Timeline Cambodia
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Traditional Cambodians gave each day its own color and each month its own gender.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, zone 1 p.2)
April is the hottest month in Cambodia.
(SFEC, 7/30/00, p.T10)
Chronology of Cambodian History: http://www.geocities.com/khmerchronology
Odyssey of the Khmer People: http://members.aol.com/cambodia/
Cambodia Information Center: http://www.cambodia.org/
200-700AD Era of the kingdom of Funan at Angkor Borei (Cambodia). In 1997 excavations were proceeding on what might have been the capital.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.A,D)
400 About this time sage-prince Kambu of the Cambodian legends, who belonged to the Kamboja lineage, appears to have sailed from Indian subcontinent, probably from Saurashtra/Gujarat on the west coast of India and established a small Kamboja kingdom in Bassac around Vat-Ph'u hill in Mekong Basin. The first Khmer or king, know as Kambu, founded Kambujadesa, which means the Sons of Kambu or Kambuja for short.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, T5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambu_Svayambhuva)
611 At Angkor Borei (Cambodia) the earliest known Khmer inscriptions date to this time.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.D)
802 Jayavarman II proclaimed himself a "universal monarch" in a ritual that united religion and politics (Cambodia) and gave rise to the cult of the Devaraja (deified king). He declared the region’s independence from Java.
(WSJ, 7/3/97, p.A9)(SFC, 8/14/07, p.A18)
889-1324 The Khmer Empire‘s dominions roughly correspond to present-day Laos and Cambodia and reached its height during the Angkor period (889-1434 AD). The kingdom flourished from the 6th to 15th centuries AD and then declined with invasions from neighboring Thailand.
(HNQ, 8/7/00)
c1000-1400 Angkor Thom, capital of the Khmer empire, reached its apogee during this period. It included the religious monument of Angkor Wat. In 2007 new technology indicated that the city covered an area over 115 square miles at its peak and used sophisticated technology for managing and harvesting water.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.A)(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)(SFC, 8/14/07, p.A18)
1100-1200 The Khmer empire reached its peak under King Jajavarman II in the 12th century.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T7)
1150 Suryavarman II, Khmer ruler (Cambodia), died about this time. He commissioned the building of Angkor Wat, possibly the largest religious monument in the world. He traded elephant tusks, rhinoceros horns and kingfisher feathers for gold. The feathers were prized in China for bridal attire.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4,6)
1186 The temple monastery of Ta Prohm at Angkor (Cambodia) was consecrated. Inscriptions say that 79,365 servants were required to for its upkeep. It was paid by funds from over 3,000 villages.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T7)
1191 Preah Khan (Cambodia) was dedicated on what is thought to be the site where the Khmer defeated their eastern neighbors the Cham. The central temple was dedicated by Jayavarman VII to his father, King Dharanindravavarman II, in the name of Lokesvara, a god who embodies the compassionate qualities of the Buddha. The temple covers 140 acres.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.E)(Arch, 5/04, p.64)
1350-1500 There was cold and drought during this period in Central Asia as temperatures came down with low rainfall and low productivity. The climatic effect on Sindh was that Jam Banbhniyo Samma, tried to capture some areas of Delhi Sultanate in the Multan Sarkar and also south in Gujarat.
(http://panhwar.com/Article129.htm)
1415-1439 The city of Angkor Wat (Cambodia) went into rapid decline as a period of severe drought extended over South East Asia.
(Econ, 3/14/09, p.82)(http://tinyurl.com/d84z56)
1431 Thai armies invaded and plundered the Khmer civilization at Angkor Thom (Cambodia). The court moved south of the great lake Tonle Sap and later to Phnom Penh.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)
1596 The first documented official contact between the Cambogee and the West took place. The king of Angkor, Barom Reachea, in fear of attack sent to the Spanish governor general at Manila a request for the assistance of his musket-armed soldiers. The Spanish governor complied and sent a small expedition to the king of Angkor (Cambodia).
(SFEC, 10/20/96, T5)
1598 The Spanish governor of Manila sent a 2nd small expedition to the king of Angkor in what is now Cambodia.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, T5)
c1598 A party of Iberian conquistadors overthrew the Cambodian king and set themselves up as governors in the Mekong delta.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.29)
1614 Portuguese writer Diego do Couto wrote of a king in Cambodia who discovered an abandoned city during an elephant hunt in the middle of the 16th century. The report did not get published until 1958.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)
1641 Gerritt van Wuysthoff, a Dutchman, struggled up the Mekong River through Cambodia and reached Vientiane, Laos.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.29)
1863 Jul, The European public first learned of Angkor (Cambodia) from the posthumously published journal of French naturalist Henri Mouhot.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)
1866 French colonial officials sent an expedition to explore the Mekong River (Cambodia) and check its commercial potential.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.29)
1872 Frank Vincent Jr., an American adventurer, journeyed from Bangkok to Angkor Wat (Cambodia). The 175 mile trip took 17 days to traverse.
(SFEM, 4/30/00, p.6)
1893 French colonialists seized control of Laos and tried to turn the Mekong River into a thoroughfare linking their Indochina colonies.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.29)
1907 Explorations under Louis Deleporte and the French School of the Far East began at the ancient city of Angkor. Found artifacts were shared between France and Cambodia.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.60)(SFC, 2/4/04, p.D10)
1908 In Cambodia the seaside town of Kep (Kep-sure-Mer) was founded during the French colonial era. It was all but destroyed during the civil strife of the 1970s.
(SSFC, 8/31/08, p.E4)
1925 May 19, Pol Pot (d.1998), Cambodian dictator and mass murderer, was born in Prek Sbauv, Cambodia.
(www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/pol_pot1.html)
1918 The French established the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh to house the findings from their explorations.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.60)(WSJ, 7/3/97, p.A9)
1922 Oct 31, Norodom Sihanouk (d.2012), 2-time king (1941-1955 and 1993-2004), president and premier of Cambodia, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norodom_Sihanouk)
1923 Andre Malraux was arrested, while doing archeological research in Cambodia, for dislodging 7 heads from a temple with a handsaw, a chisel and crowbar.
(WSJ, 7/3/97, p.A9)
1941 The French colonialists chose Norodom Sihanouk (19) from the ranks of royalty to serve as king of Cambodia.
(WSJ, 5/15/03, p.A8)
1945 At the end of World War II Thailand was compelled to return territory it had seized from Laos, Cambodia and Malaya. The exiled King Ananda returned.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1243059.stm)
1949-52 Saloth Sar (aka Pol Pot of Cambodia) went to Paris on a government scholarship and became absorbed in Communist ideology.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1950 May 21, French sources reported that Viet Minh guerrillas had infiltrated Cambodia and opened an arms-smuggling corridor to Thailand.
(www.geocities.com/khmerchronology/1950.htm)
1950 Dec 30, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia became independent states in a French Union.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1952 Hun Sen, later Cambodia prime minister, was born in a village northeast of Phnom Penh.
(WSJ, 7/9/99, p.A12)
1953 King Norodom Sihanouk gained independence for Cambodia from France. Pol Pot helped set up the Communist Party.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.A17)
1954 Sep 8, SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization), a sister organization to NATO, was created under the Manila Pact by the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, to stop communist spread in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos). The United States, Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand signed the mutual defense treaty. SEATO dissolved in 1977.
(HNQ, 4/2/01)(http://tinyurl.com/hpawj)
1955 Mar 2, King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia put his father on the throne and assumed the position of prime minister. Sihanouk had renounced the throne to run in Cambodia’s first elections.
(SC, 3/2/02)(WSJ, 5/15/03, p.A8)(Econ, 10/20/12, p.86)
1960 Dec 9, The Laos government fled to Cambodia as the capital city of Vientiane was engulfed in war.
(HN, 12/9/98)
1960-63 Prince Norodom Sihanouk repressed the Communist party and Pol Pot, general secretary of the CP, and other leaders fled to the jungle.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1962 The Int’l. Court of Justice awarded the Preah Vihear temple, located on the Cambodia-Thai border, to Cambodia, but did not specify where the border should be drawn.
(Econ, 7/26/08, p.47)
1963 Aug 27, Cambodia severed ties with South Vietnam.
(HN, 8/27/98)
1964 Mar 15, Cambodia was receiving military aid from Communist China.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1966 Jan 3, Cambodia warned the UN of retaliation unless the U.S. and South Vietnam end intrusions.
(HN, 1/3/99)
1967 Feb 23, American troops began the largest offensive of the war, near the Cambodian border. In order to deny the Vietcong cover, and allow men to see through the dense vegetation, herbicides were dumped on the forests near the South Vietnamese borders as well as Cambodia and Laos.
(HN, 2/23/98)
1967 May 10, The Stockholm Vietnam Tribunal condemned US aggression in Vietnam and Cambodia.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1967 Nov 24, Cambodian triple agent Inchin Lam was murdered. Special Forces Captain John J. McCarthy was accused and later tried for the murder in a court in Vietnam. Murder charges were later dropped.
(HN,11/24/98)(www.copvcia.com/Mac.htm)(www.geocities.com/larryjodaniel/17.html)
1967-68 The Khmer Rouge took up arms in support of a peasant uprising in northwest Cambodia against a government rice tax. The army ruthlessly suppressed the insurrection.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1968 Jan 19, Cambodia charged that the United States and South Vietnam had crossed the border and killed three Cambodians.
(HN, 1/19/99)
1968 Jan 29, A court convened in Vietnam for the murder of Cambodian, triple agent Inchin Lam, by Special Forces Captain John J. McCarthy Jr. Murder charges were later dropped due to exculpatory evidence and proven prosecutorial fraud on the court. A civil action for $1.3 billion in US Federal District Court, Washington D.C. against the CIA and associated agencies was dismissed in 2003.
(www.copvcia.com/Mac.htm)(http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id299.html)
1968 Oct 4, Cambodia admitted that the Viet Cong used their country for sanctuary.
(www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200408180835.asp)
1968 Asia’s first int’l. film festival was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
(Econ, 4/6/13, p.97)
1969 Feb 23, Pres. Nixon ordered plans for the secret bombing of Cambodia.
(www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a04242670parrotsbeak)(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.A19)
1969 Mar 18, President Richard M. Nixon authorized Operation Menu, the 'secret' bombing of Cambodia [see Feb 23].
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu)
1969-1973 The US Air Force dropped 539,129 tons of bombs on Cambodia and killed some 700,000 people. The bombing drove rural people into the cities and caused a collapse of the agricultural system that contributed to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and a famine that was later blamed on the Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A25)
1970 Mar 13, Cambodia ordered Hanoi and Viet Cong troops to get out.
(HN, 3/13/98)
1970 Mar 18, Prince Sihanouk was overthrown by Gen’l. Lon Nol in a right-wing coup backed by the US. He joined the Khmer Rouge in a resistance war. The US and Vietnamese forces invaded and drove the Viet Cong from border sanctuaries deep into Cambodia where they joined with the weak and isolated Khmer Rouge. A full scale civil war began. The next 8 years are covered in the 1988 book "Goodnight Cambodia, Forbidden History" by Vibol Ouk, who lived through the horrors of Pol Pot.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 1/11/98, BR p.3)(WSJ, 7/9/99, p.A127)
1970 Apr 24, President Nixon ordered US and South Vietnamese troops to secretly invade the “Parrot’s Beak" region of Cambodia, thought to be a Viet Cong stronghold. Operation Patio was a covert aerial interdiction effort conducted by the United States Seventh Air Force in Cambodia from 24-29 April 1970 during the Vietnam Conflict. It served as a tactical adjunct to the heavier B-52 bombing missions being carried out in Operation Menu.
(http://tinyurl.com/69ndsz8)(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Operation-Patio)
1970 Apr 28, The US invasion of Cambodia took place. Congress and the press learned of the invasion on April 30.
(www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a04242670parrotsbeak)
1970 Apr 29, 50,000 US and South Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia [see Apr 30].
(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.A19)(www.democraticcentral.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1972)
1970 Apr 30, President Nixon announced the United States was sending troops into Cambodia, an action that sparked widespread protest. Nixon widened the war to Cambodia and protests increased. U.S. troops invaded Cambodia to disrupt North Vietnamese Army base areas. U.S. President Richard Nixon announced to a national TV audience American troop movements into Cambodia to attack Communist border sanctuaries. Calling the joint U.S.-South Vietnamese operation "indispensable," some 32,000 American and 48,000 South Vietnamese troops captured large caches of supplies, but most Communist forces had already been withdrawn. A storm of protest against expansion of the war swept the United States and four days later four student protesters at Ohio's Kent State University were shot dead by National Guardsmen.
(AP, 4/30/97)(TMC, 1994, p.1970)(HN, 4/30/98)(HNQ, 5/3/98)
1970 May 4, A dispatch filed from Saigon described looting by US soldiers at the Cambodian town of Snuol. The mention of looting was removed by an editor in New York before the story was transmitted to newspapers in the United States. An AP story was killed by Wes Gallagher (d.1997 at 86), general manager of the new service.
(AP, 7/11/07)(SFC, 10/12/97, p.B5)
1970 May 10, In Cambodia Spec. Leslie H. Sabo Jr. (b.1948), of Elwood City, Pa., saved his comrades and lost his own life as his unit was nearly overrun by North Vietnamese forces. Documentation of his heroism was lost until 1999. On May 16, 2012, Pres. Obama presented the US Medal of Honor to his widow.
(SFC, 5/17/12, p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_H._Sabo,_Jr.)
1970 May 20, Some 100,000 people demonstrated in New York's Wall Street district in support of U.S. policy in Vietnam and Cambodia.
(AP, 5/20/97)(HN, 5/20/98)
1970 May 31, In Cambodia 9 journalists (American, Cambodian, Indian, Japanese, and French) were ambushed by Khmer Rouge and Viet Cong guerrillas near Kandoul village south of Phnom Penh. 4 of the CBS employees were killed instantly. 5 others were believed to have been taken to Kandoul in the days after and executed. Their bodies were dumped in a shallow grave amid the untilled earth of rice paddies.
(AP, 4/23/10)
1970 Jun 17, North Vietnamese troops cut the last operating rail line in Cambodia.
(HN, 6/17/98)
1970 Jun 29, The United States ended a two-month military offensive into Cambodia.
(HN, 6/29/98)(AP, 6/29/99)
1970 Oct 9, Khmer Republic (Cambodia) declared independence.
(http://flagspot.net/flags/kh_hstry.html)
1970 Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk fled to China and began compiling his Bulletin Mensuel de Documentation (Monthly Documentation Bulletin). The bulletin continued on an off thru 2003.
(WSJ, 5/15/03, p.A1)
1970 In Cambodia Sean Flynn (28), son of Hollywood star Errol Flynn, and a close friend, Dana Stone, disappeared in the province of Kampong Cham. In 2010 searchers believed they had found Flynn’s remains and awaited forensic confirmation.
(AP, 3/29/10)
1970-1975 Lon Nol was officially backed by the US as leader of Cambodia. He officially invited the US to extend the war in Vietnam into Cambodia to wreck the Ho Chi Minh supply trail.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A25)
1970-1998 The history of Cambodia over this period was covered by Henry Kamm of the NY Times: "Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Land."
(SFEC, 10/18/98, BR p.2)
1971 Jan 22, Communist forces shelled Phnom Penh, Cambodia for the first time.
(HN, 1/22/99)
1971 Aug 20, The Cambodian military launched a series of operations against the Khmer Rouge.
(HN, 8/20/98)
1971 Oct, Francois Bizot, French ethnologist, was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. He was released after 3 months by camp commander Kaing Guek Eav (aka Duch). In 2003 Bizot authored "The Gate," an account of his captivity and the Khmer Rouge takeover. In 2012 Bizot authored “Facing the Torturer," an account of his appearance as a witness at Duch’s 2009 trial.
(WSJ, 3/12/03, p.D10)(SSFC, 11/25/12, p.F6)
1973 Mar 17, Twenty were killed in Cambodia when a bomb went off that was meant for the Cambodian President Lon Nol.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1973 Jun 27, Nixon vetoed a Senate ban on Cambodia bombing.
(HN, 6/27/98)
1973 Aug 7, A US plane accidentally bombed a Cambodian village, killing 400 civilians.
(HN, 8/7/98)(www.massviolence.org/+-Cambodia-+?id_rubrique=6&artpage=11-18)
1973 Aug 14, The U.S. "secret" bombing of Cambodia came to a halt, marking the official end to 12 years of American combat in Indochina.
(AP, 8/14/97)(HN, 8/14/98)
1974 Jan 9, Cambodian Government troops opened a drive to avert insurgent attack on Phnom Penh.
(HN, 1/9/98)
1974 Ta Mok (1926-2006), a Khmer Rouge senior advisor, cleansed Cambodia’s old royal city of Oudong of its 30,000 residents and burned it to the ground.
(Econ, 8/5/06, p.77)
1975 Jan 1, On New Year's Day Communist troops launched an offensive which, in 117 days of the hardest fighting of the war, collapsed the Khmer Republic.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cambodia)
1975 Feb 6, President Gerald Ford asked Congress for $497 million in aid to Cambodia.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1975 Apr 12, The US removed its embassy personnel from Phnom Penh. Some of Cambodia's most senior government ministers, including the Acting President, Saukham Khoy, were among the evacuees.
(http://tinyurl.com/rsqt5)
1975 April 17, The US-backed Lon Nol government of Cambodia surrendered to the Khmer Rouge. The nominal leader of the Khmer Rouge was Khieu Samphan. Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodia), occupied the capital Phnom Penh ending Cambodia's five-year war. This began the brutal regime that resulted in the death of one to three million people. The Khmer Rouge began to immediately clear Phnom Penh. Agrarian communism was forced on the people and purges extended from the leadership down to the masses. The country was renamed Democratic Kampuchea. After the Khmer Rouge took power they employed a system of forced marriages to help engineer a classless society.
(NG, 5/85, p.574)(WSJ,4/17/95, p.A-12)(AP, 4/17/97)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(WSJ, 6/16/97, p.8)(SFC, 4/17/98, p.A16)(http://tinyurl.com/qot7t)(SFC, 1/23/96, p.A10)
1975 May 11, The Cambodian government seized an American merchant ship, the Mayaguez.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, p.T10)
1975 May 12, The White House announced the new Cambodian government had seized an American merchant ship, the Mayaguez, with 39 crew members in international waters. Pres. Gerald Ford sent a company of Marines to rescue the ship. The ship was freed but there were 41 Americans killed or missing and more than 50 wounded.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, p.T10)(AP, 5/12/97)
1975 May 15, US forces raided the Cambodian island of Koh Tang and recaptured the American merchant ship Mayaguez. All 40 crew members were released safely by Cambodia, but some 40 US servicemen were killed in the military operation. Some 200 Marines stormed the island of Koh Tang to rescue the crew of the Mayaguez, but the crew had been moved. The Marines fought all day against the Khmer Rouge and escaped by helicopter in the evening. Three comrades were left behind and later died under the Khmer Rouge. The crew was freed about the same time that the Marine assault began.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, p.A14)(AP, 5/15/08)
1975-1979 Pol Pot (1925-1998), whose real name is Saloth Sar, led the Khmer Rouge and ruled Cambodia. He regarded artists as superfluous saying “to keep you is no gain, to kill you is no loss." In 1987 Joan D. Criddle and Teeda Butt Mam authored "To Destroy You Is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family." The work was recorded on cassette in 1992 and told the extraordinary story of a Cambodian family caught up in the genocide under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. An estimated 1.7 million people were killed under the Khmer Rouge. In 2000 Loung Ung authored "First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers."
(WSJ, 6/7/96, p.A11)(AR, 9/4/99)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A15)(SFEC, 6/11/00, BR p.6)(Econ, 4/6/13, p.96)
1975-1979 During this period the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia executed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians and condemned more than a million to death by starvation and disease. Some 14,000 men, women and children entered Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng prison, but only a dozen survived. In 1997 two of the administrators of the prison, known as Duch and Chan, were living openly in territory controlled by the government.
(WSJ, 4/17/95, p.A-12)(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A9)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.52)
1975-1979 During this period the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia about 90,000 of some 250,000 Cham people died as the government tried to exterminate both the tribe and Islam. Only 21 of 113 imams survived.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.46)
1976 Apr 11, In Cambodia Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan (b.1931) succeeded Prince Sihanouk as premier. In 1979 he was succeeded by Heng Samrin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khieu_Samphan)(Econ, 1/12/08, p.52)
1976 Nov 23, The Thai government returned 26 refugees to Cambodia saying that they are a threat to the national security. The government said some 70,000 refugees in Thailand who escaped Communist rule in other Indochina states, including 10,000 Cambodians, would also not be permitted to stay.
(AP, 11/23/02)
1976 Nhem Ein, photographer, was assigned by the Khmer Rouge to Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng interrogation center called S-21. He proceeded to methodically photograph all the prisoners who arrived before they were tortured and executed.
(WSJ, 9/16/97, p.A20)
1977 Mar 9, Pres. Carter proposed an end to travel restrictions to Cuba, Vietnam, N. Korea and Cambodia effective as of March 18.
(www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=7139)
1977 Dec 31, Cambodia broke relations with Vietnam.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1977 Hun Sen, a Khmer Rouge battalion commander in Cambodia, defected to Vietnam. He became prime minister of Cambodia in 1979.
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.43)
1977-1978 Pol Pot of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, fearing traitors, purged his own Khmer Rouge, especially in the eastern zone. Many of his former cadre flee to Vietnam.
(WSJ, 4/17/95, p.A-12)
1978 Jan 3, Vietnamese troops were reported to be occupying 400 square miles in Cambodia. North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops were using Laos and Cambodia as staging areas for attacks against allied forces.
(HN, 1/3/02)
1978 Dec 25, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and drove the Khmer Rouge into sanctuaries along the Thai border, finally ending the mass genocide depicted in the 1984 film "The Killing Fields." It was the first full-scale war between the two countries since 1917. 400 people were killed in initial clashes.
(NG, 5/85, p.574-5)(WSJ, 2/27/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(SFC, 4/30/98, p.A11)
1978 An estimated 15,000 Chinese advisors were present in Cambodia during Pol Pot's rule.
(SFC, 5/10/99, p.A10)
1979 Jan 7, The Vietnamese army captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government. The People’s Party, a Hanoi installed Khmer Rouge faction, took power with Hun Sen as prime minister and Heng Samrin as president. This finally ended the mass genocide depicted in the 1984 film "The Killing Fields." The Khmer Rouge retreated into sanctuaries along the Thai border, set up bases and picked up support from Thailand and China.
(WSJ, 2/27/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(WSJ, 5/3/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A8)(AP, 1/7/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heng_Samrin)
1979 Jan 15, The Soviet Union vetoed a United Nations resolution and called for the withdrawal of all Vietnamese troops from Cambodia.
(HN, 1/15/99)
1979 Apr 11, Chinese diplomats of Cambodia crossed into Thailand after a 15-day, 125-mile escape from the Vietnamese Army. In 1992 "Chinese Diplomats in International Crisis Situations" was authored by Yun Shui. An English translation came out in 2003.
(AP, 1/13/03)
1979 Aug 19, In Cambodia a Phnom Penh court tried, convicted and sentenced Pol Pot and his deputy, Leng Sary, to death in absentia for genocide during the Khmer Rouge regime. A "Hate Day" was created to recall Khmer Rouge crimes. Denise Affonco’s testimony during the trial was later published as “To the End of Hell: One Woman’s Struggle to Survive Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge."
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A16)(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A14)(http://tinyurl.com/2onrxp)(Econ, 12/15/07, p.93)
1979 The National Museum re-opened in Cambodia. It had been closed under the Khmer Rouge rule.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.60)
1979 Documents from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, that detailed the genocide by the Khmer Rouge, were discovered and copied for storage in American libraries.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A16)
1979 The Khmer Rouge took refuge in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains and fought on for another 19 years. Their presence in the area acted as a preservative for the natural wildlife.
(SFC, 4/8/00, p.A14)
1979 Cambodian farmer Neang Say stumbled onto the Killing Fields, the main execution and disposal site for the condemned inmates of Tuol Sleng, Pol Pot’s most notorious prison.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.45)
1982 The Khmer Rouge and 2 non-Communist groups formed a resistance coalition with Sihanouk as a figurehead leader. The UN recognized it as the government of Cambodia.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1985 Jan 7, Vietnam seized the Khmer National Liberation Front headquarters near the Thai-Cambodia border.
(HN, 1/7/99)
1985 Feb 14, Hanoi troops surrounded the main Khmer Rouge base at Phnom Malai, Cambodia.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1989 Aug 30, The Cambodian peace talks in Paris collapsed.
(Hem, 4/96, p.15)(http://tinyurl.com/nz3x5)
1989 Sep 26, The last Vietnamese soldiers left Cambodia. Vietnam withdrew the last of 26,000 troops.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(PC, 1992 ed, p.1113)
1989 Oct 22, Khmer Rouge occupied Pailin in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge used the gem mining town of Pailin near the Thai border to finance its operations with gem and timber profits.
(http://tinyurl.com/p6u5f)
1990 Nov 26, Five permanent members of U.N. Security Council agreed on peace plan for Cambodia.
(AP, 11/26/02)
1990 "Homrong" was recorded by the musicians of Cambodia’s National Dance Company.
(NH, 9/97, p.75)
1990 Bernard Krisher founded the nonprofit group ‘American Assistance for Cambodia following a request from Prince Sihanouk.
(SFC, 8/21/00, p.B7)
1991 Oct 23, Cambodia's warring factions and representatives of 18 other nations signed a peace treaty in Paris. All the factions signed The Paris Peace Agreements with the UN to provide peacekeeping and elections. Khmer Rouge Pres. Khieu Samphan and commander Son Sen soon returned to Phnom Penh for the first time since 1979, then fled the same day as mobs tried to lynch Khieu Samphan.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)(AP, 10/23/01)
1991 Nov 11, The United States stationed its first diplomat in Cambodia in 16 years to help the war-shocked nation arrange democratic elections.
(AP, 11/11/01)
1991 Nov 14, Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk returned to his homeland after 13 years of exile.
(AP, 11/14/01)
1991 HIV was first detected in Cambodia. By 1999 some 100 people were being infected with the AIDS virus per day.
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.C2)
1992 Mar 15, The United Nations officially embarked on its largest peacekeeping operation with the arrival of a diplomat in Cambodia. The UN peacekeeping mission in Cambodia soon began running a radio station to disseminate reliable information before elections.
(AP, 3/15/97)(Economist, 9/1/12, p.51)
1992 The Asian Development Bank began building and improving transport and telecom links between China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
(Econ, 11/8/03, p.42)
1992 The Association of Cambodian Local Economic Development Agencies (ACLEDA) was set up by the UN and the Int’l. Labor Organization as a microfinance non-governmental organization. By 2010 it was Cambodia’s largest bank by assets.
(Economist, 9/22/12, p.85)
1992 The Greater Mekong Subregion was created grouping 5 South-East Asian countries (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam) and 2 Chinese provinces.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Mekong_Subregion)(Econ, 2/6/10, p.48)
1992 UNESCO named the Angkor temples of Cambodia a World Heritage Site.
(SFC, 2/4/04, p.D10)
1993 Sep 24, Sihanouk was reinstalled as king of Cambodia.
(HN, 9/24/98)
1993 "The Music of Cambodia" was recorded by David and Kay Parsons as a 3-CD box that included Royal Court music and a nine-gong ensemble.
(NH, 9/97, p.75)
1993 Cambodia held free elections under UN supervision. The communist Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) under Hun Sen lost the elections and formed a coalition government with the elected Funcinpec under Prince Ranariddh, son of King Sihanouk. The Khmer Rouge boycotted the elections. The communists maintained control over the defense and interior ministries. Ranariddh and Hun Sen ran the country as co-premiers.
(WSJ, 5/3/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 6/19/97, p.A13)(WSJ, 7/9/99, p.A12)
1993 Cambodian law prohibited the removal of cultural artifacts without government permission.
(AP, 6/11/13)
1993 The Int'l. Coordination Committee was created to channel aid to Cambodia's Angkor Wat zone.
(SFC, 2/4/04, p.D10)
1993 In Cambodia an armed group robbed the Angkor storage depot at Siem Reap and took 22 pieces including several important stone sculptures.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.60)
1993 Somaly Mam (b.~1970-71) escaped Cambodia following years of forced prostitution. She moved to Paris and later returned to Cambodia to help women caught in similar situations. In 2006 she was honored as one of Glamour magazine's women of the year. In 2007 she published her autobiography: "The Road of Lost Innocence." In 2008 she was the co-winner of the $150,000 World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child, awarded by the Swedish Children's World Association to recognize those who defend the rights of children. In 2014 she resigned from the New York-based foundation she helped found after reports alleged that she had distorted aspects of her personal history.
(AP, 5/29/14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somaly_Mam)
1993-96 In Cambodia the Khmer Rouge remained active in the countryside. They killed 100 Vietnamese settlers, abducted villagers for forces labor and kidnapped westerners.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1994 Mar 19, Cambodian government seizes control of Pailin, the Khmer Rouge main stronghold.
(AP, 3/19/02)
1994 Jul 26, In Cambodia 3 Western backpackers were kidnapped from a train by the Khmer Rouge. The surprise train attack left 13 dead. Frenchman Michel Braquet, Briton Mark Slater, and Australian David Wilson were held at the base of Nuon Paet, who later ordered them killed. Paet was convicted for the killings in 1999 and sentenced to life in prison. Sam Bith and Chhouk Rin, former Khmer Rouge guerrillas, were charged in connection with the abduction and slayings in 1999. Col. Rin was arrested in 2000. Chhouk Rin was acquitted in 2000 due to an amnesty for rebel defectors. In 2002 Bith was convicted and jailed for life.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A12)(SFC, 6/22/99, p.A12)(SFC, 6/22/99, p.A12)(SFC, 1/19/00, p.A16)(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A1)(MC, 7/26/02)(AP, 12/23/02)
1994 The book "Cambodian Culture Since 1975: Homeland and Exile" by Sam-Ang Sam was published. It included information on Cambodian music.
