Cambodia Genocide Research Paper

The cultivation of rice has had an enormous impact on the natural biome. Rice has affected the natural biome that it is grown in, in a devastating way. It has caused the natural biomes to deteriorate and caused the natural way of life to collapse leaving no place for the native animals and plants. But what would happen if the cultivation of rice stopped and the natural biomes returned to their former glory? What would happen to all those people depending on rice for the next meal? Those who depend on rice to pay for and keep their families alive? This report looks at the where, effects, who and how of rice cultivation.

The Cambodian Genocide was the result of imperialism, ethnic supremacy, ultra-nationalism, anti-colonialism, a power grab, and religion. It began with the Cambodian people struggling against French colonization and grew in inspiration from Vietnam (end genocide). The French believed that Cambodia was a gateway into China to expand their trade with Southeast Asia. The French occupied southern Vietnam and wanted to expand their territory. There were many civil wars and invasions in Cambodia fought between the Vietnamese and Thai, and it greatly affected Cambodia. While the French did help Cambodia become independent and grew their infrastructure, while exploiting Cambodian labor, they failed to educate Cambodian people and establish a solid and effective judiciary system (Cambodia tribunal). Thus began their feelings of anti-colonialism. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. used Cambodia as a base to regroup, but also bombed the country to kill suspected Viet Cong targets. This began their feelings of imperialism and ultra-nationalism. The Khmer Rouge began feeling great animosity towards the West for their influenced corruption to Cambodian land and its people. Between January and August of 1973, 300,000 Cambodians were killed by American bombers that had joined forces with Lon Nol, head of the Khmer Republic.

The Cambodian genocide occurred in the late twentieth century in Cambodia; the Holocaust took place in the beginning of the twentieth century in Germany and Eastern Europe. In the Cambodian Genocide and the Holocaust, individuals experienced a lack of allies because people were more concerned about self-preservation than they were about the other party. Bystanders, such as the United States and characters in Night, did not help because they valued their own safety over the safety of others. Allies were only motivated to help if they were sure it would disadvantage them.

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.

In the late 70’s, nearly 2 million Cambodians died of overwork, starvation, torture, and execution in what became known as the Cambodian genocide. A group known as the Khmer Rouge took control of the country in April 1975. Over the course of

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 .

Many times we may hear but not respond, we see and don’t move and having the ability to take action we don’t even move a finger until the situation is out of control. It’s amazing how ignorant and stubborn the human race can be. This is exactly the response of many nations when it comes to genocide. Genocide is the systematic killing of all the people from a national, ethnic, or religious group. Two of the most recent genocides in history are the genocide of Rwanda and the genocide of Cambodia.

Somewhere around 2 million people died by starvation, torture, or having been executed. Most Cambodians as a child starved in house after the genocide. As a world leader President Nixon didn’t help out Cambodians with food and medical supplies because USA was at war with Vietnam and Vietnam was allied with Cambodia. Quoted from world info, “The international Red Cross had supplied emergency rations to the refugees. ”(Mitchell)

The response to the Cambodian genocide did not result in the assistance of ending the horror but rather was not dealt with. Some foreign journalist wrote about the atrocities of what was occurring in the beginning. This led the Khmer Rouge to seal off Cambodia from the rest of the world, although some of the terror was still being revealed. People who interview refugees in Thailand were able to get shine light into the situation with stories of starvation, disease, and mass executions. Eventually, the United States denounced all the things that the Khmer Rouge was doing. Many people in the south of Asia, however, did not believe all of what the United States said the Khmer Rouge was doing and thought they were trying to dramatize the situation.

The terrible conditions for rice farming caused prices to increase and more deaths. For rice farming to be productive after major floods killing millions of people, new farming methods such as terraces to contain rain water spread to the rice. These terraces were only made because of the countless trees cut down during the nineteenth century. However, the COlumbian exchange provided population increase for other Asian countries due to potatoes, a plant used by those living in the Andes raw, and cooked, for food and for string. All the basic nutrients are provided in this starch, which allowed life expectancies to grow as well as

Ever since the actions in Cambodia occurred, it has been debated whether it was an actual genocide. The general definition of genocide is the purposeful and methodical execution of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia demonstrated that a government can be guilty of genocide against its own nation. The radical communist party led by Pol Pot took over Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. After 1979, the Khmer Rouge left a traumatized Cambodian culture that continues to undergo the repercussions of the genocide. People over the age of forty in Cambodia have stories to tell of fear, cruelty, hunger and the loss of family members. However, the Cambodian government is not making an effort to recognize the negative occurrences that have posed itself in the history of their culture.

Located in Southeast Asia between Thailand and Vietnam, Cambodia was home to one of the bloodiest political regimes to exist in the 20th century. In a country, in which American government reports in 1959 documented, was full of “ ‘docile and passive people…[who] could not be counted on to act in any positive way for the benefit of US aims and policies’”, the United States conflict in neighboring Vietnam brought about incredible changes to an unsuspecting people (qted. in Dunlop 70). The countryside was bombed by the United States in order to uproot suspected North Vietnamese holdouts and supply routes starting in 1969. These bombing raids, which devastated

The Cambodian Genocide was a mass murder carried out by the Khmer Rouge and its leader Pol Pot, which was to make Cambodia an agrarian utopia. On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge got control of Cambodia’s capital city, Phnom Penh, and kicked out then prime minister Lon Nol’s government. Then they immediately began emptying the city’s population into labor camps in the countryside. After forcing the Cambodians to the labor camps, they began implementing this horrific and terrible regime against the people of Cambodia. This new regime did not allow them to resist. The perpetrators broke down the victim’s resistance by killing them if they were not capable of heavy labor, taking away their civil and political rights, and starving them to death.

In the agricultural side of their economy, the rice sector, while still significant to the overall economy has found that “ its share of GDP has fallen sharply from about 55 per cent in the early 1990s to one-third currently”(Hill & Menon, 2014). Furthermore, cambodia uses a lot of political affairs to sustain the economy. Cambodia is one of the most highly open economy in the “Asia,Pacific region” but with limitation “ on trade and capital flows” (Hill & Menon, 2014).