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Water, light floating and moon praying festival are always held annually within three days, 14th 15th day of the waxing moon and 1st day of the waning moon in Kattika (name of the 12th month of lunar calendar that between October and November of solar calendar).

This festival consists of boats racing (men-women) from morning until evening and at night they float the decorated light of each institution.

Especially fireworks make every body in the festival happier. On the 15th of waxing moon of Kattika and the 2nd day of the festival, people pray the moon and Ak-ambok.

The source of Water Festival



The carving boat of Khmer group on a grand bronze drum. 3B.C National Museum According to book called “the History of Cambodia” shows ­that in 3rd B.C, Khmer society had developed itself. They could make the boat as carving on the grand bronze drum in National Museum and discovery of wooden boats in Kampuchea Krom (lower Cambodia). Until Fu-nan period, King Fan che-man had established the ships in purposes of oversea war and business.

The carving boat of Khmer group on a grand bronze drum. 3B.C National Museum

This activity was recorded by Chinese historian in their history. Then in Chenla period, Cambodia was divided into two parts, the higher and the lower. So the uses of boats or ships are very importance for Lower Chenla in transportation, businesses and war. Further more, the sculptures at Bayon and Banteay Chmar temples mentioned Jayavarman7 leaded the navy troops by boats to overcome Cham soldiers. This war aimed to liberate Cambodia from enemy (1177-1181). We could see Jayavarman7 standing on the boat, daringly hold an arch and long stick among the navy forces.

Refer to the document of board contesting of Mores and Customs Commission Nº 19-004, written by Mr. Thach Pain, called Pang, a lay man in sub-Buddhist Institute at Klang province, Kampuchea Krom, mentioned that in Long Vek time (1528 AD), King Ang Chan 1 appointed Paññea Tat Siddhaphubal as a feudal lord to govern Kampuchea Krom, Basak district. This king had organized his navy troops as follows

- Group 1, called the front line fighter and trained to fight with the boats profile as the boats contesting we have had every day.

- Group 2, called the back force and trained to fight with oaring boats which have two row seats the same as the boats we have had every day.

- Group 3, called Basak navy, a big boat with roof at the front part, oaring materials, sail, no wall etc. and it was similar to Basak boat. So it is called Pok Chay boat. It was the cargo boat. The fighting ­strategies, used by the feudal lord of Kampuchea Krom, depended on the four regional governors to restrict law and other regulations.

They prepared the festival while on the full moon in Kattika. Those governors gathered all forces to conduct “the Combined Fighting Training” for a day and a night every year at the strong hold of feudal lord.

Historically, we can conclude that the boat contesting was celebrated from pre-Angkor period the same as the other countries, China and India in the past. It shows the Khmer strong navy force and derived from combined fighting training in the past. Further more, in Buddhism, we found the scripture titled “dhammapadatthakatha” volume 3, page 137 mentioned that Nagas had created boat for Buddha in “Attano buppa kamma vathu” story.

Sources of light floating festival

There are three scriptures mention about this festival:
- Dathavongsa in Pali language tells that Buddha’s four canine teeth were placed at five sites: Second level of paradise, Dragon world, Ganthiara, Dantapura and Kalingaratth.

- In Phanaravara Pali scripture, chapter puddhanamakkaragatha said that the Buddha’s feet were placed at five sites: suvannamalikabarvata, suvannavarvata, sumanakutabarvata, yonakapuri and at nammada stream.

- The praised words of Buddha’s feet in Pali and Khmer also mention about Buddha’s feet as in Phanaravara Pali too. Whereas the books are the sources, Cambodian Buddha’s disciples always perform floating light festival at Assuj. For king always conducts this festival on14th 15th day of the waxing moon and 1st day of the waning moon in Kattika for canine teeth at dragon world, Buddha’s feet at nammada stream and where else as mention above. They believe that it is the good action for people and nation.