(NH, 9/97, p.75)
1994 Bernard Krisher founded and became the publisher of The Cambodian Daily, a small English-language newspaper in Phnom Penh.
(SFC, 8/21/00, p.B7)
1994 The Australian foreign minister, Gareth Evans, accused "freelance military personnel and business spivs" (shady dealers) in Thailand of providing refuge for Khmer Rouge leaders and helping them get gems and timber out of Cambodia. The statement was made after 2 Australians were murdered by the Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A12)
1994 Cambodia’s 7 million mines amount to two for every single Cambodian child, and between 200 and 250 people become victims every month.
(UNICEFF Mailer,11/94)
1995 Apr 5, The Mekong Agreement created the Mekong River Commission with Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam as members.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.34)(www.kellnielsen.dk/mekong/agreem.htm)
1995 Nov, In Cambodia Hun Sen arrested the sec. general of Funcinpec, Prince Norodom Sirivudh, and tried him for terrorism and coup plotting. The trial was a transparent mockery of justice.
(WSJ, 5/3/96, p.A-10)
1995 The Future Light Orphanage in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, was founded to teach children skills to avoid poverty.
(SFC, 5/3/00, p.A12)
1995 The Khmer Rouge was ousted in Cambodia after a 3 year reign of terror in which hundreds of thousands died.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Mar 26, In Cambodia the Khmer Rouge kidnapped Christopher Howes (37), a mine-clearing expert from Bristol, England, and Huon Huot, his interpreter. In November Howes’ employer paid $120,000 for his release. The two men were killed shortly after their abduction. Their remains were found in 1998. In 2008 a Cambodian court sentenced four former Khmer Rouge rebels each to up to 20 years in prison for their involvement in the murders.
(SFC, 11/23/96, p.A11)(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A14)(http://tinyurl.com/7s7x4)(AP, 10/14/08)
1996 Apr 16, Khmer Rouge guerillas attacked a group of tourists near Kompot, 85 miles southwest of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Reports have it that they killed and wounded a number of people and kidnapped about 20.
(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-10)
1996 Jun 7, In Cambodia it was reported that Pol Pot was gravely ill or possibly dead. Pol Pot died 1998.
(WSJ, 6/7/96, p.A11)(SFC, 4/16/98, p.A1)
1996 Jun 21, In Cambodia Khmer Rouge guerrillas held dozens of sawmill workers for ransom and killed 14 of them with axes.
(SFC, 6/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Jul 10, The Khmer Rouge attacked a government base in southwestern Cambodia. They were also accused of killing 60 forestry workers kidnapped previously. 25,500 people have died since 1995 in fighting with the Khmer Rouge.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 8, In Cambodia the government announced an internal power struggle and split in the Khmer Rouge. Leng Sary, a Pol Pot chum and the Khmer Rouge foreign minister, opposed Son Sen, the minister of defense and led defections that grew to 10,000.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.A13)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(WSJ, 4/17/98, p.A13)
1996 Sep 5, Cambodia rushed troops to aid the 1,000 or so Khmer Rouge dissidents near the village of Chup Koki. About 5,500 Khmer Rouge rebels remain loyal to Pol Pot.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 14, In Cambodia King Norodom Sihanouk granted amnesty to Leng Sary, the Khmer Rouge rebel leader.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A16)
1996 Oct 18, Cambodia’s king granted amnesty to all prison inmates except those convicted of serious crimes and judged to be too dangerous. He also proposed tearing down the country’s dilapidated prisons which house about 2,000 people, many held without trial. Leng Sary was granted amnesty and formed a political party. His followers maintained rule over Pailin under nominal government control.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A11)
1996 Oct 27, Cambodia’s king reversed his decision for amnesty after students issued a warning of increased national insecurity.
(SFC, 10/28/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct, Mr. Robert Prins, president of Iowa Wesleyan College, bestowed an honorary law degree to Hun Sen and his Cambodia chief of cabinet Sok An at the behest of Mr. Ted Sioeng, Indonesian businessman.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A22)
1996 Nov, The IMF canceled a $20 million loan because of Cambodia’s failure to halt illegal logging and channel timber revenue into its budget.
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A10)
1996 In Cambodia Ta Mok ousted Pol Pot from power and kept him under house arrest until his death in 1998.
(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.A17)(SFC, 7/21/06, p.A20)
1997 Feb 14, Khmer Rouge guerrillas killed all but three Cambodian government officials sent to make peace.
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.A12)
1997 Mar 30, In Cambodia a grenade attack at a political rally killed at least 16 and wounded over 100 as opposition leader Sam Rainsy led some 200 members of his Khmer Nation Party in front of the National Assembly.
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A10)(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A10)
1997 May 31, The 7-member ASEAN alliance, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, met in Kuala Lumpur and agreed to allow Burma to become a member in July. Laos and Cambodia were also to be admitted. The members were Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.D3)
1997 Jun 11, In Cambodia Pol Pot ordered the killing of the former Khmer Rouge defense minister Son Sen (67) and his powerful wife, Yun Yat (63), and 9 relatives.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 17, Fighting broke out in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, between the 2 competing prime ministers. Security troops of Prince Ranariddh faced troops of the national police under Hok Lundy, a supporter of Hun Sen.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 18, In Cambodia it was reported that Pol Pot had surrendered with 15 followers.
(SFC, 6/19/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 19, In Cambodia the report of Pol Pot’s surrender was rescinded.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Jun 21, Cambodia government sources announced that former Khmer Rouge troops had captured Pol Pot.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun, Cambodia’s Hun Sen wrote to the UN and asked for help in bringing remaining Khmer Rouge to trial.
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A14)
1997 Jul 4, In Cambodia troops of prince Ranariddh laid down their arms and some 140 were taken prisoner by troops of 2nd Prime Minister Hun Sen. Ranariddh was on a trip to France and Hun Sen claimed that illegal negotiations were taking place with Khmer Rouge guerrillas.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 5, Cambodia's 2nd PM Hun Sen launched a bloody coup that toppled 1st PM Norodom Ranariddh. Heavy fighting in Phnom Penh indicated the collapse of the fragile coalition.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.A3)(AP, 7/5/98)
1997 Jul 6, In Cambodia Hun Sen declared victory while Prince Ranariddh planned from France to carry out a resistance effort.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 8, Cambodia Interior Minister Ho Sok was seized and executed by forces loyal to Hun Sen. Some 30 soldiers loyal to Ranariddh were captured and tortured by Regiment 911 at Kambol
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A6)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 9, In Cambodia some 30 opposition officials were arrested in Pray Veng Province, 13 in Battambang, and 20 in Kompong Speu. Prince Ranariddh was in consultation with the United Nations for support.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.E3)
1997 Jul 10, ASEAN foreign ministers voted to suspend Cambodia’s pending membership. The US announced a 3/4 reduction of staff and some aid. More than 50 people were dead after 2 days of fighting.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 16, In Cambodia Hun Sen named a new co-premier, Ung Huot, the foreign minister and a member of Ranariddh’s Funcinpec Party. Exiled legislators said was the appointment was illegal.
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A8)(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 18, In Cambodia Prince Ranariddh called off armed resistance and proposed a caretaker government and new elections.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 19, In Cambodia Hun Sen rejected a peace plan proposed by the 7-nation ASEAN group.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Jul 26, Communist guerrillas in Cambodia announced that Pol Pot was sentenced to life imprisonment. Nate Thayer, a US reporter for the Far Eastern Economic Review, claimed to have seen Pol Pot and prepared a report for the Review.
(WSJ, 7/28/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 8, US Sec. of State Madeleine Albright announced that the bulk of US aid to Cambodia would be suspended.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 19, In Cambodia 35,000 people fled across the border to Thailand to escape fighting between forces loyal to Prince Ranariddh and troops of coup leader Hun Sen.
(WSJ, 8/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 24, In Cambodia troops of Hun Sen overran O’Smach, the last frontier town held by forces loyal to Prince Ranariddh.
(SFC, 8/25/97, p.A8)
1997 Sep 3, In Cambodia a Vietnam Airlines, Tupelov 134, Soviet jet crashed on approach to Phnom Penh airport and killed 65 people. One child, 1-year-old Chanayuth Nim-Anong, survived. A 2nd child about 4 also survived.
(WSJ, 9/3/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A12)(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Dec 20, Theng Bunma, Cambodian business tycoon and accused drug trafficker, was awarded an honorary doctorate from Iowa Wesleyan College via the manipulations of Ted Sioeng, an Indonesia-born businessman. Sioeng was at the heart of the "donorgate" scandal over China’s attempt to influence the 1996 US elections.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A22)
1998 Mar 29, In Cambodia civilians fled fighting between factions of the Khmer Rouge
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 30, Prince Norodom Ranariddh returned to Cambodia and planned to oppose Hun Sen in the Jul 26 elections.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)
1998 Mar 31, In Cambodia government soldiers made a major offensive to destroy the remnants of the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, whose numbers were disintegrating due to defections and internal fighting.
(SFC, 4/1/98, p.A8)
1998 Apr 15, Pol Pot (73) died of a heart attack in Anlong Veng, northern Cambodia. His body was cremated. It was later reported that he killed himself with malaria pills and tranquilizers after learning that an aide planned to hand him over to the US. In 1999 it was reported that Ta Mok had Pol Pot executed. In 2001 the place of his death was designated as a historic site and plans were made to make it a tourist attraction. In 2004 Philip Short and John Murray authored “Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare."
(SFC, 4/16/98, p.A1)(SFC, 4/18/98, p.A8)(WSJ, 1/21/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/27/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/21/01, p.H5)(Econ, 11/6/04, p.89)
1998 Apr 17, A Thai military team collected evidence from the body of Pol Pot, former chief of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge guerrillas, to confirm that one of the century's worst tyrants was truly dead.
(AP,, 4/17/99)
1998 Apr 18, In Cambodia the Khmer Rouge killed 22 ethnic Vietnamese at Chhanok Tru, a fishing village on Tonle Sap Lake.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A15)
1998 Apr 21, Khmer Rouge rebels drove a large government force back in 2 days of fighting along the Thai-Cambodian border.
(SFC, 4/22/98, p.A9)
1998 May 2, Cambodian refugees entered Thailand as government troops declared that they had all but destroyed the Khmer Rouge.
(BS, 5/3/98, p.16A)
1998 May 20, In Cambodia Prince Ranariddh quit as head of an opposition alliance against Hun Sen and chose to support Son Soubert.
(WSJ, 5/21/98, p.A1)
1998 Jun 5, Over 1,000 former Khmer Rouge soldiers were inducted into the Cambodian army at Anlong Veng. Khmer Rouge leader Ta Mok and some loyalists were still in the jungles along the Thai border.
(SFC, 6/6/98, p.A11)
1998 Jun 28, In Cambodia an opposition activist was found beaten to death near Phnom Penh.
(WSJ, 6/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 17, In Cambodia Khmer Rouge guerrillas under Ta Mok attacked a convoy of election workers and killed 2 people.
(SFEC, 7/19/98, p.A24)
1998 Jul 23, It was reported that 3 ethnic Vietnamese were killed last week in a racist attack prior to Cambodian elections. Ethnic slurs against the Vietnamese were turning up in the election campaign.
(SFC, 7/23/98, p.A10)
1998 Jul 26, In Cambodia a Khmer Rouge attack left 10 people dead as the nation voted for a new government. 40-50 guerrillas struck at an army outpost at O’Kong Bich. No party was expected to win a majority of the 122 seat National Assembly.
(SFC, 7/27/98, p.A8)
1998 Jul 28, The Cambodian People's Party (CPP) of Hun Sen claimed victory and preliminary results showed him with 67 seats, Ranariddh with 42 and Rainsy with 13.
(WSJ, 7/29/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/9/99, p.A12)
1998 Aug 5, In Cambodia election officials declared Hun Sen the winner and int’l. monitors backed the results.
(WSJ, 8/6/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 20, A grenade attack in Phnom Penh, apparently aimed at Sam Rainsy, killed one man but left Rainsy unhurt.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 7, In Phnom Penh Hun Sen ordered the arrests of his opponents and at least one person was killed as police fired into a crowd of protestors.
(SFC, 9/8/98, p.A8)
1998 Sep 8, In Phnom Penh police scattered demonstrators and ended a 2-week protest against alleged fraud in the national elections. Protestors called their tent city Democracy Square and thousands participated with hopes of launching a people-power revolution.
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A8)
1998 Sep 23, In Cambodia a rocket attack intended for Huns Sen killed 4 people including 2 children.
(SFC, 9/24/98, p.A14)
1998 Nov 13, In Cambodia the warring political parties agreed to form a coalition government led by Hun Sen. Opposition leader Prince Norodom Ranariddh will become president of the National Assembly.
(SFC, 11/14/98, p.A10)
1998 Nov 25, Cambodia’s new National Assembly began office with Prince Ranariddh as speaker of the 120-seat group.
(SFC, 11/26/98, p.B8)
1998 Dec 4, In Cambodia the last Khmer Rouge fighting force surrendered, but 3 leaders refused to give up.
(WSJ, 12/7/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 7, The UN agreed to give Cambodia’s UN seat to the new government.
(SFC, 12/8/98, p.A15)
1998 Dec 9, In Cambodia Khmer Rouge guerrillas kidnapped 48 people, including 3 aid workers, and demanded ransom.
(WSJ, 12/10/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 20, In Cambodia there were riots in Sihanoukville to protests suspected toxic waste imports from Taiwan. Hundreds of Cambodians fled the city after reports of deaths from 3,000 tons of toxic waste dumped 2 weeks ago. The waste was loaded with mercury and a plan was made to move it away from Sihanoukville. Taiwan ordered Formosa Plastics to take back the 3,000 tons of waste but the firm said the government used tests by an environmental group.
(WSJ, 12/21/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/22/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/28/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/29/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 26, In Cambodia 2 aides of the late Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, emerged from the jungle and expressed in writing their desire to become ordinary citizens and allegiance to the government. Prime Minister Hun Sen welcomed them and spoke against a trial and reopening old wounds.
(SFEC, 12/27/98, p.A22)(SFC, 12/29/98, p.A8)
1998 Dec 31, In Cambodia Hun Sen said he would not oppose a trial of the 2 recently emerged Khmer Rouge defectors. The National Assembly passed a $393.4 million budget that included $133 million for defense and security.
(SFC, 1/2/99, p.A8)(SFC, 1/2/99, p.C12)
1998 Over 8,000 Cambodians died from AIDS in this year.
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.C2)
1999 Feb 9, Some 1,700 guerrillas of the Khmer Rouge were inducted into the Cambodian military.
(SFC, 2/10/99, p.A10)
1999 Feb 26, In Japan int'l. donors at a 2 day conference pledged to provide $470 million in aid to Cambodia, if the country takes steps to reduce its army and promote democracy.
(SFC, 2/27/99, p.A16)
1999 Feb, A UN panel recommended that an int'l. tribunal be established to prosecute those persons most responsible for the crimes of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 5/10/99, p.A10)
1999 Mar 6, In Cambodia Ta Mok (72), aka "the butcher," the one-legged last senior leader of the Khmer Rouge, was arrested.
(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.A17)(SFC, 3/8/99, p.A12)
1999 Mar, In Cambodia Hun Sen rejected a UN proposal to hold an int’l. tribunal.
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A14)
1999 Apr, Kaing Guek Eav (aka Comrade Duch), the chief executioner of Pol Pot's regime, was uncovered by Nick Dunlop, a foreign journalist. The Cambodia government reportedly knew of his whereabouts for 2 years. In May Duch was put under protective custody after agreeing to testify against his former comrades. In 2006 Dunlop authored “The Lost Executioner: A Journey to the heart of the Killing Fields."
(SFC, 5/10/99, p.A8,10)(SSFC, 3/5/06, p.M3)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.52)
1999 Apr 30, Cambodia was admitted as the 10th member of the Association of Asian Nations (ASEAN).
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.B1)
1999 Apr, Hun Sen accepted a compromise offer for an int’l. tribunal with both foreign and Cambodian judges. Talks soon collapsed.
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A14)
1999 Jun 26, Samdach Vira Bhante, a Cambodian monk, died in Stockton, Ca. at age 110.
(SFC, 7/1/99, p.C4)
1999 Jul 6, Srei Chea (29), Cambodian film star, was shot 3 times by 2 gunmen. She died a week later. Her films included "Shadow of Darkness," which was about life under the Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 7/19/99, p.A12)
1999 Jul 6, Piseth Peaklica (34), Cambodian actress, was shot by 2 gunmen in a Phnom Penh market and died on July 13. It was rumored that she was involved with a high official (Hun Sen) and ordered killed by a jealous wife (Bun Rany).
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A15)(http://tinyurl.com/5n83tu)
1999 Aug 11, It was reported that an estimated half of Cambodia's 10-20 thousand sex workers were infected with the AIDS virus, HIV.
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.C2)
1999 Sep 7, In Cambodia the military court charged Ta Mok, a former Khmer Rouge guerrilla chief, with genocide.
(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A15)
1999 Sep 9, In Cambodia Kaing Khek, aka "Duch" and former head of Tuol Sleng, a converted school that served as a Khmer Rouge torture center, was charged with genocide.
(SFC, 9/10/99, p.D4)(SSFC, 3/5/06, p.M3)
1999 Oct 19, In Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen reportedly gave his approval for a tribunal to hear genocide charges against the Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A10)
1999 Cambodia agreed to allow environmentalists to begin an experiment in wildlife and forest protection with enforcers paid by outside nations.
(WSJ, 6/19/01, p.A1)
1999 Bernard Krisher, American philanthropist (retired magazine journalist), began to link rural schools with solar power and Internet linked computers. His Japan Relief for Cambodia was responsible for the Cambodia Daily, the country's first English language daily newspaper and an orphanage in Phnom Penh.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.AA7)
2000 Jan 2, It was reported that Cambodia’s Hun Sen, in an effort to boost tourism, had approved direct flights to Angkor Wat, with a required one night stay in the adjacent town of Siem Riap.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.T3)
2000 Jan, In Cambodia Hun Sen moved ahead with plans to hold national trials without int’l. assistance.
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A14)
2000 May, At least 6 anti-government royalists were killed by government soldiers in Cambodia’s Kratie province according to charges made by a human rights group in August. 25 people were missing and presumed dead.
(SFC, 8/18/00, p.D6)
2000 Sep 14, In Cambodia and Vietnam the Mekong River flooded. At least 89 people had died in Cambodia and 8 in Vietnam since the floods began in July.
(SFC, 9/15/00, p.A18)
2000 Sep 21, In Southeast Asia the death toll from floods reached 235. The Red Cross issued an appeal for emergency aid to Cambodia.
(SFC, 9/22/00, p.D2)
2000 Nov 24, Several dozen gunmen attacked government offices in Phnom Penh. At least 7 people were killed and 12 wounded. Police fought a US-based anti-communist group known as the Cambodian Freedom Fighters (CFF). 8 were killed and 60 rounded up. 38 people, including 4 American citizens, were later charged with terrorism. In 2002 a court sentenced 20 people to prison terms of 5 years to life for the plotting to overthrow the government.
(SFC, 11/25/00, p.A18)(WSJ, 11/27/00, p.A1)(SFC, 11/30/00, p.C3)(SFC, 3/1/02, p.A17)
2001 Aug 7, Cambodia’s Constitutional Council approved legislation to establish a special court to try former Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes against humanity.
(SFC, 8/8/01, p.A9)
2001 Aug 10, Cambodia’s King Sihanouk signed war-crimes legislation to try senior Khmer Rouge leaders.
(WSJ, 8/15/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 23, Cambodia’s PM Hun Sen shut down the country’s bars, nightclubs, discos and karaoke parlors. He said they were spawning crime and eroding traditional values. The action followed a series of shootings at nightspots.
(SSFC, 12/2/01, p.C13)
2001 Kay Kimsong, along with two Americans working for the Cambodian Daily, were sued over two articles published in early 2001 that said Foreign Minister Hor Namhong had played an active part in running a Phnom Penh prison camp during the Khmer Rouge's brutal 1975-79 reign. An appeal by Kimson in 2005 was rejected and he was fined $7,500.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2001 Arn Chorn-Pond started the Silipak Khmer Amatak (Cambodian Living Arts) organization. It aimed to locate and support Cambodian master artists.
(SFCM, 8/8/04, p.12)
2001 The UN said 170,000 people in Cambodia had HIV. About 2.7% of the adult population was infected with AIDS.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.41)
2002 Feb 3, In Cambodia’s 1st local elections Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party won control of up to 1600 of the 1,621 local councils. A US monitoring group said the polls were competently run but neither free nor fair.
(SFC, 2/5/02, p.A7)
2002 Aug 30, Floodwaters along the lower stretches of the Mekong have wreaked havoc in Laos, Cambodia (18), Thailand (12) and Vietnam (25), claiming at least 55 lives and leaving thousands homeless across the region.
(AP, 8/30/02)
2002 Sep 29, In Cambodia 2 nuns and a monk burned to death in bathtubs of gasoline and three suffered multiple stab wounds in Wat Thmar Sar. Police later detained Dem Mam the leader of an extremist Buddhist cult.
(Reuters, 10/2/02)
2002 Nov 5, The ASEAN group (Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Brunei, Thailand and Myanmar) ended a 2-day conference in Cambodia that was also attended by representatives from China, Japan, and India and South Africa.
(AP, 11/5/02)
2002 Dec 19, In Cambodia some 1 million people participated in the transfer of some remains of Buddha from Phnom Penh to a new shrine in Oudong.
(SFC, 12/20/02, p.A18)
2003 Jan 29, In Cambodia protesters looted and set fire to the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh. The protest was against a Thai TV star who was quoted in the media as saying Cambodia had stolen the famous Angkor Wat temple from Thailand.
(AP, 1/29/03)
2003 Jan 30, Thailand sealed its border with Cambodia, recalled its ambassador and sent military planes to evacuate hundreds of terrified Thais after rioters looted and torched its embassy in the Cambodian capital.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 Mar 5, Cambodia sealed its border with Thailand, due to sluggish progress "to normalize relations in border areas" since January’s anti-Thai riots.
(AP, 3/5/03)
2003 Apr 11, Cambodia and Thailand agreed to resume full diplomatic relations, which were suspended after anti-Thai riots shook Cambodia's capital in January.
(AP, 4/11/03)
2003 Jul 27, Cambodia held elections for seats in the123-member national Assembly in the third democratic election in a decade.
(AP, 7/27/03)(SSFC, 7/27/03, p.A9)
2003 Jul 28, In Cambodia PM Hun Sen's party claimed victory in general elections, saying it expects to win around 73 of the 123 seats in the National Assembly. Hun Sen's party swept to victory, but apparently fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to govern outright.
(AP, 7/28/03)(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Jul 30, In Cambodia opposition parties said they would only form a coalition government if PM Hun Sen stepped down.
(SFC, 8/1/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 26, It was reported that Cambodian prostitutes were being subjected to gang rapes, and that the practice, called "bauk," has been common for years.
(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.A11)
2003 Nov 5, Cambodia's three main parties agreed to form a tripartite coalition government with Prime Minister Hun Sen at the helm, ending a deadlock from inconclusive elections.
(AP, 11/5/03)
2003 Nov 25, In Cambodia PM Hun Sen's nephew was arrested on murder charges for allegedly shooting to death two people after a car crash.
(AP, 11/25/03)
2003 Dec 15, Cambodia's prime minister ordered the destruction of the country's surface-to-air missiles to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists. Hun Sen issued the order after a meeting in Phnom Penh with U.S. Ambassador Charles Ray.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2003 Dec 30, In Cambodia former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan (72) acknowledged for the first time that his regime committed genocide.
(AP, 12/30/03)
2003 Evan Gottlesman authored "Cambodia: After the Khmer Rouge."
(WSJ, 4/25/03, W6)
2004 Jan 22, In Cambodia gunmen assassinated Chea Vichea, a prominent labor leader linked to the main opposition party, as he read a newspaper on a capital street.
(AP, 1/22/04)
2004 Apr, SF based non-profit Room to Read (R2R), founded by former Microsoft executive John Wood, opened its 1000th library in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
(SFCM, 9/26/04, p.7)
2004 May 11, The Int’l. Justice Mission, a US-based evangelical Christian organization, was reported to be active in battling the child-sex trade in Cambodia. The group, founded in 1997 by Gary Haugen, was operating with $1.7 million in federal funds.
(SFC, 5/11/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 6, Actress Angelina Jolie (29) arrived in Cambodia. PM Hun Sen had offered her citizenship in recognition of her nature conservation work in the country’s northwest.
(SFC, 7/7/04, p.E3)
2004 cJul 8, In Cambodia Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh signed an agreement to share power with Hun Sen as PM and Ranariddh as speaker of the National Assembly.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.36)
2004 Jul 13, Police forces loyal to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen forced the acting head of state Chea Sim out of the country in a purge of the ruling party.
(AP, 7/13/04)
2004 Jul 14, King Sihanouk reappointed Hun Sen as Cambodia’s premier.
(WSJ, 7/15/04, p.A1)
2004 Oct 4, Cambodia's legislature approved a long-delayed agreement to put surviving Khmer Rouge leaders on trial for atrocities that claimed nearly two million lives during their murderous rule in the late 1970s.
(AP, 10/4/04)
2004 Oct 7, Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihanouk (81) abdicated due to poor health.
(SFC, 10/7/04, p.A9)
2004 Oct 14, In Cambodia Prince Norodom Sihamoni, retiring King Norodom Sihanouk's son, a former ballet dancer and U.N. cultural ambassador, was officially confirmed to succeed his father on the throne.
(AP, 10/14/04)
2004 Oct 28, Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni, the 51-year-old son of former king Norodom Sihanouk, was formally sworn in as monarch.
(AP, 10/29/04)
2005 Jan 1, The 1974 Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA), which had restricted Chinese textile exports, ended. This forced Cambodia to face fierce competition from rival exporters. This led to the loss of some 30,000 jobs in Mauritius.
(www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/February06/Features/feature2.htm)(Econ, 2/19/05, p.42)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.58)
2005 Feb 3, The US embassy in Phnom Penh condemned the Cambodian parliament's vote to strip opposition leader Sam Rainsy and two of his deputies of immunity.
(AP, 2/3/05)
2005 Feb, Sam Rainsy fled Cambodia after his parliamentary immunity was removed.
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.47)
2005 Mar 18, A Cambodian-Japanese joint venture, JC Royal, was awarded a 30-year management lease to oversee and upgrade the Choeung Ek memorial, site of the killing fields (1975-1979). Profits were marked for the unregistered Sun Fund charity.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.45)(http://tinyurl.com/dlpm7)
2005 Mar 25, Cambodia and Vietnam each confirmed an additional death from bird flu, raising Southeast Asia's death toll to 48.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2005 May 18, Cambodia's legislature ratified a pact with the US exempting each country's citizens from extradition for prosecution by the International Criminal Court, an agreement sought by Washington to avoid political trials of its citizens.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 Jun 16, In northwestern Cambodia a man driven by a grudge against his former employer spearheaded an assault on an international school, taking dozens of children hostage and silencing a crying a 2-year-old Canadian boy by shooting him in the head.
(AP, 6/17/05)(SFC, 6/17/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 30, A Cambodia doctor reported that 2 infants have died in Cambodia from influenza, part of an outbreak that has hospitalized more than 1,000 children. He said the illness appears to be a form of human flu, not the avian influenza.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jul 20, Cambodia handed over some 107 Montagnards, a largely Christian hilltribe people, to Vietnamese authorities. More than 1,000 Montagnards fled to Cambodia after security forces put down demonstrations in Vietnam's Central Highlands in 2001 against land confiscation and religious persecution of ethnic minorities. In January, Vietnam, Cambodia and the UNHCR signed a memorandum of understanding to resettle or repatriate about 700 ethnic minority Vietnamese who were estimated at the time to be in Cambodia.
(AFP, 7/20/05)
2005 Aug 1, In Cambodia 2 men who said their confessions were coerced by police were convicted of murder in the death of a prominent labor union leader. Chea Vichea, the former head of Cambodia's Free Trade Union of Workers, was gunned down in January 2004 at a roadside newsstand in the capital, Phnom Penh. The union leader was an outspoken critic of government corruption and human rights abuses.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, The US Embassy in Cambodia said the US has established a $2 million endowment (DC-Cam) to assist a Cambodian group researching crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge government in the late 1970s.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 6, Australia staged a high seas arrest of a Cambodian-flagged ship with an international crew suspected of fishing illegally in sub-Antarctic waters.
(AFP, 9/10/05)
2005 Oct 25, Chhouk Rin, former Khmer Rouge field commander, was caught in northwestern Cambodia. In 1994 he was convicted in absentia for the murder of 3 Western backpackers.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Dec 31, In Cambodia police arrested two leading human rights activists on defamation charges as the UN human rights body expressed "extreme concern" over the move.
(AFP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec, The IMF decided to write off Cambodia’s $82 million debt.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.52)(http://tinyurl.com/yvqvuh)
2005 Some 80% of Cambodians lived in the countryside.
(Econ, 2/19/05, p.42)
2006 Jan 17, Cambodia, under US pressure, released four prominent government critics from a Phnom Penh prison but said they will still face defamation charges.
(AP, 1/17/06)
2006 Jan 22, Cambodia held its first Senate election. PM Hun Sen's ruling party secured a landslide victory. Only 123 parliamentarians and 11,261 members of commune councilors, local administrative bodies, were able to vote.
(AFP, 1/29/06)
2006 Feb 5, Cambodia's king pardoned exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy who was sentenced to jail for defamation, in a move officials said was at the request of PM Hun Sen.
(AP, 2/5/06)
2006 Feb 10, Sam Rainsy, an exiled Cambodian opposition leader, returned home to cheering crowds of supporters after a royal pardon ended his long feud with PM Hun Sen.
