Lon Nol was a Cambodian-Chinese military officer, politician who served as Prime Minister of Cambodia twice, as well as serving repeatedly as defence minister and provincial governor. As a right-wing nationalist, he led the military coup of 1970 against Prince Norodom Sihanouk, abolished the monarchy, and established the short-lived Khmer Republic. Constitutionally a semi-presidential republic, Cambodia was de facto governed under a military dictatorship. He was the commander-in-chief of the Khmer National Armed Forces during the Cambodian Civil War and became President of the Khmer Republic on 10 March 1972. His rule was also marked by massacres of Viet civilians in Cambodia. On 1 April 1975, as the only president of the republic 16 days before Angkar and the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh, Lon Nol fled to Indonesia and later the United States; first to the state of Hawaii and then to California, where he remained until his death in 1985.