Pol Pot And The Cambodian Genocide

The Cambodian Genocide and Holocaust are two significant events remembered in history. During the Cambodian Genocide and the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot targeted minorities that had unique identities that would put them in danger and make them weak to resist. There were several planned events that led up to the occurrence of both genocides. Both Hitler and Pol Pot aimed to take control of their country by organizing ways to kill off multiple people at once. Hitler created concentration and extermination camps while Pol Pot had killing fields. These two leaders killed millions of lives because they practiced a religion that was disliked or had a job that made too much money for the leader’s liking.

The definition of genocide is killing a large group of people of a certain origin. The Holocaust was in Germany and started in 1933. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were in charge of the Holocaust. The Cambodian Genocide took place in Cambodia. Cambodia is in Southeast Asia (“Cambodian”). Pol Pot was the leader of Khmer Rouge and the group was in charge of the Cambodian Genocide (“Cambodian”). The Cambodian Genocide started in 1975 and ended in 1978 because Khmer Rouge was ended by Vietnam (“Cambodian”). The Holocaust and the Cambodian Genocide are similar in the administrations’ treatment of their victims and in the fact that their victims were desperate for a leader, but different in U.S. involvement and government motivation.

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

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 .

Webster's dictionary defines genocides as the deliberate killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group. Genocide has existed for thousands of years, and while there are many examples of these horrific events, some of the most well known are the holocaust and the genocide in Rwanda 1994. The United States’ responses to these killings as well as the way in which they ended were similar, but the driving force behind each differed.

In Democratic Kampuchea, in 1975, the radicalistic Khmer Rouge party formed under the communist leader Pol Pot, who was inspired to create a political nation that followed the footsteps Stalinism and Maoism. Compared to the Holocaust, which was singlehandedly the worst genocide in the 20th century in my opinion, Pol killed a believed 1.7-3.0 million Cambodians.

There were many steps in choosing my NHD topic. I had to keep in mind the theme, Explore, Encounter, and Exchange. I thought of many different things such as the African American Rights, World War I. And then I thought about the Holocaust. That topic really intrigued me to think about, it was a awful event that changed our history forever. I started doing more and more research on different genocides that have occurred in our history. I saw so many different genocides, that I haven’t really heard about. I decided that the Cambodian Genocide seem the most interesting to me. My family is Vietnamese and therefore my dad talks to me a lot about when he lived in Vietnam and lots about his different experiences there. My dad told me a lot about what the Cambodian Genocide was about, and I found it more and more interesting. This topic affects me in a personally way, which intrigued me to know more about it.

A genocide that is still currently happening is the one in Laos which is the result of the Vietnam War. It was a war against the communist North and the democratic South with the help of the U.S. The U.S got involved because they want to prevent the spread of communism, which is known as the “domino theory” where if a surrounding country falls into the ideology of … then the rest will fall with it. The leader of North Vietnam was Ho Chi Minh, a strong dictator that managed to get support of his people. He states that the South was being used as a puppet state by the American. A lot of American dislikes this war and many oppose it, however many Americans don’t know that there was actually another war going on known as the Secret War.

Webster Dictionary defines the word genocide as; the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group. Cambodia was a mostly peaceful, small country in South Asia with a population of about 7 million.

There have been many cases of mass genocide in history. One such case was Adolf Hitler was a dictator who was leader of the Nazi party in Germany. The Nazis committed a mass genocide of the Jewish people, and anyone else who they didn't see to be “perfect”. Hitler's goal was to reform Germany into a utopian, or perfect society. Similar is a Cambodian man called Pol Pot, who also committed a mass genocide in order to make the perfect society. He lead the communist group in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge using the people's fear and easily given trust. While the public's opinion of Pol Pot and the goals and impacts of the movement is important to know about, his overall life is more important to know about because it shaped his character which would cause the Cambodian genocide. Pol Pot had a privileged way of growing up compared to other Cambodians, which led him to think that he was superior to others. He was able to quickly gain power due to the people's already bad feelings towards the previous government. With that power Pol Pot made a lot of choices that would forever impact Cambodia, such as a mass genocide.

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.

Despite of all these dreadful atrocities, the Khmer Rouge never reached their aspiration to increase the agricultural productivity to a treble in order to being able to export agricultural products. The ones responsible for this was the system itself. When they destroyed the majority of the economic infrastructure, they did not think about the lack of work tools that was a result of this action (Rohde 1999).