(AP, 2/10/06)
2006 Mar 1, Cambodia’s National Assembly convened to amend 8 legislations to the constitution especially the new article 90 to diminish the votes of support for lawmakers from 2/3 to 50% plus one votes in order to form a government, according to the lawmakers' proposals from the 3 main parties.
(http://tinyurl.com/jg63b)
2006 Mar 4, Cambodia deported an American for running websites that promoted the impoverished kingdom as a destination for people who wanted to end their lives. Californian Roger Graham, 57, who owned the Blue Mountain Coffee and Internet Cafe in the quiet coastal backwater of Kampot, had advertised his avid support of euthanasia, or mercy killing, on his websites www.euthanasiaincambodia.com and www.asian-hearts.com.
(AFP, 3/4/06)
2006 Mar 29, Cambodia's PM Hun Sen said that Yash Ghai, a UN human rights representative, was no longer welcome in the Southeast Asian nation after the envoy criticized the government's crackdown on dissent.
(AP, 3/29/06)
2006 Apr 15, Cambodian soldiers departed to Sudan for a UN-backed landmine clearing operation, saying they hoped they could use their experience recovering from civil war to help the war-torn Sudanese.
(AFP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 21, The Cambodian PM Hun Sen ruled out sending troops to Iraq, rejecting a request by the US for non-combat forces to assist with humanitarian work.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr, China’s PM Wen Jiabao visited Cambodia and announced aid for roads, dams and other projects for up to $600 million.
(Econ, 3/31/07, SR p.14)
2006 May 4, Cambodia's highest judicial body approved 30 Cambodian and UN judges to preside over a long-awaited genocide tribunal for surviving Khmer Rouge leaders.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 9, A land mine killed five Cambodian soldiers and maimed another as they tried to remove it from an area being developed to build a casino.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 Jun 6, In Cambodia more than 1,000 police, many armed and in riot gear, evicted hundreds of families who had refused to leave a Phnom Penh shantytown, as authorities moved to end a standoff that has stalled millions of dollars in commercial development.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jul 3, Judges and prosecutors from Cambodia and abroad were sworn in to begin the UN-backed judicial process to try former Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide and crimes against humanity.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 21, In Cambodia Ta Mok (80), known as "The Butcher" for his brutality as military chief of the communist Khmer Rouge, died.
(AP, 7/21/06)(Econ, 8/5/06, p.77)
2006 Aug 6, Cambodian customs over the weekend seized 12 luxury vehicles stolen in Canada, including a Hummer and a Cadillac popular with hip-hop music stars, giving an intriguing insight into the world of international car smuggling.
(Reuters, 8/7/06)
2006 Aug 30, Cambodian lawmakers curtailed parliamentarians’ right to speak without fear of prosecution in a bill that granted them pensions and other perks.
(Econ, 9/9/06, p.46)
2006 Aug 31, Heng Pov, former Phnom Penh police chief, was arrested at a hotel in Singapore when a clerk brought food for him. A Cambodian court warrant had been recently issued against him accusing him of involvement in a number of crimes such as the killing of Phnom Penh judge Sok Sethamony, assassination attempts on general Sao Sokha and judge Uk Savuth, as well as a number of other criminal cases. Pov claimed that he was being framed for refusing orders to kill Hok Lundy, the internal security chief.
(http://tinyurl.com/gtumm)(Econ, 9/9/06, p.46)
2006 Sep 1, Cambodia’s PM Hun Sen pushed a bill through the lower house of parliament banning extra-marital affairs. The legislation could get adulterers up to a year in jail.
(Econ, 9/9/06, p.46)
2006 Sep 19, Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni started the official part of a week-long visit to the Czech Republic, a country where he spent 13 years from 1962-1975 and considers as his "second home."
(AP, 9/19/06)
2006 Oct 3, In California Cambodian and US representatives signed a sister park accord between Samlaut Park and Sequoia National Park.
(SFC, 10/4/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 9, Cambodian PM Hun Sen began a six-day official visit to Australia that will focus on security and trade.
(AFP, 10/9/06)
2006 Oct 18, Cambodia's royalist party voted to remove Prince Norodom Ranariddh as its leader, saying his long absences from the country left him unable to lead the fractious party.
(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 31, Cambodian police said an American police officer, killed himself while in custody in the capital. Donald Rene Ramirez of SF was accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl. Ramirez had been going on vacation to Asia for at least 2 decades.
(AP, 10/31/06)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.B1)
2006 Nov 10, Asian nations reached their first international agreement to implement what has been dubbed the "Iron Silk Road." Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and seven other nations agreed to meet at least every two years to identify vital rail routes, coordinate standards and financing and plan upgrades and expansions, among other measures. The UN first conceived the Trans-Asian Railway Network in 1960.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 21, Cambodian PM Hun Sen, other senior officials and South Korea’s President Roh Moo-Hyun arrived in Siem Reap, the gateway to the famed Angkor temple complex, to kick off the Angkor-Gyeongju Culture Expo, a joint cultural festival that runs through January 2007.
(AFP, 11/21/06)
2006 Nov 30, Cambodia's PM Hun Sen condemned attempts by Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels to push for a separate state, after talks in Phnom Penh with the island's premier.
(AFP, 11/30/06)
2006 Cambodia’s PM Hun Sen financed and provided a foreword to a book by Ros Chantrabot about Sdach Korn, an alleged Cambodian historical figure. 5,000 copies were distributed out. Hun Sen wanted to rehabilitate this ordinary man who supposedly toppled his king and ruled during the 16th century.
(http://ki-media.blogspot.com/search/label/Hun%20Sen)(Econ, 4/7/07, p.38)
2007 Jan, In Cambodia villagers reported seeing a naked woman stealing food. Sal Lou (43) a retired police officer, identified her as his oldest child, Rochom P’ngieng, by a scar on her arm. P’ngieng (29) had vanished in 1989 while tending buffalo near the jungle in remote northern Rattanakiri province. In 2010 Rochom P’ngieng reportedly fled back to the forest.
(www.salem-news.com/articles/july092008/jungle_girl_7-9-08.php)(AP, 5/28/10)
2007 Feb 2, US Peace Corps volunteers flew to Cambodia to teach English at rural schools, marking the 45-year-old organization's first mission there.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 9, In Cambodia the American navy's USS Gary docked at Sihanoukville, becoming the first US military craft to visit the former communist country in more than 30 years.
(AFP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 15, It was reported that shooting ranges continued to operate in Cambodia despite government cancellation of licenses in 1997. Tourists were able to fire 30 rounds with an AK-47 for $30. Other offers included tossing grenades at chickens for $200 and killing a cow with a rocket-propelled grenade for $555.
(SFC, 2/15/07, p.14)
2007 Feb 27, In Cambodia the US ambassador said direct US aid to support Cambodian government projects will resume following the lifting of a decade-old ban by Washington.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Cambodia PM Hun Sen publicly rebuked members in the upper ranks of his Cambodian People’s Party for dodgy land deals as small farmers and slum-dwellers fell victim to land-grabbing.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.38)
2007 Mar 12, Preah Maha Ghosananda (78), Buddhist spiritual leader of Cambodia, died.
(Econ, 3/24/07, p.98)
2007 Mar 16, Cambodian and foreign judges reached a key agreement on procedures governing Cambodia's long-stalled Khmer Rouge tribunal.
(AP, 3/16/07)
2007 Mar 19, A Cambodian court official said that Prince Norodom Ranariddh has been charged with adultery for having a mistress while still being legally married to his wife.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Mar 24, Thieves in Cambodia poisoned a 62-year-old domesticated elephant and sawed off its tusks to sell on the black market. In 2008 2 men were arrested for the killing and faced up to 3 years in prison for the intentional destruction of private property.
(AP, 3/27/07)(AP, 3/26/08)
2007 Apr 1, Cambodia held local commune elections. The Cambodian People’s Party won control in 1,592 of 1,621 communes amid opposition claims of fraud.
(Econ, 4/7/07, p.38)
2007 Apr 6, Health officials said teenage girls in Cambodia and Indonesia have died of bird flu as the virus continues to stalk across Asia.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 May 22, Cambodian PM Hun Sen met with junta head Senior General Than Shwe in military-ruled Myanmar, as the two nations moved to improve tourism links.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 Jun 4, Cambodian and foreign judges began a weeklong meeting to confirm rules for the much-delayed genocide trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders, blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million people.
(AP, 6/4/07)
2007 Jun 13, Cambodian and foreign judges announced rules clearing the way for a UN-assisted genocide tribunal to begin investigating Khmer Rouge leaders in the deaths of 1.7 million people during their 1975-79 communist regime.
(AP, 6/13/07)
2007 Jun 14, Cambodian PM Hun Sen, visiting Japan, pledged to fight corruption to lure more investors from top donor Japan as he tries to wean his government away from foreign aid.
(AP, 6/14/07)
2007 Jun 25, A charter plane carrying 22 people between two popular Cambodian tourist destinations crashed in a mountainous region in the south of the country. All aboard were killed.
(AP, 6/25/07)(AP, 6/27/07)
2007 Jun, Cambodia received pledges from foreign governments, agencies and charities of $690 million in aid, 15% more than last year as China joined the pledge process.
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.49)
2007 Jul 17, Cambodia's government issued a directive preventing Christians from promoting their religion in public places, or using money or other means to persuade people to convert.
(AP, 7/17/07)
2007 Jul 31, In Cambodia Kang Kek Ieu (alias Duch), a former Khmer Rouge prison chief, was charged with crimes against humanity and detained by Cambodia's UN-backed tribunal in the first legal action taken by the court against regime leaders.
(AFP, 7/31/07)
2007 Sep 19, In Cambodia Nuon Chea, the top surviving leader of the notorious Khmer Rouge, whose radical policies were responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people, was charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes.
(AP, 9/19/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Cambodia Alexander Trofimov (41), the Russian chairman of Koh Puos Investment Group Ltd., was charged with debauchery, a Cambodian legal offense covering sexual abuse of children. He was detained in the southern resort town of Sihanoukville and accused of raping at least six girls. In September last year, the Cambodian government gave Trofimov's company permission to develop an island near Sihanoukville into a tourist resort.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 12, In Cambodia Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, the ex-foreign minister of the Khmer Rouge regime and his wife, were arrested on charges of crimes against humanity. Ieng Sary was sentenced to death in absentia in August 1979, eight months after a Vietnam-led resistance movement overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime. In 1996 the king rewarded Ieng Sary with an amnesty for breaking away from his comrades-in-arms.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 19, In Cambodia a UN-backed tribunal arrested Khieu Samphan (76), the former Khmer Rouge head of state. He was the fifth senior official of the brutal regime to be rounded up ahead of a long-delayed genocide trial. In his book "Reflection on Cambodian History Up to the Era of Democratic Kampuchea," which was released last week, Khieu Samphan says the Khmer Rouge only wanted what was best for Cambodia.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 20, In Cambodia Kaing Guek Eav (66), also known as Duch, the head of the Khmer Rouge's largest and most notorious torture center appeared in court in the first public session of the long-delayed UN-backed tribunal probing the regime's reign of terror in the 1970s.
(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Dec 25, Some 600 protesters marched in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh to call for speedier trials for the former leaders of Khmer Rouge regime.
(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Khamboly Dy authored "A History of Democratic Kampuchea," the first history book written by a Cambodian about the Khmer Rouge.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2008 Jan 19, Activists said actress Mia Farrow has arrived in Cambodia and plans to defy a ban on holding a ceremony at a former Khmer Rouge prison, as part of her campaign on Darfur.
(AFP, 1/19/08)
2008 Jan 20, In Cambodia American actress Mia Farrow was forced to cancel a ceremony in Phnom Penh highlighting human rights abuses in Sudan after authorities barred her access to the city's genocide museum.
(AFP, 1/20/08)
2008 Jan, In Massachusetts Ly Van Aggadipo (b.1917), a Cambodia-born Buddhist monk, died. He had fled Cambodia in 1979 and later settled in the US. In 2010 friends and followers released a book of his poetry titled “Oh! Maha Mount Dangrek," which contained an autobiographical poem on the horrors of the Khmer Rouge and a friend’s story of love in the time of genocide.
(SFC, 3/23/10, p.E3)
2008 Mar 3, Cambodia passed legislation on the “Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation" to comply with the United States policy on human trafficking.
(http://healthdev.net/site/post.php?s=3840)
2008 Mar 30, Dith Pran (65), whose experiences during the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s were adapted into the award-winning movie "The Killing Fields," died in New Jersey.
(AFP, 3/30/08)
2008 Apr 16, In Cambodia an attacker hurled a hand grenade into a crowd of people dancing at a Buddhist temple to celebrate the traditional New Year, killing one villager and wounding 25.
(AP, 4/17/08)
2008 Jun 2, The US gave 31 used trucks to Cambodia in its first direct supply of military hardware in more than a decade, saying ties between the two countries were improving.
(AFP, 6/2/08)
2008 Jun 20, Cambodian officials said authorities working with Australian police had destroyed an enormous stockpile of 33 tons of safrole-rich oil, a key ingredient used in producing the synthetic drug Ecstasy. Cambodian authorities have been working since 2002 to stem the distillation of the oil and since then have succeeded in detecting and dismantling more than 50 clandestine laboratories capable of producing up to 15 gallons of oil a day. Cambodian officials are trying to preserve the sassafras tree, which is classified as a rare species that grows mainly in Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains.
(AP, 6/20/08)
2008 Jul 1, Thailand’s deputy prime minister said the Thai government has suspended its decision to support Cambodia's bid to have an 11th century temple near the Thai border declared a world landmark. In 1962, the International Court of Justice awarded the Preah Vihear temple and the land it occupies to Cambodia.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 7, A UNESCO official said that an 11th century temple that sits on Cambodia's disputed border zone with Thailand has been designated as a world heritage site. Hindu-themed Preah Vihear reflects the beliefs of the kings who ruled what was then the Angkorean empire.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 11, In Cambodia journalist Khim Sam Bo (47) was shot twice and his 19-year-old son was seriously wounded in the chest and died at the hospital. A gunman on a motorcycle shot five times at the victims as they were leaving a sports stadium on a motorcycle.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 16, Cambodia assembled its troops near the Thai border in the second day of alleged incursions by Thai soldiers amid tensions over disputed border land near a historic temple.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 18, Thailand sent more military reinforcements to a disputed part of the Cambodian border, after the tense four-day standoff nearly erupted into gunfire during the night.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 21, Talks between Cambodia and Thailand to resolve a military stand-off on their joint border ended without a solution.
(AFP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 22, Cambodia asked the UN Security Council and its Southeast Asian neighbors to intervene in resolving a military standoff over disputed border territory around an ancient temple, stepping up its rhetoric against Thailand.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 27, Cambodian PM Hun Sen's party claimed it won a sweeping victory in polls overshadowed by a military standoff with Thailand. Tens of thousands of opposition supporters were excluded from the elctoral register.
(AFP, 7/27/08)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.45)
2008 Aug 3, Cambodia said that Thai soldiers are occupying a second temple site on their border in an escalation of an ongoing armed standoff that nearly led to clashes between the neighbors last month.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 6, Officials said Cambodia's genocide tribunal has been hit by new corruption allegations, compelling foreign donors to withhold more than $300,000 from the proceedings pending a review of the claims.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 12, Cambodia's genocide tribunal formally indicted Kaing Guek Eav (aka Duch), a former prison chief of the country's notorious Khmer Rouge, paving the way for a historic trial.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 16, A monthlong standoff between Cambodia and Thailand appeared to be ending as both sides pulled back their troops from disputed territory around a temple near their shared border.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug, Cambodia leased agricultural land to Kuwaiti investors following mutual prime ministerial visits.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.62)
2008 Sep 16, The United States pledged 1.8 million dollars to Cambodia's cash-strapped Khmer Rouge court, making its first donation to the UN-backed genocide tribunal aimed at trying regime leaders.
(AFP, 9/16/08)
2008 Oct 3, Soldiers from both Cambodia and Thailand were wounded in a brief clash along their volatile border.
(AP, 10/3/08)
2008 Oct 7, The UN food agency (WFP) said it is resuming free breakfasts for hundreds of thousands of poor Cambodian schoolchildren after securing new funds for a program suspended due to high food prices.
(AP, 10/7/08)
2008 Oct 8, The Asian Development Bank announced $35 million in emergency food aid to ease the burden of soaring food prices among some of Cambodia's poorest people.
(AP, 10/8/08)
2008 Oct 13, Cambodian PM Hun Sen gave Thailand an ultimatum to withdraw troops from a disputed stretch of jungle-clad border within 24 hours or his forces would turn the area into a "death zone." Thai troops retreated the next day.
(Reuters, 10/13/08)(AP, 10/14/08)
2008 Oct 15, Cambodia and Thailand exchanged fire on the border in a clash over disputed land which left two soldiers dead and several wounded.
(AFP, 10/15/08)
2008 Oct 16, Cambodia and Thailand agreed to joint patrols of disputed border areas after deadly clashes, but made little progress toward resolving their long-standing territorial spat.
(AFP, 10/16/08)
2008 Nov 18, A Cambodian monk (17) was arrested for raping a British woman (39) while taking her on a tour of a cave in the northwestern Sampov mountains near his Buddhist temple. The monk also allegedly stole $55 and a cell phone from the woman.
(AP, 11/20/08)
2008 Dec 10, The government of Cambodia and the UN agreed in principle to strengthen measures to prevent corruption among staff at the country's genocide tribunal.
(AP, 12/10/08)
2009 Jan 9, Cambodian judges denied that they paid kickbacks to government officials to secure jobs on a genocide tribunal to try former Khmer Rouge leaders.
(AP, 1/9/09)
2009 Feb 2, In Cambodia police in Siem Reap arrested Jack Louis Sporich (75), an American from Chicago. He was charged with sexually abusing four Cambodian boys.
(AP, 2/4/09)
2009 Feb 5, A nongovernment organization said the corrupt elite of Cambodia, one of the world's most impoverished nations, has laid the groundwork for siphoning off vast profits from a coming boom in mining and oil exploitation.
(AP, 2/5/09)
2009 Mar 31, In Cambodia Kaing Guek Eav (aka Duch), the chief Khmer Rouge torturer, formally apologized for the deaths of more than 14,000 people at S-21 prison, the first Pol Pot cadre to accept blame for crimes committed by the regime 30 years ago.
(Reuters, 3/31/09)
2009 Apr 3, Cambodian and Thai soldiers traded fire with machine guns and rocket launchers along a disputed border, killing as many as four people in an escalation of tensions in a long-standing feud over an 11th century temple.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 May 1, In Cambodia a court official said Japan has donated $4.17 million to the UN-backed genocide tribunal trying former Khmer Rouge leaders on war crimes charges, just as the troubled court was running out of funding.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Jun 18, A study by an environmental group said pollution in the Mekong River is putting the rare Irrawaddy dolphin in danger of disappearing from Cambodia and Laos.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Aug 26, In Cambodia a Phnom Penh Municipal Court Judge found Michael James Dodd of Washington, DC, guilty of soliciting sex from a 14-year-old girl. He was arrested in October 2008 at his rented house in Phnom Penh, in the girl's company. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay 20 million riel ($4,878) in compensation to the girl's family.
(AP, 8/26/09)
2009 Oct 10, In Cambodia an overloaded river ferry capsized on its way to a Buddhist ceremony in Kratie province, killing 17 passengers in a tributary of the Mekong River.
(AP, 10/11/09)
2009 Nov 2, Tropical Storm Mirinae slammed into Vietnam's central coast, unleashing heavy rains and winds and forcing more than 80,000 people to evacuate before losing steam as it moved inland. The storm killed at least 98 people. Mirinae also killed two people in Cambodia and left 19 people dead and three missing in the Philippines.
(AP, 11/2/09)(AP, 11/3/09)(AFP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 4, Cambodia said it has appointed former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as economic adviser to premier Hun Sen and his administration.
(AFP, 11/4/09)
2009 Nov 5, Cambodia and Thailand recalled their ambassadors from each others' countries, deepening a diplomatic row after Cambodia made fugitive former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra an economic adviser.
(Reuters, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 6, Japan pledged $5.5 billion in aid over 3 years for Southeast Asia's 5 Mekong River nations (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam), seeking to deepen ties with the region amid growing influence from China.
(AFP, 11/6/09)
2009 Nov 10, Thailand's ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra, whose political battle against his successors has left his country bitterly divided, received a warm welcome in neighboring Cambodia, which shares his disdain for the current government in Bangkok.
(AP, 11/10/09)
2009 Dec 2, Cambodian police confiscated two tons of live snakes and tortoises and arrested two men trying to smuggle the slithering cargo up a river from Cambodia to Vietnam. Police arrested two Cambodians, aged 17 and 20, who said they were hired to transport the cargo but did not know the identities of their employers.
(AP, 12/3/09)
2009 Dec 8, In Cambodia Siwaraks Chothipong (31), a Thai employee of the Cambodia Air Traffic Service, was ordered to serve seven years in prison for spying on Thailand's former prime minister while he was in Cambodia as a guest of the government. Chothipong was accused of stealing Thaksin's flight schedule before his Nov. 10 arrival and sending it to the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh. The case threatened to worsen a diplomatic feud between the two neighbors. On Dec 11 Cambodia's king pardoned Chothipong.
(AP, 12/8/09)(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 18, In Cambodia a tribunal charged Khieu Samphan, the Khmer Rouge's 78-year-old former head of state, with genocide, adding new momentum to long-delayed trials against the brutal regime that ruled Cambodia 30 years ago (1975-1979).
(AP, 12/18/09)
2009 Dec 19, Cambodia sent back to China 20 Uighur Muslims who had fled China after deadly ethnic rioting and sought asylum in Cambodia, even though rights groups feared they faced persecution and possibly execution there. 2 other Uighurs who had been with the group were missing.
(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 21, In Cambodia Ieng Thirith, the last of the former Khmer Rouge leaders standing trial for alleged crimes committed three decades ago, was charged with genocide. The ultracommunist regime's social affairs minister and the wife of another defendant, Ieng Sary, had earlier been charged with crimes against humanity.
(AP, 12/21/09)
2009 Dec 21, Cambodia signed 14 deals worth an estimated $850 million with China, two days after defying international pressure by deporting 20 ethnic Chinese asylum-seekers, underlining growing trade and diplomatic links.
(AP, 12/21/09)
2009 Cambodia banned int’l. adoptions amid concerns that some children were being trafficked. The ban was lifted in 2013 and int’l. adoptions were expected to resume in 2014.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A2)
2010 Jan 1, A free-trade agreement between China and the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) came into effect. The 6 richest members scrapped tariffs on 90% of goods. The 4 poorest (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar) will not need to cut tariffs to the same level until 2015.
(SSFC, 1/3/10, p.A4)(Econ, 1/9/10, p.44)
2010 Jan 24, Cambodian and Thai troops exchanged fire near a disputed border temple, the latest in a string of gun battles between the countries since last year.
(AFP, 1/24/10)
2010 Jan 25, New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the Cambodian government to shut down its drug detention centers alleging abuses such as torture and rape, as well as the lockup of children and the mentally ill.
(AP, 1/25/10)
2010 Jan 27, A Cambodian court convicted and sentenced in absentia Sam Rainsy, the nation's main opposition leader, to two years in jail on charges of uprooting border markings. Rainsy, who is in France, said by telephone that the court had made a "most unjust" ruling, saying the border markers he had uprooted in protest were illegally placed.
(AFP, 1/27/10)
2010 Mar 3, In Laos senior officials from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam met in Luang Prabang to discuss the Mekong River. The Mekong River Commission in a draft report said severe drought has dropped the river to its lowest level in nearly 20 years, halting some cargo traffic and boat tours on the waterway, the lifeblood for 65 million people in six countries.
(AP, 3/3/10)
2010 Mar 10, Cambodia said it will preserve 14 sites at the last bastion of the murderous Khmer Rouge, including the home of their leader Pol Pot, as tourist attractions.
(AP, 3/10/10)
2010 Mar 19, Cambodia’s foreign ministry said Cambodia has temporarily suspended marriages between South Koreans and its citizens to curb human trafficking. The latest ban came after the March 3 conviction of a Cambodian matchmaker who arranged marriages between Korean men and 25 Cambodian brides.
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 25, China agreed to share water level data at 2 dams to ease pressure from nations downstream, including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
(SFC, 4/6/10, p.A3)
2010 Mar 31, US envoy Stephen Rapp said the US has pledged $5 million to Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal amid the troubled court's attempts to address corruption allegations.
(AFP, 3/31/10)
2010 Apr 2, Cambodia bristled at a US decision to cut a small military aid program to protest the December deportation of Muslim asylum seekers to China, saying if they deserved protection the United States could have offered it.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 19, Winners of the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prizes, known as the "green Nobels," were honored in San Francisco. Sereivathana Tuy of Cambodia won for his efforts in stopping farmers from killing elephants. Randall Arauz of Costa Rica won for his campaign to halt the maiming and killing of sharks for their fins. Humberto Rios Labrada (47) of Cuba won for his campaign to shift farming practices toward increasing diversity and reducing chemical use. Malgorzata Gorska of Poland won for her fight to stop a highway through the Rospuda Valley, one of Poland’s last vestiges of untouched wilderness. Thuli Makama of Swaziland won for her efforts in getting citizen participation on the Swaziland board in charge of the environment. She helped prompt investigations into allegations of private park rangers killing suspected poachers in sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarchy. Lynn Henning of the USA won for exposing polluting practices of livestock ranches in Michigan.
(AP, 4/19/10)(SFC, 4/19/10, p.A1)
2010 Jun 23, China stepped in to provide Cambodia with more than 250 military vehicles after the United States earlier suspended a similar shipment when the Cambodian government deported 20 asylum seekers.
(AP, 6/23/10)
2010 Jul 21, Thet Sambat, Cambodian journalist, and Rob Lemkin, British director, premiered their documentary “Enemies of the People." It features his conversations with Nuon Ceha, Pol Pot’s right hand man. In January it won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.31)(http://enemiesofthepeoplemovie.com/)
2010 Jul 26, In Cambodia a UN-backed court sentenced Kaing Guek Eav (67), a Khmer Rouge prison chief better known as Duch, to 30 years in jail for crimes against humanity over mass executions during Cambodia's "Killing Fields" era.
(AFP, 7/26/10)
2010 Sep 16, Cambodia's UN-backed court said 4 top Khmer Rouge leaders will stand trial for crimes including genocide during the "Killing Fields" era.
(AFP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 23, Cambodia's main opposition party leader, Sam Rainsy, was convicted in absentia and sentenced to 10 years in prison for a politically sensitive comment about a border dispute, in what critics said was another example of the government's intimidation of its opponents.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 24, Cambodia's opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, said he has filed a criminal lawsuit in the United States against PM Hun Sen, accusing him of being behind a deadly 1997 attack on a political rally.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 27, Cambodia laid out plans to tackle graft in one of the world's most corrupt nations, in an attempt to reassure foreign investors.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Cambodia 20 people remained hospitalized after 14 people died over the weekend from drinking wine tainted with weed killer at a ceremony where villagers were appealing to spirits to protect children.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Nov 21, A global tiger summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, approved a wide-ranging program with the goal of doubling the world's tiger population in the wild by 2022 backed by governments of the 13 countries that still have tiger populations: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Russia. Experts wild tigers could become extinct in 12 years if countries where they still roam fail to take quick action to protect their habitats and step up the fight against poaching.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 22, In Cambodia a stampede by thousands of festival-goers left at least 351 people dead and hundreds injured. A panic-stricken crowd, celebrating the end of the rainy season on an island in a river, tried to flee over a narrow bridge in the capital of Phnom Penh. Reports from provincial officials put the death toll at 456.
(AP, 11/23/10)(AP, 11/24/10)(AP, 11/25/10)(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Dec 30, Cambodia charged seven Thais, including a ruling party politician, with illegal entry and put them in jail awaiting possible trial, despite strong protests from Thailand. The detainees were inspecting contested territory from Thailand's eastern Sa Kaeo province when they were captured a day earlier by Cambodian soldiers.
(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 The population of Cambodia was about 14 million.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.32)
2011 Jan 28, In Cambodia a tribunal statement said Japan has agreed to make a contribution of $11.7 million to the UN-assisted genocide tribunal that is trying former leaders of Cambodia's communist Khmer Rouge. Japan has provided a total of about $67 million to the tribunal, about 49 percent of all contributions.
(AP, 1/28/11)
2011 Feb 1, A Cambodian court sentenced two Thais to lengthy prison terms for illegally crossing the border and spying. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court found Veera Somkwamkid, who heads a political pressure group, the Thailand Patriot Network, and his assistant Ratree Pipatanapaiboon, guilty of espionage, illegal entry and trespassing in a military zone. Veera was sentenced to eight years in prison and Ratree to six years.
(AP, 2/1/11)
2011 Feb 4, Cambodian and Thai soldiers exchanged heavy fire on the two countries' shared border near the 11th century Preah Vihear temple killing one soldier and a civilian, as tensions between the neighbors boiled over.
(AFP, 2/4/11)(Econ, 2/12/11, p.50)
2011 Feb 5, Renewed fighting between Cambodian and Thai troops along the countries' disputed border killed a Thai soldier and sent thousands of people fleeing before military commanders agreed on the second cease-fire in two days.
(AP, 2/5/11)
2011 Feb 6, The Cambodian government said part of an 11th century temple was damaged by the Thai army as the two sides exchanged artillery and mortar fire across their disputed border, shattering a shaky cease-fire and escalating tensions.
(AP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 7, Cambodian and Thai troops clashed for a 4th straight day as the UN chief called for "maximum restraint" in a border dispute that has claimed 7 lives and displaced thousands. On April 6 the London-based Cluster Munition Coalition said Thailand's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva confirmed the army had fired 155mm cluster shells into Cambodia.
(AFP, 2/7/11)(AP, 4/6/11)
2011 Feb 12, A Cambodian mother died from bird flu after preparing and eating meat contaminated by the deadly H5N1 virus. Her 11-month-old son died on Feb 17. A 5-year-old girl died earlier this month in Phnom Penh, a case also linked to contact with sick poultry.
