A country with an ancient culture in the 20th century became notorious for its inhuman regime of the Khmer Rouge, which came as a result of the victory in the civil war in Cambodia. This period lasted from 1967 to 1975. Data on the losses of the parties is unknown, but probably they are not as large as in the subsequent years of the construction of "peasant communism." The troubles of the country did not end there; in total, the war on its territory lasted more than 30 years.
XX century military conflicts
In 1953, Cambodia gained independence, according to the Geneva agreements on the results of the French colonial war on the Indochina Peninsula. The country became a kingdom, with a neutral status, led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk. However, there was a great war in neighboring Vietnam, and all neighboring countries were eventually drawn into a conflict, collectively called the Second Indo-Chinese War, which included the civil war in Cambodia, which lasted from 1967 to 1975.
The territory of the country was periodically used by the participants of the Vietnam War. Therefore, when local communist rebels rebelled against the central government, they were supported by North Vietnam. Naturally on the other side stood South Vietnam and the United States. After the end of this war, two more conflicts occurred in the country.
After several wars between the former allies, the Pol Pot regime and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the invasion of Vietnamese forces into the Democratic Republic of Kampuche began. The fighting was called the border war in Cambodia 1975-1979. After its end, almost immediately a new civil war began, which lasted 10 years from 1979 to 1989.
Civil war in cambodia
The reason for the outbreak of armed struggle for the Communist Party of Cambodia, whose followers were known throughout the world as the Khmer Rouge, was a peasant uprising that broke out in 1967 in Battambang province. It was brutally crushed. In 1968, the Communists made the first combat action, then all their weapons were 10 rifles. However, by the end of the year, the civil war in Cambodia was in full swing.
In 1970, Prime Minister Lon Nol, who ousted the prince, demanded that the North Vietnamese troops be withdrawn from the country. Fearing the loss of the Cambodian Bach, they launched a full-scale offensive against government forces. Under the threat of the fall of Phnom Penh, the capital of Kampuchea, South Vietnam and the United States entered the war. In April 1979, the Khmer Rouge took control of the country's capital, and the civil war in Cambodia ended. A course towards building a new society based on Maoist concepts was proclaimed.
Border warfare
Already closer to the end of the civil war, in 1972-1973, North Vietnam stopped the participation of its troops in this conflict due to differences with the Khmer Rouge on many political issues. And in 1975, armed disputes began on the border between the countries, which gradually grew into a border war. For several years, the Vietnamese leadership perceived them as part of the internal struggle between different factions in the Cambodian leadership. Khmer fighting detachments repeatedly invaded Vietnam, killing everyone in a row, in Cambodia itself, all ethnic Vietnamese were killed. In response, the Vietnamese troops raided the territory of the neighbor.
In late 1978, Vietnam launched a large-scale invasion of the country with the goal of overthrowing the ruling regime. In January 1979, Phnom Penh was taken. The war in Cambodia ended with the transfer of power to the United Front of National Salvation of Kampuchea.
Occupation and civil war again
Having surrendered the capital, the Khmer Rouge military forces retreated to the western part to the Cambodian-Thai border, where they were then based for the next 20 years or so. In the civil war in Cambodia (1979 -1989), Vietnam took the most active part, which to support the still weak government army held a military contingent with a constant number of 170-180 thousand soldiers.
The Vietnamese quickly captured all the major cities, but the occupying forces had to deal with guerrilla tactics, which they had recently used against the Americans. The frankly Vietnamese nature of Heng Samrin's policy did not contribute to national unity. After strengthening the Cambodian army, in September 1989 the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia began, and only military advisers remained in the country. However, hostilities between government forces and the Khmer Rouge continued for another ten years.