Democratic Kampuchea

Democratic Kampuchea was the official name of the Cambodian state from 1975 to 1979, when it was governed by the Communist Party of Kampuchea, commonly known as the Khmer Rouge, under general secretary Pol Pot. The regime came to power when the Khmer Rouge captured the capital Phnom Penh in 1975, ending the United States-backed Khmer Republic. During its rule the one-party government killed millions of its own people through mass executions, forced labour and starvation, an event known as the Cambodian genocide. The killings ended when the People's Army of Vietnam ousted the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh. The Khmer Rouge then set up a government in exile in Thailand, kept Kampuchea's seat at the United Nations, and in 1982 formed a coalition government with two non-communist guerrilla factions, which renamed itself the National Government of Cambodia in 1990.