After Sihanouk fled to china, the Prime Minister Lon Nol’s army could not stop entering the South Vietnamese in Cambodia. He had hoped for US help but US was not ready to help as buy with Vietnamese. To add to Lon Nol’s problems, Sihanouk had been influenced to set up a different government named as Khmer Rouge. At that time he was in exile. Eventually the Khmer Rouge became a thorn in Lon Nol’s side. Lon Nol had to fight with both Khmer Rouge and also Vietnamese. The story continued until the Khmer regime collapsed. It collapsed because of another reason and that was repeated US bombing of the Cambodian countryside. In the year 1975, the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh. Just after that the North Vietnamese were occupying South Vietnam.
The Khmer Rouge forced the urban Cambodians to live in the countryside. There they were forced to work even in agriculture. At that time Saloth Sar was leading the Khmer Rouge. He was popularly known as Pol Pot. Democratic Kampochea or DK was the ruling government at that time. It was run partly by rural Cambodians who were illiterate. They had fought along with the Khmer Rouge in the war.
The ill-treatment was slightly less with the intellectuals and religious people. Those who were against to the regime were sentenced to death. In Pol Pot’s i.e. Khmer Rouge’s regime more than twenty percent Cambodians was murdered.
The Khmer Rouge planned to attack Vietnam and some adjacent areas. But the plan backfired when the Vietnamese attacked Cambodia with 100,000 troops. This was a surprise for the Khmer Rouge. Cambodian Communist rebels accompanied them and also managed to occupy Phnom Penh.
The Khmer Rouge including Pol Pot fled to the Thai-Cambodian border. Thai government sent them to the asylum but this was of course unfriendly to Vietnam.
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