Analysis Of Gabriell Needham 's ' The Killing Fields '

The killing of so many Cambodian people fueled the Khmer Rouge to begin a power grab, where they staged a coup to take control of the government. They succeeded and

The Cambodian Genocide has the historical context of the Vietnam War and the country’s own civil war. During the Vietnam War, leading up to the conflicts that would contribute to the genocide, Cambodia was used as a U.S. battleground for the Vietnam War. Cambodia would become a battle ground for American troops fighting in Vietnam for four years; the war would kill up

Later that same year, Pot and the Khmer Rouge took control over Cambodia. Pot wasted no time in starting his mission to reconstruct Cambodia. He thought that all the educated people needed to be killed (Melicharova). Also he thought that all noncommunist aspects of Cambodia needed to be wiped out. All rights you had were now gone. Religion was banned and if you were any kind of leader among the Buddhist monks, you were killed instantly (Melicharova). All kids were taken away and sent to work in the fields (Melicharova). If anyone was currently working and had a job, they were immediately killed along with their family members. It got so bad that you could be killed for just laughing, crying, and knowing another language. The Khmer Rouge motto was “To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss” (Melicharova). If you were lucky enough to escape death, you were put into the fields working usually from 4am to 10pm unpaid (“Pol”). From lack of food and sleep, people often became very ill which sadly led to death.

Hearing the stories Rebecca would tell the class really gave me an insight on the personal experiences she went through. All of it sounded serial to me, I couldn’t grasp onto the fact that such horrific things could happen in a country like Australia, and continue to do so. Rebecca began to tell the story of her family, I felt like

The Cambodian Genocide happened between 1975 and 1979 in Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge, a guerrilla group, over threw the government and started a regime to bring Cambodia back to year zero . The Khmer Rouge called this the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea . Their aim was to purify society from the influence of the west, and to create a communist country . The Khmer Rouge started this by destroying what was left of the old society and executing the wealthy, educated and military people. They banned all outside languages and religion. An estimated figure of 1.7 million Cambodians where killed during this period by the Khmer Rouge .

After Year Zero and the purge of his own people, he lost a large amount of public support. Many believed that he was a traitor “whose hands are stained with blood” because “Cambodians don’t kill Cambodians” (Thayer). He claimed to have committed those crimes to ensure better lives for his people, but he only made them hate him by killing their fellow Cambodians. To make matters even worse, Pol Pot refused to repent or even talk about the thousands of executions or the million deaths that he caused, he only continued to blame the Vietnamese for his actions (Becker). He believed that there were countless Vietnamese agents in Cambodia who “didn’t give rice to the population”, causing widespread starvation (Thayer). He took no personal responsibility for the over one million deaths that he caused and believed that his “conscious is clear”. Somehow Pol Pot thought that he could deny that the mass genocide, that occurred during his own rule, was his fault. Even his old allies turned against him and were the ones to capture him in the end (“Khmer Rouge”). Pol Pot turned on every possible person that could have helped him, and when he was captured he had no one left. But, even with Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge’s known terror, the Vietnamese government that was installed after the Khmer Rouge was led by Khmer Rouge leaders and Khmer Rouge trained communists (Rainsy) . As

The Khmer Rouge forces took over Cambodia, and evacuated the nation's cities. They emptied schools, hospitals, factories and abolished all forms of money and wages. Religion, popular culture, and all forms of self expression were forbidden. They were forced into the countryside to do forced labor, and got less than 90 grams of rice a day. Where most people died from fatigue, disease, execution, and starvation. Now people of Cambodia are exchanging this terrible genocide for healing. Trying to find peace and a resolution for all those who have lost loved ones, or encountered this terrible genocide

The film was difficult to watch at times. As an observer and someone who has never been in the situations that Shangra, Stephanie, and Sheila all faced, I found myself getting frustrated with the girls because I felt like they kept getting themselves into these bad situations. However, when the film was able to go more into their personal histories and backgrounds, I was able to better understand where the girls were coming from. It was hard to see the hurt that the girls were facing at home and then how they turned it around and ended up hurting themselves more by participating in crime and violence.