Source of moon praying- Aak Ambok festival

n baramattha dipani atdhakatha cariyapitaka scripture, pali language, said that in the early this phaddakabba, Preah Podhisat as born as Sasa pandit (a rabbit). On the day of full moon, Sasa pandit dedicated his meat as teanbaramattha barami to others who want and himself will be born as Buddha. Preah Indda knows this and turns to be an old Brahman to beg for Preah Podhisat’s meat. Preah Podhisat told an old Brahman to burn the light and he will jump into the fire. But fire could not burn Preah Podhisat and the old Brahman carried him to Chanda (moon) immediately. Brahman draw Preah Podhisat picture on the moon and we can see it until now. Believing in this fact, at the night of full moon in Kattika, all Cambodian people bring foods, cake such as pounded rice (called Ambok), banana, coconuts and other things to pray the moon.

In conclusion, Water, light floating and moon praying festival have two meanings. The first one is to keep our good traditional, custom and religion of our people and another one is to indicate about the development of all fields in the country. It shows the happiness, friendship, braveness etc. of our people to combat the enemies, nature in their living. We have to prevent these heritages from dangers. This festival also to show enthusiasm for water that is the special thing which can create life and prosperity to human being and the abundant of agricultural products that come from water and fertilized land I our country.
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Koh Rong Island is a Cambodian Island in the Gulf of Thailand, at about 40km off the coast of Sihanoukville. Actually, the island is deserted, undeveloped and untouched.

It's a secret island. But it will be soon one of the famous touristic destination of Cambodia. The island is certainly the most beautiful island of the Kompong Som Region. A snowdrift bay, covered by a crystal clear and turquoise water, stretches on several kilometers. At the center, a jungle with thousands of coconut palms and waterfalls invade the island. Paradise found on Koh Rong !

The Island has three unique attributes: location, raw beauty and size.
Firstly, Koh Rong is located in the center of the Indochina Riviera only 20 kilometers (13 miles) off the coast of Sihanuk ville, Cambodia’s leading resort destination.



The Indochina Riviera is influenced by the French Colonialism and stretches across 600 kilometers (375 miles) of Thai-Cambodian-Vietnamese coastline comprising untouched islands, pristine beaches, calm turquoise waterways (no exposure to tsunami or cyclones) and virgin rainforests. On the doorstep of China, and only a one hour flight from the international flight hubs of Bangkok and Singapore, the Island is easily accessible for tourists from all over the world.

Koh Rong is currently a wilderness and will be completely master planned. The quality and aesthetics of all of the Island’s development will be controlled by a building code dictated by the Master Developer. The Governments of Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam have allocated most of the desirable land in the region to tourism developers or zoned land as nature reserves; therefore large greenfield sites suitable for master planning are limited.
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Hundreds of Khmer Krom farmers are protesting in front of government offices to demand the return of ancestral land, arguing that they do not wish to disrupt Vietnamese society but merely want Vietnam to respect the rights of Indigenous peoples.



Below is a press release issued by the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation:
According to Radio Free Asia (RFA) broadcasted in Khmer and in Vietnamese, there are hundreds of the Indigenous Khmer-Krom farmers gathering in front of the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam office located at 210 Vo Thi Sau, Phuong 7, Quan 3, TP HCM to demand the Vietnamese authorities return their confiscated farmlands.

Some of the farmers have claimed that they have filed complaints for decades and today receive no compensation or satisfactory results from the Vietnamese officials. The Indigenous Khmer-Krom farmers have been sleeping on the streets in front of the National Assembly since Friday night [07 December 2007] (Vietnam local time).

For many of the protestors, it was a long way for them to travel from their villages to Prey Nokor (Ho Chi Minh City) because the Vietnamese authorities tried to stop them from going to file the complaints at the office of the National Assembly. This is the third time that they have been forced to go to Prey Nokor. The Vietnam authority has promised to solve the issues, but did not take any follow up actions causing yet another peaceful protest to be conducted at this moment.



Instead of returning the confiscated farmlands to the Indigenous Khmer-Krom farmers, the Vietnam authorities are accusing those innocent Khmer-Krom farmers for disturbing the Vietnamese society. Protestors have claimed that Vietnamese authorities are threatening to arrest them if they do not return back to their villages immediately.
Testifying via RFA, a female Khmer-Krom farmer has appealed to international organizations, especially the United Nations to help them because they felt that they had no rights to live on their ancestral lands. They are farmers and yet all of their lands are confiscated. For centuries, the rich fertile lands of the Mekong Delta have been an essential element for the survival of the Khmer Krom people, providing plentiful food and water. Since Vietnam’s occupation of their lands, however, hundreds of thousands are finding themselves homeless and further entrenched in poverty.

