The Khmer Republic's leadership was plagued by disunity among its three principal figures: Lon Nol, Sihanouk's cousin Sirik Matak, and National Assembly leader In Tam.

Sihanouk's public criticism and mockery of the Khmer Viet Minh had the damaging effect of increasing the power of the hardline, anti-Vietnamese, but also anti-monarchist, members of the CPK, led by Pol Pot.

The Khmer Republic ( 1970 – 1975 ) was founded in order to do away with Cambodia's widespread corruption and to restore Cambodia's sovereignty in its eastern regions, occupied by Vietnamese communist insurgents as a result of Sihanouk's " neutrality " policies.

Predominantly animist peoples, with few ties to the Buddhist culture of the lowland Khmers, the Khmer Loeu had resented Sihanouk's attempts to " civilise " them.

Funcinpec had the benefit of traditional peasant Khmer loyalty to the crown and Sihanouk's widespread popularity in the countryside.

A civil war raged during the 1980s opposing the government's Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Armed Forces against the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, a government in exile composed of three Cambodian political factions: Prince Norodom Sihanouk's Funcinpec party, the Party of Democratic Kampuchea ( often referred to as the Khmer Rouge ) and the Khmer People's National Liberation Front ( KPNLF ).

In the September election, Sihanouk's new party decisively defeated the Democrats, the Khmer Independence Party of Son Ngoc Thanh, and the leftist Pracheachon Party, winning 83 % of the vote and all of the seats in the National Assembly.

The Khmer Rouge, now realising that Sihanouk's status as a figurehead would help their cause internationally, asked Sihanouk to plead the case of Democratic Kampuchea at the United Nations.

The princes who headed the party-Ranariddh, Sihanouk's half-brother Norodom Sirivudh, and Sisowath Sirirath ( the son of Sirik Matak, who deposed Sihanouk in the 1970 coup )-disagreed violently over corruption, Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge, land reform, and other issues.

The Khmer Rouge's forces were soon to be swelled by thousands of new recruits, attracted in part by Sihanouk's name.

Sihanouk, then acting as Prime Minister, placed him in charge of defence in 1952, formally appointing him Minister of Defence in the interim government set up after independence in 1954 ; Sihanouk's Sangkum movement absorbed the Khmer Renovation Party prior to the Sangkum victory in the 1955 elections.

At first, Vietnam ignored the Khmer Rouge domestic reorganization of Cambodia, by the Pol Pot régime ( 1975 – 79 ), as an internal matter, until the Khmer Rouge attacked the ethnic Vietnamese populace of Cambodia, and the border with Vietnam ; the counter-attack precipitated the Cambodian – Vietnamese War ( 1975 – 79 ) that deposed Pol Pot in 1978.

Much work has been done on the reconstruction of Proto-Mon – Khmer in Harry L. Shorto's Mon – Khmer Comparative Dictionary.

Little work has been done on the Munda languages, which are not well documented ; with their demotion from a primary branch, Proto-Mon – Khmer becomes synonymous with Proto-Austro-Asiatic.

** Khmer New Year, or Chol Chnam Thmey, most commonly celebrated on April 13 ( Cambodia )

Standard Khmer, or Central Khmer, the language as taught in schools and used by the media is based on the Battambang dialect spoken throughout the plains of the northwest and central provinces.

The immense influence on the identity of Cambodia to come was wrought by the Khmer Kingdom of Bhavapura, in the modern day Cambodian city of Kompong Thom.

" When Congress, in the summer of 1973, legislated an end to U. S. military action in, over, or off the shores of Indochina, the only U. S. military activity then going on was air support of a friendly Cambodian government and army desperately defending their country against a North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge onslaught ... What destabilized Cambodia was North Vietnam's occupation of chunks of Cambodian territory from 1965 onwards for use as military bases from which to launch attacks on U. S. and South Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam.

On October 4, 2004, the Cambodian National Assembly ratified an agreement with the United Nations on the establishment of a tribunal to try senior leaders responsible for the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge.

Khmer houses typically are raised on stilts as much as three meters for protection from annual floods.

For instance, in 1976, the New York Times published 66 articles on alleged human rights abuses in Chile and only 4 on Cambodia, where the communist Khmer Rouge killed some 1. 5 million people of 7. 5 million people in the country.

* 1971 – Cambodian Civil War: Khmer Rouge rebels intensify assaults on Cambodian government positions, forcing their retreat from Kompong Thmar and nearby Ba Ray.

