Khmer - History and Cultural Relations

The prehistoric origins of the Khmer are not clear. After the first century A.D. , complex polities emerged in this region. Ancient Khmer civilization reached a peak during the Angkor period ( A.D. 802-1432), when the famous Angkor Wat and other monumental structures were built, and Khmer kings ruled an irrigation-based empire extending beyond the boundaries of present-day Cambodia. Khmer power subsequently declined, and the kingdom was subject to periodic encroachments by the neighboring Thai and Vietnamese. In 1864 Cambodia became a protectorate under French colonial rule, and in 1887 Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam were designated the Union of French Indochina. After World War II (during which the country was occupied by the Japanese), Cambodia was granted independence from France, in 1953. Until 1970 the country was a constitutional monarchy with a figurehead king and real political power vested in a prime minister, assembly, and ministries. The major political leader during this time was Norodom Sihanouk (who again became head of state in 1991). In 1970 a military coup by Lon Nol overthrew Sihanouk, abolished the monarchy, and established the Khmer Republic. In the early 1970s the country was in turmoil with internal problems, repercussions from the war in Vietnam that precipitated U.S. bombing of Cambodia, and civil war between the government and Communist revolutionaries commonly known as the Khmer Rouge. In 1975 the Khmer Rouge triumphed and renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea (DK). Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the communistic DK regime attempted to restructure Cambodian society and culture radically: it evacuated people from urban centers into rural areas; reorganized the population into communes and work teams with collectivized ownership, production, and distribution; suppressed Buddhism; and imposed harsh living conditions and discipline that led to many deaths from lack of food, exhausting work loads, illness, and executions. In late 1978 the Vietnamese entered Kampuchea to combat DK incursions into Vietnam, and by early 1979 they drove the Khmer Rouge out of the country. The Vietnamese installed a new government, named the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), with Khmer officials and Vietnamese advisers and occupying troops. The Vietnamese advisers and soldiers gradually withdrew, and the country was renamed the State of Cambodia (SOC) in 1989, although it retained officials from the PRK. The PRK/SOC government was opposed by so-called resistance forces composed of three factions: a Sihanouk group; supporters of a former prime minister named Son Sann; and die-hard Khmer Rouge who had fled to the northwest region bordering on Thailand. In late 1991 the contending groups negotiated a political settlement that called for a temporary governing council composed of representatives from the current government and resistance groups, with United Nations peacekeeping forces and teams to supervise eventual open elections. At this time it was not yet clear what the precise nature of the new government would be, though Sihanouk was again recognized as head of state.