When the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, the weather was a little warmer than the unforgiving heat I experienced during my visit. Clad all in black, two-piece pajama-like uniforms with checkered scarves around their necks and rubber sandals made from car tires strapped to their feet, they marched to cheers from the crowd. After five years of enduring a complicated civil war and periodic skirmishes with Vietnamese military, the people were likely happy just to see a familiar-faced Khmer army seize control from what had been a corrupt government. [Read more…]