short history of cambodia - seo...

SOUTHEAST ASIA of 11

The Khmers are one of the oldest ethnic groups in the Southeast Asia, having migrated into area about the same time as the Mon who settled further west but are ancestrally related to. Historians believe they

arrived over four thousand years ago in around 2000 BC. The Mon are an ethnic group from Myanmar, who were responsible for the spread of Theravada Buddhism in Indochina.

They brought with them the practice of agriculture, particularly the cultivation of rice, and were one of the first places in the world to use bronze. They were the builders of the Khmer Empire, which dominated Southeast Asia for six centuries from 802. They developed the first alphabet, which in turn gave birth to the later Thai and Lao scripts.

The country’s history is opaque but it does have a particularly close relationship with India. Cambodia’s religious, royal and written traditions is derived from India. Until about the 15th century, Indian culture was not limited to the land of the Ganges, but was spread from modern-day Cambodia, Sumatra, Java and Thailand. Hinduism came to Southeast Asia in 200 BC through the traders from eastern India and the Khmer rulers of Cambodia started adopting Hindu practices.

Cambodia is derived from the Sanskrit word Kambuja, which refers to a Iranian tribe who had no caste system. By around the 8th century, Cambodian people had became completely Indianised, adopting Sanskrit names, Hinduism and building Hindu temples.

Chinese records report that the early Cambodian people were “ugly” and “dark” and went about naked. However, cultural chauvinism was one of imperial China’s specialities when branding all of its neighbours and so that these descriptions can largely be left to interpretation.

Cambodia is often associated with the mighty Angkorian empire but the country did not begin and

Short History of CambodiaBy Sources

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The Angkorian empire at its height of power

The Mon people


end with Angkor, which flourished from the 9th to 15th centuries. The Angkorian period began in AD 802, when the Khmer Hindu monarch Jayavarman II declared himself a god-king, or “devaraja” which today survives in Thailand in the royal Chakri dynasty. It lasted until the late 14th century after its fall due to the Ayutthayan rule in 1351.

From the first century AD, the Indianisation of Cambodia occurred through trading settlements that sprang up on the coastline of southern Vietnam that was at the time inhabited by the Khmers. These settlements were necessary ports of call for boats that followed the trading route from the Bay of Bengal to the southern provinces of China.

Both Tamil and Sanskrit had a big influence on Southeast Asia kingdoms at this time as both south Indians Cholas—one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history of southern India—as well as north Indian traders started establishing cultural elements in the region.

The largest of these kingdoms was known as Funan by the Chinese. The kingdom of Funan was the name given by the Chinese area located in southern Southeast Asian centered around the Mekong Delta and existed across an area in the south of the country and southern Vietnam.

Funan, as a major sea port, would have been crucial in the transference of Indian culture into Cambodia. The Funan period embraced the worship of the Hindu deities Shiva and Vishnu and, at the same time, Buddhism.

The Funanese are said to be mostly Mon-Khmer and from archeological evidence in southern Vietnam, it is know that Funan was a powerful trading state. Linked to the port on the coast by a system of canals, it is thought that many locations together constituted the heartland of Funan.


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The kingdom of Funan

Shiva, the Destroyer and Transformer in the Hindu Trinity. Shiva is frequently associated with cannabis


From the 6th century, Cambodia’s population gradually concentrated along the Mekong and Tonlé Sap rivers, where the majority of the people remain today, and the move may have been related to the development of wet-rice agriculture.

By the time of the 9th century the Cambodian region had become far more cohesive than before. The fractured kingdoms that made up Cambodia had merged to become one of the greatest empires in Southeast Asia. Angkor is the region that served as the seat of the Khmer Empire, which flourished from the 9th to 15th centuries.

The Angkorian period may have begun in 802 AD, when the Khmer king Jayavarman II announced the independence of Cambodia from Java and established his capital at the northern end of the Tonlé Sap river. Through a programme of military campaigns, alliances, marriages and land grants, he unified the country.

He is believed to have resided in the Buddhist court in Java as a young man and, upon his return to Cambodia, he brought about an uprising against Javanese control over the southern lands of Cambodia. Jayavarman II then set out to bring the country under his control through alliances and conquests. He was the first monarch to rule most of what we call Cambodia today.

