(French; " Red Khmer ")
Radical communist movement that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.
The Khmer Rouge, under the leadership of Pol Pot , opposed the government of the popular Norodom Sihanouk . They gained support after Sihanouk was toppled by Lon Nol (1970) and after U.S. forces bombed the countryside in the early 1970s. In 1975 the Khmer Rouge ousted Lon Nol. Their extraordinarily brutal regime led to the deaths (from starvation, hardship, and execution) of one to two million people. Overthrown in 1979 by the Vietnamese, they retreated to remote areas and continued their struggle for power in Cambodia. The last Khmer Rouge guerrillas surrendered in 1998.