Highly frustrated with Vietnam false promises, the protesters have said via RFA that they are willing to be killed if that was what takes for Vietnamese authorities to return their rightful land. Unwilling to comprise to the wishes of the protestors, Vietnam authorities are using intimidation tactics by sending the Vietnamese soldiers to the villages of the Khmer-Krom farmers to threaten their families.

On behalf of the Indigenous Khmer-Krom voiceless farmers, we seek your help in an international cooperation to urge Vietnam to respect the Human Rights of the Khmer-Krom people, especially the right to own their ancestral lands. Since Vietnam signed the recent adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on September 13, 2007, it should show respect and implement the Article 26 of the Declaration “Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories.”

If Vietnam did in fact take serious consideration into the land confiscation issues and implements appropriate and necessary policies, protests would not be a common occurrence. The protestors are not attempting to disturb the Vietnamese society as alleged by the Vietnamese authorities. The Khmer-Krom farmers are merely use a human rights instrument to bring to the surface a hidden problem that is a massive obstacle hindering them from living a fulfilled life as embedded in the Vietnamese constitution, international declarations and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
(Source: Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation)

No one knows for certain how long people have lived in what is now Cambodia, as studies of its prehistory are undeveloped. A carbon-l4 dating from a cave in northwestern Cambodia suggests that people using stone tools lived in the cave as early as 4000 bc, and rice has been grown on Cambodian soil since well before the 1st century ad. The first Cambodians likely arrived long before either of these dates. They probably migrated from the north, although nothing is known about their language or their way of life.

By the beginning of the 1st century ad, Chinese traders began to report the existence of inland and coastal kingdoms in Cambodia. These kingdoms already owed much to Indian culture, which provided alphabets, art forms, architectural styles, religions (Hinduism and Buddhism), and a stratified class system. Local beliefs that stressed the importance of ancestral spirits coexisted with the Indian religions and remain powerful today.

Cambodia's modem-day culture has its roots in the 1st to 6th centuries in a state referred to as Funan, known as the oldest Indianized state in Southeast Asia. It is from this period that evolved Cambodia's language, part of the Mon-Khmer family, which contains elements of Sanskrit, its ancient relig
ion of Hinduism and Buddhism. Historians have noted, for example, that Cambodians can be distinguished from their neighbors by their clothing - checkered scarves known as Kramas are worn instead of straw hats.

Funan gave way to the Angkor Empire with the rise to power of King Jayavarman II in 802. The following 600 years saw powerful Khmer 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 Khmer kings built the most extensive concentration of religious temples in the world - the Angkor temple complex. The most successful of Angkor's kings, Jayavarman II,
Indravarman I, Suryavarman II and Jayavarman VII, also devised a masterpiece of ancient engineering: a sophisticated irrigation system that includes barays (gigantic man-made lakes) and canals that ensured as many as three rice crops a year. Part of this system is still in use today.

The Khmer Kingdom (Funan)
Early Chinese writers referred to a kingdom in Cambodia that they called Funan. Modern-day archaeological findings provide evidence of a commercial society centered on the Mekong Delta that flourished from the 1st century to the 6th century. Among these findings are excavations of a port city from
the 1st century, located in the region of Oc-Eo in what is now southern Vietnam. Served by a network of canals, the city was an important trade link between India and China. Ongoing excavations in southern Cambodia have revealed the existence of another important city near the present-day village of Angkor Borei.

A group of inland kingdoms, known collectively to the Chinese as Zhenla, flourished in the 6th and 7th centuries from southern Cambodia to southern Laos. The first stone inscriptions in the Khmer language and the first brick and stone Hindu temples in Cambodia date from the Zhenla period.

Angkor Era
Bayon Temple, Angkor Thom The giant faces carved on the Bayon temple at the Angk
or Thum complex in northwestern Cambodia represent both the Buddha and King Jayavarman VII (ruled about 1130-1219). Although a Buddhist temple, Angkor Thum was modeled after the great Hindu temple complex of Angkor Wat.

