IV.

Ouster of Khmer Rouge

When a faction of Khmer Communists rebelled in the Eastern Zone in May 1978, Pol Pot’s armies were unable to quickly crush them. Fighting continued until January 1979, when a Vietnamese invasion swept the Khmer Rouge from power. Vietnam installed surviving Khmer defectors at the head of a new government. The Khmer Rouge army retreated to the Thai-Cambodian border, and with the help of countries such as Thailand and China that opposed Vietnamese domination of Cambodia, waged a long guerrilla war to retake power.

Throughout the 1980s the Khmer Rouge’s Democratic Kâmpŭchéa (DK) retained international recognition as Cambodia’s government and occupied Cambodia’s seat in the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN). However, the Khmer Rouge became increasingly marginal in Cambodian politics during the 1990s. In 1989 Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia, and in 1991 Cambodia’s warring factions signed a peace treaty, which the Khmer Rouge later repudiated. After Cambodian elections were held in 1993, no foreign countries continued to recognize DK as Cambodia’s legal government. The DK lost its UN seat as well as most of its sources of international aid.

In 1996 Ieng Sary, one of the Khmer Rouge's top leaders, left the group with a few thousand soldiers and received amnesty from the Cambodian government. Changing its name to the National Solidarity Party in 1997, the Khmer Rouge denounced Pol Pot in a show trial and placed him under house arrest. Pol Pot died in April 1998, shortly before the Cambodian government asserted that its troops had captured the remaining Khmer Rouge forces. In May the government declared its intent to bring remaining Khmer Rouge leaders to trial for crimes against humanity.

In 2007 a UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia issued its first indictment against a former Khmer Rouge leader, charging Kang Kek Ieu, also known as Duch, for crimes against humanity. At least four other former Khmer Rouge leaders were also expected to face charges.