A Brief Note On The Khmer Rouge Army

After they seized power in Cambodia in April 1975, Saloth "Pol Pot" Sar and the Khmer Rouge were responsible for the death of 1.5-3 million Cambodian's and were perhaps one of the most ruthless regimes of the 20th century. The aim of this investigation is to evaluate Pol Pot's means of maintaining power from 1975 to 1979. An account of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge's drastic internal reforms including the slaughter of millions, economic reorganization, political restructuring, and the cultivation of social/ethnic groups will appear in section B. External forces including funding from China and the United States and repressive measures such as censorship, torture, and execution will be assessed. This

These people ranged from intellectuals, doctors, children and other Khmer Rouge members. Anyone who could not travel to the camps or work was seen as useless, and would be killed in cold blood. Even children and infants were targeted because the Khmer Rouge thought that in order “ ‘to stop the weeds you must pull up the roots’ ” (“The Cambodian Genocide”). Pol Pot knew that if the children understood the torture that they were going through, they would go against him in the future. The Khmer Rouge did not want any chance for a revolt and would do anything to keep it that way. Pol Pot believed that Cambodia should be a rural, classless society without any rich or poor people where people were forced to farm rice to trade to other

Over all these years Who was Pol Pot when he was planning his revolution According to New York Time “From 1956 to 1963, Pol Pot taught History, Geography, French literature at a private school while he simultaneously was plotting a “revolution.”(pg 1). When Pol Pot's plan on Khmer Rouge was forming with a guerilla army, he then launched a huge national uprising in 1968. Pol Pot's army slowly started making their way to the sparsely populated

Pol Pot was the leader of the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979. From the moment he was in control of Cambodia he set the calendars to year zero. His goal was to recreate Cambodia as a natural society, eliminating any trace of the modern world. Modern materials were seen as impure and dangerous and were quickly disposed of. Any intellectuals, artists, or monks were

Cambodia, a southeastern Asian country, was under the rule of prince Norodom Sihanouk since its independence from France in 1953. Cambodians lived in prosperity, and were self-sufficient under a “Buddhist socialist” government, but this peace was interrupted by the Vietnamese war (1955-1975) in its neighbor country. Although the prince tried to keep his people unaware of the war, by 1969 the United

The Communist Party of Kampuchea, also known as the Khmer Rouge, took control of Cambodia on April 17, 1975, which lasted until January 1979. For their three-year, eight-month, and twenty-one day rule of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge committed some of the most heinous crimes in current history. The main leader who orchestrated these crimes was a man named Pol Pot. In 1962, Pol Pot had become the coordinator of the Cambodian Communist Party. The Prince of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk, did not approve of the Party and forced Pol Pot to flee to exile in the jungle. There, Pol formed a fortified resistance movement, which became known as the Khmer Rouge, and pursued a guerrilla war against Sihanouk’s government. As Pol Pot began to accumulate power,

Introduction: the cambodian genocide happened in 1975 when a communist guerrilla group known as the Khmer rouge and their leader pol pot seized power in cambodia after the vietnam war. The vision pol pot had was to bring cambodia back down to year zero and nationalize and centralize the peasant farming society. the way pol pot did it was by killing anyone who had anysort of education or was of ethnic or religious minority (world without genocide)

From 1975 to 1979 Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge regime, had a goal to create a society that was completely self-sufficient. In four years the Khmer Rouge killed, tortured and starved to death somewhere between 1.7 and 2 million innocent Cambodian civilians, ultimately destroying any trace of humanity within Cambodia. Forty years later the people of Cambodia are still suffering and the country is still trying to put the pieces back together, both physically and emotionally.

