Cambodian Civil War: A Visual History

The Cambodian Civil War (1967-1975) began with peasant risings at Samlaut and the growth of the communist Khmer Rouge under Saloth Sar (Pol Pot) against Prince Sihanouk's regime. Sihanouk's overthrow by General Lon Nol in March 1970 and the US-South Vietnamese incursion brought Cambodia fully into the Indochina war: North Vietnamese troops overran the east, Sihanouk allied with the Khmer Rouge from Beijing, and US B-52s dropped 500,000 tonnes of bombs on the countryside until Congress stopped them in August 1973. The Khmer Republic shrank to Phnom Penh and a few towns; the Khmer Rouge took the capital on 17 April 1975 and emptied it, beginning the genocide that killed 1.5 to 2 million people.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Cambodian Civil War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

US bombs dropped on Cambodia

Timeline of the Cambodian Civil War

1. 1967
   Samlaut uprising
2. 1969
   Secret US bombing begins
3. 1970
   Sihanouk overthrown; US incursion
4. 1971
   Chenla II offensive destroyed
5. 1973
   Intensive US bombing; Congress halts it
6. 1975
   Phnom Penh falls17 April.

Sihanouk's tightrope

Sihanouk kept Cambodia neutral by tolerating North Vietnamese sanctuaries and the Ho Chi Minh trail while suppressing the left; the Samlaut revolt of 1967 and the flight of communist leaders to the jungle began the insurgency. Nixon's secret Menu bombing of the sanctuaries started in March 1969. On 18 March 1970 the National Assembly deposed Sihanouk while he was abroad; Lon Nol took power and demanded the Vietnamese leave, and mobs massacred Vietnamese residents.

The republic at war

US and South Vietnamese forces invaded eastern Cambodia in April-May 1970; the North Vietnamese responded by taking a third of the country and handing it to the Khmer Rouge, whom Sihanouk now endorsed from exile. Lon Nol's Chenla offensives of 1970-1971 were destroyed; his army was corrupt and hollow, and he suffered a stroke. After the Paris accords the Khmer Rouge fought on alone; US bombing in 1973 killed thousands and, many argue, drove peasants into the Khmer Rouge; the Neak Luong bombing error killed 137. Congress cut off the bombing on 15 August 1973.

The fall of Phnom Penh

By 1974 the Khmer Rouge, some 60,000 strong, had purged their pro-Vietnamese and pro-Sihanouk elements and were shelling the capital, swollen with 2 million refugees fed by a US airlift. The Mekong was cut in early 1975; Lon Nol left on 1 April; the Americans evacuated on 12 April (Operation Eagle Pull), while Prince Sirik Matak refused to go and was later executed. On 17 April black-clad teenage soldiers entered Phnom Penh, and within days marched its entire population into the countryside. Year Zero had begun.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Khmer Empire (802 to 1431)
• Second French colonial empire (1830 to 1980)
• United States (1776 to present)
• British Empire (1583 to 1997)
• Spanish Empire (1492 to 1976)
• Dutch Empire (1602 to 1975)

Wars of the same era and region

• Vietnam War (1955 to 1975)
• Third Indochina War (1978 to 1991)
• First Indochina War (1946 to 1954)
• Cold War (1947 to 1991)
• Papua conflict (1962 to present)
• Myanmar conflict (1948 to present)

8 surprising things about the Cambodian Civil War

1. The US dropped about 500,000 tonnes of bombs on Cambodia, more than the Allies dropped on Japan in World War II.
2. The Khmer Rouge grew from perhaps 4,000 fighters in 1970 to 60,000 by 1975.
3. Sihanouk, deposed by the right, lent his royal prestige to the communists who later kept him a prisoner and killed several of his children.
4. The evacuation of the US embassy came five days before the city fell; the ambassador offered Sirik Matak a seat, and his refusal letter is famous.
5. Cambodia's 'Year Zero' emptied a city of 2 million in three days.
6. The film The Killing Fields dramatises the fall of Phnom Penh through the eyes of the journalist Sydney Schanberg and Dith Pran.
7. The bombing halt of 15 August 1973 was the first time Congress ended a US military campaign by law.
8. Pol Pot, born Saloth Sar, had studied radio electronics in Paris and once taught school in Phnom Penh.

Sources

• Cambodian Civil War Wikipedia
• Cambodia: Civil war Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Khmer Rouge Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Ben Kiernan, How Pol Pot Came to Power (1985) Verso

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