History UsefulNotes / Cambodia

Cambodia today is a constitutional monarchy (unusual for an ex-communist country, they not only restored the monarchy, but also restored the former monarch, Norodom Sihanouk[[note]]In fairness, Sihanouk loved to be photographed with Mao Zedong and Kim il-Sung[[/note]]). The current monarch is Sihanouk's son Norodom Sihamoni, who succeeded his father upon his abdication in 2004. Interestingly, Cambodia counts as an ElectiveMonarchy, as Sihamoni did not became king because his father was one, instead being selected by the Royal Council of the Throne from among the male descendants of King Ang Duong who are at least 30 years old. It is also a constitutional monarchy in the absolute sense; Sihamoni has zero role in politics, and is mainly seen as a figure of reverence among the people. The real power is in the hands of the Prime Minister, who effectively rules the country as a dictator. The Prime Minister appointed by the Vietnamese, Hun Sen, even once admitted that he wanted to keep power well into old age while maintaining a play theater of constitutional government. However, in 2023, Hun Sen unexpectedly announced that he would retire from politics, having appointed his son Hun Manet as his successor. Since 1979, the parliament has been dominated by the Cambodian People's Party, which originated as a revisionist Marxist organization allied with Vietnam and the Soviet Union (in contrast to the Khmer Rouge's pro-China stance) but shifted to right-wing nationalism in 1991, concurrently with the Soviet Union's collapse and the end of the Cold War. Cambodia would abandon the one-party system that had been in place since 1955 the following year, but remains a dominant-party state under the CPP.

Cambodia today is a constitutional monarchy (unusual for an ex-communist country, they not only restored the monarchy, but also restored the former monarch, Norodom Sihanouk[[note]]In fairness, Sihanouk loved to be photographed with Mao Zedong and Kim il-Sung[[/note]]). The current monarch is Sihanouk's son Norodom Sihamoni, who succeeded his father upon his abdication in 2004. Interestingly, Cambodia counts as an ElectiveMonarchy, as Sihamoni did not became king because his father was one, instead being selected by the Royal Council of the Throne from among the male descendants of King Ang Duong who are at least 30 years old. It is also a constitutional monarchy in the absolute sense; Sihamoni has zero role in politics, and is mainly seen as a figure of reverence among the people. The real power is in the hands of the Prime Minister, who effectively rules the country as a dictator. The Prime Minister appointed by the Vietnamese, Hun Sen, even once admitted that he wanted to keep power well into old age while maintaining a play theater of constitutional government. However, in 2023, Hun Sen unexpectedly announced that he would retire from politics, having appointed his son Hun Manet as his successor as prime minister. Since 1979, the parliament has been dominated by the Cambodian People's Party, which originated as a revisionist Marxist organization allied with Vietnam and the Soviet Union (in contrast to the Khmer Rouge's pro-China stance) but shifted to right-wing nationalism in 1991, concurrently with the Soviet Union's collapse and the end of the Cold War. Cambodia would abandon the one-party system that had been in place since 1955 the following year, but remains a dominant-party state under the CPP.

The Khmers, the dominant people of the country, built Southeast Asia's earliest civilization. Unlike the [[UsefulNotes/{{Thailand}} Thais]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Laos}} Lao]], [[UsefulNotes/ThatSoutheastAsianCountry Bamars]], or even the Kinh/Viet (who expanded to the Mekong Delta during the historical period), the Khmers are indigenous to the area, and they used to inhabit a much larger territory spanning much of Indochina. They also happen to be the first Southeast Asian ethnic group to adopt both a writing system (based on the Pallava script of Southern India), which was later borrowed by the aforementioned Thais and Lao, and the Dharmic religions Buddhism and Hinduism, which were proliferated with the expansion of said civilization. These combined factors are the reasons why Khmers always seem to pop up in the historiography of all Indochinese countries and why Old Khmer is considered a SacredLanguage.

