The term " Khmer Rouge ", French for " Red Khmer ," was coined by Cambodian head of state Norodom Sihanouk and was later adopted by English speakers.

The history of the communist movement in Cambodia can be divided into six phases: the emergence of the Indochinese Communist Party ( ICP ), whose members were almost exclusively Vietnamese, before World War II ; the 10-year struggle for independence from the French, when a separate Cambodian communist party, the Kampuchean ( or Khmer ) People's Revolutionary Party ( KPRP ), was established under Vietnamese auspices ; the period following the Second Party Congress of the KPRP in 1960, when Saloth Sar ( Pol Pot after 1976 ) and other future Khmer Rouge leaders gained control of its apparatus ; the revolutionary struggle from the initiation of the Khmer Rouge insurgency in 1967 – 68 to the fall of the Lon Nol government in April 1975 ; the Democratic Kampuchea regime, from April 1975 to January 1979 ; and the period following the Third Party Congress of the KPRP in January 1979, when Hanoi effectively assumed control over Cambodia's government and communist party.

Viet Minh units occasionally made forays into Cambodian bases during their war against the French, and, in conjunction with the leftist government that ruled Thailand until 1947, the Viet Minh encouraged the formation of armed, left-wing Khmer Issarak bands.

In 1863, the Cambodian king Norodom had requested the establishment of a French protectorate over his country.

Work resumed after the end of the Cambodian Civil War and, since 1993, has been jointly co-ordinated by the French, Japanese and UNESCO through the International Co-ordinating Committee on the Safeguarding and Development of the Historic Site of Angkor ( ICC ), while Cambodian work is carried out by the Authority for the Protection and Management of Angkor and the Region of Siem Reap ( APSARA ), created in 1995.

French Union forces included colonial troops from the whole former empire ( Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, Laotian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese ethnic minorities ), French professional troops and units of the French Foreign Legion.

However, a boundary survey conducted by the French for the Franco-Siamese Treaty of 1907 deviated from the agreed upon international divide by mountains ' watershed and placed the temple on the French ( Cambodian ) side.

The much-publicized travels of the naturalist Henri Mouhot, who visited the Cambodian court, rediscovered the ruins at Angkor, and journeyed up the Mekong River to the Laotian kingdom of Luang Prabang from 1859 to 1861, piqued French interest in the kingdom's alleged vast riches and in the value of the Mekong as a gateway to China's southwestern provinces.

This agreement afforded the Cambodian monarch French protection ( in the form of a French official called a résident — in French resident ) in exchange for giving the French rights to explore and to exploit the kingdom's mineral and forest resources.

It was established in 1863 when the Cambodian king Norodom requested the establishment of a French protectorate over his country.

The first decades of French rule in Cambodia included numerous reforms into Cambodian politics, such as the reduction of the monarch's power and abolishment of slavery.

French forces later aided Norodom to defeat Si Votha under agreements that the Cambodian population be disarmed and acknowledge the resident-general as the highest power in the protectorate.

Likewise, Norodom was viewed as responsible for the constant Cambodian revolts against French rule.

Later territorial disputes between France and Siam over Battambang and Siem Reap Provinces led to France's occupation of Trat Province until Siam gave in to French pressure and ceded the provinces, originally Cambodian territory until the latter part of the 18th century, in 1907 along with Banteay Meanchey Province.

Infrastructure and public works were also developed under French rule, and roads and railroads were constructed in Cambodian territory.

Unlike in Vietnam, Cambodian nationalism remained relatively quiet during much of French rule mostly due to lesser education influence, which helped literacy rates remain low and prevented nationalist movements like those taking place in VIetnam.

However, among the French-educated Cambodian elite, the Western ideas of democracy and self-rule as well as French restoration of monuments such as Angkor Wat created a sense of pride and awareness of Cambodia's once powerful status in the past.

" 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.

* 1979 – Third Indochina War – Cambodian – Vietnamese War: Phnom Penh falls to the advancing Vietnamese troops, driving out Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

In the meantime, the Cambodian Campaign of April 1970, in which US and South Vietnamese forces entered Cambodian territory in pursuit of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops, had irrevocably involved Lon Nol's regime in the Second Indochina War.

Japanese calls of " Asia for the Asiatics " found a receptive audience among Cambodian nationalists, although Tokyo's policy in Indochina was to leave the colonial government nominally in charge.