In the early 9th century a Khmer (ethnic Cambodian) prince returned to Cambodia from abroad. He probably arrived from nearby Java or Sumatra, where he may have been held hostage by island kings who had asserted control over portions of the Southeast Asian mainland.

In a series of ceremonies at different sites, the prince declared himself ruler of a new independent kingdom, which unified several local principalities. His kingdom eventually came to be centered near present-day Siemreab in
northwestern Cambodia. The prince, known to his successors as Jayavarman II, inaugurated a cult honoring the Hindu god Shiva as a devaraja (Sanskrit term meaning "god-king"). The cult, which legitimized the king's rule by linking him with Shiva, persisted at the Cambodian court for more than two hundred years.

Between the early 9th century and the early 15th century, 26 monarchs ruled successively over the Khmer kingdom (known as Angkor, the modern name for its capital city).


King Jayavarman VII

The successors of Jayavarman II built the great temples for which Angkor is famous.
Historians have dated more than a thousand temple sites and over a thousand stone inscriptions (most of them on temple walls) to this era.
Notable among the Khmer builder-kings were Suyavarman II, who built the temple known as Angkor Wat in the mid-12th century, and Jayavarman VII, who built the Bayon temple at Angkor Thum and several other large Buddhist temples half a century later. Jayavarman VII, a fervent Buddhist, also built hospitals and rest houses along the
roads that crisscrossed the kingdom. Most of the monarchs, however, seem to have been more concerned with displaying and increasing their power than with the welfare of their subjects.
Ancient City of Angkor This map shows the layout of the ancient city of Angkor, capital of the Cambodian Khmer kingdom from the 9th century to the 15th century. The city's huge stone temples were both civic centers and religious symbols of the Hindu cosmos. Historians believe that Angkor's network of canals and barays (reservoirs) were used for irrigation.

At its greatest extent, in the 12th century, the Khmer kingdom encompassed (in addition to present-day Cambodia) parts of present-day Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar (formerly
Burma), and the Malay Peninsula. Thailand and Laos still contain Khmer ruins and inscriptions. The kings at Angkor received tribute from smaller kingdoms to the north, east, and west, and conducted trade with China. The capital city was the center of an impressive network of reservoirs and canals, which historians theorize supplied water for irrigation. Many historians believe that the abundant harvests made possible by irrigation supported a large population whose labor could be drawn on to construct the kings' temples and to fight their wars. The massive temples, extensive roads and waterworks, and confident inscriptions give an illusion of stability that is undermined by the fact that many Khmer kings gained the throne by conquering their predecessors. Inscriptions indicate that the kingdom frequently suffered from rebellions and foreign invasions.

Historians have not been able to fully explain the decline of the Khmer kingdom in the 13th and 14th centuries. However, it was probably associated with the rise of powerful Thai king
doms that had once paid tribute to Angkor, and to population losses following a series of wars with these kingdoms. Another factor may have been the introduction of Theravada Buddhism, which taught that anyone could achieve enlightenment through meritorious conduct and meditation. These egalitarian ideas undermined the hierarchical structure of Cambodian society and the power of prominent Hindu families. After a Thai invasion in 1431, what remained of the Cambodian elite shifted southeastward to the vicinity of Phnom Penh.

Cambodia Dark Age
This map of Southeast Asia in the mid-16th century shows the major centers of power in the region prior to the arrival of Europeans. During this period, these kingdoms were constantly at war. Eventually the Kingdom of Ayutthaya (modern Thailand) expanded to the north and east, absorbing much of Lan Na and Lan Xang (modern Laos). Dai Viet (modern Vietnam) expanded to the south, taking over the remaining territory of the Kingdom of Champa and the southern tip of the Kingdom of Lovek (modern Cambodia). Toungoo evolved into modern Myanmar.

The four centuries of Cambodian history following the abandonment of Angkor are poorly recorded, and therefore historians know little about them beyond the bare outlines. Cambodia retained its language and its cultural identity despite frequent invasions by the powerful Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya and incursions by Vietnamese forces. Indeed, for much of this period, Cambodia was a relatively prosperous trading kingdom with its capital at Lovek, near present-day Phnom Penh. European visitors wrote of the Buddhist piety of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Lovek. During this period, Cambodians composed the country's most important work of literature, the Reamker (based on the Indian myth of the Ramayana).