Among Jayavarman II’s accomplishments were the deification of the Cambodian monarchy, the establishment of the devaraja cult as the official state religion and the reunification of the old kingdom after the fall of Funan, which he expanded and formed into the Khmer Empire.

Jayavarman II came from Java, where he had been in captivity, and was due to succeed to the throne as Java’s vassal. However, as an unwilling puppet, he defied the Javanese and asserted Khmer independence.


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The Mekong and Tonlé Sap

A carving of King Jayavarman II


Since his arrival from Java, he established a series of capitals, first at Indrapura, on the lower Mekong River, then at Hariharalaya, southeast of the present-day Siem Reap and finally on to Mahendraparvata, in the region just north of the Tonlé Sap (Great Lake), not far from Angkor. The latter became the seat of the Khmer Empire, which remained its capital for 600 years.

Jayavarman II was the first among a long succession of kings who presided over the rise and fall of the greatest empire mainland Southeast Asia had ever known, one that was to pass on the stunning legacy of Angkor.

The key to the me teoric rise of Angkor was a mastery of water and an elaborate hydraulic system that allowed the ancient Khmers to tame the elements.Angkor Wat, meaning temple city, was first a Hindu, then a Buddhist, temple complex and the largest religious monument in the world. It was built by the King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century.

Breaking from the Shiva tradition of Cambodia’s previous kings, Angkor Wat was dedicated to Vishnu. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation. The temple is at the top of the high classical style of Khmer architecture and has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag.

By the turn of the 11th century the kingdom of Angkor was losing control of its territories. Suryavarman I, a usurper (to take illegally by force), moved into the power vacuum and, like Jayavarman II two centuries before, reunified the kingdom through war and alliances, stretching the frontiers of the empire.

A pattern was beginning to emerge, and is repeated throughout the Angkorian period: dislocation and turmoil, followed by reunification and further expansion under a powerful king. Architecturally, the most productive periods occurred after times of


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Angkor Wat in Siem Reap

Vishnu, the Preserver and Protector in the Hindu Trinity, with the discus Sudarshana Chakra in the upper right hand


turbulence, indicating that new monarchs felt the need to celebrate, even legitimise their rule with massive building projects.

By 1066 Angkor was again torn apart by conflict. It was not until the accession of Suryavarman II in 1112 that the kingdom was again unified. He embarked on another phase of expansion, waging costly wars in Vietnam and the region of central Vietnam known as Champa.

Suryavarman II is immortalised as the king who showed his devotion to the Hindu deity Vishnu. He had reduced Champa to vassal status, but the Chams struck back in 1177 with a naval expedition up the Mekong and into Tonlé Sap Lake.

They took the city of Angkor by surprise and put the king to death. The following year a cousin of Suryavarman II rallied the Khmer troops and defeated the Chams in another naval battle. The new leader was crowned Jayavarman VII in 1181.

A devout follower of Mahayana Buddhism, Jayavarman VII built the city of Angkor Thom and many other massive monuments. Indeed, many of the temples visited around Angkor today were constructed during Jayavarman VII’s reign.

However, Jayavarman VII is a figure of many contradictions. His programme of temple construction and other public works were carried out in great haste, no doubt bringing enormous hardship to the labourers who provided the muscle, and thus accelerating the decline of the empire.

He was partly driven by a desire to legitimise his rule, as there were other contenders closer to the royal bloodline, and partly by the need to introduce a new religion to a population predominantly Hindu in faith. However, in many ways he was also Cambodia’s first socialist leader, proclaiming the population equal and abolishing castes.


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Champa, south Vietnam

Angkor Thom in modern-day Cambodia


There are indications that the irrigation network had been overworked and slowly starting to silt up due to the massive deforestation that had taken place in the heavily populated areas to the north and east of Angkor. Massive construction projects such as Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom put an enormous strain on the royal coffers and on thousands of slaves and common people who subsidised them in hard labour and taxes.

At this time, Angkor was losing control over the peripheries of its empire: the Thais were ascendant, having migrated south from Yunnan to escape Kublai Khan and his Mongol hordes. The Thais, first from Sukhothai and later Ayutthaya, grew in strength and made repeated incursions into Angkor before finally sacking the city in 1431 and making off with thousands of intellectuals, artisans and dancers from the royal court.

During this period, perhaps drawn by the opportunities for sea trade with China and fearful of the increasingly aggressve Thais, the Khmer elite began to migrate to Phnom Penh. The capital shifted several times over the centuries but eventually settled in present day Phnom Penh.