(AP, 2/24/11)
2011 Mar 4, In Cambodia a speeding truck crashed into a tour bus in the southwest, leaving at least 20 dead and eight seriously injured.
(AP, 3/4/11)
2011 Apr 1, Cambodian PM Hun Sen declared his personal assets to the country's new anti-corruption unit and urged officials to follow his lead in a bid to tackle rampant graft.
(AFP, 4/1/11)
2011 Apr 8, Cambodia’s government said PM Hun Sen has cancelled a controversial titanium mine project in the country's southwest because of environmental concerns.
(AFP, 4/8/11)
2011 Apr 22, Cambodia and Thailand exchanged artillery and gunfire for several hours in a flare-up of a long-running border dispute that left six soldiers killed.
(AP, 4/22/11)
2011 Apr 23, A 2nd day of fighting between Cambodian and Thai troops killed at least four soldiers, bringing the two-day death toll to 11, the worst bloodshed since the United Nations called for a ceasefire in February.
(AP, 4/23/11)
2011 Apr 24, Cambodian and Thai troops exchanged artillery fire in a third day of fighting that has killed 10 soldiers and uprooted thousands of villagers from their homes.
(AP, 4/24/11)
2011 Apr 25, Cambodian and Thai troops clashed with guns and artillery after almost a full-day break in fighting that has killed at least 12 people in four days and sent nearly 50,000 into evacuation centers.
(Reuters, 4/25/11)
2011 Apr 26, Cambodian and Thai troops fought with short-range rockets and guns near 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple, opening a second front in a five-day confrontation that has killed 13 people.
(Reuters, 4/26/11)
2011 Apr 27, Thailand pulled out of talks with Cambodia and deadly border clashes continued for a sixth day.
(AP, 4/27/11)
2011 Apr 28, Cambodia and Thailand called a ceasefire halting their bloodiest clashes in decades, after seven days of fighting left 15 dead and around 75,000 civilians displaced.
(AFP, 4/28/11)
2011 Apr 29, Cambodian and Thai troops broke a brief cease-fire and clashed for an eighth day, shattering hopes of a quick end to a long-running border conflict that has forced nearly 100,000 villagers to flee. The death toll rose to 16.
(AP, 4/29/11)
2011 Apr 30, Troops from Cambodia and Thailand exchanged fire at the countries' contested border, marking the ninth straight day of clashes that have left at least 16 people dead and displaced nearly 100,000.
(AP, 4/30/11)
2011 May 1, A Cambodian soldier was killed in fighting with Thailand, bringing the total number of dead to 17 as the Southeast Asian nations' festering border conflict dragged on.
(AP, 5/1/11)
2011 May 7, Cambodia accused Thailand of invading its territory on the opening day of a summit of Southeast Asian leaders that was supposed to focus on plans to create a regional economic zone.
(AFP, 5/7/11)
2011 Jun 27, In Cambodia the top four surviving members of the brutal Khmer Rouge (Khieu Samphan, former head of state; Nuon Chea, “Brother Number Two;" Ieng Thirith, social affairs minister; and Ieng Sary, deputy prime minister) went on trial before a tribunal aimed at finding justice for the estimated 1.7 million people who died in Cambodia's "killing fields" of the 1970s.
(AP, 6/27/11)(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A3)
2011 Jun 27, In Geneva more than 80 states began meeting for the first four-day intercessional meeting on the Convention on Cluster Munitions to advance their commitments to a world free of cluster bombs. During the meeting Thailand and Cambodia indicated their intention to join in the near future.
(AFP, 7/1/11)(www.stopclustermunitions.org/news/?id=3086)
2011 Jul 11, The Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX) was officially launched after the government delayed it several years. Finance Minister Keat Chhon said that trading was expected to begin by the end of the year and that three state-owned firms, including the Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority, Telecom Cambodia and the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port have announced plans for listing.
(Econ, 7/16/11, p.76)(http://www.cambodiastockexchange.org/)
2011 Jul 18, The UN's highest court ordered troops from both Thailand and Cambodia to immediately withdraw military forces from disputed areas around a World Heritage temple straddling their border.
(AP, 7/18/11)
2011 Aug 14, In Cambodia a 6-year-old girl died from bird flu. She was the eighth person to die from the H5N1 flu virus this year in Cambodia.
(AP, 8/24/11)
2011 Sep 5, Cambodian painter Van Nath (65) died. He had been forced to paint portraits of Pol Pot while interned at S-21 from 1978-1979. From 1980-1981 he painted from memory somber oils of what had happened at S-21 under the Khmer Rouge.
(Econ, 9/17/11, p.93)
2011 Sep 6, The UN's labor agency said more than two dozen global clothing brands pledged to investigate a spate of mass faintings among Cambodian garment workers.
(AFP, 9/6/11)
2011 Sep 15, New Thai premier Yingluck Shinawatra held her first official talks with her Cambodian counterpart seeking to patch up relations after deadly border clashes.
(AFP, 9/15/11)
2011 Sep 26, Cambodian officials said nearly 100 people have died in recent flooding with 100,000 families affected and some 100,000 acres of rice fields inundated.
(SFC, 9/27/11, p.A2)
2011 Oct 2, Cambodia’s government disaster agency said that flood waters along the Mekong River and other places have killed at least 150 people since August and damaged 670,000 acres of rice fields, as well as 904 schools and 361 Buddhist temples.
(AP, 10/2/11)
2011 Oct 5, A Cambodia disaster official said the worst floods in over a decade have killed 167 people, as efforts intensified to provide aid to tens of thousands of families.
(AFP, 10/5/11)
2011 Oct 15, Flooding in Cambodia was reported to have killed at least 247 people as China began delivering the first of some $7.8 million in flood relief aid.
(AP, 10/15/11)
2011 Nov 4, A Cambodian court sentenced American James D'Agostino (56), a volunteer doctor at a children's hospital in the Cambodian capital, to four years in prison on charges of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy.
(AP, 11/4/11)
2011 Nov 28, Burundi told delegates at a global anti-landmine summit in Phnom Penh that it had cleared its territory of landmines, becoming the 18th state party to do so. Myanmar was the only country recorded as laying new landmines last year, but the Intl. Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said it has since been joined by Israel, Syria and Libya, bringing the current global use of landmines to its highest level since 2004.
(AP, 11/29/11)
2011 Nov 8, In Cambodia Hun Hean, the former police chief of Banteay Meanchey, confessed to accepting over $100,000 in bribes during the final day of a corruption trial against him and four of his subordinates. On Nov 15, he was convicted and sentenced to 4 years in prison.
(SFC, 1/6/12, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/7lwyk7x)
2011 Dec 7, Cambodia opened the Kamchay dam, the country's largest hydropower dam to date. The $280 million dollar Chinese-funded project has destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest and farmland and attracted criticism from environmental groups.
(AFP, 12/7/11)
2011 Joel Brinkley (d.2014 at 61), former NY Times reporter, authored “Cambodia’s Curse: The Modern History of a Troubled Land."
(SSFC, 4/17/11, p.G5)(SFC, 3/14/14, p.D4)
2012 Jan 5, In Cambodia Lt. Gen. Mok Dara, the former sec-gen. of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, was sentenced to life in prison for masterminding a drug ring from his office. Associate officer Chea Leang also received a life sentence. Morn Doeun, a 3rd defendant still at large, was sentenced to 25 years.
(SFC, 1/6/12, p.A3)
2012 Jan 19, Vietnam confirmed its first case death from bird flu in nearly 2 years, a day after Cambodia also logged its first fatality this year from the H5N1 virus.
(SFC, 1/20/12, p.A2)
2012 Jan 14, In Cambodia the badly decomposed bodies of Frenchman widower Laurent Vallier (42) and his four young children were discovered inside Vallier's white 4x4 vehicle after it was retrieved from a large pond behind his house in southern Kampong Speu province. The family had been missing since September. Vallier's Cambodian wife died in childbirth in 2009.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Feb 3, In Cambodia a UN-backed tribunal's Supreme Court lengthened the sentence for the Khmer Rouge's chief jailer, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, to life imprisonment because of his "shocking and heinous" crimes against the Cambodian people.
(AP, 2/3/12)
2012 Mar 19, Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court was rocked by the second resignation of an international judge in recent months. Laurent Kasper-Ansermet of Switzerland said in a statement his authority to investigate possible third and fourth cases at the tribunal had been constantly blocked by his Cambodian counterpart.
(AFP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 15, CH. Karchang, a Thailand construction giant, officially began work on the $3.5 billion dam at Xayaburi in northern Laos. A December agreement by the Mekong River Commission had called for further study on the environmental impacts of the dam.
(Econ, 5/5/12, p.43)(Econ, 9/7/13, p.40)
2012 Apr 4, ASEAN leaders in Cambodia issued a statement showing a veneer of unity and promising to "intensify efforts" toward the full implementation of an agreement, signed 10 years earlier, to "promote peace." The association paralyzed by differences over how to deal with regional superpower China's claims to strategic islands in the South China Sea.
(AFP, 4/4/12)
2012 Apr 4, ASEAN leaders called for Western countries, including the European Union, to immediately lift punitive sanctions imposed on Myanmar now that the once-pariah nation has embraced democratic reforms.
(AP, 4/4/12)
2012 Apr 26, In Cambodia Chhut Vuthy, the director of Natural Resource Protection Group, was killed after military police apprehended him at Veal Bei in Mondul Seima district on behalf of a company that asked them to stop him from shooting photos of their development. The site was near the construction of a 338-megawatt hydropower dam being built by China Huadian. Investigators later said that In Rattana, the officer who killed Vuthy, was shot with his own gun during a scuffle with security guard Ran Boroth (26), who had tried to disarm him.
(AP, 4/27/12)(http://tinyurl.com/7hjmxkh)(AFP, 5/5/12)(Econ, 5/5/12, p.43)
2012 May 24, In Cambodia prison sentences were imposed on 13 women who protested evictions from their land without adequate compensation. Their old houses were demolished by developers in 2010.
(AP, 5/25/12)
2012 May 27, A 10-year-old Cambodian girl died from H5N1 bird flu, the country's third fatality from the virulent disease this year.
(AFP, 5/28/12)
2012 May, Cambodia’s government suspended the allocation of all new land concessions following a string of protests.
(Economist, 9/29/12, p.44)
2012 Jun 3, In Cambodia PM Hun Sen's ruling party won local elections in a vote that monitors said was tainted by vote buying and other irregularities.
(AP, 6/3/12)
2012 Jun 4, In Cambodia Alexander Trofimov, who built a $300 million tourist resort in the country, was arrested at the house of an under-aged girl (11-12) outside of the capital Phnom Penh. Authorities planned to deport him shortly. Russian businessman Trofimov was arrested in 2007 facing 17 complaints of sexually abusing minors, the youngest just six years old. He was sentenced to 17 years, reduced on appeal to eight years. He was controversially freed early in December last year after receiving a royal pardon.
(AFP, 6/5/12)
2012 Jun 13, Cambodia arrested French architect Patrick Devillers, with ties to disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai, in a new twist to China's biggest political scandal in decades. Devillers was released on July 17 and flew to China voluntarily to help its investigation.
(AFP, 6/19/12)(AFP, 7/18/12)
2012 Jun 27, A Cambodia appeals court ordered the release of 13 women who were jailed for protesting being evicted from their homes without adequate compensation, in a case that had critics had highlighted as an example of injustice. On May 24 prison sentences were imposed on the 13 women.
(AP, 6/27/12)
2012 Jul 4, Cambodian officials reported that 61 of 62 children, admitted to hospitals with a mysterious respiratory disease, have died. Lab tests soon confirmed that a virulent strain of hand, hoof and mouth disease, known as EV-71, was to blame for some of the cases.
(SFC, 7/5/12, p.A5)(SFC, 7/10/12, p.A2)
2012 Jul 13, In Cambodia the 10-member ASEAN group ended its latest meeting for the first time without a communique reflecting a rift between countries loyal to China and those contesting territory with China.
(Econ, 7/21/12, p.35)
2012 Jul 18, Cambodia and Thailand pulled hundreds of soldiers out of a disputed strip of border land adjacent to the Preah Vihear temple, a year after a ruling by the UN's highest court, replacing them with police and security guards.
(AFP, 7/18/12)
2012 Aug 9, Cambodian PM Hun Sen said allowing the construction of a spate of border casinos was part of a "secret strategy" to protect the country's territory from its neighbors.
(AFP, 8/9/12)
2012 Aug 30, Cambodia police arrested Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, a co-founder of The Pirate Bay file-sharing website following a request by Sweden. He faced a one-year prison term in Sweden for violating copyright laws.
(SFC, 9/4/12, p.A2)
2012 Sep 13, Cambodia's UN-backed tribunal issued a statement saying that Ieng Thirith (80) suffers from a progressive, degenerative illness that is likely Alzheimer's disease and which diminishes her mental capacity. The court ruled that she was medically unfit to stand trial for genocide during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 rule, a decision survivors called shocking and unjust. Ieng Thirith was freed on Sep 16.
(AFP, 9/13/12)(AP, 9/16/12)
2012 Sep 30, In Cambodia 6 farmers were killed in northwestern Battambang province when their tractor ran over an anti-tank mine left over from the 1980s civil war.
(AP, 10/1/12)
2012 Sep, Cambodia’s government ordered employers to pay out an extra $10 a month in allowances to every worker.
(Economist, 9/29/12, p.44)
2012 Oct 1, A Cambodian court sentenced Mam Sonando (71), a dissident radio station owner, to 20 years in prison on insurrection charges that critics claim are part of a political vendetta by the government. His Beehive Radio was one of the country's few radio stations broadcasting criticism of PM Hun Sen's government.
(AP, 10/1/12)
2012 Oct 15, Cambodia's former King Norodom Sihanouk (b.1922) died of a heart attack in Beijing, where he had been receiving medical treatment. The cunning political survivor had reinvented himself repeatedly throughout his often flamboyant life.
(AP, 10/15/12)(Econ, 10/20/12, p.86)
2012 Nov 15, Cambodia authorities arrested eight villagers for plastering the US president's picture on their rooftops beside spray-painted messages of "SOS." Villagers say they were ordered in July to vacate their land so the airport could enlarge its runway and build a security buffer zone.
(AP, 11/15/12)
2012 Nov 17, Cambodia hosted the 10-mmber ASEAN summit of Southeast Asian countries.
(AP, 11/17/12)
2012 Nov 18, In Cambodia Asean leaders decided to ask China to start formal talks "as soon as possible" on crafting a legally binding accord aimed at preventing an outbreak of violence in disputed South China Sea territories. ASEAN leaders also adopted a human rights declaration despite last-minute calls for a postponement by critics.
(AP, 11/18/12)
2012 Nov 19, President Barack Obama made a 6-hour stop in Myanmar. In a notable detour from US policy, the president referred to Burma as Myanmar in his talks with President Thein Sein. Obama then became the first US president to set foot in Cambodia, a country once known for its Khmer Rouge "killing fields."
(AP, 11/19/12)
2012 Nov 20, In Cambodia President Barack Obama closed his Asian tour in diplomatic talks with leaders of Japan and China, their economic message overshadowed by security tensions over disputed waters and territories.
(AP, 11/20/12)
2012 Dec 1, In western Cambodia four workers were missing and presumed to have drowned after the partial collapse of a dam being constructed on the Atay river. Work on the 120-megawatt Atay hydroelectric project began in 2008.
(AP, 12/2/12)
2013 Mar 4, Cambodian translators angry that they have gone without pay for three months stopped working at the UN-backed genocide trial of former Khmer Rogue leaders, a new setback for an international justice effort that has been hobbled by conflicts with the Cambodian government.
(AP, 3/4/13)
2013 Mar 14, In Cambodia Ieng Sary (87), brother-in-law of late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, died. He co-founded the communist Khmer Rouge regime responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s, and decades later became one of its few leaders to be put on trial, but died before his case could be finished.
(AP, 3/14/13)(Econ, 4/6/13, p.106)
2013 May 12, Global Witness presented a report “Rubber Barons" on illegal logging and land grabbing in Cambodia by local and foreign companies, including the Vietnam Rubber Group.
(Econ, 5/18/13, p.46)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=3epqpR9OBhY)
2013 May 16, In Cambodia the ceiling of a factory, a Taiwanese-owned operation called Wing Star, collapsed on workers, killing 2 people and injuring 7. The firm made sneakers for Asics, a Japanese sportswear label.
(AP, 5/16/13)
2013 Jun 11, Two 10th century Cambodian stone statues displayed for nearly two decades at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art were returned to their homeland in a high-profile case of allegedly looted artifacts. Widespread looting of Cambodia's ancient temples took place in the 1970s through the 1990s, with many items smuggled through Thailand.
(AP, 6/11/13)
2013 Jun 17, Scientists reported that the use of airborne laser technology has allowed them to uncover a network of roadways and canals linking together Cambodia’s 1,200-year-old Angkor Wat temple complex.
(SFC, 6/19/13, p.A5)
2013 Jun 26, Scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups announced that a previously unknown bird species has been discovered in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The wren-sized Cambodian tailorbird, Orthotomus chaktomuk, is one of two species unique to Cambodia.
(AP, 6/26/13)
2013 Jun 28, Cambodia’s Ministry of Information said all radio stations must be neutral in their coverage before the election and not carry reports on foreigners playing any role in the election. Stations must also suspend broadcasting Khmer-language programs by foreign media.
(Reuters, 6/28/13)
2013 Jul 12, Cambodian PM Hun Sen engineered a pardon for his most prominent rival, Sam Rainsy, clearing the way for the self-exiled politician to return home and campaign in this month's general election.
(AP, 7/12/13)
2013 Jul 19, Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy returned from self-imposed exile to spearhead his party's election campaign against well-entrenched PM Hun Sen.
(AP, 7/19/13)
2013 Jul 28, Cambodia held general elections. The opposition appeared to make significant gains in parliament. The ruling party of PM Hun Sen claimed a victory with 68 of the national Assembly’s 123 seats.
(AP, 7/28/13)(SFC, 7/29/13, p.A2)
2013 Jul 29, Cambodia's long-ruling PM Hun Sen faced his biggest political setback in two decades as the country's opposition rejected an election result as tainted by widespread fraud, despite heavy losses for the ruling party.
(Reuters, 7/29/13)
2013 Jul 31, Cambodia's long-serving leader, Hun Sen, said his party was ready to talk to the opposition after both sides claimed victory in the July 28 general election.
(Reuters, 7/31/13)
2013 Aug 3, In Cambodia the two rival parties claiming victory in the July 28 general election reached an agreement with the state National Election Committee to investigate polling irregularities, a move that could pave the way to ending the country's political deadlock.
(AP, 8/3/13)
2013 Aug 6, In Cambodia thousands of supporters of the main opposition party rallied to demand an international inquiry into the recent general election, rejecting the victory claimed by long-serving PM Hun Sen, who showed no sign of stepping aside.
(Reuters, 8/6/13)
2013 Aug 12, In Cambodia final but unratified election results were released reaffirming the victory by the ruling Cambodian People's Party. The angered opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) said they should have been delayed until there was an impartial probe of alleged electoral irregularities. Provisional results said the CPP won 68 seats while the CNRP gained 55.
(AP, 8/12/13)(Econ, 8/3/13, p.32)
2013 Sep 2, Cambodian staff at a Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal went on strike, as a funding crisis deepened at a court already bogged down by resignations, political interference and the frail health of its elderly defendants.
(Reuters, 9/2/13)
2013 Sep 7, Thousands of Cambodians, many holding lotus flowers symbolizing peace, joined a mass protest in the capital Phnom Penh in a last-ditch bid to challenge PM Hun Sen's disputed election win. The CPP took 68 seats to 55 for the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), according to the country's National Election Committee.
(AFP, 9/7/13)(AFP, 9/8/13)
2013 Sep 8, Cambodia's election committee handed victory in hotly disputed polls to the ruling party of PM Hun Sen, prompting the opposition to say it will boycott parliament and stage further protests over allegations of widespread fraud.
(AFP, 9/8/13)
2013 Sep 15, Cambodia police used teargas, smoke grenades and water cannon to disperse hundreds of demonstrators after a rally in Phnom Penh to push for an independent investigation into the July election they say was fixed to favor the ruling party. One man was shot dead.
(Reuters, 9/15/13)(Reuters, 9/16/13)
2013 Sep 16, In Cambodia thousands of opposition supporters gathered for a 2nd day in Phnom Penh to push for an independent investigation into the July election.
(Reuters, 9/16/13)
2013 Sep 23, In Cambodia the long-ruling party of PM Hun Sen pushed ahead with forming a government, ignoring an opposition boycott of parliament and mass protests over its disputed election win.
(AFP, 9/23/13)
2013 Sep 24, Cambodia's parliament reappointed premier Hun Sen for another five-year term, extending his nearly three-decade rule as the opposition threatened to mount fresh protests over the disputed elections.
(AFP, 9/24/13)
2013 Sep 25, A Cambodian court acquitted, and ordered the release of Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, said by rights groups to have been wrongfully convicted and jailed for the 2004 murder of a prominent opposition activist.
(Reuters, 9/25/13)
2013 Oct 23, Thousands of Cambodia opposition supporters staged a demonstration over disputed elections that extended strongman PM Hun Sen's near three-decade rule, under a heavy security presence after bloody clashes last month.
(AFP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 25, Some 20,000 Cambodian opposition supporters wrapped up a three-day demonstration to petition foreign embassies and the UN for intervention in what they claim was a rigged election.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Nov 11, Cambodian police arrested Russian real estate tycoon Sergei Polonsky (40) for the second time this year and said they planned to extradite him at Moscow's request to face embezzlement charges there.
(Reuters, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, The International Court of Justice said a 1962 ruling by its judges gave Cambodia sovereignty over the Preah Vihear promontory and Thailand is now obligated to withdraw any military or police forces stationed there. Cambodia thus held sovereignty over a 1,000-year-old Khmer temple on the disputed promontory.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 12, In Cambodia a woman was shot dead and several people injured as riot police used live rounds, rubber bullets and teargas in clashes with protesting garment workers.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Cambodia tens of thousands of opposition supporters, backed by striking garment-factory workers, rallied to demand long-serving PM Hun Sen step down and call an election.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2014 Jan 2, Cambodian soldiers forcefully quelled a demonstration by garment workers striking for better pay. Workers at more than 500 garment factories were on strike demanding an increase in the minimum wage to $160 per month, double the current rate.
(SFC, 1/3/14, p.A2)
2014 Jan 3, In Cambodia At least 4 people were killed when police outside Cambodia's capital opened fire to break up a protest by striking garment workers demanding a doubling of the minimum wage.
(AP, 1/3/14)
2014 Jan 4, Cambodia's government launched a broad crackdown on the political opposition, clearing its main protest site, banning its street demonstrations and having a court call in opposition party leaders for questioning on charges of inciting social unrest.
(AP, 1/4/14)
2014 Jan 7, In Cambodia tens of thousands of garment workers returned to work, ending a two-week pay dispute after authorities used deadly force to quell a strike and thwart a protest by their political allies seeking a re-run of a July election. An estimated 65-70% returned to work.
(Reuters, 1/7/14)
2014 Jan 13, A Cambodian court freed Russian real estate tycoon Sergei Polonsky and he will not be extradited to Russia to face embezzlement charges there.
(Reuters, 1/13/14)
2014 Jan 27, Cambodian riot police used smoke grenades and electric batons to disperse demonstrators in the capital demanding a government license for an independent television station.
(AFP, 1/27/14)
2014 Feb 7, In Cambodia a boy (8) died of H5N1 bird flu, the country’s first case this year. His sister (2) also died the same day.
(AP, 2/12/14)
2014 Feb 14, In Cambodia Dave Walker (58), a Canadian filmmaker, went missing. His body was found April 30 in the woods near the famous Angkor temple complex.
(AP, 5/1/14)
2014 Feb 17, Cambodian police arrested two Vietnamese men who were trying to smuggle almost 80 kg (176 pounds) of illegal ivory from Angola.
(AP, 2/17/14)
2014 Feb 26, The Cambodian Anti-Drug Authority said it has banned the import, sale and promotion of e-cigarettes and shisha tobacco, a favorite of hookah-using smokers.
(AP, 2/26/14)
2014 Mar 24, The EU approved sanctions and said it will no longer import any fish caught by vessels from Cambodia, Belize and Guinea, accusing their governments of failing to cooperate in fighting illegal fishing.
(AP, 3/24/14)
2014 Mar 27, Cambodia's opposition party said it will defy a government ban on meeting in one of the capital's public parks, setting up a possible clash with authorities.
(AP, 3/27/14)
2014 Apr 3, In Cambodia 118 employees passed out at work at the Shen Zhou and Daqian Textile factories in Phnom Penh.
(Reuters, 4/3/14)
2014 Apr 11, A Cambodian court sentenced 13 men to prison terms ranging from five to nine years for plotting to overthrow the government in a case that was criticized by a human rights group as a political setup. The men were members of a self-styled Khmer National Liberation Front calling for PM Hun Sen's removal, primarily through Internet postings.
(AP, 4/11/14)
2014 Apr 25, Cambodia's highest court ruled that a prominent Russian property developer wanted in his homeland for allegedly embezzling millions of dollars cannot be extradited. Sergei Polonsky expressed satisfaction with the ruling and said he will spend up to $100 million developing an island he purchased off Cambodia's southern coast. Polonsky was charged in Russia in June last year with embezzling more than 5.7 billion rubles ($175 million) from 80 property investors.
(AP, 4/25/14)
2014 May 1, In Cambodia May Day demonstrators denounced low wages and called for better treatment of workers during rallies that turned violent.
(AP, 5/1/14)
2014 May 2, Cambodian security forces clashed with demonstrators in Phnom Penh for a 2nd straight day as the opposition canceled plans for a rally amid a ban on demonstrations and a large-scale police presence.
(AP, 5/2/14)
2014 May 9, Cambodian authorities intercepted 3 tons of illegal ivory that was stashed in shipping containers, its largest such seizure.
(AP, 5/9/14)
2014 May 14, In Vietnam a 1,000-strong mob stormed a Taiwanese steel mill in Ha Tinh province and hunted down Chinese workers, killing one, attacking scores more and then setting the complex alight in response to Beijing's deployment of an oil rig in the long-disputed South China Sea. Some 600 Chinese crossed into Cambodia over the land border in southern Vietnam.
(AP, 5/15/14)
2014 May 31, In Cambodia 7 people died from a lack of oxygen after climbing down a well in Cambodia to retrieve about 75 cents.
(AP, 6/1/14)
2014 Jun 11, In Cambodia the Phnom Penh Municipal court sentenced Daniel Johnson (35) to one year in prison for abusing five boys, aged 11 to 15, at the Hope Transitions orphanage, where he served as director. Johnson was sought in the US on child sex allegations.
(AP, 6/11/14)
2014 Jun 14, A Cambodian official said Cambodian workers were leaving Thailand in growing numbers, with the total who have returned to their homeland this month topping 160,000. Rights groups say Thai authorities are coercing the Cambodians to go home and abusing them.
(SSFC, 6/15/14, p.A6)(AP, 6/16/14)
2014 Jun 26, Cambodia's PM Hun Sen said at least 250,000 of his countrymen who were migrant workers in Thailand returned home this month under circumstances that initially violated their human rights. Both countries are now seeking the migrants' return to Thailand, which has a shortage of low-wage workers.
(AP, 6/26/14)
2014 Jul 1, Cambodia agreed to free Thai nationalist Veera Somkwamkid. He was imprisoned for more than three years for illegally crossing its border to claim territory for Thailand.
(AP, 7/1/14)
2014 Jul 8, In Cambodia William Glenn (43), an American teacher from Mississippi, left his guesthouse in Phnom Penh on a motorcycle taxi and never returned. His body was discovered the next day at a garbage dump.
(AP, 7/11/14)
2014 Jul 10, Cambodia said it will build a memorial at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum to remember at least 12,000 people tortured and killed there during the radical Khmer Rouge regime (1975-1979).
(AP, 7/10/14)
2014 Jul 14, In Cambodia 2 generals who led the helicopter unit of the air force were killed in a crash, along with two pilots. Defense Minister Tea Banh, who rushed to the crash site in a muddy pond south of the capital, said a fifth person on the chopper was seriously injured.
(AP, 7/14/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Cambodia about 200 protesters marched to a park in Phnom Penh and attached an orange banner that read "Free the Freedom Park" to the surrounding razor wire barricade. As armed police watched from inside the public park, several dozen security guards attempted to disperse the rally. Three leaders of the opposition CNRP were arrested and denied bail.
(AP, 7/16/14)(Econ, 7/19/14, p.37)
2014 Jul 16, Six Cambodian opposition politicians were charged with leading an insurrection movement after a clash with security forces who prevented their followers from rallying in a public park a day earlier.
(AP, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 17, Cambodian police arrested two more opposition members of parliament on charges of leading an insurrection.
(Reuters, 7/17/14)
2014 Jul 22, Cambodia's main opposition party struck a deal with strongman premier Hun Sen to end its year-long boycott of parliament triggered by a disputed election.
(AFP, 7/22/14)
2014 Aug 7, In Cambodia a UN-backed war crimes tribunal sentenced Khmer Rouge leaders Khieu Samphan (83) and Nuon Chea (88) to life in prison on war crime charges from 1975-1979, when the Khmer Rouge held power under top leader Pol Pot (d.1998).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khieu_Samphan)(SFC, 8/7/14, p.A4)
2014 Aug 8, Cambodian opposition lawmakers ended a 10-month boycott of Parliament, joining the assembly for the first time after reaching a breakthrough political deal with the country's ruling party.
(AP, 8/8/14)
2014 Aug 21, Cambodian officials said at least 45 people have been killed due to flooding in the last month. Some 11,500 families have been forced to flee their homes due to the flash floods along the Mekong River.
