The Ancient Khmer Empire
History of Cambodia
To understand Cambodia today, it's important to understand it's history and how that lead to the present day challenges it faces.
In 802 AD, the Khmer people seceded from the kingdom of Chenia under the reign of King Jayavarman II. This marked the beginning of what some have called The Great Khmer Empire - the greatest empire in the history of Southeast Asia. The 600 years that followed saw powerful Kings dominate much of present-day Southeast Asia, from the borders of Myanmar east to the South China Sea and north to Laos. It was during this period that the Khmer kings built the most extensive concentration of religious temples in the world – the Angkor Wat temple complex. This complex covers 155 sq miles in the province of Siem Reap and remains one of the most visited historic tourist sites in in the world. Recently, through laser scanning technology, entire underground cities were discovered under the jungles surrounding Angkor Wat, making the enormity of Angkor Wat far larger than archaeologists and historians ever thought possible.
As the Angkor period ended, Cambodia's capital eventually moved south to the present-day capital of Phnom Penh. It was during the post-Angkorean era that there was a widespread conversion from Hinduism to Buddhism, as illustrated on the temple carvings of Angkor Wat and temples throughout the country. The 15th to 17th centuries represented a time of foreign influence when expansionist Siam (modern day Thailand) and Vietnam fought over Cambodia. By the mid-1800s, Cambodia, like most other countries in Asia, came under increasing pressure from European colonial powers. In 1863, King Norodom signed a Protectorate Treaty with France to keep his country safe from the regional claims to Cambodian land by neighboring Vietnam and Siam. The influence of France during this time can be seen even today in architecture located in the capital city , Phnom Penh. In 1941 during WWII, the Japanese occupied Cambodia and briefly ousted the French from the country (the Japanese remained until their surrender to Allied forces October of 1945). During the occupation, the Cambodians did not experience the usual harsh treatment inflicted by the Japanese, and with the French gone, the reigning king of Cambodia, King Sihanouk, began mounting an intensive campaign to persuade the French government to grant complete independence and Cambodian self-government. In 1953, less than 10 years later, he succeeded in winning independence for Cambodia, effectively ending 90 years under the power of the French protectorate. King Sihanouk then abdicated the throne to his father and took the reins of government himself as head of state. Throughout the remaining 1950s and on into the 1960s, Cambodia was self-sufficient and prospered in many areas.
But storm clouds were gathering.
Angkor Wat, in the province of Siem Reap, Cambodia
The Reign of Terror
In 1975 a despicable Cambodian leader, Pol Pot, who had studied Marxist ideology abroad, returned to Cambodia and eventually seized power.
In 1970 a military coup toppled then head of state, Prince Norodom Sihanouk. He was forced to enter into a political coalition with Pol Pot, who started to gain increasing support from the people. A bloody civil war followed that lasted 5 years, killing a million Cambodians (but the worst was still to come). In 1975, when the country was at its weakest, Pol Pot and his Communist Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodian military) overthrew the government, seized control of the capital and thereby the nation. During a brief window of time, many Cambodians escaped to nearby Thailand, preferring life in a refugee camp over what they saw coming. Pol Pot's vision was simple: eradicate all Western influence and turn the nation's clock back to the Middle Ages - reducing it to a nation of peasant rice farmers under his dictatorship. He declared that the nation would start over at "Year Zero". He immediately evacuated the cities and closed the borders, isolating Cambodia from the rest of the world. Those citizens who were not slaughtered were relocated to labor camps. He forcefully abolished money, private property, religion - destroying anything that even hinted of Western culture- taking particular aim at intellectuals and anyone with any education. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, business owners, artists, musicians, even those wearing eye glasses or who knew a foreign language - all, once identified, were arrested, tortured and brutally executed. Some historians regard the Pol Pot regime as one of the most barbaric and murderous of the 20th century.