In the late 18th century, a civil war in Vietnam and disorder following a Burmese inv
asion of Ayutthaya spilled over into Cambodia and devastated the area. In the early 19th century, newly established dynasties in Vietnam and Thailand competed for control over the Cambodian court. The warfare that ensued, beginning in the l830s, came close to destroying Cambodia.

French Rule.

History

Phnom Penh, as planned by the French, came to resemble a town in provincial France. By t
he second half of the 19th century, France had begun to expand its colonial penetration of Indochina (the peninsula between India and China). In 1863 France accepted the Cambodian king's invitation to impose a protectorate over his severely weakened kingdom, halting the country's dismemberment by Thailand and Vietnam. For the next 90 years, France ruled Cambodia. In theory, French administration was indirect, but in practice the word of French officials was final on all major subjects-including the selection of Cambodia's kings. The French left Cambodian institutions, including the monarchy, in place, and gradually developed a Cambodian civil service, organized along French lines. The French administration neglected education but built roads, port facilities, and other public works. Phnom Penh, as planned by the French, came to resemble a town in provincial France.

The French invested relatively little in Cambodia's economy compared to that of Vietna
m, which was also under French control. However, they developed rubber plantations in eastern Cambodia, and the kingdom exported sizable amounts of rice under their rule. The French also restored the Angkor temple complex and deciphered Angkorean inscriptions, which gave Cambodians a clear idea of their medieval heritage and kindled their pride in Cambodia's past. Because France left the monarchy, Buddhism, and the rhythms of rural life undisturbed, anti-French feeling was slow to develop.
King Sihanouk, through skillful maneuvering, managed to gain Cambodia's independence peacefully in 1953. During World War II (1939-1945), Japanese forces entered French Indochina but left the compliant French administration in place.

King Norodom Sihanouk

On the verge of defeat in 1945, the Japanese removed their French collaborators and installed a nominally independent Cambodian government under the recently crowned young king, Norodom Sihanouk. France reimposed its protectorate in early 1946 but allowed the Cambodians to draft a constitution and to form political parties.

Soon afterward, fighting erupted throughout Indochina as nationalist groups, some with Communist ideologies, struggled to win independence from France. Most of the fighting took place in Vietnam, in a conflict known as the First Indochina War (1946-1954). In Cambodia, Communist guerrilla forces allied with Vietnamese Communists gained control of much of the country. However, King Sihanouk, through skillful maneuvering, managed to gain Cambodia's independence peacefully in 1953, a few months earlier than Vietnam. The Geneva Accords of 1954, which marked the end of the First Indochina War, acknowledged Sihanouk's government as the sole legitimate authority in Cambodia.

Modern State
Sihanouk's campaign for independence sharpened his political skills and increased his ambitions. In 1955 he abdicated the throne in favor of his father to pursue a full-time political career, free of the constitutional constraints of the monarchy. In a move aimed at dismantling Cambodia's fledgling political parties, Sihanouk inaugurated a national political movement known as the Sangkum Reastr Niyum (People's Socialist Community), whose members were not permitted to belong to any other political group. The Sangkum won all the seats in the national elections of 1955, benefiting from Sihanouk's popularity and from police brutality at many polling stations. Sihanouk served as prime minister of Cambodia until 1960, when his father died and he was named head of state. Sihanouk remained widely popular among the people but was brutal to his opponents.

In the late 1950s the Cold War (period of tension between the United States and its allies and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR, and its allies) intensified in Asia. In this climate, foreign powers, including the United States, the USSR, and China, courted Sihanouk. Cambodia's importance to these countries stemmed from events in neighboring Vietnam, where tension had begun to mount between a Communist regime in the north and a pro-Western regime in the south. The USSR supported the Vietnamese Communists, while the United States opposed them, and China wanted to contain Vietnam for security reasons. Each of the foreign powers hoped that Cambodian support would bolster its position in the region. Sihanouk pursued a policy of neutrality that drew substantial economic aid from the competing countries.

