2020 IB Extended Essays

14

Vietnam to root out the Viet Cong. The Viet Cong however was partially on the Eastern

Cambodia border, and thus the bombing affected Cambodia as well. The bombings

destabilised King Sihanouk’s regime 34 and caused a surge in members of the Khmer Rouge.

Many people turned to the communist group as they lost faith in the King due to continued

neutrality throughout the bombings.

A coup was staged against the king in 1970, set up by the Cambodian military and led by Lon

Nol. Upon coming into power, Lon Nol immediately ended Cambodia’s policy of non-

alignment and brought Cambodia into the Vietnam war. They established close connections

with the US and South Vietnam, permitting their forces to use Cambodian Territory 35 . Two

days after the coup, Lon Nol assumed total power over Cambodia. He also immediately

focused on rooting out the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong as well as the Khmer Rouge

near the Eastern Border of Cambodia 36 . This, however, backfired as support for the

communists continued to grow. Nol’s ineffective and chaotic rule transformed a low-level

domestic conflict into an all-out civil war between the government and the communist

party. The US bombings of Cambodian targets increased radically under Lon Nol causing

widespread devastation.

The bombings coupled with the US and South Vietnamese incursions in Cambodia, stripped

Lon Nol and the government of supporters. Khmer rouge forces were able to whittle away

at government territory until April 1975 when they marched on Phnom Penh and seized

34 Carvin, A 1999, From sideshow to genocide, Edweb Project, viewed 10 April 2020, < http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/history/coup.html > 35 Kiernan, B 1999, Pol Pot in Cambodia, The History Place, viewed 11 April 2020, < https://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/pol-pot.htm > 36 Richards, M 2019, Biography of Pol Pot, Thought Co, viewed 11 April 2020, < https://www.thoughtco.com/pol-pot- 1779833 >