Travelers Digest
Feb-2007
Cambodia;
Facts, information & History
Cambodia with almost 15 million people has definitely seen it's share
of tradgy, but holds dearly to a way of life that began
nearly 1000 years ago. With Phenom Phen it's capital is by far one of the
most poorest, but interesting countries I have ever toured. Cambodia is
the successor state of the once powerful Hindu and Buddhist Khmer Empire, which ruled most of
the Indochinese Peninsula between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries.
A citizen of Cambodia is usually identified as "Cambodian" or "Khmer",
which strictly refers to ethnic Khmers. Most Cambodians are Theravada
Buddhists of Khmer extraction, but the country also has a substantial
number of predominantly Muslim Cham, as well as ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese
and small animist hill tribes.
The country shares a border with Thailand to its west and northwest, with
Laos to its northeast, and with Vietnam to its east and southeast. In the
south it faces the Gulf of Thailand. The geography of Cambodia is
dominated by the Mekong river (colloquial Khmer: Tonle Thom or "the great
river") and the Tonlé Sap ("the fresh water lake"), an important source of
fish. The low geography of Cambodia's fertile areas means much of the
country sits nearly below sea level, and consequently the Tonle Sap River
reverses its water flow in the wet season, carrying water from the Mekong
back into the Tonle Sap Lake and surrounding flood plain.
Cambodia's main industries are garments and tourism. In 2006, foreign
visitors had surpassed the 1.7 million mark. In 2005, oil and natural gas
deposits were found beneath Cambodia's territorial water, and once
commercial extraction begins in 2009 or early 2010, the oil revenues could
have a profound impact on the future of Cambodia's economy.
Angkor Wat, renowned Hindu temple complex at Ângkôr, the region that
served from 802 until 1295 as the capital of the Khmer Empire of Cambodia.
The large and well preserved temple is around a 40 minute ride from Siem
Reap.
Angkor Wat, renowned Hindu temple complex at Ângkôr, the region that
served from 802 until 1295 as the capital of the Khmer Empire of Cambodia,
now a destination for Buddhist pilgrims. Built for King Suryavarman II in
the 12th century, Angkor Wat is the most famous temple in Cambodia and is
probably the largest religious monument ever constructed.
As a sepulchre the temple was built facing west (the direction taken by
the dead in going to their next life, in Hindu belief), rather than facing
east, which was traditional for Hindu temples. Taking more than 30 years
to build, the layout of the complex was conceived as an architectural
allegory of the Hindu cosmology (world concept). At the center of the
complex stands a temple with five lotus-shaped towers, a larger central
tower, and four smaller surrounding towers.
Some of Angkor Wat's bas-reliefs, inscriptions, suffered damage at the
height of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge movement in the 1960s and 1970s.
Angkor Wat fell to the Cham army from northern Cambodia in 1177, after
which the complex proper began to fall into ruin. It was then reclaimed,
though not inhabited, by Khmer King Jayavarman VII when he defeated the
Chams soon after the beginning of his reign in 1181. Both Angkor Wat and
Angkor Thum, Jayavarman VII's royal city to the north, were altered by
subsequent inhabitants.
Photo of Angkor Thum Pillaged
by Thai invaders in the 15th century, they were expanded by later rulers
of Cambodia, some of whom replaced existing aspects altogether. In the
1400s the Ângkôr area was abandoned as a political capital for reasons of
security and, after the Thai invasion of 1431, was not permanently
inhabited as a capital again. Angkor Wat was intermittently inhabited by
Buddhist monks, and around 1550 portions of its bas-reliefs were finally
completed. It subsequently became a destination for Buddhist pilgrims from
all over the world.
Killing Fields of Cambodia Former
school in Phnom Phen used as prison where Cambodians were interrogated,
tortured and murdered
(Pic.
on right is the school used for prison)
Khmer Rouge, Communist movement that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. The
regime, which was headed by Cambodian guerrilla commander
Pol Pot, (left Pic.) came to power after
years of guerrilla warfare. While in power the Khmer Rouge murdered,
worked to death, or killed by starvation close to
1.7 million Cambodians, or more than one-fifth of the country’s
population.