With Cambodia?s fragile political and economic structure, the establishment of the Khmer Rouge was not a difficult task. Prince Sihanouk appointed General Lon Nol as Prime Minister of the nation in an attempt to gain support from the rest of the country. Once in power, Lon Nol led a harsh put-down of a peasant revolt, which led to the repression in cities. The revolt forced left-wingers such as Khieu Samphan who was the chairman of the state presidium of Cambodia from 1976 until 1979, to join the Communists in the jungle. In 1970 Prince Sihanouk was deposed in a military coup. The leader of the new right-wing government was General Lon Nol, who became President of the Khmer Republic (Peace Pledge Union 2007). Lon Nol abolished the monarchy in Cambodia, and became a virtual dictator of the country. One of the main reasons that the Khmer Rouge was established was because the Lon Nol government allowed the United States to enter Cambodia in 1970 to liquidate communist sanctuaries (Dennis 1988, p. 127). When the United States began bombing Cambodia in 1969, the Khmer Rouge had only four thousand members. This number rapidly increased as the bombing forced communists deeper into Cambodia (Sutherland 1990). John Pilger, a

His actions motivated the French to allow Cambodia to become entirely independent finally and in 1955 Sihanouk resigned for his father and elections were held. Sihanouk formed his political movement. From 1955-1970, he dominated politics in Cambodia so much so that it is sometimes called the 'Sihanouk era. Sihanouk's reign began to crumble in 1968 due to to the communist's civil war. They took control and began their reign by renaming Cambodia, Khmer Republic. The rebels also captured Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975, starting the horrific and tragic era of Cambodian history. This group, the Khmer Rouge, was led by Pol Pot (or Saloth Sar) also known as 'Brother Number One.' Pol Pot declared that history would begin again in Cambodia. The first year of their rebellion was now the first year of history. In 1975, Cambodia was mostly an agricultural country, but when Pol Pot gained power, he decided it should be wholly agricultural. By making this decision, people from the towns and cities were forced to move to the countryside. The Vietnamese stepped in and invaded Cambodia in December 1978 and quickly

During the 1970s, Cambodia was under the communist government and started to have the war within the own nation. Begin of 1975 Khmer Rouge (pol pot) got the chance to control the whole nation and started to evacuate all the rich and educated residents from the capital city (Phnom Penh) to live in every far villages from the city. The prime minister of Khmer Rouge put the order for the soldiers killed all the educated such as professors, singers, actors, reporters, and included the doctors.

To start, the Khmer Rouge rose to power during a turbulent time in Cambodia, and their policies were founded on false promises. Cambodia had been a French colony for years until 1953, when they finally received independence. Norodom Sihanouk soon took over the government, but Lon Nol, his general, later secured Cambodia in a military coup (Krkljes). The country’s tumultuous political history would allow the Khmer Rouge to establish control. Pol Pot, the leading figure of the Khmer Rouge, was a member of the Kampuchean

The Khmer Rouge, otherwise known as the communist party of Kampuchea, was a socialist movement and they had control over Cambodia from 1975-1979. However, only the members of the movement and their leader, Pol Pot knew about it until 1977. The group first emerged when their country was in a struggle for land against French colonists. Cambodia was already in the middle of a civil war that had been going on since the 1940's, when this happened.

The Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975 as Democratic Kampuchea, ending a six hundred year monarchy. The leader Pol Pot swiftly placed the entire population into rural communes, where death was the penalty for disobeying orders. Prince Sihanouk had tried to maintain Cambodian neutrality, but the communist Khmer Rouge, supported by their North Vietnamese allies, had waged a very effective war against Cambodian government forces. After ousting Sihanouk and taking control of the government, Lon Nol immediately set about to defeat the communists. After the US forces left South Vietnam in 1973, South Vietnam and the Cambodians had to fight the communists alone. In 1975 without the support of the United States the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia which would be called Democratic Republic of Kampuchea or Kampuchea. Over 156,000 people died in the civil war, half of them being civilians. On the 25th of December 1978, Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion of Kampuchea and subsequently occupied the country and removed the Khmer Rouge from power.

Some say that Pol Pot was responsible for the power and control of Cambodia because “Pol Pot cut Cambodia off from the world. He banned foreign and minority languages and attacked the neighboring countries of Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand in an attempt to regain ancient ‘lost territory’” (The life of Pol Pot- Cambodia 4). This statement is true because the Khmer Rouge did gain part of their power by isolating the country, but Pol Pot is not fully responsible for that. There were other people involved, like Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan all of these people were also leaders in the Khmer Rouge. Nuon Chea was the second leader in the Khmer Rouge he is known as “The evil genius of the movement” (Chandler 1), because he is the one who was in charge of the prison system. He was one of the one’s with a heartless mind, planning tortures and executing innocent people.