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(16 Apr 2020) LEAD IN : Cambodians are preparing to mark the 45th  anniversary of the Khmer Rouge seizing power on April 17. Under their brutal regime some two million people died in one of the worst mass killings of the twentieth century. STORY-LINE : In 1970 a vicious civil war erupted in Cambodia. It ended on April 17, 1975 when communist forces overthrew the US-backed government and captured the capital, Phnom Penh. (Their victory preceded that of communist forces in Vietnam, by almost two weeks.) The black-clad guerrillas, known as the Khmer Rouge, emptied the cities at gunpoint, driving the population into the countryside to work as slaves in rice fields and on vast labour sites. Led by the Mao-inspired Pol Pot, the communists reset the clock, turning it back to Year Zero and re-forging Cambodia as a supposed agrarian paradise. It was a disaster. Cambodia became a living nightmare.   The Khmer Rouge separated families, abolished property and money, turned temples into pig sties and ruthlessly and relentlessly eliminated anyone they perceived as a traitor. By the time their maniacal social experiment imploded, at least 1.7 million Cambodians had died from starvation, over-work, lack of medical care or summary execution. Some consider the death toll to be far higher.     In January 1979, invading Vietnamese troops drove the Khmer Rouge from power. They waged guerrilla war from border bases for another 20 years before finally surrendering. Pol Pot died in 1998, in a jungle hut, without ever facing a court. He was cremated on a rubbish pile as government troops closed in. In recent years, a UN-backed tribunal convicted several of his top deputies of charges including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. But, controversially, others remain free with no prospect of their arrest. At a field on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, exposed graves recall the Khmer Rouge. Here, teams of executioners murdered thousands of men, women and children and flung their bodies into burial pits.    After authorities excavated them in 1979, they built a stupa and housed the skulls of some of those victims inside. It stands today a grisly reminder of Pol Pot's reign of terror. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives ​​ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/19158d3f7f4a42c6abd90839aebfdb84