BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime: "after a right-wing military coup toppled head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk in 1970, the Khmer Rouge entered into a political coalition with him and began to attract increasing support. In a civil war that continued for nearly five years, it gradually increased its control in the countryside. Khmer Rouge forces finally took over the capital, Phnom Penh, and therefore the nation as a whole in 1975. During his time in the remote north-east, Pol Pot had been influenced by the surrounding hill tribes, who were self-sufficient in their communal living, had no use for money and were 'untainted' by Buddhism. When he came to power, he and his henchmen quickly set about transforming Cambodia - now re-named Kampuchea - into what they hoped would be an agrarian utopia. Declaring that the nation would start again at 'Year Zero', Pol Pot isolated his people from the rest of the world and set about emptying the cities, abolishing money, private property and religion, and setting up rural collectives."
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