddhist Khmer Empire, which ruled most of the Indochinese Peninsula between the eleventh and
fourteenth centuries. Angkor Wat, the most famous and best-preserved religious
temple at the site, is a reminder of Cambodia's past as a major regional
power.
Cambodia continued as a protectorate of France from 1863 to 1953, administered as part
of the French colony of Indochina. After
war-time occupation by the Japanese empire from 1941 to 1945, Cambodia gained independence from France on November
9, 1953. It became a constitutional monarchy under King Norodom Sihanouk.
Prince Sihanouk, at then the head
of state, was ousted in 1970 by a military coup. Cambodia fell into a civil war which
lasted 5 years. The Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, changing the official name
of the country to Democratic Kampuchea. The Regime immediately evacuated the
cities and sent the entire population on forced marches to rural work projects.
They attempted to rebuild the country's agriculture on the model of the 11th
century. They discarded Western medicine, destroyed temples, libraries, and
anything considered western. Over a million Cambodians, out of a total
population of 8 million, died from executions, overwork, starvation and
disease. In November 1978, Vietnam
invaded Cambodia to stop
Khmer Rouge incursions across the border and the genocide in Cambodia.
Violent occupation and warfare between the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge holdouts
continued throughout the 1980s. Peace efforts began in Paris in 1989, culminating two years later in
October 1991 in a comprehensive peace settlement.
After the brutality of the 1970s
and the 1980s, and the destruction of the cultural, economic, social and
political life of Cambodia,
it is only in recent years that reconstruction efforts have begun and some
political stability has finally returned to Cambodia.