In 1965, however, Sihanouk broke off diplomatic relations with the United States. At the same time, he allowed North Vietnamese Communists, then fighting the Vietnam War against the United States and the South Vietnamese in southern Vietnam, to set up bases on Cambodian soil. As warfare intensified in Vietnam, domestic opposition to Sihanouk from both radical and conservative elements increased. The Cambodian Communist organization, known as the Workers Party of Kampuchea (later renamed the Communist Party of Kampuchea, or CPK), had gone underground after failing to win any concessions at the Geneva Accords, but now they took up arms once again. As the economy became unstable, Cambodia became difficult to govern single-handedly. In need of economic and military aid, Sihanouk renewed diplomatic relations with the United States. Shortly thereafter, in 1969, U.S. president Richard Nixon authorized a bombing campaign against Cambodia in an effort to destroy Vietnamese Communist sanctuaries there.

Khmer Republic
In March 1970 Cambodia's legislature, the National Assembly, deposed Sihanouk while he was abroad. The conservative forces behind the coup were pro-Western and anti-Vietnamese. General Lon Nol, the country's prime minister, assumed power and sent his poorly equipped army to fight the North Vietnamese Communist forces encamped in border areas. Lon Nol hoped that U.S. aid would allow him to defeat his enemies, but American support was always geared to events in Vietnam. In April U.S. and South Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia, searching for North Vietnamese, who moved deeper into Cambodia. Over the next year, North Vietnamese troops destroyed the offensive capacity of Lon Nol's army.

In October 1970 Lon Nol inaugurated the Khmer Republic. Sihanouk, who had sought asylum in China, was condemned to death despite his absence. By that time, Chinese and North Vietnamese leaders had persuaded the prince to establish a government in exile, allied with North Vietnam and dominated by the CPK, whom Sihanouk referred to as the Khmer Rouge (French for "Red Khmers").

In 1975, despite massive infusions of U.S. aid, the Khmer Republic collapsed, and Khmer Rouge forces occupied Phnom Penh.

The United States continued bombing Cambodia until the Congress of the United States halted the campaign in 1973. By that time, Lon Nol's forces were fighting not only the Vietnamese but also the Khmer Rouge. The general lost control over most of the Cambodian countryside, which had been devastated by U.S. bombing. The fighting severely damaged the nation's infrastructure and caused high numbers of casualties. Hundreds of thousands of refugees flooded into the cities. In 1975, despite massive infusions of U.S. aid, the Khmer Republic collapsed, and Khmer Rouge forces occupied Phnom Penh. Three weeks later, North Vietnamese forces achieved victory in South Vietnam.

Democratic Kampuchea
Pol Pot Pol Pot is a pseudonym for the Cambodian guerrilla commander Saloth Sar, who organized the Communist guerrilla force known as the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge ousted General Lon Nol in 1975, establishing a brutal Communist regime that ruled until 1979.

Immediately after occupying Cambodia's towns, the Khmer Rouge ordered all city dwellers into the countryside to take up agricultural tasks. The move reflected both the Khmer Rouge's contempt for urban dwellers, whom they saw as enemies, and their utopian vision of Cambodia as a nation of busy, productive peasants. The leader of the regime, who remained concealed from the public, was Saloth Sar, who used the pseudonym Pol Pot. The government, which called itself Democratic Kampuchea (DK), claimed to be seeking total independence from foreign powers but accepted economic and military aid from its major allies, China and North Korea.

Khmer Rouge Carnage The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, killed close to 1.7 million people in the mid- to late 1970s. In this photo, human bones and skulls fill a museum in Cambodia that had been used as a prison and torture center during Pol Pot's reign, Sygma.

Without identifying themselves as Communists, the Khmer Rouge quickly introduced a series of far-reaching and often painful socialist programs. The people given the most power in the new government were the largely illiterate rural Cambodians who had fought alongside the Khmer Rouge in the civil war. DK leaders severely restricted freedom of speech, movement, and association, and forbade all religious practices. The regime controlled all communications along with access to food and information. Former city dwellers, now called "new people," were particularly badly treated. The Khmer Rouge killed intellectuals, merchants, bureaucrats, members of religious groups, and any people suspected of disagreeing with the party. Millions of other Cambodians were forcibly relocated, deprived of food, tortured, or sent into forced labor.