Cambodia was a French protectorate under the nominal control of a king
from 1863 until 1953, when France granted Cambodia its independence. At
the same time, Communist forces known as the Viet Minh were engaged in an
independence struggle against France in neighboring Vietnam; the Viet
Minh, which had recruited an army of Cambodian allies in common cause
against French colonialism, defeated France in 1954. Although Cambodian
guerrilla forces and the Viet Minh controlled much of Cambodia by 1954,
the Geneva Conference, which marked the end of the war in 1954, left
Cambodia in the hands of its monarch, Norodom Sihanouk.
The cells (Pic of cells in school prison in
Phenom Phen) As
political factionalism grew in Cambodia, Sihanouk began to crack down on
his opponents, including Communists. The Communists fell into two groups:
Vietnamese-trained veterans of the independence struggle, including former
Buddhist monks and their peasant followers; and younger urban radicals
such as Pol Pot. While the former were major targets of Sihanouk’s
repression, Pol Pot and his followers were left largely untouched because
of their privileged backgrounds and French education. This group gradually
assumed leadership of the Communist movement. After Pol Pot became
secretary general of the Workers’ Party of Kâmpŭchéa (later renamed the
Communist Party of Kâmpŭchéa, or CPK) in 1963, the party made a concerted
effort to seize control of Cambodia.
By 1966, the American escalation of the war in neighboring Vietnam began
to have a
destabilizing effect on Cambodia. North Vietnamese and National
Liberation Front (NLF) forces, made up of Vietnamese
Communist guerrillas, established logistical bases and supply routes in
Cambodia. While Sihanouk attempted to keep his country out of the Vietnam
War, his political repression increasingly drove veterans of Cambodia’s
anti-French struggle back into dissidence, where Pol Pot’s CPK drew them
into its plans for rebellion. The CPK launched a revolt against Sihanouk
in 1967. Sihanouk termed the rebels Khmer Rouge (French for "Red Khmers"),
so-called after Cambodia’s predominant ethnic group, the Khmers. Communist
insurgency campaigns continued until the Khmer Rouge took control of the
government in 1975. (photos of some of those killed)
Skulls & bones of some of those killed
(Pic of skulls)
In
1969, embroiled in Vietnam, the United States began a secret B-52
bombardment of Cambodia in an effort to knock out strongholds of the North
Vietnamese and NLF. A year later Sihanouk was overthrown by U.S.-backed
General Lon
Nol. The Vietnam War spilled across the border, and the conflict tore
Cambodia apart for five years. During the secret bombing American planes
dropped 490,000 metric tons (540,000 tons) of bombs, killing about 100,000
Khmer peasants by August 1973, when the bombardment ended. Meanwhile, the Khmer
Rouge, aided by Sihanouk and the North Vietnamese, who didn't want a
pro-U.S. Cambodian government, battled Lon Nol’s government for control of
Cambodia.
Killing field outside of Phenom Phen (Pics) On
April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge armies defeated the Lon Nol regime and
took the capital, Phnom Penh, immediately
dispersing
almost all of its more than 2 million inhabitants to a life of hard
agricultural labor in the countryside. Other cities and towns were also
evacuated. The Khmer Rouge renamed the country Democratic Kâmpŭchéa (DK),
and for the next four years the regime, headed by Pol Pot as prime
minister and other members of the Standing Committee of the CPK Central
Committee, terrorized the population. Almost 1.7 million Cambodians were
killed, including members of minority and religious groups, people
suspected of disagreeing with the party, intellectuals, merchants, and
bureaucrats. (Pic on left;
The inscription reads how they hung a
microphone to record the tortured moans of their victims) (Pic
on right; Dakota in The Killing Fields,
02-16-07)
Mass grave which contained bodies of 100 women and
children (Pic. of mass grave)
Millions of other Cambodians were forcibly relocated,
deprived of food, tortured, or sent into forced labor. Of about 425,000
Chinese Cambodians, only about half survived the Khmer Rouge regime. While
most of about 450,000 Vietnamese Cambodians had been expelled by the Lon
Nol regime, more were driven out by the Khmer Rouge; the rest were tracked
down and murdered. Of about 250,000 Muslim Chams (an ethnic group
inhabiting the rural areas of Cambodia) in 1975, 90,000 were massacred,
and the survivors were dispersed. By 1979, 15 percent of the rural Khmer
population and 25 percent of the urban Khmer population had perished.