(SFC, 8/21/14, p.A2)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Cambodia
End of file
Return to home
Traditional Cambodians gave each day its own color and each month its own gender.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, zone 1 p.2)
April is the hottest month in Cambodia.
(SFEC, 7/30/00, p.T10)
Chronology of Cambodian History: http://www.geocities.com/khmerchronology
Odyssey of the Khmer People: http://members.aol.com/cambodia/
Cambodia Information Center: http://www.cambodia.org/
200-700AD Era of the kingdom of Funan at Angkor Borei (Cambodia). In 1997 excavations were proceeding on what might have been the capital.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.A,D)
400 About this time sage-prince Kambu of the Cambodian legends, who belonged to the Kamboja lineage, appears to have sailed from Indian subcontinent, probably from Saurashtra/Gujarat on the west coast of India and established a small Kamboja kingdom in Bassac around Vat-Ph'u hill in Mekong Basin. The first Khmer or king, know as Kambu, founded Kambujadesa, which means the Sons of Kambu or Kambuja for short.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, T5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambu_Svayambhuva)
611 At Angkor Borei (Cambodia) the earliest known Khmer inscriptions date to this time.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.D)
802 Jayavarman II proclaimed himself a "universal monarch" in a ritual that united religion and politics (Cambodia) and gave rise to the cult of the Devaraja (deified king). He declared the region’s independence from Java.
(WSJ, 7/3/97, p.A9)(SFC, 8/14/07, p.A18)
889-1324 The Khmer Empire‘s dominions roughly correspond to present-day Laos and Cambodia and reached its height during the Angkor period (889-1434 AD). The kingdom flourished from the 6th to 15th centuries AD and then declined with invasions from neighboring Thailand.
(HNQ, 8/7/00)
c1000-1400 Angkor Thom, capital of the Khmer empire, reached its apogee during this period. It included the religious monument of Angkor Wat. In 2007 new technology indicated that the city covered an area over 115 square miles at its peak and used sophisticated technology for managing and harvesting water.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.A)(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)(SFC, 8/14/07, p.A18)
1100-1200 The Khmer empire reached its peak under King Jajavarman II in the 12th century.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T7)
1150 Suryavarman II, Khmer ruler (Cambodia), died about this time. He commissioned the building of Angkor Wat, possibly the largest religious monument in the world. He traded elephant tusks, rhinoceros horns and kingfisher feathers for gold. The feathers were prized in China for bridal attire.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4,6)
1186 The temple monastery of Ta Prohm at Angkor (Cambodia) was consecrated. Inscriptions say that 79,365 servants were required to for its upkeep. It was paid by funds from over 3,000 villages.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T7)
1191 Preah Khan (Cambodia) was dedicated on what is thought to be the site where the Khmer defeated their eastern neighbors the Cham. The central temple was dedicated by Jayavarman VII to his father, King Dharanindravavarman II, in the name of Lokesvara, a god who embodies the compassionate qualities of the Buddha. The temple covers 140 acres.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.E)(Arch, 5/04, p.64)
1350-1500 There was cold and drought during this period in Central Asia as temperatures came down with low rainfall and low productivity. The climatic effect on Sindh was that Jam Banbhniyo Samma, tried to capture some areas of Delhi Sultanate in the Multan Sarkar and also south in Gujarat.
(http://panhwar.com/Article129.htm)
1415-1439 The city of Angkor Wat (Cambodia) went into rapid decline as a period of severe drought extended over South East Asia.
(Econ, 3/14/09, p.82)(http://tinyurl.com/d84z56)
1431 Thai armies invaded and plundered the Khmer civilization at Angkor Thom (Cambodia). The court moved south of the great lake Tonle Sap and later to Phnom Penh.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)
1596 The first documented official contact between the Cambogee and the West took place. The king of Angkor, Barom Reachea, in fear of attack sent to the Spanish governor general at Manila a request for the assistance of his musket-armed soldiers. The Spanish governor complied and sent a small expedition to the king of Angkor (Cambodia).
(SFEC, 10/20/96, T5)
1598 The Spanish governor of Manila sent a 2nd small expedition to the king of Angkor in what is now Cambodia.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, T5)
c1598 A party of Iberian conquistadors overthrew the Cambodian king and set themselves up as governors in the Mekong delta.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.29)
1614 Portuguese writer Diego do Couto wrote of a king in Cambodia who discovered an abandoned city during an elephant hunt in the middle of the 16th century. The report did not get published until 1958.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)
1641 Gerritt van Wuysthoff, a Dutchman, struggled up the Mekong River through Cambodia and reached Vientiane, Laos.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.29)
1863 Jul, The European public first learned of Angkor (Cambodia) from the posthumously published journal of French naturalist Henri Mouhot.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)
1866 French colonial officials sent an expedition to explore the Mekong River (Cambodia) and check its commercial potential.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.29)
1872 Frank Vincent Jr., an American adventurer, journeyed from Bangkok to Angkor Wat (Cambodia). The 175 mile trip took 17 days to traverse.
(SFEM, 4/30/00, p.6)
1893 French colonialists seized control of Laos and tried to turn the Mekong River into a thoroughfare linking their Indochina colonies.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.29)
1907 Explorations under Louis Deleporte and the French School of the Far East began at the ancient city of Angkor. Found artifacts were shared between France and Cambodia.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.60)(SFC, 2/4/04, p.D10)
1908 In Cambodia the seaside town of Kep (Kep-sure-Mer) was founded during the French colonial era. It was all but destroyed during the civil strife of the 1970s.
(SSFC, 8/31/08, p.E4)
1925 May 19, Pol Pot (d.1998), Cambodian dictator and mass murderer, was born in Prek Sbauv, Cambodia.
(www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/pol_pot1.html)
1918 The French established the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh to house the findings from their explorations.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.60)(WSJ, 7/3/97, p.A9)
1922 Oct 31, Norodom Sihanouk (d.2012), 2-time king (1941-1955 and 1993-2004), president and premier of Cambodia, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norodom_Sihanouk)
1923 Andre Malraux was arrested, while doing archeological research in Cambodia, for dislodging 7 heads from a temple with a handsaw, a chisel and crowbar.
(WSJ, 7/3/97, p.A9)
1941 The French colonialists chose Norodom Sihanouk (19) from the ranks of royalty to serve as king of Cambodia.
(WSJ, 5/15/03, p.A8)
1945 At the end of World War II Thailand was compelled to return territory it had seized from Laos, Cambodia and Malaya. The exiled King Ananda returned.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1243059.stm)
1949-52 Saloth Sar (aka Pol Pot of Cambodia) went to Paris on a government scholarship and became absorbed in Communist ideology.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1950 May 21, French sources reported that Viet Minh guerrillas had infiltrated Cambodia and opened an arms-smuggling corridor to Thailand.
(www.geocities.com/khmerchronology/1950.htm)
1950 Dec 30, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia became independent states in a French Union.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1952 Hun Sen, later Cambodia prime minister, was born in a village northeast of Phnom Penh.
(WSJ, 7/9/99, p.A12)
1953 King Norodom Sihanouk gained independence for Cambodia from France. Pol Pot helped set up the Communist Party.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.A17)
1954 Sep 8, SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization), a sister organization to NATO, was created under the Manila Pact by the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, to stop communist spread in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos). The United States, Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand signed the mutual defense treaty. SEATO dissolved in 1977.
(HNQ, 4/2/01)(http://tinyurl.com/hpawj)
1955 Mar 2, King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia put his father on the throne and assumed the position of prime minister. Sihanouk had renounced the throne to run in Cambodia’s first elections.
(SC, 3/2/02)(WSJ, 5/15/03, p.A8)(Econ, 10/20/12, p.86)
1960 Dec 9, The Laos government fled to Cambodia as the capital city of Vientiane was engulfed in war.
(HN, 12/9/98)
1960-63 Prince Norodom Sihanouk repressed the Communist party and Pol Pot, general secretary of the CP, and other leaders fled to the jungle.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1962 The Int’l. Court of Justice awarded the Preah Vihear temple, located on the Cambodia-Thai border, to Cambodia, but did not specify where the border should be drawn.
(Econ, 7/26/08, p.47)
1963 Aug 27, Cambodia severed ties with South Vietnam.
(HN, 8/27/98)
1964 Mar 15, Cambodia was receiving military aid from Communist China.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1966 Jan 3, Cambodia warned the UN of retaliation unless the U.S. and South Vietnam end intrusions.
(HN, 1/3/99)
1967 Feb 23, American troops began the largest offensive of the war, near the Cambodian border. In order to deny the Vietcong cover, and allow men to see through the dense vegetation, herbicides were dumped on the forests near the South Vietnamese borders as well as Cambodia and Laos.
(HN, 2/23/98)
1967 May 10, The Stockholm Vietnam Tribunal condemned US aggression in Vietnam and Cambodia.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1967 Nov 24, Cambodian triple agent Inchin Lam was murdered. Special Forces Captain John J. McCarthy was accused and later tried for the murder in a court in Vietnam. Murder charges were later dropped.
(HN,11/24/98)(www.copvcia.com/Mac.htm)(www.geocities.com/larryjodaniel/17.html)
1967-68 The Khmer Rouge took up arms in support of a peasant uprising in northwest Cambodia against a government rice tax. The army ruthlessly suppressed the insurrection.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1968 Jan 19, Cambodia charged that the United States and South Vietnam had crossed the border and killed three Cambodians.
(HN, 1/19/99)
1968 Jan 29, A court convened in Vietnam for the murder of Cambodian, triple agent Inchin Lam, by Special Forces Captain John J. McCarthy Jr. Murder charges were later dropped due to exculpatory evidence and proven prosecutorial fraud on the court. A civil action for $1.3 billion in US Federal District Court, Washington D.C. against the CIA and associated agencies was dismissed in 2003.
(www.copvcia.com/Mac.htm)(http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id299.html)
1968 Oct 4, Cambodia admitted that the Viet Cong used their country for sanctuary.
(www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200408180835.asp)
1968 Asia’s first int’l. film festival was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
(Econ, 4/6/13, p.97)
1969 Feb 23, Pres. Nixon ordered plans for the secret bombing of Cambodia.
(www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a04242670parrotsbeak)(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.A19)
1969 Mar 18, President Richard M. Nixon authorized Operation Menu, the 'secret' bombing of Cambodia [see Feb 23].
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu)
1969-1973 The US Air Force dropped 539,129 tons of bombs on Cambodia and killed some 700,000 people. The bombing drove rural people into the cities and caused a collapse of the agricultural system that contributed to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and a famine that was later blamed on the Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A25)
1970 Mar 13, Cambodia ordered Hanoi and Viet Cong troops to get out.
(HN, 3/13/98)
1970 Mar 18, Prince Sihanouk was overthrown by Gen’l. Lon Nol in a right-wing coup backed by the US. He joined the Khmer Rouge in a resistance war. The US and Vietnamese forces invaded and drove the Viet Cong from border sanctuaries deep into Cambodia where they joined with the weak and isolated Khmer Rouge. A full scale civil war began. The next 8 years are covered in the 1988 book "Goodnight Cambodia, Forbidden History" by Vibol Ouk, who lived through the horrors of Pol Pot.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 1/11/98, BR p.3)(WSJ, 7/9/99, p.A127)
1970 Apr 24, President Nixon ordered US and South Vietnamese troops to secretly invade the “Parrot’s Beak" region of Cambodia, thought to be a Viet Cong stronghold. Operation Patio was a covert aerial interdiction effort conducted by the United States Seventh Air Force in Cambodia from 24-29 April 1970 during the Vietnam Conflict. It served as a tactical adjunct to the heavier B-52 bombing missions being carried out in Operation Menu.
(http://tinyurl.com/69ndsz8)(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Operation-Patio)
1970 Apr 28, The US invasion of Cambodia took place. Congress and the press learned of the invasion on April 30.
(www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a04242670parrotsbeak)
1970 Apr 29, 50,000 US and South Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia [see Apr 30].
(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.A19)(www.democraticcentral.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1972)
1970 Apr 30, President Nixon announced the United States was sending troops into Cambodia, an action that sparked widespread protest. Nixon widened the war to Cambodia and protests increased. U.S. troops invaded Cambodia to disrupt North Vietnamese Army base areas. U.S. President Richard Nixon announced to a national TV audience American troop movements into Cambodia to attack Communist border sanctuaries. Calling the joint U.S.-South Vietnamese operation "indispensable," some 32,000 American and 48,000 South Vietnamese troops captured large caches of supplies, but most Communist forces had already been withdrawn. A storm of protest against expansion of the war swept the United States and four days later four student protesters at Ohio's Kent State University were shot dead by National Guardsmen.
(AP, 4/30/97)(TMC, 1994, p.1970)(HN, 4/30/98)(HNQ, 5/3/98)
1970 May 4, A dispatch filed from Saigon described looting by US soldiers at the Cambodian town of Snuol. The mention of looting was removed by an editor in New York before the story was transmitted to newspapers in the United States. An AP story was killed by Wes Gallagher (d.1997 at 86), general manager of the new service.
(AP, 7/11/07)(SFC, 10/12/97, p.B5)
1970 May 10, In Cambodia Spec. Leslie H. Sabo Jr. (b.1948), of Elwood City, Pa., saved his comrades and lost his own life as his unit was nearly overrun by North Vietnamese forces. Documentation of his heroism was lost until 1999. On May 16, 2012, Pres. Obama presented the US Medal of Honor to his widow.
(SFC, 5/17/12, p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_H._Sabo,_Jr.)
1970 May 20, Some 100,000 people demonstrated in New York's Wall Street district in support of U.S. policy in Vietnam and Cambodia.
(AP, 5/20/97)(HN, 5/20/98)
1970 May 31, In Cambodia 9 journalists (American, Cambodian, Indian, Japanese, and French) were ambushed by Khmer Rouge and Viet Cong guerrillas near Kandoul village south of Phnom Penh. 4 of the CBS employees were killed instantly. 5 others were believed to have been taken to Kandoul in the days after and executed. Their bodies were dumped in a shallow grave amid the untilled earth of rice paddies.
(AP, 4/23/10)
1970 Jun 17, North Vietnamese troops cut the last operating rail line in Cambodia.
(HN, 6/17/98)
1970 Jun 29, The United States ended a two-month military offensive into Cambodia.
(HN, 6/29/98)(AP, 6/29/99)
1970 Oct 9, Khmer Republic (Cambodia) declared independence.
(http://flagspot.net/flags/kh_hstry.html)
1970 Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk fled to China and began compiling his Bulletin Mensuel de Documentation (Monthly Documentation Bulletin). The bulletin continued on an off thru 2003.
(WSJ, 5/15/03, p.A1)
1970 In Cambodia Sean Flynn (28), son of Hollywood star Errol Flynn, and a close friend, Dana Stone, disappeared in the province of Kampong Cham. In 2010 searchers believed they had found Flynn’s remains and awaited forensic confirmation.
(AP, 3/29/10)
1970-1975 Lon Nol was officially backed by the US as leader of Cambodia. He officially invited the US to extend the war in Vietnam into Cambodia to wreck the Ho Chi Minh supply trail.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A25)
1970-1998 The history of Cambodia over this period was covered by Henry Kamm of the NY Times: "Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Land."
(SFEC, 10/18/98, BR p.2)
1971 Jan 22, Communist forces shelled Phnom Penh, Cambodia for the first time.
(HN, 1/22/99)
1971 Aug 20, The Cambodian military launched a series of operations against the Khmer Rouge.
(HN, 8/20/98)
1971 Oct, Francois Bizot, French ethnologist, was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. He was released after 3 months by camp commander Kaing Guek Eav (aka Duch). In 2003 Bizot authored "The Gate," an account of his captivity and the Khmer Rouge takeover. In 2012 Bizot authored “Facing the Torturer," an account of his appearance as a witness at Duch’s 2009 trial.
(WSJ, 3/12/03, p.D10)(SSFC, 11/25/12, p.F6)
1973 Mar 17, Twenty were killed in Cambodia when a bomb went off that was meant for the Cambodian President Lon Nol.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1973 Jun 27, Nixon vetoed a Senate ban on Cambodia bombing.
(HN, 6/27/98)
1973 Aug 7, A US plane accidentally bombed a Cambodian village, killing 400 civilians.
(HN, 8/7/98)(www.massviolence.org/+-Cambodia-+?id_rubrique=6&artpage=11-18)
1973 Aug 14, The U.S. "secret" bombing of Cambodia came to a halt, marking the official end to 12 years of American combat in Indochina.
(AP, 8/14/97)(HN, 8/14/98)
1974 Jan 9, Cambodian Government troops opened a drive to avert insurgent attack on Phnom Penh.
(HN, 1/9/98)
1974 Ta Mok (1926-2006), a Khmer Rouge senior advisor, cleansed Cambodia’s old royal city of Oudong of its 30,000 residents and burned it to the ground.
(Econ, 8/5/06, p.77)
1975 Jan 1, On New Year's Day Communist troops launched an offensive which, in 117 days of the hardest fighting of the war, collapsed the Khmer Republic.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cambodia)
1975 Feb 6, President Gerald Ford asked Congress for $497 million in aid to Cambodia.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1975 Apr 12, The US removed its embassy personnel from Phnom Penh. Some of Cambodia's most senior government ministers, including the Acting President, Saukham Khoy, were among the evacuees.
(http://tinyurl.com/rsqt5)
1975 April 17, The US-backed Lon Nol government of Cambodia surrendered to the Khmer Rouge. The nominal leader of the Khmer Rouge was Khieu Samphan. Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodia), occupied the capital Phnom Penh ending Cambodia's five-year war. This began the brutal regime that resulted in the death of one to three million people. The Khmer Rouge began to immediately clear Phnom Penh. Agrarian communism was forced on the people and purges extended from the leadership down to the masses. The country was renamed Democratic Kampuchea. After the Khmer Rouge took power they employed a system of forced marriages to help engineer a classless society.
(NG, 5/85, p.574)(WSJ,4/17/95, p.A-12)(AP, 4/17/97)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(WSJ, 6/16/97, p.8)(SFC, 4/17/98, p.A16)(http://tinyurl.com/qot7t)(SFC, 1/23/96, p.A10)
1975 May 11, The Cambodian government seized an American merchant ship, the Mayaguez.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, p.T10)
1975 May 12, The White House announced the new Cambodian government had seized an American merchant ship, the Mayaguez, with 39 crew members in international waters. Pres. Gerald Ford sent a company of Marines to rescue the ship. The ship was freed but there were 41 Americans killed or missing and more than 50 wounded.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, p.T10)(AP, 5/12/97)
1975 May 15, US forces raided the Cambodian island of Koh Tang and recaptured the American merchant ship Mayaguez. All 40 crew members were released safely by Cambodia, but some 40 US servicemen were killed in the military operation. Some 200 Marines stormed the island of Koh Tang to rescue the crew of the Mayaguez, but the crew had been moved. The Marines fought all day against the Khmer Rouge and escaped by helicopter in the evening. Three comrades were left behind and later died under the Khmer Rouge. The crew was freed about the same time that the Marine assault began.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, p.A14)(AP, 5/15/08)
1975-1979 Pol Pot (1925-1998), whose real name is Saloth Sar, led the Khmer Rouge and ruled Cambodia. He regarded artists as superfluous saying “to keep you is no gain, to kill you is no loss." In 1987 Joan D. Criddle and Teeda Butt Mam authored "To Destroy You Is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family." The work was recorded on cassette in 1992 and told the extraordinary story of a Cambodian family caught up in the genocide under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. An estimated 1.7 million people were killed under the Khmer Rouge. In 2000 Loung Ung authored "First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers."
(WSJ, 6/7/96, p.A11)(AR, 9/4/99)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A15)(SFEC, 6/11/00, BR p.6)(Econ, 4/6/13, p.96)
1975-1979 During this period the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia executed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians and condemned more than a million to death by starvation and disease. Some 14,000 men, women and children entered Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng prison, but only a dozen survived. In 1997 two of the administrators of the prison, known as Duch and Chan, were living openly in territory controlled by the government.
(WSJ, 4/17/95, p.A-12)(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A9)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.52)
1975-1979 During this period the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia about 90,000 of some 250,000 Cham people died as the government tried to exterminate both the tribe and Islam. Only 21 of 113 imams survived.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.46)
1976 Apr 11, In Cambodia Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan (b.1931) succeeded Prince Sihanouk as premier. In 1979 he was succeeded by Heng Samrin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khieu_Samphan)(Econ, 1/12/08, p.52)
1976 Nov 23, The Thai government returned 26 refugees to Cambodia saying that they are a threat to the national security. The government said some 70,000 refugees in Thailand who escaped Communist rule in other Indochina states, including 10,000 Cambodians, would also not be permitted to stay.
(AP, 11/23/02)
1976 Nhem Ein, photographer, was assigned by the Khmer Rouge to Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng interrogation center called S-21. He proceeded to methodically photograph all the prisoners who arrived before they were tortured and executed.
(WSJ, 9/16/97, p.A20)
1977 Mar 9, Pres. Carter proposed an end to travel restrictions to Cuba, Vietnam, N. Korea and Cambodia effective as of March 18.
(www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=7139)
1977 Dec 31, Cambodia broke relations with Vietnam.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1977 Hun Sen, a Khmer Rouge battalion commander in Cambodia, defected to Vietnam. He became prime minister of Cambodia in 1979.
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.43)
1977-1978 Pol Pot of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, fearing traitors, purged his own Khmer Rouge, especially in the eastern zone. Many of his former cadre flee to Vietnam.
(WSJ, 4/17/95, p.A-12)
1978 Jan 3, Vietnamese troops were reported to be occupying 400 square miles in Cambodia. North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops were using Laos and Cambodia as staging areas for attacks against allied forces.
(HN, 1/3/02)
1978 Dec 25, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and drove the Khmer Rouge into sanctuaries along the Thai border, finally ending the mass genocide depicted in the 1984 film "The Killing Fields." It was the first full-scale war between the two countries since 1917. 400 people were killed in initial clashes.
(NG, 5/85, p.574-5)(WSJ, 2/27/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(SFC, 4/30/98, p.A11)
1978 An estimated 15,000 Chinese advisors were present in Cambodia during Pol Pot's rule.
(SFC, 5/10/99, p.A10)
1979 Jan 7, The Vietnamese army captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government. The People’s Party, a Hanoi installed Khmer Rouge faction, took power with Hun Sen as prime minister and Heng Samrin as president. This finally ended the mass genocide depicted in the 1984 film "The Killing Fields." The Khmer Rouge retreated into sanctuaries along the Thai border, set up bases and picked up support from Thailand and China.
(WSJ, 2/27/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(WSJ, 5/3/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A8)(AP, 1/7/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heng_Samrin)
1979 Jan 15, The Soviet Union vetoed a United Nations resolution and called for the withdrawal of all Vietnamese troops from Cambodia.
(HN, 1/15/99)
1979 Apr 11, Chinese diplomats of Cambodia crossed into Thailand after a 15-day, 125-mile escape from the Vietnamese Army. In 1992 "Chinese Diplomats in International Crisis Situations" was authored by Yun Shui. An English translation came out in 2003.
(AP, 1/13/03)
1979 Aug 19, In Cambodia a Phnom Penh court tried, convicted and sentenced Pol Pot and his deputy, Leng Sary, to death in absentia for genocide during the Khmer Rouge regime. A "Hate Day" was created to recall Khmer Rouge crimes. Denise Affonco’s testimony during the trial was later published as “To the End of Hell: One Woman’s Struggle to Survive Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge."
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A16)(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A14)(http://tinyurl.com/2onrxp)(Econ, 12/15/07, p.93)
1979 The National Museum re-opened in Cambodia. It had been closed under the Khmer Rouge rule.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.60)
1979 Documents from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, that detailed the genocide by the Khmer Rouge, were discovered and copied for storage in American libraries.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A16)
1979 The Khmer Rouge took refuge in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains and fought on for another 19 years. Their presence in the area acted as a preservative for the natural wildlife.
(SFC, 4/8/00, p.A14)
1979 Cambodian farmer Neang Say stumbled onto the Killing Fields, the main execution and disposal site for the condemned inmates of Tuol Sleng, Pol Pot’s most notorious prison.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.45)
1982 The Khmer Rouge and 2 non-Communist groups formed a resistance coalition with Sihanouk as a figurehead leader. The UN recognized it as the government of Cambodia.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1985 Jan 7, Vietnam seized the Khmer National Liberation Front headquarters near the Thai-Cambodia border.
(HN, 1/7/99)
1985 Feb 14, Hanoi troops surrounded the main Khmer Rouge base at Phnom Malai, Cambodia.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1989 Aug 30, The Cambodian peace talks in Paris collapsed.
(Hem, 4/96, p.15)(http://tinyurl.com/nz3x5)
1989 Sep 26, The last Vietnamese soldiers left Cambodia. Vietnam withdrew the last of 26,000 troops.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(PC, 1992 ed, p.1113)
1989 Oct 22, Khmer Rouge occupied Pailin in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge used the gem mining town of Pailin near the Thai border to finance its operations with gem and timber profits.
(http://tinyurl.com/p6u5f)
1990 Nov 26, Five permanent members of U.N. Security Council agreed on peace plan for Cambodia.
(AP, 11/26/02)
1990 "Homrong" was recorded by the musicians of Cambodia’s National Dance Company.
(NH, 9/97, p.75)
1990 Bernard Krisher founded the nonprofit group ‘American Assistance for Cambodia following a request from Prince Sihanouk.
(SFC, 8/21/00, p.B7)
1991 Oct 23, Cambodia's warring factions and representatives of 18 other nations signed a peace treaty in Paris. All the factions signed The Paris Peace Agreements with the UN to provide peacekeeping and elections. Khmer Rouge Pres. Khieu Samphan and commander Son Sen soon returned to Phnom Penh for the first time since 1979, then fled the same day as mobs tried to lynch Khieu Samphan.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)(AP, 10/23/01)
1991 Nov 11, The United States stationed its first diplomat in Cambodia in 16 years to help the war-shocked nation arrange democratic elections.
(AP, 11/11/01)
1991 Nov 14, Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk returned to his homeland after 13 years of exile.
(AP, 11/14/01)
1991 HIV was first detected in Cambodia. By 1999 some 100 people were being infected with the AIDS virus per day.
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.C2)
1992 Mar 15, The United Nations officially embarked on its largest peacekeeping operation with the arrival of a diplomat in Cambodia. The UN peacekeeping mission in Cambodia soon began running a radio station to disseminate reliable information before elections.
(AP, 3/15/97)(Economist, 9/1/12, p.51)
1992 The Asian Development Bank began building and improving transport and telecom links between China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
(Econ, 11/8/03, p.42)
1992 The Association of Cambodian Local Economic Development Agencies (ACLEDA) was set up by the UN and the Int’l. Labor Organization as a microfinance non-governmental organization. By 2010 it was Cambodia’s largest bank by assets.
(Economist, 9/22/12, p.85)
1992 The Greater Mekong Subregion was created grouping 5 South-East Asian countries (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam) and 2 Chinese provinces.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Mekong_Subregion)(Econ, 2/6/10, p.48)
1992 UNESCO named the Angkor temples of Cambodia a World Heritage Site.
(SFC, 2/4/04, p.D10)
1993 Sep 24, Sihanouk was reinstalled as king of Cambodia.
(HN, 9/24/98)
1993 "The Music of Cambodia" was recorded by David and Kay Parsons as a 3-CD box that included Royal Court music and a nine-gong ensemble.
(NH, 9/97, p.75)
1993 Cambodia held free elections under UN supervision. The communist Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) under Hun Sen lost the elections and formed a coalition government with the elected Funcinpec under Prince Ranariddh, son of King Sihanouk. The Khmer Rouge boycotted the elections. The communists maintained control over the defense and interior ministries. Ranariddh and Hun Sen ran the country as co-premiers.
(WSJ, 5/3/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 6/19/97, p.A13)(WSJ, 7/9/99, p.A12)
1993 Cambodian law prohibited the removal of cultural artifacts without government permission.
(AP, 6/11/13)
1993 The Int'l. Coordination Committee was created to channel aid to Cambodia's Angkor Wat zone.
(SFC, 2/4/04, p.D10)
1993 In Cambodia an armed group robbed the Angkor storage depot at Siem Reap and took 22 pieces including several important stone sculptures.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.60)
1993 Somaly Mam (b.~1970-71) escaped Cambodia following years of forced prostitution. She moved to Paris and later returned to Cambodia to help women caught in similar situations. In 2006 she was honored as one of Glamour magazine's women of the year. In 2007 she published her autobiography: "The Road of Lost Innocence." In 2008 she was the co-winner of the $150,000 World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child, awarded by the Swedish Children's World Association to recognize those who defend the rights of children. In 2014 she resigned from the New York-based foundation she helped found after reports alleged that she had distorted aspects of her personal history.
(AP, 5/29/14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somaly_Mam)
1993-96 In Cambodia the Khmer Rouge remained active in the countryside. They killed 100 Vietnamese settlers, abducted villagers for forces labor and kidnapped westerners.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1994 Mar 19, Cambodian government seizes control of Pailin, the Khmer Rouge main stronghold.
(AP, 3/19/02)
1994 Jul 26, In Cambodia 3 Western backpackers were kidnapped from a train by the Khmer Rouge. The surprise train attack left 13 dead. Frenchman Michel Braquet, Briton Mark Slater, and Australian David Wilson were held at the base of Nuon Paet, who later ordered them killed. Paet was convicted for the killings in 1999 and sentenced to life in prison. Sam Bith and Chhouk Rin, former Khmer Rouge guerrillas, were charged in connection with the abduction and slayings in 1999. Col. Rin was arrested in 2000. Chhouk Rin was acquitted in 2000 due to an amnesty for rebel defectors. In 2002 Bith was convicted and jailed for life.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A12)(SFC, 6/22/99, p.A12)(SFC, 6/22/99, p.A12)(SFC, 1/19/00, p.A16)(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A1)(MC, 7/26/02)(AP, 12/23/02)
1994 The book "Cambodian Culture Since 1975: Homeland and Exile" by Sam-Ang Sam was published. It included information on Cambodian music.