From 1600 until the arrival of the French in 1863, Cambodia was ruled by a series of weak kings troubled by dynastic rivalries. In the face of such intrigue, they sought the protection of both Thailand and Vietnam. In the 17th century, the Nguyen lords of southern Vietnam came to the rescue of the Cambodian king in return for settlement rights in the Mekong Delta region.

One king was crowned in Bangkok and placed on the throne at Udong with the help of the Thai army. That Cambodia survived through the 18th century as a distinct entity is due to the preoccupations of its neighbours: while the Thais were expending their energy and resources in fighting the Burmese, the Vietnamese were wholly absorbed by internal strife.


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Kublai Khan, Mongol emperor

The Mongol invasion of China spanned six decades in the 13th century


The era of Cambodia’s Thai and Vietnamese masters came to an end in 1864 when French gunboats intimidated King Norodom I into signing a treaty. At the time, Cambodia was in danger of going the way of Champa and vanishing from the map but French control of the country developed as a sideshow to their interests in Vietnam.

The French presence helped keep Norodom on the throne. By the 1870s French officials in Cambodia began pressing for greater control over internal affairs and in 1884 Norodom was forced into signing a treaty that turned his country into a virtual colony, sparking a two-year rebellion that constituted the only major uprising in Cambodia until WWII.

The French maintained Norodom’s court in a splendour unseen since the heyday of Angkor, helping to enhance the symbolic position of the monarchy. In 1907 the French were able to pressure Thailand into returning the northwest provinces of Battambang, Siem Reap and Sisophon in return for concessions of Lao territory to the Thais.

During WWII Japanese forces occupied much of Asia, and Cambodia was no exception. The price was conceding to Thailand—a Japanese ally in the days of Field Marshal Phibun—much of Battambang and Siem Reap provinces once again, areas that weren’t returned until 1947.

However, with the fall of Paris in 1944 and French policy in confusion, the Japanese were forced to take direct control of the country by early 1945. After WWII, the French returned, making Cambodia an autonomous state within the French Union, but retaining control.

The immediate postwar years were marked by strife among the country’s various political factions, a situation made more unstable by the Franco-Viet Minh War then raging in Vietnam and Laos, which spilled over into Cambodia.


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French colonial rule begins

The royal palace was a fusion of Khmer and French architecture


The post-independence period was one of peace and great prosperity, Cambodia’s golden years, a time of creativity and optimism. Phnom Penh grew in size and stature and the temples of Angkor were the leading tourist destination in Southeast Asia, with King Sihanouk playing host to a succession of influential leaders from across the globe.

However, dark clouds were hovering, as the American war in Vietnam became a black hole, sucking in neighbouring countries. In late 1952 King Sihanouk dissolved parliament, declared martial law and embarked on his “royal crusade” to drum up international support for his country’s independence.

Independence was proclaimed on 9 November 1953 and recognised by the Geneva Conference of May 1954, which ended French control of Indochina. In 1955, Sihanouk abdicated and, bowing to pressure from the army, he implemented a policy of harsh repression against left-wingers and by 1969 the conflict between the army and leftist rebels had become more serious.

In 1970, while Sihanouk was on a trip to France, General Lon Nol and Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak, Sihanouk’s cousin, deposed him and he took up residence in Beijing, where he set up a government-in-exile in alliance with a revolutionary movement, the Khmer Rouge. This was a definitive moment in contemporary Cambodian history.

By this time, the lines were drawn for a bloody civil war. Sihanouk was condemned to death in absentia, an excessive move on the part of the new government that effectively ruled out any hint of compromise for the next five years.

Lon Nol gave communist Vietnamese forces an ultimatum to withdraw their forces within a week, which amounted to a virtual declaration of war, as no Vietnamese fighters wanted to return to their homeland to face the Americans.


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King Sihanouk

Lon Nol takes power in Cambodia


In 1969 the USA had begun a secret programme of bombing suspected communist base camps in Cambodia. For the next four years, huge areas of the eastern half of the country were carpet-bombed by US B-52s, killing what is believed to be many thousands of civilians.

The bombing campaign helped the Khmer Rouge in their recruitment drive, as more and more peasants were losing family members to the aerial assaults. Savage fighting engulfed the country, bringing misery to millions of Cambodians. Many fled rural areas for the relative safety of Phnom Penh and other provincial capitals.