Memorial & Shrine to those murdered in the "killing field" (Pic)
The most horrific slaughter took place during the second half of 1978 in a
purge of the Eastern Zone on
the
Vietnam border, where resistance to the Khmer Rouge was strong. At least
250,000 people were killed in the worst single massacre of the Khmer Rouge
period. Religion in Cambodia was also affected by the Khmer Rouge regime.
Buddhism was completely suppressed from 1975 to 1979; many monks were
defrocked and sent into forced labor, while others were killed. The Khmer
Rouge also attacked the neighboring countries of Vietnam, Thailand, and
Laos in an attempt to reclaim territories lost by Cambodia many centuries
before. (Pic) Skulls of
the victims
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.
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. However, as to date
there have been no charges or trials.
Cambodia
has an area of about 181,040 square
kilometers (69,900 sq. mi), sharing an 800 kilometre (500 mi) border with
Thailand in the north and west, a 541 kilometre (336 mi) border with Laos
in the northeast, and a 1,228 kilometre (763 mi) border with Vietnam in
the east and southeast. It has 443 kilometres (275 mi) of coastline along
the Gulf of Thailand.
The most distinctive geographical feature is the lacustrine plain, formed
by the inundations of the Tonle Sap (Great Lake), measuring about 2,590
square kilometres (1,000 sq. mi) during the dry season and expanding to
about 24,605 square kilometres (9,500 sq. mi) during the rainy season.
This densely populated plain, which is devoted to wet rice cultivation, is
the heartland of Cambodia. Most (about 75%) of the country lies at
elevations of less than 100 metres (330 ft) above sea level, the
exceptions being the Cardamom Mountains (highest elevation 1,813 m / 5,948
ft) and their southeast extension the Dâmrei Mountains ("Elephant
Mountains") (elevation range 500–1,000 m or 1,640–3,280 ft), as well the
steep escarpment of the Dângrêk Mountains (average elevation 500 m / 1,640
ft) along the border with Thailand's Isan region. The highest elevation of
Cambodia is Phnom Aoral, near Pursat in the centre of the country, at
1,813 metres (5,948 feet).
Temperatures range from 10°–38°C (50°–100°F) and Cambodia experiences
tropical monsoons. Southwest monsoons blow inland bringing moisture-laden
winds from the Gulf of Thailand and Indian Ocean from May to October, and
the country experiences the heaviest precipitation from September to
October. The northeast monsoon ushers in the dry season, which lasts from
November to March, with the driest period from January to February.
Cambodia has two distinct seasons, the rainy season which runs from May to
October (temperatures up to 40°C with accompanying high humidity), and the
dry season from November to April (temperatures drop to 25°C to 35°C).
Temperatures can reach 40°C by late April. The best months to visit
Cambodia are November to January when temperatures and humidity are lower.
Demographics. Cambodia is one of the most land mined
country's
in the
world;
gifts from America! The USA also dropped
more bombs on Laos & Cambodia than all the bombs ever dropped in all the
previous wars combined! Their goal, as quoted by USA military, was to bomb them back to the
stone age!!! Who died and made America the supreme entity? It's easy to
blame their government, but aren't they elected by their citizens??? (Pic.
on right is of a boy in Vietnam that had most
of his left leg and left arm blown off by a landmine in 2002.)