(NH, 9/97, p.75)
1994 Bernard Krisher founded and became the publisher of The Cambodian Daily, a small English-language newspaper in Phnom Penh.
(SFC, 8/21/00, p.B7)
1994 The Australian foreign minister, Gareth Evans, accused "freelance military personnel and business spivs" (shady dealers) in Thailand of providing refuge for Khmer Rouge leaders and helping them get gems and timber out of Cambodia. The statement was made after 2 Australians were murdered by the Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A12)
1994 Cambodia’s 7 million mines amount to two for every single Cambodian child, and between 200 and 250 people become victims every month.
(UNICEFF Mailer,11/94)
1995 Apr 5, The Mekong Agreement created the Mekong River Commission with Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam as members.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.34)(www.kellnielsen.dk/mekong/agreem.htm)
1995 Nov, In Cambodia Hun Sen arrested the sec. general of Funcinpec, Prince Norodom Sirivudh, and tried him for terrorism and coup plotting. The trial was a transparent mockery of justice.
(WSJ, 5/3/96, p.A-10)
1995 The Future Light Orphanage in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, was founded to teach children skills to avoid poverty.
(SFC, 5/3/00, p.A12)
1995 The Khmer Rouge was ousted in Cambodia after a 3 year reign of terror in which hundreds of thousands died.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Mar 26, In Cambodia the Khmer Rouge kidnapped Christopher Howes (37), a mine-clearing expert from Bristol, England, and Huon Huot, his interpreter. In November Howes’ employer paid $120,000 for his release. The two men were killed shortly after their abduction. Their remains were found in 1998. In 2008 a Cambodian court sentenced four former Khmer Rouge rebels each to up to 20 years in prison for their involvement in the murders.
(SFC, 11/23/96, p.A11)(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A14)(http://tinyurl.com/7s7x4)(AP, 10/14/08)
1996 Apr 16, Khmer Rouge guerillas attacked a group of tourists near Kompot, 85 miles southwest of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Reports have it that they killed and wounded a number of people and kidnapped about 20.
(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-10)
1996 Jun 7, In Cambodia it was reported that Pol Pot was gravely ill or possibly dead. Pol Pot died 1998.
(WSJ, 6/7/96, p.A11)(SFC, 4/16/98, p.A1)
1996 Jun 21, In Cambodia Khmer Rouge guerrillas held dozens of sawmill workers for ransom and killed 14 of them with axes.
(SFC, 6/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Jul 10, The Khmer Rouge attacked a government base in southwestern Cambodia. They were also accused of killing 60 forestry workers kidnapped previously. 25,500 people have died since 1995 in fighting with the Khmer Rouge.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 8, In Cambodia the government announced an internal power struggle and split in the Khmer Rouge. Leng Sary, a Pol Pot chum and the Khmer Rouge foreign minister, opposed Son Sen, the minister of defense and led defections that grew to 10,000.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.A13)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(WSJ, 4/17/98, p.A13)
1996 Sep 5, Cambodia rushed troops to aid the 1,000 or so Khmer Rouge dissidents near the village of Chup Koki. About 5,500 Khmer Rouge rebels remain loyal to Pol Pot.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 14, In Cambodia King Norodom Sihanouk granted amnesty to Leng Sary, the Khmer Rouge rebel leader.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A16)
1996 Oct 18, Cambodia’s king granted amnesty to all prison inmates except those convicted of serious crimes and judged to be too dangerous. He also proposed tearing down the country’s dilapidated prisons which house about 2,000 people, many held without trial. Leng Sary was granted amnesty and formed a political party. His followers maintained rule over Pailin under nominal government control.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A11)
1996 Oct 27, Cambodia’s king reversed his decision for amnesty after students issued a warning of increased national insecurity.
(SFC, 10/28/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct, Mr. Robert Prins, president of Iowa Wesleyan College, bestowed an honorary law degree to Hun Sen and his Cambodia chief of cabinet Sok An at the behest of Mr. Ted Sioeng, Indonesian businessman.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A22)
1996 Nov, The IMF canceled a $20 million loan because of Cambodia’s failure to halt illegal logging and channel timber revenue into its budget.
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A10)
1996 In Cambodia Ta Mok ousted Pol Pot from power and kept him under house arrest until his death in 1998.
(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.A17)(SFC, 7/21/06, p.A20)
1997 Feb 14, Khmer Rouge guerrillas killed all but three Cambodian government officials sent to make peace.
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.A12)
1997 Mar 30, In Cambodia a grenade attack at a political rally killed at least 16 and wounded over 100 as opposition leader Sam Rainsy led some 200 members of his Khmer Nation Party in front of the National Assembly.
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A10)(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A10)
1997 May 31, The 7-member ASEAN alliance, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, met in Kuala Lumpur and agreed to allow Burma to become a member in July. Laos and Cambodia were also to be admitted. The members were Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.D3)
1997 Jun 11, In Cambodia Pol Pot ordered the killing of the former Khmer Rouge defense minister Son Sen (67) and his powerful wife, Yun Yat (63), and 9 relatives.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 17, Fighting broke out in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, between the 2 competing prime ministers. Security troops of Prince Ranariddh faced troops of the national police under Hok Lundy, a supporter of Hun Sen.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 18, In Cambodia it was reported that Pol Pot had surrendered with 15 followers.
(SFC, 6/19/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 19, In Cambodia the report of Pol Pot’s surrender was rescinded.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Jun 21, Cambodia government sources announced that former Khmer Rouge troops had captured Pol Pot.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun, Cambodia’s Hun Sen wrote to the UN and asked for help in bringing remaining Khmer Rouge to trial.
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A14)
1997 Jul 4, In Cambodia troops of prince Ranariddh laid down their arms and some 140 were taken prisoner by troops of 2nd Prime Minister Hun Sen. Ranariddh was on a trip to France and Hun Sen claimed that illegal negotiations were taking place with Khmer Rouge guerrillas.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 5, Cambodia's 2nd PM Hun Sen launched a bloody coup that toppled 1st PM Norodom Ranariddh. Heavy fighting in Phnom Penh indicated the collapse of the fragile coalition.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.A3)(AP, 7/5/98)
1997 Jul 6, In Cambodia Hun Sen declared victory while Prince Ranariddh planned from France to carry out a resistance effort.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 8, Cambodia Interior Minister Ho Sok was seized and executed by forces loyal to Hun Sen. Some 30 soldiers loyal to Ranariddh were captured and tortured by Regiment 911 at Kambol
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A6)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 9, In Cambodia some 30 opposition officials were arrested in Pray Veng Province, 13 in Battambang, and 20 in Kompong Speu. Prince Ranariddh was in consultation with the United Nations for support.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.E3)
1997 Jul 10, ASEAN foreign ministers voted to suspend Cambodia’s pending membership. The US announced a 3/4 reduction of staff and some aid. More than 50 people were dead after 2 days of fighting.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 16, In Cambodia Hun Sen named a new co-premier, Ung Huot, the foreign minister and a member of Ranariddh’s Funcinpec Party. Exiled legislators said was the appointment was illegal.
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A8)(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 18, In Cambodia Prince Ranariddh called off armed resistance and proposed a caretaker government and new elections.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 19, In Cambodia Hun Sen rejected a peace plan proposed by the 7-nation ASEAN group.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Jul 26, Communist guerrillas in Cambodia announced that Pol Pot was sentenced to life imprisonment. Nate Thayer, a US reporter for the Far Eastern Economic Review, claimed to have seen Pol Pot and prepared a report for the Review.
(WSJ, 7/28/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 8, US Sec. of State Madeleine Albright announced that the bulk of US aid to Cambodia would be suspended.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 19, In Cambodia 35,000 people fled across the border to Thailand to escape fighting between forces loyal to Prince Ranariddh and troops of coup leader Hun Sen.
(WSJ, 8/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 24, In Cambodia troops of Hun Sen overran O’Smach, the last frontier town held by forces loyal to Prince Ranariddh.
(SFC, 8/25/97, p.A8)
1997 Sep 3, In Cambodia a Vietnam Airlines, Tupelov 134, Soviet jet crashed on approach to Phnom Penh airport and killed 65 people. One child, 1-year-old Chanayuth Nim-Anong, survived. A 2nd child about 4 also survived.
(WSJ, 9/3/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A12)(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Dec 20, Theng Bunma, Cambodian business tycoon and accused drug trafficker, was awarded an honorary doctorate from Iowa Wesleyan College via the manipulations of Ted Sioeng, an Indonesia-born businessman. Sioeng was at the heart of the "donorgate" scandal over China’s attempt to influence the 1996 US elections.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A22)
1998 Mar 29, In Cambodia civilians fled fighting between factions of the Khmer Rouge
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 30, Prince Norodom Ranariddh returned to Cambodia and planned to oppose Hun Sen in the Jul 26 elections.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)
1998 Mar 31, In Cambodia government soldiers made a major offensive to destroy the remnants of the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, whose numbers were disintegrating due to defections and internal fighting.
(SFC, 4/1/98, p.A8)
1998 Apr 15, Pol Pot (73) died of a heart attack in Anlong Veng, northern Cambodia. His body was cremated. It was later reported that he killed himself with malaria pills and tranquilizers after learning that an aide planned to hand him over to the US. In 1999 it was reported that Ta Mok had Pol Pot executed. In 2001 the place of his death was designated as a historic site and plans were made to make it a tourist attraction. In 2004 Philip Short and John Murray authored “Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare."
(SFC, 4/16/98, p.A1)(SFC, 4/18/98, p.A8)(WSJ, 1/21/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/27/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/21/01, p.H5)(Econ, 11/6/04, p.89)
1998 Apr 17, A Thai military team collected evidence from the body of Pol Pot, former chief of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge guerrillas, to confirm that one of the century's worst tyrants was truly dead.
(AP,, 4/17/99)
1998 Apr 18, In Cambodia the Khmer Rouge killed 22 ethnic Vietnamese at Chhanok Tru, a fishing village on Tonle Sap Lake.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A15)
1998 Apr 21, Khmer Rouge rebels drove a large government force back in 2 days of fighting along the Thai-Cambodian border.
(SFC, 4/22/98, p.A9)
1998 May 2, Cambodian refugees entered Thailand as government troops declared that they had all but destroyed the Khmer Rouge.
(BS, 5/3/98, p.16A)
1998 May 20, In Cambodia Prince Ranariddh quit as head of an opposition alliance against Hun Sen and chose to support Son Soubert.
(WSJ, 5/21/98, p.A1)
1998 Jun 5, Over 1,000 former Khmer Rouge soldiers were inducted into the Cambodian army at Anlong Veng. Khmer Rouge leader Ta Mok and some loyalists were still in the jungles along the Thai border.
(SFC, 6/6/98, p.A11)
1998 Jun 28, In Cambodia an opposition activist was found beaten to death near Phnom Penh.
(WSJ, 6/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 17, In Cambodia Khmer Rouge guerrillas under Ta Mok attacked a convoy of election workers and killed 2 people.
(SFEC, 7/19/98, p.A24)
1998 Jul 23, It was reported that 3 ethnic Vietnamese were killed last week in a racist attack prior to Cambodian elections. Ethnic slurs against the Vietnamese were turning up in the election campaign.
(SFC, 7/23/98, p.A10)
1998 Jul 26, In Cambodia a Khmer Rouge attack left 10 people dead as the nation voted for a new government. 40-50 guerrillas struck at an army outpost at O’Kong Bich. No party was expected to win a majority of the 122 seat National Assembly.
(SFC, 7/27/98, p.A8)
1998 Jul 28, The Cambodian People's Party (CPP) of Hun Sen claimed victory and preliminary results showed him with 67 seats, Ranariddh with 42 and Rainsy with 13.
(WSJ, 7/29/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/9/99, p.A12)
1998 Aug 5, In Cambodia election officials declared Hun Sen the winner and int’l. monitors backed the results.
(WSJ, 8/6/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 20, A grenade attack in Phnom Penh, apparently aimed at Sam Rainsy, killed one man but left Rainsy unhurt.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 7, In Phnom Penh Hun Sen ordered the arrests of his opponents and at least one person was killed as police fired into a crowd of protestors.
(SFC, 9/8/98, p.A8)
1998 Sep 8, In Phnom Penh police scattered demonstrators and ended a 2-week protest against alleged fraud in the national elections. Protestors called their tent city Democracy Square and thousands participated with hopes of launching a people-power revolution.
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A8)
1998 Sep 23, In Cambodia a rocket attack intended for Huns Sen killed 4 people including 2 children.
(SFC, 9/24/98, p.A14)
1998 Nov 13, In Cambodia the warring political parties agreed to form a coalition government led by Hun Sen. Opposition leader Prince Norodom Ranariddh will become president of the National Assembly.
(SFC, 11/14/98, p.A10)
1998 Nov 25, Cambodia’s new National Assembly began office with Prince Ranariddh as speaker of the 120-seat group.
(SFC, 11/26/98, p.B8)
1998 Dec 4, In Cambodia the last Khmer Rouge fighting force surrendered, but 3 leaders refused to give up.
(WSJ, 12/7/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 7, The UN agreed to give Cambodia’s UN seat to the new government.
(SFC, 12/8/98, p.A15)
1998 Dec 9, In Cambodia Khmer Rouge guerrillas kidnapped 48 people, including 3 aid workers, and demanded ransom.
(WSJ, 12/10/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 20, In Cambodia there were riots in Sihanoukville to protests suspected toxic waste imports from Taiwan. Hundreds of Cambodians fled the city after reports of deaths from 3,000 tons of toxic waste dumped 2 weeks ago. The waste was loaded with mercury and a plan was made to move it away from Sihanoukville. Taiwan ordered Formosa Plastics to take back the 3,000 tons of waste but the firm said the government used tests by an environmental group.
(WSJ, 12/21/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/22/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/28/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/29/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 26, In Cambodia 2 aides of the late Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, emerged from the jungle and expressed in writing their desire to become ordinary citizens and allegiance to the government. Prime Minister Hun Sen welcomed them and spoke against a trial and reopening old wounds.
(SFEC, 12/27/98, p.A22)(SFC, 12/29/98, p.A8)
1998 Dec 31, In Cambodia Hun Sen said he would not oppose a trial of the 2 recently emerged Khmer Rouge defectors. The National Assembly passed a $393.4 million budget that included $133 million for defense and security.
(SFC, 1/2/99, p.A8)(SFC, 1/2/99, p.C12)
1998 Over 8,000 Cambodians died from AIDS in this year.
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.C2)
1999 Feb 9, Some 1,700 guerrillas of the Khmer Rouge were inducted into the Cambodian military.
(SFC, 2/10/99, p.A10)
1999 Feb 26, In Japan int'l. donors at a 2 day conference pledged to provide $470 million in aid to Cambodia, if the country takes steps to reduce its army and promote democracy.
(SFC, 2/27/99, p.A16)
1999 Feb, A UN panel recommended that an int'l. tribunal be established to prosecute those persons most responsible for the crimes of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 5/10/99, p.A10)
1999 Mar 6, In Cambodia Ta Mok (72), aka "the butcher," the one-legged last senior leader of the Khmer Rouge, was arrested.
(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.A17)(SFC, 3/8/99, p.A12)
1999 Mar, In Cambodia Hun Sen rejected a UN proposal to hold an int’l. tribunal.
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A14)
1999 Apr, Kaing Guek Eav (aka Comrade Duch), the chief executioner of Pol Pot's regime, was uncovered by Nick Dunlop, a foreign journalist. The Cambodia government reportedly knew of his whereabouts for 2 years. In May Duch was put under protective custody after agreeing to testify against his former comrades. In 2006 Dunlop authored “The Lost Executioner: A Journey to the heart of the Killing Fields."
(SFC, 5/10/99, p.A8,10)(SSFC, 3/5/06, p.M3)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.52)
1999 Apr 30, Cambodia was admitted as the 10th member of the Association of Asian Nations (ASEAN).
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.B1)
1999 Apr, Hun Sen accepted a compromise offer for an int’l. tribunal with both foreign and Cambodian judges. Talks soon collapsed.
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A14)
1999 Jun 26, Samdach Vira Bhante, a Cambodian monk, died in Stockton, Ca. at age 110.
(SFC, 7/1/99, p.C4)
1999 Jul 6, Srei Chea (29), Cambodian film star, was shot 3 times by 2 gunmen. She died a week later. Her films included "Shadow of Darkness," which was about life under the Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 7/19/99, p.A12)
1999 Jul 6, Piseth Peaklica (34), Cambodian actress, was shot by 2 gunmen in a Phnom Penh market and died on July 13. It was rumored that she was involved with a high official (Hun Sen) and ordered killed by a jealous wife (Bun Rany).
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A15)(http://tinyurl.com/5n83tu)
1999 Aug 11, It was reported that an estimated half of Cambodia's 10-20 thousand sex workers were infected with the AIDS virus, HIV.
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.C2)
1999 Sep 7, In Cambodia the military court charged Ta Mok, a former Khmer Rouge guerrilla chief, with genocide.
(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A15)
1999 Sep 9, In Cambodia Kaing Khek, aka "Duch" and former head of Tuol Sleng, a converted school that served as a Khmer Rouge torture center, was charged with genocide.
(SFC, 9/10/99, p.D4)(SSFC, 3/5/06, p.M3)
1999 Oct 19, In Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen reportedly gave his approval for a tribunal to hear genocide charges against the Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A10)
1999 Cambodia agreed to allow environmentalists to begin an experiment in wildlife and forest protection with enforcers paid by outside nations.
(WSJ, 6/19/01, p.A1)
1999 Bernard Krisher, American philanthropist (retired magazine journalist), began to link rural schools with solar power and Internet linked computers. His Japan Relief for Cambodia was responsible for the Cambodia Daily, the country's first English language daily newspaper and an orphanage in Phnom Penh.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.AA7)
2000 Jan 2, It was reported that Cambodia’s Hun Sen, in an effort to boost tourism, had approved direct flights to Angkor Wat, with a required one night stay in the adjacent town of Siem Riap.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.T3)
2000 Jan, In Cambodia Hun Sen moved ahead with plans to hold national trials without int’l. assistance.
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A14)
2000 May, At least 6 anti-government royalists were killed by government soldiers in Cambodia’s Kratie province according to charges made by a human rights group in August. 25 people were missing and presumed dead.
(SFC, 8/18/00, p.D6)
2000 Sep 14, In Cambodia and Vietnam the Mekong River flooded. At least 89 people had died in Cambodia and 8 in Vietnam since the floods began in July.
(SFC, 9/15/00, p.A18)
2000 Sep 21, In Southeast Asia the death toll from floods reached 235. The Red Cross issued an appeal for emergency aid to Cambodia.
(SFC, 9/22/00, p.D2)
2000 Nov 24, Several dozen gunmen attacked government offices in Phnom Penh. At least 7 people were killed and 12 wounded. Police fought a US-based anti-communist group known as the Cambodian Freedom Fighters (CFF). 8 were killed and 60 rounded up. 38 people, including 4 American citizens, were later charged with terrorism. In 2002 a court sentenced 20 people to prison terms of 5 years to life for the plotting to overthrow the government.
(SFC, 11/25/00, p.A18)(WSJ, 11/27/00, p.A1)(SFC, 11/30/00, p.C3)(SFC, 3/1/02, p.A17)
2001 Aug 7, Cambodia’s Constitutional Council approved legislation to establish a special court to try former Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes against humanity.
(SFC, 8/8/01, p.A9)
2001 Aug 10, Cambodia’s King Sihanouk signed war-crimes legislation to try senior Khmer Rouge leaders.
(WSJ, 8/15/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 23, Cambodia’s PM Hun Sen shut down the country’s bars, nightclubs, discos and karaoke parlors. He said they were spawning crime and eroding traditional values. The action followed a series of shootings at nightspots.
(SSFC, 12/2/01, p.C13)
2001 Kay Kimsong, along with two Americans working for the Cambodian Daily, were sued over two articles published in early 2001 that said Foreign Minister Hor Namhong had played an active part in running a Phnom Penh prison camp during the Khmer Rouge's brutal 1975-79 reign. An appeal by Kimson in 2005 was rejected and he was fined $7,500.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2001 Arn Chorn-Pond started the Silipak Khmer Amatak (Cambodian Living Arts) organization. It aimed to locate and support Cambodian master artists.
(SFCM, 8/8/04, p.12)
2001 The UN said 170,000 people in Cambodia had HIV. About 2.7% of the adult population was infected with AIDS.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.41)
2002 Feb 3, In Cambodia’s 1st local elections Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party won control of up to 1600 of the 1,621 local councils. A US monitoring group said the polls were competently run but neither free nor fair.
(SFC, 2/5/02, p.A7)
2002 Aug 30, Floodwaters along the lower stretches of the Mekong have wreaked havoc in Laos, Cambodia (18), Thailand (12) and Vietnam (25), claiming at least 55 lives and leaving thousands homeless across the region.
(AP, 8/30/02)
2002 Sep 29, In Cambodia 2 nuns and a monk burned to death in bathtubs of gasoline and three suffered multiple stab wounds in Wat Thmar Sar. Police later detained Dem Mam the leader of an extremist Buddhist cult.
(Reuters, 10/2/02)
2002 Nov 5, The ASEAN group (Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Brunei, Thailand and Myanmar) ended a 2-day conference in Cambodia that was also attended by representatives from China, Japan, and India and South Africa.
(AP, 11/5/02)
2002 Dec 19, In Cambodia some 1 million people participated in the transfer of some remains of Buddha from Phnom Penh to a new shrine in Oudong.
(SFC, 12/20/02, p.A18)
2003 Jan 29, In Cambodia protesters looted and set fire to the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh. The protest was against a Thai TV star who was quoted in the media as saying Cambodia had stolen the famous Angkor Wat temple from Thailand.
(AP, 1/29/03)
2003 Jan 30, Thailand sealed its border with Cambodia, recalled its ambassador and sent military planes to evacuate hundreds of terrified Thais after rioters looted and torched its embassy in the Cambodian capital.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 Mar 5, Cambodia sealed its border with Thailand, due to sluggish progress "to normalize relations in border areas" since January’s anti-Thai riots.
(AP, 3/5/03)
2003 Apr 11, Cambodia and Thailand agreed to resume full diplomatic relations, which were suspended after anti-Thai riots shook Cambodia's capital in January.
(AP, 4/11/03)
2003 Jul 27, Cambodia held elections for seats in the123-member national Assembly in the third democratic election in a decade.
(AP, 7/27/03)(SSFC, 7/27/03, p.A9)
2003 Jul 28, In Cambodia PM Hun Sen's party claimed victory in general elections, saying it expects to win around 73 of the 123 seats in the National Assembly. Hun Sen's party swept to victory, but apparently fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to govern outright.
(AP, 7/28/03)(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Jul 30, In Cambodia opposition parties said they would only form a coalition government if PM Hun Sen stepped down.
(SFC, 8/1/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 26, It was reported that Cambodian prostitutes were being subjected to gang rapes, and that the practice, called "bauk," has been common for years.
(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.A11)
2003 Nov 5, Cambodia's three main parties agreed to form a tripartite coalition government with Prime Minister Hun Sen at the helm, ending a deadlock from inconclusive elections.
(AP, 11/5/03)
2003 Nov 25, In Cambodia PM Hun Sen's nephew was arrested on murder charges for allegedly shooting to death two people after a car crash.
(AP, 11/25/03)
2003 Dec 15, Cambodia's prime minister ordered the destruction of the country's surface-to-air missiles to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists. Hun Sen issued the order after a meeting in Phnom Penh with U.S. Ambassador Charles Ray.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2003 Dec 30, In Cambodia former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan (72) acknowledged for the first time that his regime committed genocide.
(AP, 12/30/03)
2003 Evan Gottlesman authored "Cambodia: After the Khmer Rouge."
(WSJ, 4/25/03, W6)
2004 Jan 22, In Cambodia gunmen assassinated Chea Vichea, a prominent labor leader linked to the main opposition party, as he read a newspaper on a capital street.
(AP, 1/22/04)
2004 Apr, SF based non-profit Room to Read (R2R), founded by former Microsoft executive John Wood, opened its 1000th library in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
(SFCM, 9/26/04, p.7)
2004 May 11, The Int’l. Justice Mission, a US-based evangelical Christian organization, was reported to be active in battling the child-sex trade in Cambodia. The group, founded in 1997 by Gary Haugen, was operating with $1.7 million in federal funds.
(SFC, 5/11/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 6, Actress Angelina Jolie (29) arrived in Cambodia. PM Hun Sen had offered her citizenship in recognition of her nature conservation work in the country’s northwest.
(SFC, 7/7/04, p.E3)
2004 cJul 8, In Cambodia Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh signed an agreement to share power with Hun Sen as PM and Ranariddh as speaker of the National Assembly.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.36)
2004 Jul 13, Police forces loyal to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen forced the acting head of state Chea Sim out of the country in a purge of the ruling party.
(AP, 7/13/04)
2004 Jul 14, King Sihanouk reappointed Hun Sen as Cambodia’s premier.
(WSJ, 7/15/04, p.A1)
2004 Oct 4, Cambodia's legislature approved a long-delayed agreement to put surviving Khmer Rouge leaders on trial for atrocities that claimed nearly two million lives during their murderous rule in the late 1970s.
(AP, 10/4/04)
2004 Oct 7, Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihanouk (81) abdicated due to poor health.
(SFC, 10/7/04, p.A9)
2004 Oct 14, In Cambodia Prince Norodom Sihamoni, retiring King Norodom Sihanouk's son, a former ballet dancer and U.N. cultural ambassador, was officially confirmed to succeed his father on the throne.
(AP, 10/14/04)
2004 Oct 28, Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni, the 51-year-old son of former king Norodom Sihanouk, was formally sworn in as monarch.
(AP, 10/29/04)
2005 Jan 1, The 1974 Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA), which had restricted Chinese textile exports, ended. This forced Cambodia to face fierce competition from rival exporters. This led to the loss of some 30,000 jobs in Mauritius.
(www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/February06/Features/feature2.htm)(Econ, 2/19/05, p.42)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.58)
2005 Feb 3, The US embassy in Phnom Penh condemned the Cambodian parliament's vote to strip opposition leader Sam Rainsy and two of his deputies of immunity.
(AP, 2/3/05)
2005 Feb, Sam Rainsy fled Cambodia after his parliamentary immunity was removed.
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.47)
2005 Mar 18, A Cambodian-Japanese joint venture, JC Royal, was awarded a 30-year management lease to oversee and upgrade the Choeung Ek memorial, site of the killing fields (1975-1979). Profits were marked for the unregistered Sun Fund charity.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.45)(http://tinyurl.com/dlpm7)
2005 Mar 25, Cambodia and Vietnam each confirmed an additional death from bird flu, raising Southeast Asia's death toll to 48.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2005 May 18, Cambodia's legislature ratified a pact with the US exempting each country's citizens from extradition for prosecution by the International Criminal Court, an agreement sought by Washington to avoid political trials of its citizens.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 Jun 16, In northwestern Cambodia a man driven by a grudge against his former employer spearheaded an assault on an international school, taking dozens of children hostage and silencing a crying a 2-year-old Canadian boy by shooting him in the head.
(AP, 6/17/05)(SFC, 6/17/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 30, A Cambodia doctor reported that 2 infants have died in Cambodia from influenza, part of an outbreak that has hospitalized more than 1,000 children. He said the illness appears to be a form of human flu, not the avian influenza.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jul 20, Cambodia handed over some 107 Montagnards, a largely Christian hilltribe people, to Vietnamese authorities. More than 1,000 Montagnards fled to Cambodia after security forces put down demonstrations in Vietnam's Central Highlands in 2001 against land confiscation and religious persecution of ethnic minorities. In January, Vietnam, Cambodia and the UNHCR signed a memorandum of understanding to resettle or repatriate about 700 ethnic minority Vietnamese who were estimated at the time to be in Cambodia.
(AFP, 7/20/05)
2005 Aug 1, In Cambodia 2 men who said their confessions were coerced by police were convicted of murder in the death of a prominent labor union leader. Chea Vichea, the former head of Cambodia's Free Trade Union of Workers, was gunned down in January 2004 at a roadside newsstand in the capital, Phnom Penh. The union leader was an outspoken critic of government corruption and human rights abuses.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, The US Embassy in Cambodia said the US has established a $2 million endowment (DC-Cam) to assist a Cambodian group researching crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge government in the late 1970s.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 6, Australia staged a high seas arrest of a Cambodian-flagged ship with an international crew suspected of fishing illegally in sub-Antarctic waters.
(AFP, 9/10/05)
2005 Oct 25, Chhouk Rin, former Khmer Rouge field commander, was caught in northwestern Cambodia. In 1994 he was convicted in absentia for the murder of 3 Western backpackers.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Dec 31, In Cambodia police arrested two leading human rights activists on defamation charges as the UN human rights body expressed "extreme concern" over the move.
(AFP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec, The IMF decided to write off Cambodia’s $82 million debt.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.52)(http://tinyurl.com/yvqvuh)
2005 Some 80% of Cambodians lived in the countryside.
(Econ, 2/19/05, p.42)
2006 Jan 17, Cambodia, under US pressure, released four prominent government critics from a Phnom Penh prison but said they will still face defamation charges.
(AP, 1/17/06)
2006 Jan 22, Cambodia held its first Senate election. PM Hun Sen's ruling party secured a landslide victory. Only 123 parliamentarians and 11,261 members of commune councilors, local administrative bodies, were able to vote.
(AFP, 1/29/06)
2006 Feb 5, Cambodia's king pardoned exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy who was sentenced to jail for defamation, in a move officials said was at the request of PM Hun Sen.
(AP, 2/5/06)
2006 Feb 10, Sam Rainsy, an exiled Cambodian opposition leader, returned home to cheering crowds of supporters after a royal pardon ended his long feud with PM Hun Sen.
