Cambodia Research Paper

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

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 .

In the 1950s Cambodia gained its independence from France and became peacefully ruled by Prince Sihanouk. In the 1960s, Cambodia was dragged into the Vietnam War and in 1970, the prime minister General Lon Nol assumed power and announced the implementation of the Khmer Republic and sent the Khmer Republic’s army to fight the North Vietnamese in Cambodia (Smith-Hefner 264). Prince Sihanouk formed a communist guerrilla

Cambodia is a small country of Southeast Asia, less than half the size of the state of California (“World Without Genocide: Cambodian Genocide”). The Cambodian government in the mid 1970’s was unstable as Lon Nol, the Cambodian prime minister, and his forces were being stretched dealing with conflicts of Vietnamese communists, and a rising group of Cambodian communists called the Khmer Rouge Party. (Peace Pledge Union) As the government grew weaker and began to loose control, The Khmer Rouge Party overthrew the country. They began killing for their cause in 1975. The Khmer Rouge Party, under the rule of a man called Pol Pot, enforced a new way of life following values and rules similar to Maoist-Communism (“World Without Genocide: Cambodian Genocide”). The Khmer Party attempted, in simplistic terms, to nationally centralize the middle or farming class of Cambodia (“World Without Genocide: Cambodian

In 1953 Cambodia gained independence after nearly a century of French rule. The country was ruled by a monarch, Prince Sihanouk. In 1970, Sihanouk was deposed in a coup while in a foreign country. General Lon Nol, gained power. He announced the plan of the Khmer Republic and sent the Army to fight the North Vietnamese in Cambodia. Sihanouk formed a small independent group with Cambodian Communists. The Khmer Rouge was lead by Pol Pot from 1962. During the early 1970s, the Cambodian Army faced two enemies: the North Vietnamese and Communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas.

Cambodians entered the United States as exiles after a gathering of Cambodian Communists named Khmer Rouge, driven by the French-instructed Pol Pot, won a common war that had seethed from March 1970 to April 1975 and continued to manage the nation with uncommon ruthlessness. In control from April 17, 1975, to January 7, 1979, they decimated all the real establishments in the nation. An expected 1.7 million individuals out of an expected aggregate populace of

Cambodia is a country located within Southeast Asia and is bordered by the countries of Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. After being a French protectorate for nearly a century, on 9 November 1953, Cambodia regained its full independence. The population was over seven million and the country was ruled by a monarch with Prince Sihanouk as Head of State. However, this happiness was short-lived since they were dragged into the midst of the

The Cambodian Genocide (1975-1979) was a period of complete chaos and destruction. In The Killing Fields, Eyewitness Accounts The Cambodian Genocide, and The Endurance of the Cambodian Family Under the Khmer Rouge Regime: An Oral History, Cambodia became controlled by the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge entered Cambodia on April 17, 1975 in preparation for a nationwide “liberation campaign” (Mam, 119). The Khmer Rouge’s goals were to create a communist revolution that would place power in the hands of the peasants to benefit the state. They wanted to increase agricultural production and transform the Cambodian society (Mam, 119). Before the Khmer Rouge rose to power, Cambodian class, family, and religion played a huge role in Cambodian identity. The family tried to remain strong through resistance, making it difficult for the KR to implement their harsh plans. However, the Khmer Rouge did implement horrific policies that caused many Cambodians to endure suffering that lasted until the Vietnamese forces liberated Cambodia in 1979.

Before the Genocide actually happened, Cambodia was in another country's war. Cambodia is settled right next to Vietnam, which had also fought against the French to gain independence.

Khmer Rouge’s interpretation of Leninist/Marxist/Maoist communist model made them believe that they could mold a classless society by eliminating all the social classes apart from peasants who are poor. The elimination led to annihilation of all careers marked by the intellectuals and religion. The many groups included teachers, lawyers,doctors and any religious figures. About more than 500,000 people died in the “killing fields” and more than a million died from starvation due to only eating 200 calories of rice each day. Those that complained about their labor or tasks were tortured in a detention center like the infamous S-21, and the would be killed. The bones of the people who died are filled up in mass graves all over the country. Pol Pot seized control of Cambodia and renaming the country Democratic Kampuchea. Pol Pot governed a huge part of the country behind the scenes. Pol Pot became prime minister in 1976 when Sihanouk resigned. At that time the borders between Vietnam and Cambodia were fighting and got very intense from 1977-1979, the Vietnamese had their 60,000 troops capture Phnom Penh and forced Pol Pot to flee back to the jungle where he would resume guerilla

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,

Cambodian Communist Party leader, Pol Pot (1962), went into hiding from the then Cambodian leader Prince Norodom Sihanouk. While he was avoiding the Prince he created a movement called the Red Cambodians (Khmer Rouge) and tried to wage guerrilla warfare against Sihanouk. When a military coup staged by the U.S. took away Sihanouk’s power, he joined forced with Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. As the U.S. continuously bombed North Vietnam holding locations as far as Cambodia, their population of peasants began to feel the effects as hundreds of thousands were in the midst war games between 1969-1973; as a result the Cambodian peasants went to Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia. The U.S. presence was seen as harmful eventually pulled away from supporting

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

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.

Throughout the entirety of their regime, the Khmer Rouge, known initially as the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), perpetrated various crimes against humanity as well as war crimes; violating and depriving citizens from their most basic human rights. Influenced by a Communist agrarian utopia and dissatisfied with the economic situation in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge wanted to restart civilization, and create a "pure", rural, classless society. In the attempts to do so, they abolished all private property, free market, religion, education, clothing styles and culture. Torture, death, slave labor, disease, and mass starvation were, amongst others, some of the main crimes committed. Although not a legal document, these occurrences are, under the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The group gained more control when Prince Norodum Sihanouk, was overthrown in a military coup in 1970 and came to the group for support. The Khmer Rouge took power over Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. In a matter of hours, they had taken over and forced approximately 2 million people to the countryside to work on labor camps. In 1976, the CPK would create the state of Democratic Kampuchea, and start the "Four-Year Plan", which placed high national attention to cultivating rice and transforming all private property into collective. Further violations and perhaps the most barbaric were the treatment civilians