* Philippine Refugee Processing Center for Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian refugees fleeing wars in Indochina.

Unfortunately, Cambodian culture suffered massive disruption and destruction during the mid-20th century Indochina wars but most especially during the Khmer Rouge regime.

The Indochina Wars () were a series of wars fought in Southeast Asia from 1946 until 1979, between communist Indochinese forces against French, South Vietnamese, American, Cambodian, Laotian and Chinese forces.

* The Cambodian – Vietnamese War followed the Second Indochina War.

At the end of 1937, France sent Scoutmaster Raymond Schlemmer to the Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese areas of Indochina to oversee the setting up of the Fédération Indochinoise des Associations du Scoutisme ( FIAS, Indochinese Federation of Scouting Associations ) in all three regions.

A wax sculpture of Chuon Nath, the conservator of the modern Khmer language, at the Cambodian Cultural Village

On April 1970, US President Nixon announced to the American public that US and South Vietnamese ground forces had entered Cambodia in a campaign aimed at destroying NVA base areas in Cambodia ( see Cambodian Incursion ).

According to Democratic Kampuchea's version of party history, the Viet Minh's failure to negotiate a political role for the KPRP at the 1954 Geneva Conference represented a betrayal of the Cambodian movement, which still controlled large areas of the countryside and which commanded at least 5, 000 armed men.

The Vietnamese portion of the Phnom Penh railway would begin with a junction of the North-South Railway at Di An Railway Station, and would end in Lộc Ninh, Binh Phuoc Province, close to the Cambodian border, linking up with a similar project on the Cambodian side.

Despite his actions in deposing Sihanouk, Nol was a firm believer in traditional Cambodian hierarchy: after Sihanouk had been removed he prostrated himself at the Queen Mother's feet in order to ask forgiveness.

Clashes between Vietnamese and Cambodian communists at the common border began in 1975.

According to APSARA, the official Cambodian agency charged with overseeing the management of Angkor, " vandalism has multiplied at a phenomenal rate, employing local populations to carry out the actual thefts, heavily armed intermediaries transport objects, often in tanks or armored personnel carriers, often for sale across the Cambodian border.

The increasing number of tourists, which the Cambodian government hopes will reach three million by 2010, exerts pressure on the archaeological sites at Angkor by walking and climbing on the ( mostly ) sandstone monuments at Angkor.

An extra day or an extra 30-day month is intercalated at regular intervals ; Thai, Lao, and Cambodian versions do not add an extra day to years with an extra month.

In Cambodia, it is used among the ethnic Lao population of the province of Stung Treng and is used in lakhon ken, a Cambodian dance drama genre that features the khene as the premiere instrument .< ref >< http :// www. jiras. se / lakhaon2010 / kraythong / info. html >; pictures of performance with the instrument can be seen at < http :// www. jiras. se / lakhaon2010 / kraythong / index. html ></ ref >< ref > Referred to as ' Ken Theatre ' or lakhaon ken in < http :// unesdoc. unesco. org / images / 0013 / 001352 / 135258eb. pdf

During the period of the second course at the Academy, a Cambodian Buddhist Monk, the Reverend Mahathera V. Dharmawara, known as ' Bhante ', came to Sherborne at Bennett's invitation.

Continuing their border-clearing operations, three North Vietnamese regiments asserted heavy pressure on the U. S. Special Forces camp at Bu Prang, in Quang Duc Province, five kilometers from the Cambodian border.

On 6 March 1999, the general was captured by the Cambodian army near the Thai border and brought to Phnom Penh, where he joined former comrade Khang Khek Ieu (" Duch ") at the Military Prosecution Department Detention Facility.

The North Vietnamese pressured the Cambodian communists to accept the terms of the peace accords ; their interests lay more in keeping the war active at a low level ( tying down South Vietnamese troops in the process ) than in an outright victory for the Khmer Rouge.

The decision to form a separate Cambodian communist party had been taken at the ICP congress in February the same year.

According to Democratic Kampuchea's version of party history, the Viet Minh's failure to negotiate a political role for the KPRP at the 1954 Geneva Conference represented a betrayal of the Cambodian movement, which still controlled large areas of the countryside and which commanded at least 5, 000 armed men.

In late May, at about the same time that the United States launched an air strike against the oil refinery at Kampong Saom, following the Mayagüez incident, Vietnamese forces seized the Cambodian island of Poulo Wai.