Genocide In Cambodia

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.

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 .

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 genocide of Cambodia started on the year of 1975 and ended on 1979. This is considered the Khmer Pogue period, where Pol Pot , Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, Khieu Samphan and the Khmer Rouge Communist party took over

The Cambodian genocide began in 1975 when Pol Pot, a Khmer Rouge leader, attempted to for a Communist peasant farming society. About 1.5 million Cambodians died. [10]

The Khmer Rouge were followers of a communist party of Kampuchea, which took control of Cambodia on April 17, 1975. The party’s existence was kept a secret until 1977, anyone outside of CPK knew the leaders as Angkar Padevat. A genocide was born, where they tortured and killed thousands of innocents under the order of dictator Pol Pot. They set policies and rules to reach their main goal, which was to build a new Cambodia focused on agricultural success. When the Khmer Rouge took power people were forced into the countryside to work. In order to ensure this they banned money, private property, schools, churches, shops, government builds, universities. Prisons and reeducation camps were formed from schools and buildings. They would murder

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 Khmer rouge cleared individuals into a rustic in which there were no rich individuals, no needy individuals and misuse. To accomplish this, they canceled cash, schools, private property, religious practices and conventional Khmer government structures were closed or some transform into penitentiaries, revised instruction camp and silos. Also, individuals all through the nation needed to were dark outfits which were their conventional progressive garments. Amid this time, individuals need to comply with their tenets. Individuals can't go outside their agreeable and have talks. In the event that they did or talk as a gathering of individuals, they could be captured or executed. Throughout the following 3 years, they executed countless intelligent people, city occupants, Cham, Vietnames and Chinese who blamed for being double crosser.

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,

Who is to decide whether or not a life should be taken? Should the decision lie in the hands of your "God", in the hands of the rich and powerful, or in the hands of a random stranger? Well, a man by the name of Pol Pot decided to take it upon himself to bring about the end of the lives of 2.3 million people. This mass killing was/is known as the Cambodian Genocide, which began in the year 1975, and continued for four years before ending in 1979. The Genocide was carried out by Pol Pot and those of the Khmer Regime. (Sharp, 2008)

Pol Pot who was born in Cambodia,led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until 1997 and also served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea.On April 1975,when his forces captured Phnom Penh,he became leader of Cambodia.During that time of his leadership, about 1.5 million Cambodians out of a total population of 7 to 8 million died of starvation, execution, disease or overwork, apparently the death toll was higher.At one point in his life,Pol Pot taught history, geography and French literature at a private school while simultaneously planning a revolution.Sadly, Pol Pot died unexpectedly in his sleep on April 15, 1998, due to heart failure.

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.

Empirically, the Khmer Rouge regime, from its conception in 1975 to its fall in 1979, supremely, holistically, and irreversibly overthrew Cambodian society. As a hard line communist movement defined by fundamentalist socialism the Khmer Rouge, under leader Pol Pot, attempted total social reconstruction and evolution. Envisaging a Cambodia without inequality and equal distribution of wealth, the Khmer Rouge implemented its aims of isolation and departure from Western capitalism through oppressive technique; in seeking a better nation, the movement indeed destroyed the ideological and philosophical integrity of Cambodia’s political system, economic structure, and social fabric.