Pol Pot's Terror Ends: Vietnamese Take Phnom Penh
Vietnamese forces crossed the border and reached Phnom Penh in just two weeks, toppling a regime that had murdered roughly two million of its own citizens through execution, starvation, and forced labor. The Khmer Rouge had emptied Cambodia's cities, abolished money, closed schools, and turned the country into a vast agricultural labor camp. Pol Pot's cadres executed anyone with an education, eyeglasses, or foreign language skills. When Vietnamese troops entered the capital, they found a country of walking skeletons. The liberation was not humanitarian in motive; Vietnam acted after repeated Khmer Rouge border raids. But the effect was immediate: the killing stopped. The international community bizarrely condemned the invasion, and Cambodia's UN seat remained with the ousted Khmer Rouge for over a decade.
January 7, 1979
47 years ago
Key Figures & Places
Vietnam
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Khmer Rouge
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Cambodian-Vietnamese War
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Phnom Penh
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Pol Pot
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Sino-Vietnamese War
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Cambodian–Vietnamese War
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Phnom Penh
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Vietnamese
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Pol Pot
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Khmer Rouge
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People's Army of Vietnam
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Geschichte Kambodschas
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Guerra cambojana-vietnamita
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Cambodia
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