In the early 1970s, setbacks to US military capabilities in the region including the fall of Saigon, victory of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the closure of the Peshawar Air Station listening post in Pakistan and Kagnew Station in Ethiopia, the Mayaguez incident, and the build-up of Soviet Naval presence in Aden and a Soviet Air Base at Berbera, Somalia, caused the US to request, and the UK to approve, permission to build a fleet anchorage and enlarged airfield on Diego Garcia, and the Seabees doubled the number of workers constructing these facilities.

** Khmer Pradal Serey – similar to Muay Thai with an emphasis on elbow techniques ( Ring-wise ).

The Khmer Rouge's ideology was based on an extreme version of Khmer nationalism and xenophobia.

Although a radical movement, the Khmer Rouge also drew on the idioms of Cambodian Buddhist culture.

Rather than maintaining a bureaucracy based on names and reputation, the Khmer Rouge also used charismatic leadership that is characteristic of Buddhist societies.

The Khmer Rouge's social policy focused on working towards a purely agrarian society.

This was his way of " a complete Communist society without wasting time on the intermediate steps " as the Khmer Rouge said to China in 1975.

Albanian, Arabic, Assyrian ( VSO and VOS are also followed, depending on the person ), Berber, Bulgarian, Chinese, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Italian, Ganda, Greek, Hausa, Hebrew, Javanese, Kashmiri, Khmer, Latvian, Macedonian, Polish, Portuguese, Quiche, Rotuman, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, Vietnamese, Yoruba and Zulu are examples of languages that can follow an SVO pattern.

* Khmer and Malay theatre – In Cambodia, at the ancient capital Angkor Wat, stories from the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata have been carved on the walls of temples and palaces.

* December 1 – Cambodian Civil War: Khmer Rouge rebels intensify assaults on Cambodian government positions, forcing their retreat from Kompong Thmar and nearby Ba Ray, 10 kilometers northeast of Phnom Penh.

1975 – Conflict begins right after the fall of Saigon between the Communist governments of Vietnam and Cambodia, culminating in the Vietnamese invasion and subsequent occupation of Cambodia and the removal of the Khmer Rouge regime from power.

Khmer is written from left to right with multiple levels of character stacking possible.

The Chams also enjoy democratic rights like all Khmer citizens, with the right to vote and be elected as politicians.

In compliance with the requirement of the Paris Agreement that the constitution provide that " ggrieved individuals will be entitled to have the courts adjudicate and enforce these rights " and that " n independent judiciary will be established, empowered to enforce the rights provided under the constitution ", the Constitution stipulates that Khmer citizens have the right to denounce, make complaints or file claims against the state of state agents, the settlement of which should be determined by the courts.

Khmer Viet Minh were the 3, 000 to 5, 000 Cambodian communist cadres, left-wing members of the Khmer Issarak movement regrouped in the United Issarak Front after 1950, most of whom lived in exile in North Vietnam after the 1954 Geneva Conference.

Desperate, yet determined, units of Republican soldiers, many of whom had run out of ammunition, dug in around the capital and fought until they were overrun as the Khmer Rouge advanced.

The temple was built under the Khmer King Indravarman I in 879 to honor members of the king's family, whom it places in relation with the Hindu deity Shiva.

Nevertheless, the Ramayana came to Southeast Asia by means of Tamil Indian traders and scholars who traded with the Khmer kingdoms ( such as Funan and Angkor ) and Srivijaya, with whom the Indians shared close economic and cultural ties.

Today, Khmer cuisine shares much in common with the food of neighbouring Thailand, although it is not as overly reliant on chilli, sugar or coconut cream for flavour ; and Vietnam, with whom it shares and adopts many common dishes and a colonial history, both being part of the French colonial empire in Southeast Asia.

Pran labours in rice fields under the watchful eyes of young children of both sexes, whom the Khmer Rouge hold in high regard as the future leaders of their regime.

In the mid-1970s, the Khmer Rouge came into power in Cambodia and began killing thousands of educated Cambodians, most of whom were French-educated.

However, if a Khmer becomes ill, they will frequently see a kru khmae ( shaman / healer ) whom they believe can diagnose which of the many spirits ( neak ta ) has caused the illness and recommend a course of action to propitiate the offended spirit, thereby curing the illness.

" Khmer-Chen ", is used for peoples of either mixed Cambodian & Chinese descent or people of whom are Cambodian born citizens with Chinese ancestry ; ( Khmer being the ethnic group of Cambodia and Chen meaning Chinese in the Khmer language ).

They were mainly well-educated urban merchants, and thus were characteristic of the people whom the Khmer Rouge detested.