User:Soman/KR-temp

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The Khmer Rouge (Khmer: ខ្មែរក្រហម) is a term used to describe a succession of communist factions in Cambodia. The term, French for 'Red Khmers', was coined by Cambodian head of state Norodom Sihanouk in the 1950s, who used it as a nickname for his leftwing political opponents. Likewise he refered to his rightwing opponents as Khmer Bleus ('Blue Khmers'). The term Khmer Rouge was later adopted in English.

When the term first into use the Cambodian communists were organized in the Khmer People's Revolutionary Party. The party would eventually evolve into the Communist Party of Kampuchea. As the CPK was a secretive and clandestine party, which did not reveal its existance to the public until 1977, they were identified just as Khmer Rouge. The labelling Khmer Rouge does not however, necessarily differentiate between the CPK members and the armed forces under the command of CPK.

In 1975 the armed conflict in Cambodia ended in a victory of the Khmer Rouge and a new state, Democratic Kampuchea was formed. The period of Khmer Rouge rule was marred by excessive purges within party ranks and the population in general, processes classified by a large number of historians as genocide. (For more information about the situation in Cambodia during this period, see Cambodia under Pol Pot (1975-1979).

In 1979 the DK regime was defeated by an invasion of Vietnamese troops, and in its place the People's Republic of Kampuchea was formed. Khmer Rouge forces then regrouped around the border with Thailand. The name 'Khmer Rouge' sticked with the movement also after the CPK was dissolved in 1981, and substituted by the Party of Democratic Kampuchea.