![]() By 1971, writes Kiernan, the Lon Nol government was secure only in the towns and their outskirts. However, extensive bombing forced the Vietnamese communists further west and deeper into Cambodia, and ultimately radicalized Cambodian citizens against the governmentĪn alliance of royalist, Cambodian and regional communist forces fought against the Lon Nol government, US and South Vietnamese forces, and, despite many internal rifts, expanded their areas of control quickly. attacks to within 30 miles of the Vietnamese border, expanding the bombing areas. ![]() ground invasion failed to root out the Vietnamese communists, in December 1970, Nixon instructed his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to order the Air Force to ignore restrictions limiting U.S. The Vietnamese Communists widened and intensified their actions in Cambodia as well, working with insurgent Cambodian communists. In May 1970, the US and South Vietnamese launched an offensive into Cambodia, with the aim of cutting off North Vietnamese supply routes. The coup government made a drastic change in Cambodian policies, deciding to counter the North Vietnamese, in support of the South Vietnamese and U.S. In March 1970, a coup was launched against Prince Sihanouk resulting in a new government with Lon Nol at the helm. Bombers targeted mobile headquarters of the South Vietnamese “Viet Cong” and the North Vietnamese Army in the Cambodian jungle. B-52 carpet-bombing began, in support of the slow pullout of U.S. The pace of bombing increased in 1969, as U.S. The U.S., under Lyndon Johnson’s administration, responded with targeted bombing of military installations and occasional attacks on Cambodian villages by South Vietnamese and American forces. Nonetheless, his policies allowed Vietnamese communists to use border areas and the port of Sihanoukville. ![]() In 1965, Cambodia officially cut ties with the U.S., as Prince Sihanouk, the country’s head of state, tried, in his words, to maintain the country’s neutrality regarding the war in Vietnam. The result for civilians was devastating. These disputes readily became armed contests characterized by shifting alliances, regional struggles for dominance (including the US, Soviet Union, China and Vietnam), and Cambodian efforts to assert different varieties of militant nationalism (whether royalist, communist or otherwise). Bombing & Civil War | Atrocities | Fatalities | Endingīetween 19, the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia aggravated and radicalized internal Cambodian political disputes.
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