Cambodia today is a constitutional monarchy (unusual for an ex-communist country, they not only restored the monarchy, but also restored the former monarch[[note]]In fairness, he was a monarch who loved to be photographed with Mao Zedong and Kim il-Sung, so, yeah...[[/note]]) that, aside from a coup in 1997, has a steady government. Unfortunately, it is probably [[BananaRepublic too steady]] as the Prime Minister appointed by the Vietnamese- [[RegentForLife Hun Sen]]- has ruled with an iron fist and has even admitted he wants to keep power well into old age while maintaining a play theater of constitutional government. To be specific, the guy [[http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/election-05062013185646.html outright stated on national TV]] that he intends to stay in power until he is 74 years old which will be in August 2026 [[labelnote:*]]But because there is some dispute over his actual date of birth, it could be until 2028[[/labelnote]]. Why? Because [[FollowTheLeader the leaders of China and Vietnam don't retire until their 70s.]] Since 1979, the country has been ruled by the Cambodian People's Party, which originated as a revisionist Marxist organization allied with Vietnam and the Soviet Union (in contrast to the Khmer Rouge's pro-China stance) but shifted to right-wing nationalism in 1991, concurrently with the Soviet Union's collapse and the end of the Cold War. Cambodia would abandon the one-party system that had been in place since 1955 the following year, but remains a dominant-party state under the CPP.

** Prime Minister: Hun Sen

** National Assembly President: Heng Samrin

Cambodia today is a constitutional monarchy (unusual for an ex-communist country, they not only restored the monarchy, but also restored the former monarch[[note]]In fairness, he was a monarch who loved to be photographed with Mao Zedong and Kim il-Sung, so, yeah...[[/note]]) that, aside from a coup in 1997, has a steady government. Unfortunately, it is probably [[BananaRepublic too steady]] as the Prime Minister appointed by the Vietnamese- [[RegentForLife Hun Sen]]- has ruled with an iron fist and has even admitted he wants to keep power well into old age while maintaining a play theater of constitutional government. To be specific, the guy [[http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/election-05062013185646.html outright stated on national TV]] that he intends to stay in power until he is 74 years old which will be in August 2026 [[labelnote:*]]But because there is some dispute over his actual date of birth, it could be until 2028[[/labelnote]]. Why? Because [[FollowTheLeader the leaders of China and Vietnam don't retire until their 70s.]]

The most famous [[strike:tourist traps]] [[LandmarkOfLore landmarks]] are Angkor Wat (the building seen on the flag), a humongous temple complex, home of Buddhist tradition (formerly Hindu) and the killing fields, where the mass killings of the Khmer Rouge took place and the hundreds of skulls are displayed for the whole world to see the atrocities of Pol Pot and his followers.

The civil war ended in 1975 with [[FromBadToWorse the victory of the North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge rebels]] and their leader, a cruel man named Pol Pot. They renamed the country into [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny Democratic Kampuchea]] and soon decided to move the population into the deep countryside on forced marches. Why? To destroy everything and start the nation from YearZero. The harsh conditions, forced labor and famine caused an estimated two million deaths. Considering Cambodia's population was only about seven million... yeah. The Khmer Rouge also destroyed anything considered Western, including libraries and temples, and their death squads killed all the ethnic and religious minorities (Chinese, Vietnamese[[labelnote:*]]going by some estimates, the entire ethnic Vietnamese population of Cambodia may have been killed or expelled, making this one of the rare times where a genocide was successful[[/labelnote]], Javanese, Buddhist monks, Muslims, Catholics), anyone with a connection with the old regime and anyone considered an intellectual (usually that meant teachers, anyone who used to work at libraries, universities or hospitals, and [[YouWouldntHitAGuyWithGlasses even anyone who wore]] ''[[YouWouldntHitAGuyWithGlasses eyeglasses]]'' since that was a sign of literacy).

The Khmer Rouge enjoyed broad popular support of the poor, uneducated peasant masses of village Khmers, who were envious towards "[[CityMouse those city guys]]", which wasn't helped by the fact that a lot of city-dwellers were ethnically Chinese, and were overrepresented in the rich classes. But soon it turned out that [[EvilArmy Khmer Rouge]] in general, and the dictator Pol Pot in particular, didn't make any distinction between two populations. Their motto was "To keep you is no benefit; to destroy you is no loss," and they cheerfully applied it to anyone. Pol Pot's regime led to the death of around 2 million people out of a population of 8 million in the span of little less than four years. It's estimated that as many as 4 million died as a whole (according to the insane mathematics of the regime, they figured that they could whittle the Cambodian population down to 2 million people and still create their agrarian worker's paradise, which might explain the spectacular lack of concern the government showed to the carnage). The Cambodian Genocide has often been described as an auto-genocide, or in [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourVocabulary troper speak]], a GenocideFromTheInside.