While in power, the Khmer Rouge murdered, worked to death, or killed by starvation close to 1.7 million Cambodians.

The Khmer Rouge also attacked neighboring countries in an attempt to reclaim territories lost by Cambodia many centuries before. After fighting broke out with Vietnam (then united under the Communists) in 1977, DK's ideology became openly racist. Ethnic minorities in Cambodia, including ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese, were hunted down and expelled or massacred. Purges of party members accused of treason became widespread. People in eastern Cambodia, suspected of cooperating with Vietnam, suffered severely, and hundreds of thousands of them were killed. While in power, the Khmer Rouge murdered, worked to death, or killed by starvation close to 1.7 million Cambodians-more than one-fifth of the country's population.

Recent Development
In October 1991 Cambodia's warring factions, the UN, and a number of interested foreign nations signed an agreement in Paris intended to end the conflict in Cambodia. The agreement provided for a temporary power-sharing arrangement between a United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) and a Supreme National Council (SNC) made up of delegates from the various Cambodian factions. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the former king and prime minister of Cambodia, served as president of the SNC.

The Paris accords and the UN protectorate pushed Cambodia out of its isolation and introduced competitive politics, dormant since the early 1950s. UNTAC sponsored elections for a national assembly in May 1993, and for the first time in Cambodian history a majority of voters rejected an armed, incumbent regime. A royalist party, known by its French acronym FUNCINPEC, won the most seats in the election, followed by the CPP, led by Hun Sen. Reluctant to give up power, Hun Sen threatened to upset the election results. Under a compromise arrangement, a three-party coalition formed a government headed by two prime ministers; FUNCINPEC's Prince Norodom Ranariddh, one of Sihanouk's sons, became first prime minister, while Hun Sen became second prime minister.

In September 1993 the government ratified a new constitution restoring the monarchy and establishing the Kingdom of Cambodia. Sihanouk became king for the second time. After the 1993 elections, no foreign countries continued to recognize the DK as Cambodia's legal government. The DK lost its UN seat as well as most of its sources of international aid.

The unrealistic power-sharing relationship between Ranariddh and Hun Sen worked surprisingly well for the next three years, but relations between the parties were never smooth. The CPP's control over the army and the police gave the party effective control of the country, and it dominated the coalition government. In July 1997 Hun Sen staged a violent coup against FUNCINPEC and replaced Prince Ranariddh, who was overseas at the time, with Ung Huot, a more pliable FUNCINPEC figure. Hun Sen's action shocked foreign nations and delayed Cambodia's entry into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). By the end of 1997, Cambodia was the only nation in the region that was not a member.

Despite the coup, elections scheduled for July 1998 proceeded as planned. Hundreds of foreign observers who monitored the elections affirmed that voting was relatively free and fair; however, the CPP harassed opposition candidates and party workers before and after the elections, when dozens were imprisoned and several were killed. The election gave the CPP a plurality of votes, but results, especially in towns, where voting could not be dictated by local authorities, indicated that the party did not enjoy widespread popular support. Prince Ranariddh and another opposition candidate, Sam Rainsy, took refuge abroad and contested the outcome of the election. In November the CPP and FUNCINPEC reached an agreement whereby Hun Sen became sole prime minister and Ranariddh became president of the National Assembly. The parties formed a coalition government, dividing control over the various cabinet ministries. In early 1999 the constitution was amended to create a Senate, called for in the 1998 agreement. These signs that Cambodia's political situation was stabilizing encouraged ASEAN to admit Cambodia to its membership a short time later.

Pol Pot died in 1998, and by early 1999 most of the remaining Khmer Rouge troops and leaders had surrendered. Rebel troops were integrated into the Cambodian army. In 1999 two Khmer Rouge leaders were arrested and charged with genocide for their part in the atrocities.

Since the Paris Accords of 1991, Cambodia's economic growth has depended on millions of dollars of foreign aid. Foreign interest in Cambodia has decreased, however, and the country has received diminishing economic assistance. This development, along with the continued lack of openness in Cambodian politics, has made Cambodia's prospects for democratization dim, as well as its chances for sustained economic growth.