During these years the Khmer Rouge came to play a dominant role in trying to overthrow the Lon Nol regime, strengthened by the support of the Vietnamese. The leadership of the Khmer Rouge, including Paris-educated Pol Pot, had fled into the countryside in the 1960s to escape justice being meted out to suspected leftists by Sihanouk’s security forces.

Upon taking Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge implemented one of the most radical and brutal restructurings of a society ever attempted. Its goal was a “pure revolution”, untainted by those that had gone before, to transform Cambodia into a peasant-dominated agrarian cooperative.

Within days of coming to power, the entire population of Phnom Penh and provincial towns, including the sick, elderly and infirm, was forced to march into the countryside and work as slaves for 12 to 15 hours a day. Disobedience of any sort often brought immediate execution.

The advent of Khmer Rouge rule was proclaimed Year Zero. Currency was abolished and postal services were halted. The country cut itself off from the outside world. In the eyes of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge was a series of factions that needed to be cleansed.


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Pol Pot, the man that took Cambodia back to “Year Zero”

The genocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge murdered about 2 million Cambodian people


The Khmer Rouge began to implement their radical Maoist and Marxist-Leninist transformation programmes. They wanted to transform Cambodia into a rural, classless society in which there were no rich people, no poor people and no exploitation. To accomplish this, they abolished money, free markets, schooling, private property, religious practices and traditional Khmer culture.

Over the next three years, they executed hundreds of thousands of intellectuals, city residents, minority people such as the Cham, Vietnamese and Chinese and many of their own soldiers and party members, who were accused of being traitors.

It is still not known exactly how many Cambodians died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge during nearly four years of their rule. The Vietnamese claimed three million deaths, while foreign experts considered the number closer to one million. Yale University researchers estimated that the figure was close to two million.

Hundreds of thousands of people were executed by the Khmer Rouge leadership, while hundreds of thousands more died of famine and disease. Meals consisted of little more than watery rice porridge twice a day, meant to sustain men, women and children through a back-breaking day in the fields.

Relations between Cambodia and Vietnam have historically been tense, as the Vietnamese have slowly but steadily expanded southwards, encroaching on Cambodian territory. Despite the fact the two communist parties had fought together as brothers-in-arms, old tensions soon came to the fore.

On 25 December 1978 Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion of Cambodia, toppling the Pol Pot government two weeks later. As Vietnamese tanks neared Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge fled westward with as many civilians as it could seize, taking refuge in the jungles and mountains along the Thai border.


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Cambodian students re-enact torture by the Khmer Rouge

Khmer Rouge soldier before the Cambodian-Vietnamese War between 1975 and 1977 when Vietnam launched an invasion


The Vietnamese installed a new government led by several former Khmer Rouge officers, including current Prime Minister Hun Sen, who had defected to Vietnam in 1977. The Vietnamese then staged a show trial in which Pol Pot was condemned to death for his genocidal acts.

As the Cold War came to a close, peace began to break out all over the globe, and Cambodia was not immune to the new spirit of reconciliation. In September 1989 Vietnam, its economy in tatters and eager to end its international isolation, announced the withdrawal of all of its troops from Cambodia.

In 1994 the Khmer Rouge resorted to a new tactic of targeting tourists, with horrendous results for a number of foreigners in Cambodia. During 1994, three people were taken from a taxi on the road to Sihanoukville and shot. A few months later another three foreigners were seized from a train bound for Sihanoukville and in the ransom drama that followed they were executed as the army closed in.

Since the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1993, the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has been the majority party following the 1997 Coup. Hun Sen is the longest serving non-royal leader in Southeast Asia and is one of the longest serving prime ministers in the world, having been in power through various coalitions since 1985.

He became sole prime minister in November 1998 and would go on to lead the CPP to victory in the next three elections, but has been accused of poll fraud and corruption. He was recently sworn in for a fourth term on 24 September 2013.

One of the world’s longest-serving leaders, with a reputation as a “wily operator who destroys his political opponents”, Hun Sen is widely viewed as a man that has assumed authoritarian power in Cambodia using violence, intimidation and corruption to maintain his power base.


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Sihanoukville today, years after the Khmer Rouge had shot foreign tourists

Hun Sen, the current prime minister of Cambodia

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