In 1979, Pol Pot overreached and invaded Vietnam in an attempt to expand his borders and ideology. In response, Vietnam fought back and successfully invaded Cambodia, capturing Phnom Penh and eventually ending the Reign of Terror. Pol Pot and most of his leaders, fled to the jungle where they continued as an insurgent guerrilla force and part of a government in exile until 1990. Unbelievably, the United Nations at that time recognized them as Cambodia's only legitimate representative. Even the United States, in it's determined commitment to stop Vietnam at all cost, supplied finances to Pol Pot and his army. Eventually, the influence of the Khmer Rouge began to decrease following a 1991 ceasefire agreement, and the movement completely collapsed by the end of the decade. In 1997 a Khmer Rouge splinter group captured Pol Pot and placed him under house arrest. On April 15, 1998, he died in his sleep at the age of 72 due to heart failure. He was never brought to justice. Eight years later, in 2006, a United Nations-backed tribunal convicted only three additional Khmer Rouge leaders. Finally, in 2021, afer a full 46 years following Pol Pot's initial take over of the country, two more Khmer Rouge leaders were tried and found guity of Genocide (for the extermination of the Cham Muslims and ethinic Vietnamese who lived in Cambodia at the time of Pol Pot's regin of terror, and were exterminated along with the Khmer people). The rest of his military leaders were NEVER brought to justice
- and the wound they inflicted on Cambodia hasn't healed to this day.
Tuol Sleng
The Khmer Rouge was particularly brutal, and from 1975 - 1979 , an estimated 2.5 million Cambodians - and many thousands of foreigners - were starved to death, worked to death in labor camps, or were held in prisons where they were detained, interrogated, then savagely tortured and executed. Some estimates place the death toll even higher. Pol Pot converted schools, civic buildings and pagodas into torture and execution centers. The most notorious of these was Tuol Sleng (known as SR-21). SR-21 was located in the capitol city of Phnom Penh and the classrooms in this former high school became a nightmarish slaughterhouse for over 20,000 Khmer people, many of them woman and children.
Only 7 prisoners are known to have survived.
For more please see:
http://www.killingfieldsmuseum.com/s21-victims.html
For more please read:
"Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot" by David P. Chandler
"First they Killed my Father" by Loung Ung
"Alive in the Killing Fields: Surviving the Khmer Rouge Genocide" by Nawuth Keat with Martha E. Kendall
"Survivor: The Triumph of an Ordinary Man" by Chun Mey
Also, consider renting the 1984 film "The Killing Fields" by Goldcrest Films
a row of skulls and bones
AFTER THE fALL
Healing a Nation
In 1979, as the borders re-opened, the world caught their first glimpse of the horror that was Cambodia. On arriving in Phnom Penh after the defeat of the Khmer Rouge, journalist James Pringle wrote in the New York Times:
"I had known Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge takeover. In less than four years, it seems to have regressed to the 14th century, at least in the countryside. As for Phnom Penh, it was still largely devoid of people; civilians who did manage to enter were facing starvation, picking up odd rice grains in the street".
Just before the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975, 2,000,000 people lived in the capital city of Phenom Penh. In 1979, there were less than 100,000. A German journalist, who visited Phnom Penh as the boarders re-opened, told National Geographic: "there were so many corpses lying around that helicopters flew overhead spraying disinfectants".
Even so, slowly people began to move back. The years that followed were heart wrenching, as survivors sought out the living and grieved over their dead.
2 children on the street
Cambodia today
"As long as it is day... "
Modern Christianity in Cambodia is relatively young—less than 30 years old. Nearly all evidence of its earlier presence was wiped out during the brutal Khmer Rouge regime. While the gospel has begun to take root again, it grows in the shadow of a nation still healing from deep wounds.
Today, Cambodia's political climate remains fragile. The country is led by Prime Minister Hun Manet of the Cambodian People’s Party (formerly the Kampuchean People’s Revolutionary Party), alongside a symbolic monarch, His Royal Highness King Norodom Sihamoni. Human rights concerns persist, and freedom of expression is limited.
In the midst of this, a generation of young, hopeful Cambodians is emerging—many of whom were raised in silence about the horrors of the past. Their families, especially those in the countryside still carry the trauma of genocide, but avoid speaking of it.
Foreign aid and investment—primarily from China, Japan, Korea, and the European Union—are the main drivers of economic development. Tourism has also brought growth, but the benefits are rarely felt by the average Cambodian. In this complex landscape, the Church is slowly rising.
Despite restrictions on open evangelism and the distribution of Christian literature, the Cambodian government currently maintains an openness and gratitude to the Christian community. This creates a rare and precious opportunity for believers to serve, support, and share the love of Christ through action, relationship and sharing the Gospel. The door is open—for now. And the time to step through it is now. Jesus said:
“As long as it is day, we must do the works of Him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.”
— John 9:4