A Brief History of Cambodia

Fortuitously positioned on the storied trade route between China and India, from the first to the sixth centuries present-day Cambodia was a prosperous part of the kingdom of Funan, which was later fragmented and then unified as the Chenla empire. Following unification, the Chenla empire gave rise to the well-known Khmer empire, founded in 802 under Jayavarman II. Although the Khmer empire boasted stunning architectural and engineering achievements on the scale of ancient Rome, it soon fell prey to the same forces, overstretched boundaries and excessive ambition, as the Roman empire, and in 1432 the Thais sacked Angkor.

Battered by unceasing Thai and Vietnamese occupations, by the 19th century Cambodia threatened to recede into oblivion. In the most ironic twist in Cambodian history, in 1864 the French ruled the country as a proctectorate until 1953, effectively administering a vital life breath to a stuggling country teetering on the verge of collapse. Unfortunately, seduced by the extraordinary economic potential of neighboring Vietnam, France largely neglected Cambodia. Capitalizing on the anti-colonial currents left in the wake of WWII, King Norodom Sihanouk led the fight for independence, which France granted in 1953.

While its Southeast Asian neighbors struggled with various domestic problems, following its victorious struggle for independence Cambodia enjoyed remarkable prosperity. By the late 1960s, however, the Cambodia people had become increasingly alienated by the incoherent policies of Sihanouk, who had dominated Cambodian politics in the postwar period, and he was ousted by the military. Shortly thereafter the Vietnam conflagration enveloped the entire region, and only weeks before Saigon fell to the Viet Cong, the Khmer Rouge (French for 'Red Khmer') took Phnom Penh.

Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge oversaw the implementation of a brutal experiment designed to transform Cambodia into a communist, agrarian cooperative. Khmer Rouge soldiers systematically tortured and executed doctors, lawyers, teachers, those who spoke a foreign language or wore glasses, and any others who exhibited the slightest inclination towards intellectualism. Under the Khmer Rouge government, between 1975 and 1979, nearly two million of Cambodia's eight million people were exterminated, either directly or indirectly from famine and malnutrition. Vietnam invaded in 1978, and by 1979 had successfully overthrown the Khmer Rouge, although guerilla warfare, largely financed by China and Thailand, continued unabated throughout the 1980s.

The Cambodian government, despite experiencing some obstacles and pitfalls, has recently made significant progress down the road towards peace. Both warring parties signed a peace accord in Paris in 1991, and Cambodia has exerted commendable effort in laying the ghosts of the Khmer rule to rest. Currently, a Phnom Penh tribunal backed by the United Nations is trying five high profile Khmer Rouge figures, and I am interested to see how these trials progress.

On a related note, I recently read the book First They Killed My Father, a gripping account of a young girl separated from her family and forced to work in miserable conditions. I am generally unaffected by even the most emotional of stories, but a times during this book, I was downright depressed. The capacity for evil routinely displayed by Khmer Rough soldiers, who maliciously hacked helpless Cambodians to death with agricultural tools to save precious ammunition, was particularly disturbing. Despite, or perhaps because of, the enormity of the suffering that occurred at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, I am eager to confront Cambodian history head on, with visits to Tuol Sleng (Cambodia's Auschwitz) and the killing fields.