Cambodia’s haunted present: 50 years after Khmer Rouge’s rise, murderous legacy looms large

On April 17, 1975, tanks rolled into the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, to cheering crowds who believed that the country’s long civil war might finally be over.

But what followed was one of the worst genocides of the 20th century. During a brutal four-year rule, the communist-nationalist ideologues of the Khmer Rouge killed between 1.6 million and 3 million people through executions, forced labor and starvation. It represented a quarter of the country’s population at the time.

Fifty years on, the Khmer Rouge’s legacy continues to shape Cambodia – politically, socially, economically and emotionally. It’s etched into every Cambodian’s bones – including mine.

I write this not just as an academic or observer but as a survivor. My father died under the Khmer Rouge, succumbing to dysentery and malnutrition after being forced to work in a labor camp. My mother pretended to be Vietnamese to save our family. She escaped Cambodia with five children in 1976, crossing through Vietnam before reaching France in 1978 and finally the United States in 1985. We were among the lucky ones.

Today, Cambodia is physically unrecognizable from the bombed-out fields and empty cities of the 1970s. Phnom Penh gleams with high-rises and luxury malls. And yet beneath the glitter, the past endures – often in silence, sometimes in cynical exploitation.

Legacy of fear and control

The Khmer Rouge came to power on a wave of disillusionment, corruption, civil war and rural resentment. Years of American bombing, the 1970 U.S.-backed coup that ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk, and the subsequent deeply unpopular U.S.-aligned military regime set the stage for the Khmer Rouge’s rise.

Many Cambodians, particularly in the countryside, welcomed the Khmer Rouge, with its mix of hard-line communist ideology and extreme Cambodian nationalism, as liberators who promised to restore order and dignity. But for the next four years, the Khmer Rouge, under feared leader Pol Pot, brought terror to the nation through ideological purges, forced labor, racial genocide of minority groups and policies that brought widespread famine.

The regime fell in 1979, when Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia and toppled the Khmer Rouge leadership, installing a new, pro-Hanoi government. But its shadows remain.

The now ruling Cambodian People’s Party, in power for over four decades, has justified its grip on the country through the trauma of the genocide.

“Peace and stability” have become mantras used to squash dissent.

Every sham election becomes a referendum not just on policy but on avoiding a return to war. Critics of Cambodia’s rulers are framed as threats to peace and unity. Opposition parties have been dissolved, activists jailed, media muzzled.

This political culture of fear draws directly from the Khmer Rouge playbook – minus the overt violence. The trauma inflicted by that regime taught people to distrust one another, to keep quiet, to survive by keeping their heads down. That impulse still shapes public life.

Justice delayed, and still incomplete

The Khmer Rouge tribunal – officially the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia – was supposed to bring closure. It has brought some.

But it took decades to begin, cost over US$300 million and convicted only three senior Khmer Rouge leaders over the 1975–79 genocide. Many mid- and lower-level perpetrators walk free, some are still in government positions, some neighbors to survivors.

For a nation where the majority of the population was born after 1979, there remains a glaring gap in education and public reckoning over the Khmer Rouge’s atrocities.

Cambodia’s school curriculum still struggles to teach this period adequately. For many young people, it’s something their parents don’t talk about and the state prefers to frame selectively.

Economic growth - uneven and fragile

In raw numbers, Cambodia’s economic progress over the past two decades has been impressive.

GDP growth averaged around 7% annually before the COVID-19 pandemic. Cities have expanded, and investment – especially from China – has flooded in.

But much of this growth is precarious. Cambodia’s economy remains dependent on garment exports, tourism and construction. This leaves it vulnerable to external shocks, such as the Trump administration’s imposition of 49% tariffs on Cambodian goods, now temporarily paused.

Instead of building a resilient, diversified economy, Cambodia has relied on relationships – with China for investment, with the U.S. for markets – without investing enough in its own human capital. That, too, I believe, is a legacy of the Khmer Rouge, which destroyed the country’s intellectual and professional classes.

Trauma passed down

The psychological toll of genocide doesn’t disappear with time. Survivors carry the scars in their bodies and minds.

But so do their children and grandchildren. Studies in postgenocide Cambodia have shown elevated rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression among survivors and their descendants, resulting in intergenerational trauma.

There are not nearly enough mental health services in the country. Trauma is often dealt with privately, through silence or resilience rather than therapy. Buddhism, the country’s dominant religion, offers rituals for healing, reincarnation and forgiveness. But this isn’t a substitute for systemic mental health infrastructure.

Worse, in recent years, even the memory of the genocide has been politicized.

Some leaders use it as a tool to silence dissent. Others co-opt it for nationalist narratives. There’s little room for honest, critical reflection. Some independent initiatives, such as intergenerational dialogue programs and digital archives, have tried to fill the gap but face limited support.

This is, I believe, a second tragedy. A country cannot truly move forward if it cannot speak freely about its past.

The danger of forgetting

April 17 is not a national holiday in Cambodia. There are no official commemorations. The government doesn’t encourage remembrance of the day Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge. But to my mind, it should. Not to reopen wounds, but to remind Cambodians why justice, democracy and dignity matter.

The danger isn’t that Cambodia will return to the days of the Khmer Rouge. The danger is that it becomes a place where history is manipulated, where authoritarianism is justified as stability and where development is allowed to paper over injustice.

As the world marks the 50th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge’s rise, Cambodia must, I believe, reckon with this uncomfortable truth: The regime may be long gone, but its legacy lives on in the institutions, behaviors and fears that continue to shape Cambodia today.

A personal reckoning

When I look back, I think of my father – whom I never knew. I think of my mother, who risked everything to save us. And I think of the millions of Cambodians who live with memories they cannot forget, and the young Cambodians who deserve to know the full truth.

My life has been shaped by what happened on April 17, 1975. But that story isn’t mine alone. It belongs to Cambodia – and it’s still being written.

Sophal Ear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.