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Rethinking the Khmer Rouge
On July 25, 1997, the chant "Crush, crush, crush Pol Pot and his murderous clique!" reverberated through the northern Cambodian jungle. While such sentiments are not uncommon throughout this southeast Asian nation, this day the denunciation was singularly meaningful: Pol Pot was being condemned in a "trial" by none other than his former comrades in the Khmer Rouge. This event may finally mark the end of the most wrenching chapter of Cambodia's history. The Khmer Rouge is not only taking the first steps toward justice, but has also sided with Prince Ranariddh, the democratically-elected leader of Cambodia. This unlikely alliance occurred in the aftermath of a military coup only 20 days before the trial of Pol Pot, providing the United States and the international community the opportunity to finally bring peace and stability to Cambodia.
The July coup, in which a former Vietnamese communist puppet brutally seized power from the elected government, was the latest manifestation of decades of armed struggle between the Khmer Rouge, royalists, and Vietnamese-backed communists. After the end of French colonial rule in 1953, King Norodom Sihanouk abdicated his throne and became leader of the government. His regime was overthrown in 1970 by Lon Nol, a US-backed general who was in power for five years before being ousted by the Khmer Rouge, a Cambodian communist force, in the aftermath of US withdrawal from the region.
The Khmer Rouge government, led by Pol Pot with Sihanouk as its figurehead, was easily one of the most brutal in human history. Under its rule, between one million and three million Cambodians-in a nation of eight million-were executed, tortured, or starved to death.
Along with the genocide of its people, the Khmer Rouge pursued an ultimately destructive border conflict with Vietnam that ended in 1978 when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and installed a government to suit their own needs. A civil war between Khmer Rouge guerrillas and the Vietnamese-backed government dragged on until 1993, when United Nationssponsored elections were held. Prince Ranariddh and his royalist National Front for an Independent, National, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC) party won the election, but the pro-Vietnamese Cambodian People's Party (CPP) threatened to violently secede if their leader, Hun Sen, was not given power.