The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the Democratic Kampuchea through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by Norodom Sihanouk to describe his country's heterogeneous, communist-led dissidents, with whom he allied after the 1970 Cambodian coup d'état.
Pol Pot was a Cambodian revolutionary, politician and dictator who ruled Cambodia as Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea between 1976 and 1979. Ideologically a Maoist and a Khmer ethnonationalist, Pot was a leader of Cambodia's Communist movement, known as the Khmer Rouge, from 1963 to 1997. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea from 1963 to 1981, during which Cambodia was converted into a one-party state. Between 1975 and 1979, Pot perpetrated the Cambodian genocide, in which an estimated 1.5–2 million people died—approximately one-quarter of the country's pre-genocide population. In December 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia to remove the Khmer Rouge from power. Within two weeks, Vietnamese forces occupied most of the country, ending the genocide and establishing a new Cambodian government, with the Khmer Rouge restricted to the rural hinterlands in the western part of the country.
The Chams, or Champa people, are an Austronesian ethnic group in Southeast Asia and are the original inhabitants of central Vietnam and coastal Cambodia before the arrival of the Cambodians and Vietnamese, during the expansion of the Khmer Empire and the Vietnamese conquest of Champa.
Prey Veng is a province (khaet) of Cambodia. The capital is Prey Veng. With a population of 1.1 million people, it is the third most populous province.
Sinn Sisamouth was a Cambodian singer-songwriter active from the 1950s to the 1970s. Widely considered the "King of Khmer Music", Sisamouth, along with Ros Serey Sothea, Pen Ran, Mao Sareth, and other Cambodian artists, was part of a thriving pop music scene in Phnom Penh that blended elements of Khmer traditional music with the sounds of rhythm and blues and rock and roll to develop a Cambodian rock sound. Sisamouth died during the Khmer Rouge regime under circumstances that are unclear.
Ros Serey Sothea was a Cambodian singer. She was active during the final years of the First Kingdom of Cambodia and into the Khmer Republic period. She sang in a variety of genres; romantic ballads emerged as her most popular works. Despite a relatively brief career she is credited with singing hundreds of songs. She also ventured into acting, starring in a few films. Details of her life are relatively scarce. She disappeared during the Khmer Rouge regime of the late 1970s but the circumstances of her fate remain a mystery. Norodom Sihanouk granted Sothea the honorary title "Queen with the Golden Voice."
Throughout Cambodia's long history, religion has been a major source of cultural inspiration. Over nearly two millennia, Cambodians have developed a unique Cambodian culture and belief system from the syncreticism of indigenous animistic beliefs and the Indian religions of Buddhism and Hinduism. Cambodia's achievements in art, architectures, music, and dance from the 9th and 14th century have had a great influence on many neighboring kingdoms, namely Thailand and Laos. The effect of Khmer culture can still be seen today in those countries, as they share many close characteristics with current-day Cambodia. The Tai borrowed from the Khmer many elements of Indianized Khmer culture, including royal ceremonies, customs followed at the court, and especially the Indian epic Ramayana, which influenced not only literature but also classical dance. Even in modern Thai culture the legacy of ancient Khmer culture is still evident.
Ieng Sary was the co-founder and senior member of the Khmer Rouge and one of the main architects of the Cambodian Genocide. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea led by Pol Pot and served in the 1975–79 government of Democratic Kampuchea as foreign minister and deputy prime minister. He was known as "Brother Number Three", as he was third in command after Pol Pot and Nuon Chea. His wife, Ieng Thirith, served in the Khmer Rouge government as social affairs minister. Ieng Sary was arrested in 2007 and was charged with crimes against humanity but died of heart failure before the case against him could be brought to a verdict.
Islam is the religion of a majority of the Cham and Malay minorities in Cambodia. According to activist Po Dharma, there were 150,000 to 200,000 Muslims in Cambodia as late as 1975, although this may have been an exaggeration. Persecution under the Khmer Rouge eroded their numbers, however, and by the late 1980s they probably had not regained their former strength. In 2009, the Pew Research Center estimated that 1.6% of the population, or 236,000 people were Muslims. In 2021, the State Department estimated the Islamic population at less than 1%. Like other Muslim Cham people, those in Cambodia are Sunni Muslims of the Shafi'i denomination and following the Maturidi doctrine. Po Dharma divides the Muslim Cham in Cambodia into a traditionalist branch and an orthodox branch.
The Cambodia national football team is the men's national football team that represents Cambodia in association football. It is affiliated with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the regional ASEAN Football Federation (AFF). The team was founded in 1954 and is administered by the Football Federation of Cambodia (FFC).
The largest of the ethnic groups in Cambodia are the Khmer, who comprise 95.8% of the total population and primarily inhabit the lowland Mekong subregion and the central plains. The Khmer historically have lived near the lower Mekong River in a contiguous arc that runs from the southern Khorat Plateau where modern-day Thailand, Laos and Cambodia meet in the northeast, stretching southwest through the lands surrounding Tonle Sap lake to the Cardamom Mountains, then continues back southeast to the mouth of the Mekong River in southeastern Vietnam.
Democratic Kampuchea was the official name of the Cambodian state from 1976 to 1979, under the totalitarian dictatorship of Pol Pot and the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), commonly known as the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge's capture of the capital Phnom Penh in 1975 effectively ended the United States-backed Khmer Republic of Lon Nol.
The Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation, often simply referred to as Salvation Front, was the nucleus of a new Cambodian regime that would topple the Khmer Rouge and later establish the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK).
Sos Suhana is a Cambodian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Cambodian Premier League club Nagaworld.
The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot. It resulted in the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly 25% of Cambodia's population in 1975.
Mao Sareth was a Cambodian singer active from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s. Sareth was born in 1944 in Battambang, with the birth name Pol Sarann. She was one of the earliest popular singers in the Cambodian rock scene of the early 1960s, in which musicians combined traditional Khmer music styles with popular forms from the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Mao was cited as an influence by later singers Pen Ran and Ros Serey Sothea. She is known to have performed live as late as 1973.
Huoy Meas also known as Meas Mathrey, was a Cambodian singer and radio announcer in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Drakkar was a Cambodian hard rock band active in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their music has been noted as an important late-stage development in Cambodian rock of the 1960s and 70s, a thriving music scene that was abruptly crushed by the Khmer Rouge communists in 1975. Some members of the band did not survive the ensuing Cambodian genocide. Surviving members resurrected the band and began performing again in 2011.
Mohammed Faeez Khan, known in Cambodia as Kan Mo, is a professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Cambodian Premier League club Visakha. Born in South Africa, he represents the Cambodia national team.
