Page 79 - Ancient Kingdoms: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia & Vietnam

Foreign Influence

As the Khmer empire declined, foreign pressures appeared. In 1596 a Spanish expeditionary
force invaded and attacked the capital Phnom Penh. The Spanish presence didn’t last; they
were in turn defeated and expelled by the Siamese.

The Khmer empire continued its decline after this with various occupations and an almost
constant state of war with Thailand and Vietnam, which both claimed lands once ruled by
the Khmers. Asian control over the region ended in 1863 when the French sent gunboats into
the area to create a French protectorate. The French succeeded and began a long period of
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Modern History

France ruled Cambodia until 1941 when the Japanese army swept across Indochina and, while
expelling the French, brought terror of its own. With the defeat of Japan and the end of World
War II, the French returned to Cambodia. But now they found opposition. By 1953 a strong
local leader, King Sihanouk, had risen to power with the Khmer and sought independence for
his country. King Sihanouk was a masterful politician and succeeded in wringing form the
French the independence of Cambodia. King Sihanouk also established the People’s Socialist
Party at this time. After abdicating the throne to pursue a political career, Sihanouk became
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until 1965, when he broke with the United States and allowed North Vietnam and the Vietcong
to use Cambodian territory. This led to the bombing of Cambodia by United States forces.

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set up a government in exile that supported the Cambodian revolutionary movement known
as the Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile, in Cambodia, United States and South Vietnamese forces
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power. In 1975 the capital at Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge, and their leader, Pol Pot,
became the leader of Cambodia.

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history. The Khmer Rouge forced the entire population of Phnom Penh and other cities to
evacuate to the countryside where they were placed in slave labor units and forced to do
manual work until they dropped from exhaustion. Pol Pot and his followers began a campaign
of systematic genocide against their own people, with the aim of returning Cambodia to
the agrarian society of centuries before. Great segments of the population were slaughtered
senselessly. People with any type of education (or those who just looked educated because they
wore glasses), or were doctors and nurses, anybody who had worked at a bank—these people
were all mindlessly killed. Banks were blown up, airports closed, and money was abolished.
The horror of the Pol Pot regime went unnoticed for several years.

Finally in 1978, Vietnam, which had been watching the persecution and death of its own
citizens trapped in Cambodia, invaded Cambodia and chased Pol Pot and his followers out
of the cities and back into the remote mountains. By 1979, Pol Pot had been ousted and

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