After World War II, the French initially tried to regain the whole of Indochina, before agreeing to full independence in 1953. Cambodia remained heavily embroiled in the North-South Vietnam War into the 1970s. This included being targeted by a secret U.S. bombing campaign. Between 1975 and 1979 the country was devastated by the reign of the Khmer Rouge, a rural communist guerrilla movement. During the Khmer Rouge’s period of power, at least 1.5 million Cambodians were killed or died, a monumental tragedy from which the country still suffers.
Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1979 to topple the Khmer Rouge regime. Hun Sen, the leader of Cambodia since January 1985, is the only non-African of the five longest-serving non-royal world leaders. Upon the death of his predecessor in 1985, the ruling Marxist-Leninist party named Hun Sen as the country’s new prime minister. He has clung to power through every wave of attempted change in Cambodia. Cambodia’s royals also continue to play an active role in post-colonial politics.
Under the Khmer Rouge, all religious practices were forbidden. The pro-Vietnamese communist regime that ruled Cambodia in the 1980s encouraged Buddhism in a limited way, and Theravada Buddhism was restored as Cambodia’s state religion in 1993. Almost 20 years of neglect have been difficult to reverse, however, and the religion has not regained the popularity and prestige that it had before 1975. Nonetheless, the social and psychological characteristics often ascribed to the Khmer—individualism, conservatism, patience, gentleness, and lack of concern for material wealth—represent Buddhist ideals toward which Cambodians, especially in rural areas, continue to aspire. Buddhist precepts, however, do not permeate Cambodian education and ideology as strongly as they did before 1975.
Even before 1975, Cambodia’s economy was one of the least-developed in Southeast Asia. It depended heavily on two major products—rice and rubber—and consequently was vulnerable to annual fluctuations caused by vagaries in the weather and world market prices. Agriculture dominated the economy, with most rural families engaged in rice cultivation. Although the tradition of landownership was strong, family landholdings were relatively small, and the rural population was largely self-sufficient. Two and a half acres (one hectare) of rice paddy provided for the needs of a family of five people, and supplementary requirements were traditionally satisfied by fishing, cultivating fruit and vegetables, and raising livestock. Famine was rare in Cambodia, but the self-sufficiency of the rural family produced a conservatism that resisted government efforts before 1975 to modernize the country’s agricultural methods.
The pro-Vietnamese government that came to power in 1979 dismantled the collectivized agriculture that had been savagely imposed on a national scale by Democratic Kampuchea in 1975–79, but partial collectivization remained an ideal of the new regime, as it did in neighbouring Vietnam, in an attempt to improve efficiency. Voluntary cooperative groupings called krom samaki subsequently replaced collective farms in many areas, but the vast majority of Cambodian farming continued to be carried out by family units growing crops for subsistence and small surpluses for cash or barter. A law enacted in 1989 permitted Cambodians to buy and sell real estate for the first time. An immediate effect of the law was a speculative boom in urban areas and an increase in investment, particularly in Phnom Penh. In rural areas laws were also implemented that restored traditional rights of land tenure and inheritance.
In 1992–93, during a brief United Nations protectorate, the economies of Phnom Penh and Bătdâmbâng were fueled by foreign speculation in land and short-term, foreign-financed construction. Tourism became (and has remained) a major source of national revenue, but the rural economy has continued to be hampered by poor communications, bad weather, widespread poverty and disease, and often outdated and inefficient farming techniques. Although per capita income has been rising, it has remained among the world’s lowest.
Sources: Britannia; TheGlobalist