Pol Pot was also kinda lousy with geography, [[MajoredInWesternHypocrisy despite studying in France]], and believed that he could continue his mad rampages across the border, in the Khmer-speaking areas of UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}}. Naturally, the Vietnamese (even Vietnamese Khmer, who, despite being a forgotten minority living in the middle of nowhere, and thus bearing the brunt of Vietnamese Communist mismanagement and oppression, at least weren't being exterminated with gardening hoes[[note]]to save bullets[[/note]]) didn't take too kindly to this. A border war quickly erupted and the previous cooperation between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese communists evaporated. In 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia, defeating its army and reaching the capital in two weeks. The ensuing chaos saw a large number of Khmer refugees fleeing into Thailand to get away from both sides, with many of them later making their way to the United States, where they mostly settled in southern California and central Massachusetts.

Fittingly, yet ''another'' Vietnamese communist invasion resulted in yet ''another'' civil war. The Vietnamese got rid of the Khmer Rouge and put a puppet state in its place, run by former Khmer Rouge defectors. In the meantime, Pol Pot and original Khmer Rouge tried to flee to the countryside or abroad, only for Pol Pot to be taken prisoner by a schismatic member of the Khmer Rouge and kept under house arrest until he died under questionable circumstances. But if you would think this would be the end of matters, it wasn't. With most of the hardline nutjobs forced into the background, the Khmer Rouge and the groups that were rapidly splintering off of it had control over chunks of the countryside and were in a position to contest the Vietnamese satellite government. In time [[GambitPileup a third faction]] of royalists called Khmer People’s National Liberation Front appeared on the scene. This civil war, which saw heavy participation of Vietnamese forces on the side of their client, continued in a flurry of low-level skirmishing, plenty of nasty business, man-made famine, and other nightmares until 1991, when an agreement between the parts could be achieved. Another 300,000 people had died violent deaths in Cambodia from 1979 to 1989, with countless others perishing from disease and famine. There remains some low-level Khmer Rouge activity in a few remote areas, but it tends less towards rebellion/terrorism and more towards petty banditry, and is treated accordingly by the authorities.

!!Cambodia in fiction:

The place where everybody [[HolidayInCambodia goes on vacation]], Cambodia ('''Khmer:''' ''កម្ពុជា, Kampuchea''), officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia ('''Khmer:''' ''ព្រះរាជាណាចក្រកម្ពុជា, Preăh Réachéanachăk Kămpŭchéa'') is a Southeast Asian country full of tropical jungles, abandoned temples, guerilla warfare, and young women saying “Me love you long time” (''UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}}ese'' women, mind you). Or at least that’s what the media wants you to think.

* '''Capital and largest city:''' Phnom Penh (ភ្នំពេញ, ''Phnum Pénh'')

* '''Capital and largest city:''' Phnom Penh

* SCP-800, one of the artifacts of the Wiki/SCPFoundation, is an East Asian scroll bearing a picture which allegorically represents the current geopolitic situation of the region (and changes on its own over the course of history). Here's how it looks at the time of the Khmer Rouge regime:

The civil war ended in 1975 with [[FromBadToWorse the victory of the North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge rebels]] and their leader, a cruel man named Pol Pot. They renamed the country into [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny Democratic Kampuchea]] and soon decided to move the population into the deep countryside on forced marches. Why? To destroy everything and start the nation from YearZero. The harsh conditions, forced labor and famine caused an estimate two million deaths. Considering Cambodia's population was only about seven million... yeah. The Khmer Rouge also destroyed anything considered Western, including libraries and temples, and their death squads killed all the ethnic and religious minorities (Chinese, Vietnamese[[labelnote:*]]going by some estimates, the entire ethnic Vietnamese population of Cambodia may have been killed or expelled, making this one of the rare times where a genocide was successful[[/labelnote]], Javanese, Buddhist monks, Muslims, Catholics), anyone with a connection with the old regime and anyone considered an intellectual (usually that meant teachers, anyone who used to work at libraries, universities or hospitals, and [[YouWouldntHitAGuyWithGlasses even anyone who wore]] ''[[YouWouldntHitAGuyWithGlasses eyeglasses]]'' since that was a sign of literacy).

The Khmer Rouge enjoyed broad popular support of the poor, uneducated peasant masses of village Khmers, who were envious towards "[[CityMouse those city guys]]", which wasn't helped by the fact that a lot of city-dwellers were ethnically Chinese, and were overrepresented in the rich classes. But soon it turned out that [[EvilArmy Khmer Rouge]] in general, and the dictator Pol Pot in particular, didn't make any distinction between two populations. Their motto was "To keep you is no benefit; to destroy you is no loss," and they cheerfully applied it to anyone. Pol Pot's regime led to the death of around 2 million people out of a population of 8 million in the span of little less than four years. It's estimated that as many as 4 million died as a whole (according to the insane mathematics of the regime, they figured that they can whittle the Cambodian population down to 2 million people and still create their agrarian worker's paradise, which might explain the spectacular lack of concern the government showed to the carnage). The Cambodian Genocide has often been described as an auto-genocide, or in [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourVocabulary troper speak]], a GenocideFromTheInside.

