Despite the brutality of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime, the guerrilla movement was kept alive by Cold War politics for more than a decade after it was ousted from power in 1979.
Overthrown on January 7th, 1979 by the invading Vietnamese army, the Khmer Rouge kept Cambodia's seat in the United Nations while the Hanoi-installed regime in Phnom Penh was subjected to a crippling western embargo designed to undermine Soviet and Vietnamese influence in south-east Asia.
China, which had backed the Maoist Khmer Rouge during its 1975 to 1979 Democratic Kampuchea regime, briefly invaded Vietnam in retaliation for its seizure and occupation of Cambodia.
Supported by Beijing and its allies against feared Soviet expansion, the United States, many European countries and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), rallied to the side of the Khmer Rouge and Cambodia's "non-communist resistance" which established itself on the Thai border.
A decade of civil war ensued with Pol Pot's guerrillas - the backbone of the tripartite anti-Vietnamese resistance - receiving Chinese arms and ammunition through Thailand.
Though western countries have repeatedly denied allegations that they directly helped the Khmer Rouge during the 1980s it is widely believed their assistance to the non-communist resistance found its way to the guerrillas.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia in 1989, aid to the Khmer Rouge began to diminish.
A peace treaty, technically ending the ongoing war, was signed in 1991, paving the way for UN-brokered elections in 1993.
The Khmer Rouge, a party to the peace treaty, then pulled out of the polls, complaining that Vietnam was in fact still in occupation, and resumed guerrilla warfare against the coalition government that emerged.
Having lost the UN seat and with China and its former allies now more interested in helping the elected government in Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge began to disintegrate, falling victim to mass defections in its ranks.
From a total of 30,000 to 50,000 men in arms and control of as much as 15 per cent of the country immediately after the election, the Khmer Rouge now controls less than 1 per cent of Cambodia and is believed to have fewer than 1,000 soldiers.
Pol Pot's death should hasten the disintegration of the rebel group and remove a key obstacle to unifying Cambodia, a Philippines foreign department official said yesterday. Pol Pot had retained a "hard core of very loyal followers and his death should speed up the process," the official said. The diplomat also said "life will be easier for everyone" in Phnom Penh, where charges of collaboration with the Khmer Rouge provoked last year's bloody power struggle which led to Mr Hun Sen ousting his co-prime minister, Prince Norodom Ranariddh.
The Philippines and fellow ASEAN members have been aiding Phnom Penh prepare for free national elections in Cambodia in July, to help the troubled country eventually gain membership of the nine-member group.
The US State Department backed a call by Cambodia for a post-mortem on the body of Pol Pot, who allegedly died of a heart attack. While the administration has no reason to doubt reports of Pol Pot's death, the State Department noted that an autopsy would confirm the identity of the corpse and also establish the cause of death.