Arn-Chorn Pond was a sweet little boy before it all started. He would go outside and play with his friends and he was always very friendly. That lasted only until the Khmer Rouge came to his town and started making them suffer. They had to go to different camps and they got separated from their families. A lot of people got killed for no reason or they died from a disease or starvation. They had to get up very early in the morning and work in the rice field until bedtime. They would get very little food and very little sleep. So many people were killed without any explanation. After a few years of working hard and not getting enough rest they went into war. Kids of all ages had to learn how to shoot and if they didn’t cooperate they would get killed.

1.5 to 3 million cambodians died in the Cambodian Genocide. These tragic events are shown in In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner. In this novel the reader is in the perspective of a seven-year-old princess, Raami, as she lived through the genocide. As the Khmer Rouge a heartless group destroyed Cambodia. The group Dehumanized people, took everything from it’s citizens, and split up families.

There is a Khmer word that describes the fate of two million people, about a quarter of the Cambodian population at the time – “Kamtech”, whose meaning is “to destroy with no traces left behind”. The responsible party is the Khmer Rouge, a political group who during the mid to late 1970s enacted a revolution according adopted the communist ideal of elimination of a social class system, and attempted to force that ideal on the population of Cambodia. Their leader was Pol Pot (born Saloth Sar), who promised that the policies set by the Khmer Rouge will bring the country to a state of utopia (Ly). If one were to look at film and pictures taken during the Khmer Rouge’s rule, there would be nothing to indicate that Pol Pot’s promises did not come to fruition: the surviving footage is almost entirely propaganda produced by the Khmer Rouge, and depicts Cambodia as the promised utopia (Panh). How can it be though, that in a country where the communist ideal has come to be, where everyone is equal and has their needs provided, that two million people are killed over the span of four years? Rithy Pahn, a film creator, tells the story of the missing people through his film The Missing Picture. In it, he tells stories of his experiences as an adolescent during the Khmer Rouge’s regime. The Missing Picture is ultimately about providing a replacement to the footage of Panh’s experiences (that was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge)—as a memorialization of the events that took place under the

The Khmer Rouge believed in, "Year-Zero", where if you had any knowledge or training you would be killed. In the film Pran has to pretend to be a taxi driver before he was taken to camp, because if the Khmer Rouge found out how much knowledge he had he would be killed. In the film Pran tells the viewers a rule to survive when he was at the camp," if you argue, or tell the truth you die." The ways of the Khmer Rouge was what kept them in power. In order to survive at the camp Pran had to lie about his background, his job, and is education in order to

Pol Pot shut the country off from all outside influences such as newspapers, radio, television, mail, and even money. This was Pol Pot’s attempt to go back in time and have a higher control over the people. Human rights were revoked, no more free speech, religion was forbidden when 90 percent of the people were Buddhists. There was no traveling was permitted and the whole community was put on schedules and have strict rules. People who broke even the smallest rule were killed. People who were inhabitants were forced out of the cities by Khmer Rouge. Two million people had to leave Phnom Penh

The way the story this story is told through following the outlook of a child soldier is a truly matchless experience, the view scenes of the movie that will remain fresh in my mind because they were directed in such a perfect way a terrible view of war that will stay with me for many years.. That is the way this story needed to be told, and I thought it was very moving, very powerful, and one of the most haunting films that I've ever seen, and possibly will ever see, in my

He cut off Cambodia’s—or as he had renamed it, the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea’s—ties with the rest of the world, plunging it deeply into a form of isolationism. He forced those who lived in cities to move to the countryside by marching them “on foot at gunpoint” (“Pol Pot in Cambodia”). Once the penurious citizens arrived to their locations, which were nicknamed the “killing fields”, they were forced into hard labor where many died due to the exhausting work or malnutrition caused by the “one tin of rice” the people received every two days. Their supervisors promulgated that “Whether you live or die is of little significance” and “What is rotten must be removed” (“Pol Pot in Cambodia”). In addition to this, Cambodian citizens were also being killed by being killed by the former regime or by being tortured into giving false confessions;