Fittingly, yet ''another'' Vietnamese communist invasion resulted in yet ''another'' civil war. The Vietnamese got rid of the Khmer Rouge and put a puppet state in its place, run by former Khmer Rouge defectors. In the meantime Pol Pot and original Khmer Rouge tried to flee to the countryside or abroad, only for Pol Pot to be taken prisoner by a schismatic member of the Khmer Rouge and kept under house arrest until he died under questionable circumstances. But if you would think this would be the end of matters, it wasn't. With most of the hardline nutjobs forced into the background, the Khmer Rouge and the groups that were rapidly splintering off of it had control over chunks of the countryside and were in a position to contest the Vietnamese satellite government. In time [[GambitPileup a third faction]] of royalists called Khmer People’s National Liberation Front appeared on the scene. This civil war, which saw heavy participation of Vietnamese forces on the side of their client, continued in a flurry of low level skirmishing, plenty of nasty business, man made famine, and other nightmares until 1991, when an agreement between the parts could be achieved. Another 300,000 people had died violent deaths in Cambodia from 1979 to 1989, with countless others perishing from disease and famine. There remains some low-level Khmer Rouge activity in a few remote areas, but it tends less towards rebellion/terrorism and more towards petty banditry, and is treated accordingly by the authorities.

For reasons that could only make sense in [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar The Cold War]] that we won't mention here, the United States and much of the United Nations sided with China to continue to recognize the Khmer Rouge groups descended from Pol Pot's regime as the legitimate government -- even letting them keep the UN seat for Cambodia -- as opposed to the invading, Soviet-backed, pro-Vietnamese but at least non-batguano crazy regime. One of the first states to break with this policy was Sweden, which withdrew its support after a groundswell of protest from Swedish voters angry that its elected representatives were helping to prop up Pol Pot's zombie.

Cambodia today is a constitutional monarchy (unusual for an ex-communist country, they not only restored the monarchy, but also restored the former monarch[[note]]In fairness, he was a monarch who loved to be photographed with Mao Zedong and Kim il-Sung, so, yeah...[[/note]]) that, aside of a coup in 1997, has a steady government. Unfortunately, it is probably [[BananaRepublic too steady]] as the Prime Minister appointed by the Vietnamese- [[RegentForLife Hun Sen]]- has ruled with an iron fist and has even admitted he wants to keep power well into old age while maintaining a play theater of constitutional government. To be specific, the guy [[http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/election-05062013185646.html outright stated on national TV]] that he intends to stay in power until he is 74 years old which will be in August 2026 [[labelnote:*]]But because there is some dispute over his actual date of birth, it could be until 2028[[/labelnote]]. Why? Because [[FollowTheLeader the leaders of China and Vietnam don't retire until their 70s.]]

Cambodia also has a dispute with Thailand about the Preah Vihear Temple, an Hindu temple built during the reign of the Khmer Empire. The temple was awarded by the International Court of Justice to Cambodia, who has claimed it because to its historical significance and the French border lines, but Thailand still refuses to let it go. Regular skirmishes tend to happen around the temple from time to time as a result; usually they try to aim to the other army and miss the temple, though.

The civil war ended in 1975 with [[FromBadToWorse the victory of the North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge rebels]] and their leader, a cruel man named Pol Pot. They renamed the country into [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny Democratic Kampuchea]] and soon decided to move the population into the deep countryside on forced marches. Why? To destroy everything and start the nation from YearZero. The harsh conditions, forced labor and famine caused an estimate two million deaths. Considering Cambodia's population was only about seven million... yeah. The Khmer Rouge also destroyed anything considered Western, including libraries and temples, and their death squads killed all the ethnic and religious minorities (Chinese, Vietnamese[[labelnote:*]]going by some estimates, the entire ethnic Vietnamese population of Cambodia may have been killed or expelled, making this one of the rare times where a genocide was successful[[/labelnote]], Javanese, Buddhist monks, Muslims, Catholics), anyone with a connection with the old regime and anyone considered an intellectual (usually that meant teachers, anyone who used to work at libraries, universities or hospitals, and even anyone who wore ''eyeglasses'' since that was a sign of literacy).

* '''Highest point:''' Phnom Aural (1810 m/5,938 ft) (148th)

* '''Highest point:''' Phnom Aural (1810 m/5,938 ft) (133rd)