Cambodia is ethnically
homogeneous. More than 90% of its population is of Khmer origin and speaks
the Khmer language, the country's official language. The remainder include
Chinese, Vietnamese, Cham, Khmer Loeu, and native Indians.
The Khmer language is a member of the Mon-Khmer subfamily of the
Austroasiatic language group. French, once the lingua franca of Indochina
and still spoken by some, mostly older Cambodians as a second language,
remains the language of instruction in various schools and universities
that are often funded by the government of France. Cambodian French, a
remnant of the country's colonial past, is a dialect found in Cambodia and
is frequently used in government. However, in recent decades, many younger
Cambodians and those in the business-class have favoured learning English,
which is gradually becoming more widely spoken.
The dominant religion Theravada Buddhism was suppressed by the Khmer Rouge
but has since experienced a revival. Islam (5%) and Christianity (2%) are
also practiced.
Civil war and its aftermath have had a marked effect on the Cambodian
population. The median age is 20.6 years, with more than 50% of the
population younger than 25. At 0.95 males/female, Cambodia has the most
female-biased sex ratio in the Greater Mekong Subregion [3]. In the
Cambodian population over 65, the female to male ratio is 1.6:1.
UNICEF has designated Cambodia the third most mined country in the
world, attributing over 60,000 civilian deaths and thousands more
maimed or injured since 1970 to the unexploded landmines left behind in
rural areas. The majority of the victims are children herding animals
or playing in the fields, but cattle and even hundreds of
elephants have been killed or extensively
injured. Adults that survive landmines often require
amputation of one or more limbs and have to resort to begging for
survival. In 2006, the number of landmines casualties in Cambodia have took
a decrease of more than 50% compared to 2005, with the number of
landmines victims down from 800 in 2005 to less than 400 in 2006.
The numbers remain high for rural areas and in Laos and Vietnam. Even one
is way too many!
And so my journey continues...next stop...Laos
and then onto Vietnam, one of my favorite
countries. After that...who knows?
Data and photos were compiled and taken in Feb. 07 by Michael Smith.
Page contents, format, and pics. are the sole property of Travelers Digest
and may not be copied, posted or retained either mechanically or
electronically and may not be used by anyone for any reason whatsoever without the
written consent of Travelers Digest or Michael Smith. The map is from
Encyclopedia
Britannica
Inc.
began
nearly 1000 years ago. With Phenom Phen it's capital is by far one of the
most poorest, but interesting countries I have ever toured. Cambodia is
the successor state of the once powerful
Hindu and Buddhist Khmer Empire, which ruled most of
the Indochinese Peninsula between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries.
Pillaged
by Thai invaders in the 15th century, they were expanded by later rulers
of Cambodia, some of whom replaced existing aspects altogether. In the
1400s the Ângkôr area was abandoned as a political capital for reasons of
security and, after the Thai invasion of 1431, was not permanently
inhabited as a capital again. Angkor Wat was intermittently inhabited by
Buddhist monks, and around 1550 portions of its bas-reliefs were finally
completed. It subsequently became a destination for Buddhist pilgrims from
all over the world.
Former
school in Phnom Phen used as prison where Cambodians were interrogated,
tortured and murdered
(Pic.
on right is the school used for prison)
As
political factionalism grew in Cambodia, Sihanouk began to crack down on
his opponents, including Communists. The Communists fell into two groups:
Vietnamese-trained veterans of the independence struggle, including former
Buddhist monks and their peasant followers; and younger urban radicals
such as Pol Pot. While the former were major targets of Sihanouk’s
repression, Pol Pot and his followers were left largely untouched because
of their privileged backgrounds and French education. This group gradually
assumed leadership of the Communist movement. After Pol Pot became
secretary general of the Workers’ Party of Kâmpŭchéa (later renamed the
Communist Party of Kâmpŭchéa, or CPK) in 1963, the party made a concerted
effort to seize control of Cambodia.