(AP, 2/10/06)
2006 Mar 1, Cambodia’s National Assembly convened to amend 8 legislations to the constitution especially the new article 90 to diminish the votes of support for lawmakers from 2/3 to 50% plus one votes in order to form a government, according to the lawmakers' proposals from the 3 main parties.
(http://tinyurl.com/jg63b)
2006 Mar 4, Cambodia deported an American for running websites that promoted the impoverished kingdom as a destination for people who wanted to end their lives. Californian Roger Graham, 57, who owned the Blue Mountain Coffee and Internet Cafe in the quiet coastal backwater of Kampot, had advertised his avid support of euthanasia, or mercy killing, on his websites www.euthanasiaincambodia.com and www.asian-hearts.com.
(AFP, 3/4/06)
2006 Mar 29, Cambodia's PM Hun Sen said that Yash Ghai, a UN human rights representative, was no longer welcome in the Southeast Asian nation after the envoy criticized the government's crackdown on dissent.
(AP, 3/29/06)
2006 Apr 15, Cambodian soldiers departed to Sudan for a UN-backed landmine clearing operation, saying they hoped they could use their experience recovering from civil war to help the war-torn Sudanese.
(AFP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 21, The Cambodian PM Hun Sen ruled out sending troops to Iraq, rejecting a request by the US for non-combat forces to assist with humanitarian work.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr, China’s PM Wen Jiabao visited Cambodia and announced aid for roads, dams and other projects for up to $600 million.
(Econ, 3/31/07, SR p.14)
2006 May 4, Cambodia's highest judicial body approved 30 Cambodian and UN judges to preside over a long-awaited genocide tribunal for surviving Khmer Rouge leaders.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 9, A land mine killed five Cambodian soldiers and maimed another as they tried to remove it from an area being developed to build a casino.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 Jun 6, In Cambodia more than 1,000 police, many armed and in riot gear, evicted hundreds of families who had refused to leave a Phnom Penh shantytown, as authorities moved to end a standoff that has stalled millions of dollars in commercial development.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jul 3, Judges and prosecutors from Cambodia and abroad were sworn in to begin the UN-backed judicial process to try former Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide and crimes against humanity.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 21, In Cambodia Ta Mok (80), known as "The Butcher" for his brutality as military chief of the communist Khmer Rouge, died.
(AP, 7/21/06)(Econ, 8/5/06, p.77)
2006 Aug 6, Cambodian customs over the weekend seized 12 luxury vehicles stolen in Canada, including a Hummer and a Cadillac popular with hip-hop music stars, giving an intriguing insight into the world of international car smuggling.
(Reuters, 8/7/06)
2006 Aug 30, Cambodian lawmakers curtailed parliamentarians’ right to speak without fear of prosecution in a bill that granted them pensions and other perks.
(Econ, 9/9/06, p.46)
2006 Aug 31, Heng Pov, former Phnom Penh police chief, was arrested at a hotel in Singapore when a clerk brought food for him. A Cambodian court warrant had been recently issued against him accusing him of involvement in a number of crimes such as the killing of Phnom Penh judge Sok Sethamony, assassination attempts on general Sao Sokha and judge Uk Savuth, as well as a number of other criminal cases. Pov claimed that he was being framed for refusing orders to kill Hok Lundy, the internal security chief.
(http://tinyurl.com/gtumm)(Econ, 9/9/06, p.46)
2006 Sep 1, Cambodia’s PM Hun Sen pushed a bill through the lower house of parliament banning extra-marital affairs. The legislation could get adulterers up to a year in jail.
(Econ, 9/9/06, p.46)
2006 Sep 19, Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni started the official part of a week-long visit to the Czech Republic, a country where he spent 13 years from 1962-1975 and considers as his "second home."
(AP, 9/19/06)
2006 Oct 3, In California Cambodian and US representatives signed a sister park accord between Samlaut Park and Sequoia National Park.
(SFC, 10/4/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 9, Cambodian PM Hun Sen began a six-day official visit to Australia that will focus on security and trade.
(AFP, 10/9/06)
2006 Oct 18, Cambodia's royalist party voted to remove Prince Norodom Ranariddh as its leader, saying his long absences from the country left him unable to lead the fractious party.
(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 31, Cambodian police said an American police officer, killed himself while in custody in the capital. Donald Rene Ramirez of SF was accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl. Ramirez had been going on vacation to Asia for at least 2 decades.
(AP, 10/31/06)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.B1)
2006 Nov 10, Asian nations reached their first international agreement to implement what has been dubbed the "Iron Silk Road." Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and seven other nations agreed to meet at least every two years to identify vital rail routes, coordinate standards and financing and plan upgrades and expansions, among other measures. The UN first conceived the Trans-Asian Railway Network in 1960.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 21, Cambodian PM Hun Sen, other senior officials and South Korea’s President Roh Moo-Hyun arrived in Siem Reap, the gateway to the famed Angkor temple complex, to kick off the Angkor-Gyeongju Culture Expo, a joint cultural festival that runs through January 2007.
(AFP, 11/21/06)
2006 Nov 30, Cambodia's PM Hun Sen condemned attempts by Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels to push for a separate state, after talks in Phnom Penh with the island's premier.
(AFP, 11/30/06)
2006 Cambodia’s PM Hun Sen financed and provided a foreword to a book by Ros Chantrabot about Sdach Korn, an alleged Cambodian historical figure. 5,000 copies were distributed out. Hun Sen wanted to rehabilitate this ordinary man who supposedly toppled his king and ruled during the 16th century.
(http://ki-media.blogspot.com/search/label/Hun%20Sen)(Econ, 4/7/07, p.38)
2007 Jan, In Cambodia villagers reported seeing a naked woman stealing food. Sal Lou (43) a retired police officer, identified her as his oldest child, Rochom P’ngieng, by a scar on her arm. P’ngieng (29) had vanished in 1989 while tending buffalo near the jungle in remote northern Rattanakiri province. In 2010 Rochom P’ngieng reportedly fled back to the forest.
(www.salem-news.com/articles/july092008/jungle_girl_7-9-08.php)(AP, 5/28/10)
2007 Feb 2, US Peace Corps volunteers flew to Cambodia to teach English at rural schools, marking the 45-year-old organization's first mission there.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 9, In Cambodia the American navy's USS Gary docked at Sihanoukville, becoming the first US military craft to visit the former communist country in more than 30 years.
(AFP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 15, It was reported that shooting ranges continued to operate in Cambodia despite government cancellation of licenses in 1997. Tourists were able to fire 30 rounds with an AK-47 for $30. Other offers included tossing grenades at chickens for $200 and killing a cow with a rocket-propelled grenade for $555.
(SFC, 2/15/07, p.14)
2007 Feb 27, In Cambodia the US ambassador said direct US aid to support Cambodian government projects will resume following the lifting of a decade-old ban by Washington.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Cambodia PM Hun Sen publicly rebuked members in the upper ranks of his Cambodian People’s Party for dodgy land deals as small farmers and slum-dwellers fell victim to land-grabbing.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.38)
2007 Mar 12, Preah Maha Ghosananda (78), Buddhist spiritual leader of Cambodia, died.
(Econ, 3/24/07, p.98)
2007 Mar 16, Cambodian and foreign judges reached a key agreement on procedures governing Cambodia's long-stalled Khmer Rouge tribunal.
(AP, 3/16/07)
2007 Mar 19, A Cambodian court official said that Prince Norodom Ranariddh has been charged with adultery for having a mistress while still being legally married to his wife.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Mar 24, Thieves in Cambodia poisoned a 62-year-old domesticated elephant and sawed off its tusks to sell on the black market. In 2008 2 men were arrested for the killing and faced up to 3 years in prison for the intentional destruction of private property.
(AP, 3/27/07)(AP, 3/26/08)
2007 Apr 1, Cambodia held local commune elections. The Cambodian People’s Party won control in 1,592 of 1,621 communes amid opposition claims of fraud.
(Econ, 4/7/07, p.38)
2007 Apr 6, Health officials said teenage girls in Cambodia and Indonesia have died of bird flu as the virus continues to stalk across Asia.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 May 22, Cambodian PM Hun Sen met with junta head Senior General Than Shwe in military-ruled Myanmar, as the two nations moved to improve tourism links.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 Jun 4, Cambodian and foreign judges began a weeklong meeting to confirm rules for the much-delayed genocide trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders, blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million people.
(AP, 6/4/07)
2007 Jun 13, Cambodian and foreign judges announced rules clearing the way for a UN-assisted genocide tribunal to begin investigating Khmer Rouge leaders in the deaths of 1.7 million people during their 1975-79 communist regime.
(AP, 6/13/07)
2007 Jun 14, Cambodian PM Hun Sen, visiting Japan, pledged to fight corruption to lure more investors from top donor Japan as he tries to wean his government away from foreign aid.
(AP, 6/14/07)
2007 Jun 25, A charter plane carrying 22 people between two popular Cambodian tourist destinations crashed in a mountainous region in the south of the country. All aboard were killed.
(AP, 6/25/07)(AP, 6/27/07)
2007 Jun, Cambodia received pledges from foreign governments, agencies and charities of $690 million in aid, 15% more than last year as China joined the pledge process.
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.49)
2007 Jul 17, Cambodia's government issued a directive preventing Christians from promoting their religion in public places, or using money or other means to persuade people to convert.
(AP, 7/17/07)
2007 Jul 31, In Cambodia Kang Kek Ieu (alias Duch), a former Khmer Rouge prison chief, was charged with crimes against humanity and detained by Cambodia's UN-backed tribunal in the first legal action taken by the court against regime leaders.
(AFP, 7/31/07)
2007 Sep 19, In Cambodia Nuon Chea, the top surviving leader of the notorious Khmer Rouge, whose radical policies were responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people, was charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes.
(AP, 9/19/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Cambodia Alexander Trofimov (41), the Russian chairman of Koh Puos Investment Group Ltd., was charged with debauchery, a Cambodian legal offense covering sexual abuse of children. He was detained in the southern resort town of Sihanoukville and accused of raping at least six girls. In September last year, the Cambodian government gave Trofimov's company permission to develop an island near Sihanoukville into a tourist resort.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 12, In Cambodia Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, the ex-foreign minister of the Khmer Rouge regime and his wife, were arrested on charges of crimes against humanity. Ieng Sary was sentenced to death in absentia in August 1979, eight months after a Vietnam-led resistance movement overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime. In 1996 the king rewarded Ieng Sary with an amnesty for breaking away from his comrades-in-arms.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 19, In Cambodia a UN-backed tribunal arrested Khieu Samphan (76), the former Khmer Rouge head of state. He was the fifth senior official of the brutal regime to be rounded up ahead of a long-delayed genocide trial. In his book "Reflection on Cambodian History Up to the Era of Democratic Kampuchea," which was released last week, Khieu Samphan says the Khmer Rouge only wanted what was best for Cambodia.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 20, In Cambodia Kaing Guek Eav (66), also known as Duch, the head of the Khmer Rouge's largest and most notorious torture center appeared in court in the first public session of the long-delayed UN-backed tribunal probing the regime's reign of terror in the 1970s.
(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Dec 25, Some 600 protesters marched in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh to call for speedier trials for the former leaders of Khmer Rouge regime.
(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Khamboly Dy authored "A History of Democratic Kampuchea," the first history book written by a Cambodian about the Khmer Rouge.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2008 Jan 19, Activists said actress Mia Farrow has arrived in Cambodia and plans to defy a ban on holding a ceremony at a former Khmer Rouge prison, as part of her campaign on Darfur.
(AFP, 1/19/08)
2008 Jan 20, In Cambodia American actress Mia Farrow was forced to cancel a ceremony in Phnom Penh highlighting human rights abuses in Sudan after authorities barred her access to the city's genocide museum.
(AFP, 1/20/08)
2008 Jan, In Massachusetts Ly Van Aggadipo (b.1917), a Cambodia-born Buddhist monk, died. He had fled Cambodia in 1979 and later settled in the US. In 2010 friends and followers released a book of his poetry titled “Oh! Maha Mount Dangrek," which contained an autobiographical poem on the horrors of the Khmer Rouge and a friend’s story of love in the time of genocide.
(SFC, 3/23/10, p.E3)
2008 Mar 3, Cambodia passed legislation on the “Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation" to comply with the United States policy on human trafficking.
(http://healthdev.net/site/post.php?s=3840)
2008 Mar 30, Dith Pran (65), whose experiences during the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s were adapted into the award-winning movie "The Killing Fields," died in New Jersey.
(AFP, 3/30/08)
2008 Apr 16, In Cambodia an attacker hurled a hand grenade into a crowd of people dancing at a Buddhist temple to celebrate the traditional New Year, killing one villager and wounding 25.
(AP, 4/17/08)
2008 Jun 2, The US gave 31 used trucks to Cambodia in its first direct supply of military hardware in more than a decade, saying ties between the two countries were improving.
(AFP, 6/2/08)
2008 Jun 20, Cambodian officials said authorities working with Australian police had destroyed an enormous stockpile of 33 tons of safrole-rich oil, a key ingredient used in producing the synthetic drug Ecstasy. Cambodian authorities have been working since 2002 to stem the distillation of the oil and since then have succeeded in detecting and dismantling more than 50 clandestine laboratories capable of producing up to 15 gallons of oil a day. Cambodian officials are trying to preserve the sassafras tree, which is classified as a rare species that grows mainly in Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains.
(AP, 6/20/08)
2008 Jul 1, Thailand’s deputy prime minister said the Thai government has suspended its decision to support Cambodia's bid to have an 11th century temple near the Thai border declared a world landmark. In 1962, the International Court of Justice awarded the Preah Vihear temple and the land it occupies to Cambodia.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 7, A UNESCO official said that an 11th century temple that sits on Cambodia's disputed border zone with Thailand has been designated as a world heritage site. Hindu-themed Preah Vihear reflects the beliefs of the kings who ruled what was then the Angkorean empire.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 11, In Cambodia journalist Khim Sam Bo (47) was shot twice and his 19-year-old son was seriously wounded in the chest and died at the hospital. A gunman on a motorcycle shot five times at the victims as they were leaving a sports stadium on a motorcycle.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 16, Cambodia assembled its troops near the Thai border in the second day of alleged incursions by Thai soldiers amid tensions over disputed border land near a historic temple.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 18, Thailand sent more military reinforcements to a disputed part of the Cambodian border, after the tense four-day standoff nearly erupted into gunfire during the night.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 21, Talks between Cambodia and Thailand to resolve a military stand-off on their joint border ended without a solution.
(AFP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 22, Cambodia asked the UN Security Council and its Southeast Asian neighbors to intervene in resolving a military standoff over disputed border territory around an ancient temple, stepping up its rhetoric against Thailand.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 27, Cambodian PM Hun Sen's party claimed it won a sweeping victory in polls overshadowed by a military standoff with Thailand. Tens of thousands of opposition supporters were excluded from the elctoral register.
(AFP, 7/27/08)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.45)
2008 Aug 3, Cambodia said that Thai soldiers are occupying a second temple site on their border in an escalation of an ongoing armed standoff that nearly led to clashes between the neighbors last month.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 6, Officials said Cambodia's genocide tribunal has been hit by new corruption allegations, compelling foreign donors to withhold more than $300,000 from the proceedings pending a review of the claims.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 12, Cambodia's genocide tribunal formally indicted Kaing Guek Eav (aka Duch), a former prison chief of the country's notorious Khmer Rouge, paving the way for a historic trial.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 16, A monthlong standoff between Cambodia and Thailand appeared to be ending as both sides pulled back their troops from disputed territory around a temple near their shared border.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug, Cambodia leased agricultural land to Kuwaiti investors following mutual prime ministerial visits.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.62)
2008 Sep 16, The United States pledged 1.8 million dollars to Cambodia's cash-strapped Khmer Rouge court, making its first donation to the UN-backed genocide tribunal aimed at trying regime leaders.
(AFP, 9/16/08)
2008 Oct 3, Soldiers from both Cambodia and Thailand were wounded in a brief clash along their volatile border.
(AP, 10/3/08)
2008 Oct 7, The UN food agency (WFP) said it is resuming free breakfasts for hundreds of thousands of poor Cambodian schoolchildren after securing new funds for a program suspended due to high food prices.
(AP, 10/7/08)
2008 Oct 8, The Asian Development Bank announced $35 million in emergency food aid to ease the burden of soaring food prices among some of Cambodia's poorest people.
(AP, 10/8/08)
2008 Oct 13, Cambodian PM Hun Sen gave Thailand an ultimatum to withdraw troops from a disputed stretch of jungle-clad border within 24 hours or his forces would turn the area into a "death zone." Thai troops retreated the next day.
(Reuters, 10/13/08)(AP, 10/14/08)
2008 Oct 15, Cambodia and Thailand exchanged fire on the border in a clash over disputed land which left two soldiers dead and several wounded.
(AFP, 10/15/08)
2008 Oct 16, Cambodia and Thailand agreed to joint patrols of disputed border areas after deadly clashes, but made little progress toward resolving their long-standing territorial spat.
(AFP, 10/16/08)
2008 Nov 18, A Cambodian monk (17) was arrested for raping a British woman (39) while taking her on a tour of a cave in the northwestern Sampov mountains near his Buddhist temple. The monk also allegedly stole $55 and a cell phone from the woman.
(AP, 11/20/08)
2008 Dec 10, The government of Cambodia and the UN agreed in principle to strengthen measures to prevent corruption among staff at the country's genocide tribunal.
(AP, 12/10/08)
2009 Jan 9, Cambodian judges denied that they paid kickbacks to government officials to secure jobs on a genocide tribunal to try former Khmer Rouge leaders.
(AP, 1/9/09)
2009 Feb 2, In Cambodia police in Siem Reap arrested Jack Louis Sporich (75), an American from Chicago. He was charged with sexually abusing four Cambodian boys.
(AP, 2/4/09)
2009 Feb 5, A nongovernment organization said the corrupt elite of Cambodia, one of the world's most impoverished nations, has laid the groundwork for siphoning off vast profits from a coming boom in mining and oil exploitation.
(AP, 2/5/09)
2009 Mar 31, In Cambodia Kaing Guek Eav (aka Duch), the chief Khmer Rouge torturer, formally apologized for the deaths of more than 14,000 people at S-21 prison, the first Pol Pot cadre to accept blame for crimes committed by the regime 30 years ago.
(Reuters, 3/31/09)
2009 Apr 3, Cambodian and Thai soldiers traded fire with machine guns and rocket launchers along a disputed border, killing as many as four people in an escalation of tensions in a long-standing feud over an 11th century temple.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 May 1, In Cambodia a court official said Japan has donated $4.17 million to the UN-backed genocide tribunal trying former Khmer Rouge leaders on war crimes charges, just as the troubled court was running out of funding.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Jun 18, A study by an environmental group said pollution in the Mekong River is putting the rare Irrawaddy dolphin in danger of disappearing from Cambodia and Laos.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Aug 26, In Cambodia a Phnom Penh Municipal Court Judge found Michael James Dodd of Washington, DC, guilty of soliciting sex from a 14-year-old girl. He was arrested in October 2008 at his rented house in Phnom Penh, in the girl's company. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay 20 million riel ($4,878) in compensation to the girl's family.
(AP, 8/26/09)
2009 Oct 10, In Cambodia an overloaded river ferry capsized on its way to a Buddhist ceremony in Kratie province, killing 17 passengers in a tributary of the Mekong River.
(AP, 10/11/09)
2009 Nov 2, Tropical Storm Mirinae slammed into Vietnam's central coast, unleashing heavy rains and winds and forcing more than 80,000 people to evacuate before losing steam as it moved inland. The storm killed at least 98 people. Mirinae also killed two people in Cambodia and left 19 people dead and three missing in the Philippines.
(AP, 11/2/09)(AP, 11/3/09)(AFP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 4, Cambodia said it has appointed former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as economic adviser to premier Hun Sen and his administration.
(AFP, 11/4/09)
2009 Nov 5, Cambodia and Thailand recalled their ambassadors from each others' countries, deepening a diplomatic row after Cambodia made fugitive former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra an economic adviser.
(Reuters, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 6, Japan pledged $5.5 billion in aid over 3 years for Southeast Asia's 5 Mekong River nations (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam), seeking to deepen ties with the region amid growing influence from China.
(AFP, 11/6/09)
2009 Nov 10, Thailand's ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra, whose political battle against his successors has left his country bitterly divided, received a warm welcome in neighboring Cambodia, which shares his disdain for the current government in Bangkok.
(AP, 11/10/09)
2009 Dec 2, Cambodian police confiscated two tons of live snakes and tortoises and arrested two men trying to smuggle the slithering cargo up a river from Cambodia to Vietnam. Police arrested two Cambodians, aged 17 and 20, who said they were hired to transport the cargo but did not know the identities of their employers.
(AP, 12/3/09)
2009 Dec 8, In Cambodia Siwaraks Chothipong (31), a Thai employee of the Cambodia Air Traffic Service, was ordered to serve seven years in prison for spying on Thailand's former prime minister while he was in Cambodia as a guest of the government. Chothipong was accused of stealing Thaksin's flight schedule before his Nov. 10 arrival and sending it to the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh. The case threatened to worsen a diplomatic feud between the two neighbors. On Dec 11 Cambodia's king pardoned Chothipong.
(AP, 12/8/09)(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 18, In Cambodia a tribunal charged Khieu Samphan, the Khmer Rouge's 78-year-old former head of state, with genocide, adding new momentum to long-delayed trials against the brutal regime that ruled Cambodia 30 years ago (1975-1979).
(AP, 12/18/09)
2009 Dec 19, Cambodia sent back to China 20 Uighur Muslims who had fled China after deadly ethnic rioting and sought asylum in Cambodia, even though rights groups feared they faced persecution and possibly execution there. 2 other Uighurs who had been with the group were missing.
(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 21, In Cambodia Ieng Thirith, the last of the former Khmer Rouge leaders standing trial for alleged crimes committed three decades ago, was charged with genocide. The ultracommunist regime's social affairs minister and the wife of another defendant, Ieng Sary, had earlier been charged with crimes against humanity.
(AP, 12/21/09)
2009 Dec 21, Cambodia signed 14 deals worth an estimated $850 million with China, two days after defying international pressure by deporting 20 ethnic Chinese asylum-seekers, underlining growing trade and diplomatic links.
(AP, 12/21/09)
2009 Cambodia banned int’l. adoptions amid concerns that some children were being trafficked. The ban was lifted in 2013 and int’l. adoptions were expected to resume in 2014.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A2)
2010 Jan 1, A free-trade agreement between China and the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) came into effect. The 6 richest members scrapped tariffs on 90% of goods. The 4 poorest (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar) will not need to cut tariffs to the same level until 2015.
(SSFC, 1/3/10, p.A4)(Econ, 1/9/10, p.44)
2010 Jan 24, Cambodian and Thai troops exchanged fire near a disputed border temple, the latest in a string of gun battles between the countries since last year.
(AFP, 1/24/10)
2010 Jan 25, New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the Cambodian government to shut down its drug detention centers alleging abuses such as torture and rape, as well as the lockup of children and the mentally ill.
(AP, 1/25/10)
2010 Jan 27, A Cambodian court convicted and sentenced in absentia Sam Rainsy, the nation's main opposition leader, to two years in jail on charges of uprooting border markings. Rainsy, who is in France, said by telephone that the court had made a "most unjust" ruling, saying the border markers he had uprooted in protest were illegally placed.
(AFP, 1/27/10)
2010 Mar 3, In Laos senior officials from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam met in Luang Prabang to discuss the Mekong River. The Mekong River Commission in a draft report said severe drought has dropped the river to its lowest level in nearly 20 years, halting some cargo traffic and boat tours on the waterway, the lifeblood for 65 million people in six countries.
(AP, 3/3/10)
2010 Mar 10, Cambodia said it will preserve 14 sites at the last bastion of the murderous Khmer Rouge, including the home of their leader Pol Pot, as tourist attractions.
(AP, 3/10/10)
2010 Mar 19, Cambodia’s foreign ministry said Cambodia has temporarily suspended marriages between South Koreans and its citizens to curb human trafficking. The latest ban came after the March 3 conviction of a Cambodian matchmaker who arranged marriages between Korean men and 25 Cambodian brides.
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 25, China agreed to share water level data at 2 dams to ease pressure from nations downstream, including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
(SFC, 4/6/10, p.A3)
2010 Mar 31, US envoy Stephen Rapp said the US has pledged $5 million to Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal amid the troubled court's attempts to address corruption allegations.
(AFP, 3/31/10)
2010 Apr 2, Cambodia bristled at a US decision to cut a small military aid program to protest the December deportation of Muslim asylum seekers to China, saying if they deserved protection the United States could have offered it.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 19, Winners of the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prizes, known as the "green Nobels," were honored in San Francisco. Sereivathana Tuy of Cambodia won for his efforts in stopping farmers from killing elephants. Randall Arauz of Costa Rica won for his campaign to halt the maiming and killing of sharks for their fins. Humberto Rios Labrada (47) of Cuba won for his campaign to shift farming practices toward increasing diversity and reducing chemical use. Malgorzata Gorska of Poland won for her fight to stop a highway through the Rospuda Valley, one of Poland’s last vestiges of untouched wilderness. Thuli Makama of Swaziland won for her efforts in getting citizen participation on the Swaziland board in charge of the environment. She helped prompt investigations into allegations of private park rangers killing suspected poachers in sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarchy. Lynn Henning of the USA won for exposing polluting practices of livestock ranches in Michigan.
(AP, 4/19/10)(SFC, 4/19/10, p.A1)
2010 Jun 23, China stepped in to provide Cambodia with more than 250 military vehicles after the United States earlier suspended a similar shipment when the Cambodian government deported 20 asylum seekers.
(AP, 6/23/10)
2010 Jul 21, Thet Sambat, Cambodian journalist, and Rob Lemkin, British director, premiered their documentary “Enemies of the People." It features his conversations with Nuon Ceha, Pol Pot’s right hand man. In January it won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.31)(http://enemiesofthepeoplemovie.com/)
2010 Jul 26, In Cambodia a UN-backed court sentenced Kaing Guek Eav (67), a Khmer Rouge prison chief better known as Duch, to 30 years in jail for crimes against humanity over mass executions during Cambodia's "Killing Fields" era.
(AFP, 7/26/10)
2010 Sep 16, Cambodia's UN-backed court said 4 top Khmer Rouge leaders will stand trial for crimes including genocide during the "Killing Fields" era.
(AFP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 23, Cambodia's main opposition party leader, Sam Rainsy, was convicted in absentia and sentenced to 10 years in prison for a politically sensitive comment about a border dispute, in what critics said was another example of the government's intimidation of its opponents.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 24, Cambodia's opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, said he has filed a criminal lawsuit in the United States against PM Hun Sen, accusing him of being behind a deadly 1997 attack on a political rally.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 27, Cambodia laid out plans to tackle graft in one of the world's most corrupt nations, in an attempt to reassure foreign investors.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Cambodia 20 people remained hospitalized after 14 people died over the weekend from drinking wine tainted with weed killer at a ceremony where villagers were appealing to spirits to protect children.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Nov 21, A global tiger summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, approved a wide-ranging program with the goal of doubling the world's tiger population in the wild by 2022 backed by governments of the 13 countries that still have tiger populations: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Russia. Experts wild tigers could become extinct in 12 years if countries where they still roam fail to take quick action to protect their habitats and step up the fight against poaching.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 22, In Cambodia a stampede by thousands of festival-goers left at least 351 people dead and hundreds injured. A panic-stricken crowd, celebrating the end of the rainy season on an island in a river, tried to flee over a narrow bridge in the capital of Phnom Penh. Reports from provincial officials put the death toll at 456.
(AP, 11/23/10)(AP, 11/24/10)(AP, 11/25/10)(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Dec 30, Cambodia charged seven Thais, including a ruling party politician, with illegal entry and put them in jail awaiting possible trial, despite strong protests from Thailand. The detainees were inspecting contested territory from Thailand's eastern Sa Kaeo province when they were captured a day earlier by Cambodian soldiers.
(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 The population of Cambodia was about 14 million.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.32)
2011 Jan 28, In Cambodia a tribunal statement said Japan has agreed to make a contribution of $11.7 million to the UN-assisted genocide tribunal that is trying former leaders of Cambodia's communist Khmer Rouge. Japan has provided a total of about $67 million to the tribunal, about 49 percent of all contributions.
(AP, 1/28/11)
2011 Feb 1, A Cambodian court sentenced two Thais to lengthy prison terms for illegally crossing the border and spying. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court found Veera Somkwamkid, who heads a political pressure group, the Thailand Patriot Network, and his assistant Ratree Pipatanapaiboon, guilty of espionage, illegal entry and trespassing in a military zone. Veera was sentenced to eight years in prison and Ratree to six years.
(AP, 2/1/11)
2011 Feb 4, Cambodian and Thai soldiers exchanged heavy fire on the two countries' shared border near the 11th century Preah Vihear temple killing one soldier and a civilian, as tensions between the neighbors boiled over.
(AFP, 2/4/11)(Econ, 2/12/11, p.50)
2011 Feb 5, Renewed fighting between Cambodian and Thai troops along the countries' disputed border killed a Thai soldier and sent thousands of people fleeing before military commanders agreed on the second cease-fire in two days.
(AP, 2/5/11)
2011 Feb 6, The Cambodian government said part of an 11th century temple was damaged by the Thai army as the two sides exchanged artillery and mortar fire across their disputed border, shattering a shaky cease-fire and escalating tensions.
(AP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 7, Cambodian and Thai troops clashed for a 4th straight day as the UN chief called for "maximum restraint" in a border dispute that has claimed 7 lives and displaced thousands. On April 6 the London-based Cluster Munition Coalition said Thailand's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva confirmed the army had fired 155mm cluster shells into Cambodia.
(AFP, 2/7/11)(AP, 4/6/11)
2011 Feb 12, A Cambodian mother died from bird flu after preparing and eating meat contaminated by the deadly H5N1 virus. Her 11-month-old son died on Feb 17. A 5-year-old girl died earlier this month in Phnom Penh, a case also linked to contact with sick poultry.
