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shrine honoring those who died at
Cheoung Ek
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 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.
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