Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia

If there was a time where one would point to identify the start of Cambodia's economic decline, it would be on the year of 1975. 1975 is the year where the Communist Party of Kampuchea (Cambodia's communist party) took over all of Cambodia. This happened for a few reasons. Before the communist party took over Cambodia, the country was a republic that was ruled by several leaders. These leaders had a disunity among them and discords were happening between them. This undermined their government, as their major figures did not cooperate well with each other. Furthermore, there as also corruption that kept on spreading during this time. Another major factor that led to the takeover was due to the fact that the U.S, was bombing Phnom Penh (Cambodia's capital city) . This further weakened the government, giving the CPK opportunities to takeover the country, which they eventually did on 1975, and was renamed into the "Democratic Kampuchea" (eventhough it was a communist government that ruled the country). The country was led by Pol Pot, a leader in the CPK, and now the leader of Cambodia.

Below is the flag of the "Democratic Kampuchea" when it was ruled by the Khmer Rouge.