destabilizing effect on Cambodia. North Vietnamese and National
Liberation Front (NLF) forces, made up of Vietnamese
Communist guerrillas, established logistical bases and supply routes in
Cambodia. While Sihanouk attempted to keep his country out of the Vietnam
War, his political repression increasingly drove veterans of Cambodia’s
anti-French struggle back into dissidence, where Pol Pot’s CPK drew them
into its plans for rebellion. The CPK launched a revolt against Sihanouk
in 1967. Sihanouk termed the rebels Khmer Rouge (French for "Red Khmers"),
so-called after Cambodia’s predominant ethnic group, the Khmers. Communist
insurgency campaigns continued until the Khmer Rouge took control of the
government in 1975. (photos of some of those killed)
In
1969, embroiled in Vietnam, the United States began a secret B-52
bombardment of Cambodia in an effort to knock out strongholds of the North
Vietnamese and NLF. A year later Sihanouk was overthrown by U.S.-backed
General Lon
Nol. The Vietnam War spilled across the border, and the conflict tore
Cambodia apart for five years. During the secret bombing American planes
dropped 490,000 metric tons (540,000 tons) of bombs, killing about 100,000
Khmer peasants by August 1973, when the bombardment ended. Meanwhile, the Khmer
Rouge, aided by Sihanouk and the North Vietnamese, who didn't want a
pro-U.S. Cambodian government, battled Lon Nol’s government for control of
Cambodia.
On
April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge armies defeated the Lon Nol regime and
took the capital, Phnom Penh, immediately
dispersing
almost all of its more than 2 million inhabitants to a life of hard
agricultural labor in the countryside. Other cities and towns were also
evacuated. The Khmer Rouge renamed the country Democratic Kâmpŭchéa (DK),
and for the next four years the regime, headed by Pol Pot as prime
minister and other members of the Standing Committee of the CPK Central
Committee, terrorized the population. Almost 1.7 million Cambodians were
killed, including members of minority and religious groups, people
suspected of disagreeing with the party, intellectuals, merchants, and
bureaucrats. (Pic on left;
The inscription reads how they hung a
microphone to record the tortured moans of their victims) (Pic
on right; Dakota in The Killing Fields,
02-16-07)
the
Vietnam border, where resistance to the Khmer Rouge was strong. At least
250,000 people were killed in the worst single massacre of the Khmer Rouge
period. Religion in Cambodia was also affected by the Khmer Rouge regime.
Buddhism was completely suppressed from 1975 to 1979; many monks were
defrocked and sent into forced labor, while others were killed. The Khmer
Rouge also attacked the neighboring countries of Vietnam, Thailand, and
Laos in an attempt to reclaim territories lost by Cambodia many centuries
before. (Pic) Skulls of
the victims
world;
gifts from America! The USA also dropped
more bombs on Laos & Cambodia than all the bombs ever dropped in all the
previous wars combined! Their goal, as quoted by USA military, was to bomb them back to the
stone age!!! Who died and made America the supreme entity? It's easy to
blame their government, but aren't they elected by their citizens??? (Pic.
on right is of a boy in Vietnam that had most
of his left leg and left arm blown off by a landmine in 2002.)
Civil war and its aftermath have had a marked effect on the Cambodian
population. The median age is 20.6 years, with more than 50% of the
population younger than 25. At 0.95 males/female, Cambodia has the most
female-biased sex ratio in the Greater Mekong Subregion [3]. In the
Cambodian population over 65, the female to male ratio is 1.6:1.
UNICEF has designated Cambodia the third most mined country in the
world, attributing over 60,000 civilian deaths and thousands more
maimed or injured since 1970 to the unexploded landmines left behind in
rural areas. The majority of the victims are children herding animals
or playing in the fields, but cattle and even hundreds of
elephants have been killed or extensively
injured. Adults that survive landmines often require
amputation of one or more limbs and have to resort to begging for
survival. In 2006, the number of landmines casualties in Cambodia have took
a decrease of more than 50% compared to 2005, with the number of
landmines victims down from 800 in 2005 to less than 400 in 2006.
The numbers remain high for rural areas and in Laos and Vietnam. Even one
is way too many!