(AP, 2/24/11)
2011 Mar 4, In Cambodia a speeding truck crashed into a tour bus in the southwest, leaving at least 20 dead and eight seriously injured.
(AP, 3/4/11)
2011 Apr 1, Cambodian PM Hun Sen declared his personal assets to the country's new anti-corruption unit and urged officials to follow his lead in a bid to tackle rampant graft.
(AFP, 4/1/11)
2011 Apr 8, Cambodia’s government said PM Hun Sen has cancelled a controversial titanium mine project in the country's southwest because of environmental concerns.
(AFP, 4/8/11)
2011 Apr 22, Cambodia and Thailand exchanged artillery and gunfire for several hours in a flare-up of a long-running border dispute that left six soldiers killed.
(AP, 4/22/11)
2011 Apr 23, A 2nd day of fighting between Cambodian and Thai troops killed at least four soldiers, bringing the two-day death toll to 11, the worst bloodshed since the United Nations called for a ceasefire in February.
(AP, 4/23/11)
2011 Apr 24, Cambodian and Thai troops exchanged artillery fire in a third day of fighting that has killed 10 soldiers and uprooted thousands of villagers from their homes.
(AP, 4/24/11)
2011 Apr 25, Cambodian and Thai troops clashed with guns and artillery after almost a full-day break in fighting that has killed at least 12 people in four days and sent nearly 50,000 into evacuation centers.
(Reuters, 4/25/11)
2011 Apr 26, Cambodian and Thai troops fought with short-range rockets and guns near 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple, opening a second front in a five-day confrontation that has killed 13 people.
(Reuters, 4/26/11)
2011 Apr 27, Thailand pulled out of talks with Cambodia and deadly border clashes continued for a sixth day.
(AP, 4/27/11)
2011 Apr 28, Cambodia and Thailand called a ceasefire halting their bloodiest clashes in decades, after seven days of fighting left 15 dead and around 75,000 civilians displaced.
(AFP, 4/28/11)
2011 Apr 29, Cambodian and Thai troops broke a brief cease-fire and clashed for an eighth day, shattering hopes of a quick end to a long-running border conflict that has forced nearly 100,000 villagers to flee. The death toll rose to 16.
(AP, 4/29/11)
2011 Apr 30, Troops from Cambodia and Thailand exchanged fire at the countries' contested border, marking the ninth straight day of clashes that have left at least 16 people dead and displaced nearly 100,000.
(AP, 4/30/11)
2011 May 1, A Cambodian soldier was killed in fighting with Thailand, bringing the total number of dead to 17 as the Southeast Asian nations' festering border conflict dragged on.
(AP, 5/1/11)
2011 May 7, Cambodia accused Thailand of invading its territory on the opening day of a summit of Southeast Asian leaders that was supposed to focus on plans to create a regional economic zone.
(AFP, 5/7/11)
2011 Jun 27, In Cambodia the top four surviving members of the brutal Khmer Rouge (Khieu Samphan, former head of state; Nuon Chea, “Brother Number Two;" Ieng Thirith, social affairs minister; and Ieng Sary, deputy prime minister) went on trial before a tribunal aimed at finding justice for the estimated 1.7 million people who died in Cambodia's "killing fields" of the 1970s.
(AP, 6/27/11)(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A3)
2011 Jun 27, In Geneva more than 80 states began meeting for the first four-day intercessional meeting on the Convention on Cluster Munitions to advance their commitments to a world free of cluster bombs. During the meeting Thailand and Cambodia indicated their intention to join in the near future.
(AFP, 7/1/11)(www.stopclustermunitions.org/news/?id=3086)
2011 Jul 11, The Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX) was officially launched after the government delayed it several years. Finance Minister Keat Chhon said that trading was expected to begin by the end of the year and that three state-owned firms, including the Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority, Telecom Cambodia and the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port have announced plans for listing.
(Econ, 7/16/11, p.76)(http://www.cambodiastockexchange.org/)
2011 Jul 18, The UN's highest court ordered troops from both Thailand and Cambodia to immediately withdraw military forces from disputed areas around a World Heritage temple straddling their border.
(AP, 7/18/11)
2011 Aug 14, In Cambodia a 6-year-old girl died from bird flu. She was the eighth person to die from the H5N1 flu virus this year in Cambodia.
(AP, 8/24/11)
2011 Sep 5, Cambodian painter Van Nath (65) died. He had been forced to paint portraits of Pol Pot while interned at S-21 from 1978-1979. From 1980-1981 he painted from memory somber oils of what had happened at S-21 under the Khmer Rouge.
(Econ, 9/17/11, p.93)
2011 Sep 6, The UN's labor agency said more than two dozen global clothing brands pledged to investigate a spate of mass faintings among Cambodian garment workers.
(AFP, 9/6/11)
2011 Sep 15, New Thai premier Yingluck Shinawatra held her first official talks with her Cambodian counterpart seeking to patch up relations after deadly border clashes.
(AFP, 9/15/11)
2011 Sep 26, Cambodian officials said nearly 100 people have died in recent flooding with 100,000 families affected and some 100,000 acres of rice fields inundated.
(SFC, 9/27/11, p.A2)
2011 Oct 2, Cambodia’s government disaster agency said that flood waters along the Mekong River and other places have killed at least 150 people since August and damaged 670,000 acres of rice fields, as well as 904 schools and 361 Buddhist temples.
(AP, 10/2/11)
2011 Oct 5, A Cambodia disaster official said the worst floods in over a decade have killed 167 people, as efforts intensified to provide aid to tens of thousands of families.
(AFP, 10/5/11)
2011 Oct 15, Flooding in Cambodia was reported to have killed at least 247 people as China began delivering the first of some $7.8 million in flood relief aid.
(AP, 10/15/11)
2011 Nov 4, A Cambodian court sentenced American James D'Agostino (56), a volunteer doctor at a children's hospital in the Cambodian capital, to four years in prison on charges of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy.
(AP, 11/4/11)
2011 Nov 28, Burundi told delegates at a global anti-landmine summit in Phnom Penh that it had cleared its territory of landmines, becoming the 18th state party to do so. Myanmar was the only country recorded as laying new landmines last year, but the Intl. Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said it has since been joined by Israel, Syria and Libya, bringing the current global use of landmines to its highest level since 2004.
(AP, 11/29/11)
2011 Nov 8, In Cambodia Hun Hean, the former police chief of Banteay Meanchey, confessed to accepting over $100,000 in bribes during the final day of a corruption trial against him and four of his subordinates. On Nov 15, he was convicted and sentenced to 4 years in prison.
(SFC, 1/6/12, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/7lwyk7x)
2011 Dec 7, Cambodia opened the Kamchay dam, the country's largest hydropower dam to date. The $280 million dollar Chinese-funded project has destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest and farmland and attracted criticism from environmental groups.
(AFP, 12/7/11)
2011 Joel Brinkley (d.2014 at 61), former NY Times reporter, authored “Cambodia’s Curse: The Modern History of a Troubled Land."
(SSFC, 4/17/11, p.G5)(SFC, 3/14/14, p.D4)
2012 Jan 5, In Cambodia Lt. Gen. Mok Dara, the former sec-gen. of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, was sentenced to life in prison for masterminding a drug ring from his office. Associate officer Chea Leang also received a life sentence. Morn Doeun, a 3rd defendant still at large, was sentenced to 25 years.
(SFC, 1/6/12, p.A3)
2012 Jan 19, Vietnam confirmed its first case death from bird flu in nearly 2 years, a day after Cambodia also logged its first fatality this year from the H5N1 virus.
(SFC, 1/20/12, p.A2)
2012 Jan 14, In Cambodia the badly decomposed bodies of Frenchman widower Laurent Vallier (42) and his four young children were discovered inside Vallier's white 4x4 vehicle after it was retrieved from a large pond behind his house in southern Kampong Speu province. The family had been missing since September. Vallier's Cambodian wife died in childbirth in 2009.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Feb 3, In Cambodia a UN-backed tribunal's Supreme Court lengthened the sentence for the Khmer Rouge's chief jailer, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, to life imprisonment because of his "shocking and heinous" crimes against the Cambodian people.
(AP, 2/3/12)
2012 Mar 19, Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court was rocked by the second resignation of an international judge in recent months. Laurent Kasper-Ansermet of Switzerland said in a statement his authority to investigate possible third and fourth cases at the tribunal had been constantly blocked by his Cambodian counterpart.
(AFP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 15, CH. Karchang, a Thailand construction giant, officially began work on the $3.5 billion dam at Xayaburi in northern Laos. A December agreement by the Mekong River Commission had called for further study on the environmental impacts of the dam.
(Econ, 5/5/12, p.43)(Econ, 9/7/13, p.40)
2012 Apr 4, ASEAN leaders in Cambodia issued a statement showing a veneer of unity and promising to "intensify efforts" toward the full implementation of an agreement, signed 10 years earlier, to "promote peace." The association paralyzed by differences over how to deal with regional superpower China's claims to strategic islands in the South China Sea.
(AFP, 4/4/12)
2012 Apr 4, ASEAN leaders called for Western countries, including the European Union, to immediately lift punitive sanctions imposed on Myanmar now that the once-pariah nation has embraced democratic reforms.
(AP, 4/4/12)
2012 Apr 26, In Cambodia Chhut Vuthy, the director of Natural Resource Protection Group, was killed after military police apprehended him at Veal Bei in Mondul Seima district on behalf of a company that asked them to stop him from shooting photos of their development. The site was near the construction of a 338-megawatt hydropower dam being built by China Huadian. Investigators later said that In Rattana, the officer who killed Vuthy, was shot with his own gun during a scuffle with security guard Ran Boroth (26), who had tried to disarm him.
(AP, 4/27/12)(http://tinyurl.com/7hjmxkh)(AFP, 5/5/12)(Econ, 5/5/12, p.43)
2012 May 24, In Cambodia prison sentences were imposed on 13 women who protested evictions from their land without adequate compensation. Their old houses were demolished by developers in 2010.
(AP, 5/25/12)
2012 May 27, A 10-year-old Cambodian girl died from H5N1 bird flu, the country's third fatality from the virulent disease this year.
(AFP, 5/28/12)
2012 May, Cambodia’s government suspended the allocation of all new land concessions following a string of protests.
(Economist, 9/29/12, p.44)
2012 Jun 3, In Cambodia PM Hun Sen's ruling party won local elections in a vote that monitors said was tainted by vote buying and other irregularities.
(AP, 6/3/12)
2012 Jun 4, In Cambodia Alexander Trofimov, who built a $300 million tourist resort in the country, was arrested at the house of an under-aged girl (11-12) outside of the capital Phnom Penh. Authorities planned to deport him shortly. Russian businessman Trofimov was arrested in 2007 facing 17 complaints of sexually abusing minors, the youngest just six years old. He was sentenced to 17 years, reduced on appeal to eight years. He was controversially freed early in December last year after receiving a royal pardon.
(AFP, 6/5/12)
2012 Jun 13, Cambodia arrested French architect Patrick Devillers, with ties to disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai, in a new twist to China's biggest political scandal in decades. Devillers was released on July 17 and flew to China voluntarily to help its investigation.
(AFP, 6/19/12)(AFP, 7/18/12)
2012 Jun 27, A Cambodia appeals court ordered the release of 13 women who were jailed for protesting being evicted from their homes without adequate compensation, in a case that had critics had highlighted as an example of injustice. On May 24 prison sentences were imposed on the 13 women.
(AP, 6/27/12)
2012 Jul 4, Cambodian officials reported that 61 of 62 children, admitted to hospitals with a mysterious respiratory disease, have died. Lab tests soon confirmed that a virulent strain of hand, hoof and mouth disease, known as EV-71, was to blame for some of the cases.
(SFC, 7/5/12, p.A5)(SFC, 7/10/12, p.A2)
2012 Jul 13, In Cambodia the 10-member ASEAN group ended its latest meeting for the first time without a communique reflecting a rift between countries loyal to China and those contesting territory with China.
(Econ, 7/21/12, p.35)
2012 Jul 18, Cambodia and Thailand pulled hundreds of soldiers out of a disputed strip of border land adjacent to the Preah Vihear temple, a year after a ruling by the UN's highest court, replacing them with police and security guards.
(AFP, 7/18/12)
2012 Aug 9, Cambodian PM Hun Sen said allowing the construction of a spate of border casinos was part of a "secret strategy" to protect the country's territory from its neighbors.
(AFP, 8/9/12)
2012 Aug 30, Cambodia police arrested Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, a co-founder of The Pirate Bay file-sharing website following a request by Sweden. He faced a one-year prison term in Sweden for violating copyright laws.
(SFC, 9/4/12, p.A2)
2012 Sep 13, Cambodia's UN-backed tribunal issued a statement saying that Ieng Thirith (80) suffers from a progressive, degenerative illness that is likely Alzheimer's disease and which diminishes her mental capacity. The court ruled that she was medically unfit to stand trial for genocide during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 rule, a decision survivors called shocking and unjust. Ieng Thirith was freed on Sep 16.
(AFP, 9/13/12)(AP, 9/16/12)
2012 Sep 30, In Cambodia 6 farmers were killed in northwestern Battambang province when their tractor ran over an anti-tank mine left over from the 1980s civil war.
(AP, 10/1/12)
2012 Sep, Cambodia’s government ordered employers to pay out an extra $10 a month in allowances to every worker.
(Economist, 9/29/12, p.44)
2012 Oct 1, A Cambodian court sentenced Mam Sonando (71), a dissident radio station owner, to 20 years in prison on insurrection charges that critics claim are part of a political vendetta by the government. His Beehive Radio was one of the country's few radio stations broadcasting criticism of PM Hun Sen's government.
(AP, 10/1/12)
2012 Oct 15, Cambodia's former King Norodom Sihanouk (b.1922) died of a heart attack in Beijing, where he had been receiving medical treatment. The cunning political survivor had reinvented himself repeatedly throughout his often flamboyant life.
(AP, 10/15/12)(Econ, 10/20/12, p.86)
2012 Nov 15, Cambodia authorities arrested eight villagers for plastering the US president's picture on their rooftops beside spray-painted messages of "SOS." Villagers say they were ordered in July to vacate their land so the airport could enlarge its runway and build a security buffer zone.
(AP, 11/15/12)
2012 Nov 17, Cambodia hosted the 10-mmber ASEAN summit of Southeast Asian countries.
(AP, 11/17/12)
2012 Nov 18, In Cambodia Asean leaders decided to ask China to start formal talks "as soon as possible" on crafting a legally binding accord aimed at preventing an outbreak of violence in disputed South China Sea territories. ASEAN leaders also adopted a human rights declaration despite last-minute calls for a postponement by critics.
(AP, 11/18/12)
2012 Nov 19, President Barack Obama made a 6-hour stop in Myanmar. In a notable detour from US policy, the president referred to Burma as Myanmar in his talks with President Thein Sein. Obama then became the first US president to set foot in Cambodia, a country once known for its Khmer Rouge "killing fields."
(AP, 11/19/12)
2012 Nov 20, In Cambodia President Barack Obama closed his Asian tour in diplomatic talks with leaders of Japan and China, their economic message overshadowed by security tensions over disputed waters and territories.
(AP, 11/20/12)
2012 Dec 1, In western Cambodia four workers were missing and presumed to have drowned after the partial collapse of a dam being constructed on the Atay river. Work on the 120-megawatt Atay hydroelectric project began in 2008.
(AP, 12/2/12)
2013 Mar 4, Cambodian translators angry that they have gone without pay for three months stopped working at the UN-backed genocide trial of former Khmer Rogue leaders, a new setback for an international justice effort that has been hobbled by conflicts with the Cambodian government.
(AP, 3/4/13)
2013 Mar 14, In Cambodia Ieng Sary (87), brother-in-law of late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, died. He co-founded the communist Khmer Rouge regime responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s, and decades later became one of its few leaders to be put on trial, but died before his case could be finished.
(AP, 3/14/13)(Econ, 4/6/13, p.106)
2013 May 12, Global Witness presented a report “Rubber Barons" on illegal logging and land grabbing in Cambodia by local and foreign companies, including the Vietnam Rubber Group.
(Econ, 5/18/13, p.46)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=3epqpR9OBhY)
2013 May 16, In Cambodia the ceiling of a factory, a Taiwanese-owned operation called Wing Star, collapsed on workers, killing 2 people and injuring 7. The firm made sneakers for Asics, a Japanese sportswear label.
(AP, 5/16/13)
2013 Jun 11, Two 10th century Cambodian stone statues displayed for nearly two decades at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art were returned to their homeland in a high-profile case of allegedly looted artifacts. Widespread looting of Cambodia's ancient temples took place in the 1970s through the 1990s, with many items smuggled through Thailand.
(AP, 6/11/13)
2013 Jun 17, Scientists reported that the use of airborne laser technology has allowed them to uncover a network of roadways and canals linking together Cambodia’s 1,200-year-old Angkor Wat temple complex.
(SFC, 6/19/13, p.A5)
2013 Jun 26, Scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups announced that a previously unknown bird species has been discovered in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The wren-sized Cambodian tailorbird, Orthotomus chaktomuk, is one of two species unique to Cambodia.
(AP, 6/26/13)
2013 Jun 28, Cambodia’s Ministry of Information said all radio stations must be neutral in their coverage before the election and not carry reports on foreigners playing any role in the election. Stations must also suspend broadcasting Khmer-language programs by foreign media.
(Reuters, 6/28/13)
2013 Jul 12, Cambodian PM Hun Sen engineered a pardon for his most prominent rival, Sam Rainsy, clearing the way for the self-exiled politician to return home and campaign in this month's general election.
(AP, 7/12/13)
2013 Jul 19, Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy returned from self-imposed exile to spearhead his party's election campaign against well-entrenched PM Hun Sen.
(AP, 7/19/13)
2013 Jul 28, Cambodia held general elections. The opposition appeared to make significant gains in parliament. The ruling party of PM Hun Sen claimed a victory with 68 of the national Assembly’s 123 seats.
(AP, 7/28/13)(SFC, 7/29/13, p.A2)
2013 Jul 29, Cambodia's long-ruling PM Hun Sen faced his biggest political setback in two decades as the country's opposition rejected an election result as tainted by widespread fraud, despite heavy losses for the ruling party.
(Reuters, 7/29/13)
2013 Jul 31, Cambodia's long-serving leader, Hun Sen, said his party was ready to talk to the opposition after both sides claimed victory in the July 28 general election.
(Reuters, 7/31/13)
2013 Aug 3, In Cambodia the two rival parties claiming victory in the July 28 general election reached an agreement with the state National Election Committee to investigate polling irregularities, a move that could pave the way to ending the country's political deadlock.
(AP, 8/3/13)
2013 Aug 6, In Cambodia thousands of supporters of the main opposition party rallied to demand an international inquiry into the recent general election, rejecting the victory claimed by long-serving PM Hun Sen, who showed no sign of stepping aside.
(Reuters, 8/6/13)
2013 Aug 12, In Cambodia final but unratified election results were released reaffirming the victory by the ruling Cambodian People's Party. The angered opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) said they should have been delayed until there was an impartial probe of alleged electoral irregularities. Provisional results said the CPP won 68 seats while the CNRP gained 55.
(AP, 8/12/13)(Econ, 8/3/13, p.32)
2013 Sep 2, Cambodian staff at a Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal went on strike, as a funding crisis deepened at a court already bogged down by resignations, political interference and the frail health of its elderly defendants.
(Reuters, 9/2/13)
2013 Sep 7, Thousands of Cambodians, many holding lotus flowers symbolizing peace, joined a mass protest in the capital Phnom Penh in a last-ditch bid to challenge PM Hun Sen's disputed election win. The CPP took 68 seats to 55 for the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), according to the country's National Election Committee.
(AFP, 9/7/13)(AFP, 9/8/13)
2013 Sep 8, Cambodia's election committee handed victory in hotly disputed polls to the ruling party of PM Hun Sen, prompting the opposition to say it will boycott parliament and stage further protests over allegations of widespread fraud.
(AFP, 9/8/13)
2013 Sep 15, Cambodia police used teargas, smoke grenades and water cannon to disperse hundreds of demonstrators after a rally in Phnom Penh to push for an independent investigation into the July election they say was fixed to favor the ruling party. One man was shot dead.
(Reuters, 9/15/13)(Reuters, 9/16/13)
2013 Sep 16, In Cambodia thousands of opposition supporters gathered for a 2nd day in Phnom Penh to push for an independent investigation into the July election.
(Reuters, 9/16/13)
2013 Sep 23, In Cambodia the long-ruling party of PM Hun Sen pushed ahead with forming a government, ignoring an opposition boycott of parliament and mass protests over its disputed election win.
(AFP, 9/23/13)
2013 Sep 24, Cambodia's parliament reappointed premier Hun Sen for another five-year term, extending his nearly three-decade rule as the opposition threatened to mount fresh protests over the disputed elections.
(AFP, 9/24/13)
2013 Sep 25, A Cambodian court acquitted, and ordered the release of Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, said by rights groups to have been wrongfully convicted and jailed for the 2004 murder of a prominent opposition activist.
(Reuters, 9/25/13)
2013 Oct 23, Thousands of Cambodia opposition supporters staged a demonstration over disputed elections that extended strongman PM Hun Sen's near three-decade rule, under a heavy security presence after bloody clashes last month.
(AFP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 25, Some 20,000 Cambodian opposition supporters wrapped up a three-day demonstration to petition foreign embassies and the UN for intervention in what they claim was a rigged election.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Nov 11, Cambodian police arrested Russian real estate tycoon Sergei Polonsky (40) for the second time this year and said they planned to extradite him at Moscow's request to face embezzlement charges there.
(Reuters, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, The International Court of Justice said a 1962 ruling by its judges gave Cambodia sovereignty over the Preah Vihear promontory and Thailand is now obligated to withdraw any military or police forces stationed there. Cambodia thus held sovereignty over a 1,000-year-old Khmer temple on the disputed promontory.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 12, In Cambodia a woman was shot dead and several people injured as riot police used live rounds, rubber bullets and teargas in clashes with protesting garment workers.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Cambodia tens of thousands of opposition supporters, backed by striking garment-factory workers, rallied to demand long-serving PM Hun Sen step down and call an election.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2014 Jan 2, Cambodian soldiers forcefully quelled a demonstration by garment workers striking for better pay. Workers at more than 500 garment factories were on strike demanding an increase in the minimum wage to $160 per month, double the current rate.
(SFC, 1/3/14, p.A2)
2014 Jan 3, In Cambodia At least 4 people were killed when police outside Cambodia's capital opened fire to break up a protest by striking garment workers demanding a doubling of the minimum wage.
(AP, 1/3/14)
2014 Jan 4, Cambodia's government launched a broad crackdown on the political opposition, clearing its main protest site, banning its street demonstrations and having a court call in opposition party leaders for questioning on charges of inciting social unrest.
(AP, 1/4/14)
2014 Jan 7, In Cambodia tens of thousands of garment workers returned to work, ending a two-week pay dispute after authorities used deadly force to quell a strike and thwart a protest by their political allies seeking a re-run of a July election. An estimated 65-70% returned to work.
(Reuters, 1/7/14)
2014 Jan 13, A Cambodian court freed Russian real estate tycoon Sergei Polonsky and he will not be extradited to Russia to face embezzlement charges there.
(Reuters, 1/13/14)
2014 Jan 27, Cambodian riot police used smoke grenades and electric batons to disperse demonstrators in the capital demanding a government license for an independent television station.
(AFP, 1/27/14)
2014 Feb 7, In Cambodia a boy (8) died of H5N1 bird flu, the country’s first case this year. His sister (2) also died the same day.
(AP, 2/12/14)
2014 Feb 14, In Cambodia Dave Walker (58), a Canadian filmmaker, went missing. His body was found April 30 in the woods near the famous Angkor temple complex.
(AP, 5/1/14)
2014 Feb 17, Cambodian police arrested two Vietnamese men who were trying to smuggle almost 80 kg (176 pounds) of illegal ivory from Angola.
(AP, 2/17/14)
2014 Feb 26, The Cambodian Anti-Drug Authority said it has banned the import, sale and promotion of e-cigarettes and shisha tobacco, a favorite of hookah-using smokers.
(AP, 2/26/14)
2014 Mar 24, The EU approved sanctions and said it will no longer import any fish caught by vessels from Cambodia, Belize and Guinea, accusing their governments of failing to cooperate in fighting illegal fishing.
(AP, 3/24/14)
2014 Mar 27, Cambodia's opposition party said it will defy a government ban on meeting in one of the capital's public parks, setting up a possible clash with authorities.
(AP, 3/27/14)
2014 Apr 3, In Cambodia 118 employees passed out at work at the Shen Zhou and Daqian Textile factories in Phnom Penh.
(Reuters, 4/3/14)
2014 Apr 11, A Cambodian court sentenced 13 men to prison terms ranging from five to nine years for plotting to overthrow the government in a case that was criticized by a human rights group as a political setup. The men were members of a self-styled Khmer National Liberation Front calling for PM Hun Sen's removal, primarily through Internet postings.
(AP, 4/11/14)
2014 Apr 25, Cambodia's highest court ruled that a prominent Russian property developer wanted in his homeland for allegedly embezzling millions of dollars cannot be extradited. Sergei Polonsky expressed satisfaction with the ruling and said he will spend up to $100 million developing an island he purchased off Cambodia's southern coast. Polonsky was charged in Russia in June last year with embezzling more than 5.7 billion rubles ($175 million) from 80 property investors.
(AP, 4/25/14)
2014 May 1, In Cambodia May Day demonstrators denounced low wages and called for better treatment of workers during rallies that turned violent.
(AP, 5/1/14)
2014 May 2, Cambodian security forces clashed with demonstrators in Phnom Penh for a 2nd straight day as the opposition canceled plans for a rally amid a ban on demonstrations and a large-scale police presence.
(AP, 5/2/14)
2014 May 9, Cambodian authorities intercepted 3 tons of illegal ivory that was stashed in shipping containers, its largest such seizure.
(AP, 5/9/14)
2014 May 14, In Vietnam a 1,000-strong mob stormed a Taiwanese steel mill in Ha Tinh province and hunted down Chinese workers, killing one, attacking scores more and then setting the complex alight in response to Beijing's deployment of an oil rig in the long-disputed South China Sea. Some 600 Chinese crossed into Cambodia over the land border in southern Vietnam.
(AP, 5/15/14)
2014 May 31, In Cambodia 7 people died from a lack of oxygen after climbing down a well in Cambodia to retrieve about 75 cents.
(AP, 6/1/14)
2014 Jun 11, In Cambodia the Phnom Penh Municipal court sentenced Daniel Johnson (35) to one year in prison for abusing five boys, aged 11 to 15, at the Hope Transitions orphanage, where he served as director. Johnson was sought in the US on child sex allegations.
(AP, 6/11/14)
2014 Jun 14, A Cambodian official said Cambodian workers were leaving Thailand in growing numbers, with the total who have returned to their homeland this month topping 160,000. Rights groups say Thai authorities are coercing the Cambodians to go home and abusing them.
(SSFC, 6/15/14, p.A6)(AP, 6/16/14)
2014 Jun 26, Cambodia's PM Hun Sen said at least 250,000 of his countrymen who were migrant workers in Thailand returned home this month under circumstances that initially violated their human rights. Both countries are now seeking the migrants' return to Thailand, which has a shortage of low-wage workers.
(AP, 6/26/14)
2014 Jul 1, Cambodia agreed to free Thai nationalist Veera Somkwamkid. He was imprisoned for more than three years for illegally crossing its border to claim territory for Thailand.
(AP, 7/1/14)
2014 Jul 8, In Cambodia William Glenn (43), an American teacher from Mississippi, left his guesthouse in Phnom Penh on a motorcycle taxi and never returned. His body was discovered the next day at a garbage dump.
(AP, 7/11/14)
2014 Jul 10, Cambodia said it will build a memorial at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum to remember at least 12,000 people tortured and killed there during the radical Khmer Rouge regime (1975-1979).
(AP, 7/10/14)
2014 Jul 14, In Cambodia 2 generals who led the helicopter unit of the air force were killed in a crash, along with two pilots. Defense Minister Tea Banh, who rushed to the crash site in a muddy pond south of the capital, said a fifth person on the chopper was seriously injured.
(AP, 7/14/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Cambodia about 200 protesters marched to a park in Phnom Penh and attached an orange banner that read "Free the Freedom Park" to the surrounding razor wire barricade. As armed police watched from inside the public park, several dozen security guards attempted to disperse the rally. Three leaders of the opposition CNRP were arrested and denied bail.
(AP, 7/16/14)(Econ, 7/19/14, p.37)
2014 Jul 16, Six Cambodian opposition politicians were charged with leading an insurrection movement after a clash with security forces who prevented their followers from rallying in a public park a day earlier.
(AP, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 17, Cambodian police arrested two more opposition members of parliament on charges of leading an insurrection.
(Reuters, 7/17/14)
2014 Jul 22, Cambodia's main opposition party struck a deal with strongman premier Hun Sen to end its year-long boycott of parliament triggered by a disputed election.
(AFP, 7/22/14)
2014 Aug 7, In Cambodia a UN-backed war crimes tribunal sentenced Khmer Rouge leaders Khieu Samphan (83) and Nuon Chea (88) to life in prison on war crime charges from 1975-1979, when the Khmer Rouge held power under top leader Pol Pot (d.1998).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khieu_Samphan)(SFC, 8/7/14, p.A4)
2014 Aug 8, Cambodian opposition lawmakers ended a 10-month boycott of Parliament, joining the assembly for the first time after reaching a breakthrough political deal with the country's ruling party.
(AP, 8/8/14)
2014 Aug 21, Cambodian officials said at least 45 people have been killed due to flooding in the last month. Some 11,500 families have been forced to flee their homes due to the flash floods along the Mekong River.
(SFC, 8/21/14, p.A2)
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Subject = Cambodia
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