Cambodian Civil War
| Cambodian Civil War | |||||||
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| Part of the Vietnam War, the Indochina Wars, the Sino-Soviet Split, and the Cold War in Asia | |||||||
U.S. M48 Patton tanks entering Snuol in Cambodia in 1970. | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Norodom Sihanouk (1968–1970) Penn Nouth (1968–1970) Cheng Heng Lon Nol Saukham Khoy Sak Sutsakhan Sisowath Sirik Matak In Tam Long Boret Lon Non Richard Nixon Henry Kissinger |
Pol Pot Khieu Samphan Ieng Sary Nuon Chea Hu Nim Hou Yuon Thiounn Mumm Norodom Sihanouk (1970–1975) Penn Nouth (1970–1975) Phạm Văn Đồng | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
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30,000 (1968) 35,000 (1970)[1] 100,000 (1972)[1] 200,000 (1973)[1] 50,000 (1974)[1] |
4,000 (1970)[2] 70,000 (1972)[1] 40,000–60,000 (1975)[1] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 275,000–310,000 killed[3][4][5] | |||||||
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The Cambodian Civil War (Khmer: សង្គ្រាមស៊ីវិលកម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: Sângkréam Sivĭl Kâmpŭchéa) was a civil war in Cambodia fought between the Khmer Rouge, supported by North Vietnam and China, against the government of the Kingdom of Cambodia and, after October 1970, the Khmer Republic, which had succeeded the kingdom after a coup, both supported by the United States and South Vietnam. The conflict was part of the Vietnam War.
The conflict was linked to the Vietnam War. The North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) was involved to protect its bases in eastern Cambodia, which were crucial to its military effort in South Vietnam. This presence was initially tolerated by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the Cambodian head of state, but domestic resistance combined with China and North Vietnam aiding the anti-government Khmer Rouge caused him to request help from the Soviet Union to stop this.[6]
In March 1970, Sihanouk was deposed by the Cambodian National Assembly, following wide scale protests in the capital against the PAVN presence in the country. He was replaced by a pro-American government which demanded that the PAVN leave Cambodia. They refused and, at the request of the Khmer Rouge, invaded Cambodia, capturing most of the northeastern third of the country from the Khmer National Armed Forces (FANK) between March and June 1970.[7] They handed over some of the territory to the Khmer Rouge and increased material assistance to the group, thus empowering what was at the time a small guerrilla movement.[8] In response, FANK was expanded to fight the PAVN and growing Khmer Rouge. U.S. involvement was motivated by the desire to buy time for its withdrawal from Southeast Asia, to protect South Vietnam, and to prevent the spread of communism to Cambodia. The U.S. assisted the Khmer government with massive U.S. aerial bombing campaigns and direct material and financial aid, while the PAVN continued to occupy Cambodian territory and occasionally engage the FANK in combat.
On 17 April 1975, after five years of fighting, the Khmer Republic was ultimately defeated, with the victorious Khmer Rouge proclaiming the establishment of Democratic Kampuchea. The war caused a refugee crisis in Cambodia with two million people—more than 25 percent of the population—displaced from rural areas into the cities, with the capital Phnom Penh's population growing from 600,000 in 1970 to nearly 2 million by 1975. Children were frequently persuaded or forced to commit atrocities during the war.[9] The Cambodian government estimated that more than 20 percent of the property in the country had been destroyed during the war.[10] In total, an estimated 275,000–310,000 people were killed as a result of the war, including 30,000 to 150,000 killed in U.S. bombing campaigns.[11][12][13] Once in power, the Khmer Rouge carried out the Cambodian genocide, one of the deadliest in history.
- ^ a b c d e f Spencer C. Tucker (2011). The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC-CLIO. p. 376. ISBN 978-1-85109-960-3. Archived from the original on 12 April 2018. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
- ^ Sarah Streed (2002). Leaving the house of ghosts: Cambodian refugees in the American Midwest. McFarland. p. 10. ISBN 0-7864-1354-9. Archived from the original on 12 April 2018. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
- ^ Heuveline, Patrick (2001). "The Demographic Analysis of Mortality Crises: The Case of Cambodia, 1970–1979". Forced Migration and Mortality. National Academies Press. pp. 103–104. ISBN 9780309073349.
Subsequent reevaluations of the demographic data situated the death toll for the [civil war] in the order of 300,000 or less.
cf. "Cambodia: U.S. bombing, civil war, & Khmer Rouge". World Peace Foundation. 7 August 2015. Archived from the original on 14 July 2019. Retrieved 1 August 2019.On the higher end of estimates, journalist Elizabeth Becker writes that 'officially, more than half a million Cambodians died on the Lon Nol side of the war; another 600,000 were said to have died in the Khmer Rouge zones.' However, it is not clear how these numbers were calculated or whether they disaggregate civilian and soldier deaths. Others' attempts to verify the numbers suggest a lower number. Demographer Patrick Heuveline has produced evidence suggesting a range of 150,000 to 300,000 violent deaths from 1970 to 1975. In an article reviewing different sources about civilian deaths during the civil war, Bruce Sharp argues that the total number is likely to be around 250,000 violent deaths. ... [Heuveline]'s conclusion is that an average of 2.52 million people (range of 1.17–3.42 million) died as a result of regime actions between 1970 and 1979, with an average estimate of 1.4 million (range of 1.09–2.16 million) directly violent deaths.
- ^ Banister, Judith; Johnson, E. Paige (1993). "After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia". Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community. Yale University Southeast Asia Studies. p. 87. ISBN 9780938692492.
An estimated 275,000 excess deaths. We have modeled the highest mortality that we can justify for the early 1970s.
- ^ Sliwinski, Marek (1995). Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique. Paris: L'Harmattan. pp. 42–43, 48. ISBN 978-2-738-43525-5.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Isaacs, Hardy and Brown, p. 90was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Mosyakov, Dmitry (5 July 2017), Cook, Susan E. (ed.), "The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists: A History of Their Relations as Told in the Soviet Archives" (PDF), Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda (1 ed.), Routledge, pp. 41–72, doi:10.4324/9780203790847-3, ISBN 978-0-203-79084-7
- ^ "Cambodia: U.S. Invasion, 1970s". Global Security. Archived from the original on 31 October 2014. Retrieved 2 April 2014.
- ^ Southerland, D (20 July 2006). "Cambodia Diary 6: Child Soldiers – Driven by Fear and Hate". Archived from the original on 20 March 2018.
- ^ Shawcross, William, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979, p. 222
- ^ Valentino, Benjamin (2005). Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century. Cornell University Press. p. 84. ISBN 9780801472732.
- ^ Kiernan, Ben; Owen, Taylor (26 April 2015). "Making More Enemies than We Kill? Calculating U.S. Bomb Tonnages Dropped on Laos and Cambodia, and Weighing Their Implications". The Asia–Pacific Journal. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
The evidence of survivors from many parts of [Cambodia] suggests that at least tens of thousands, probably in the range of 50,000 to 150,000 deaths, resulted from the US bombing campaigns
- ^ Power, Samantha (2013). A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. Basic Books. ISBN 9780465050895.