Pol Pot And The Khmer Rouge

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 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

Racism is one and was a major part of the ideology of all three regimes. Although all three perpetrators were largely secular, they targeted religious minorities. All three also tried to use force of arms to expand into a "contiguous heartland",, all three regimes also "idealized their ethnic peasantry as the true 'national' class, the ethnic soil from which the new state grew." The Khmer Rouge regime targeted various ethnic groups during the genocide, forcibly relocating minority groups, and banned the use of minority languages. Religion was also banned, and the repression of adherents of Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism was extensive. And according to Kiernan, the "fiercest extermination campaign was directed at the ethnic Cham Muslim minority". This attempt at the purification of Cambodian society along racial, social and political lines led to the military and political leaders of the former regime, as well as leaders of industry, journalists, students, doctors, lawyers as well as the Vietnamese and Chinese ethnic groups being purged. The exact numbers of Cham people killed are unknown; however, according to survivors there were an estimated 700,000 before the KR came to power, and there were an estimated 200,000 left following the

Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, claimed that this would help return them to their basic times creating a utopia, even though he went in the other direction. Khmer Rouge was the group of cambodian communist that took control. Him and his followers, killed 25 percent of their population by murdering, overworking and starving them to death. They mainly targeted doctors, teachers, monks, journalists, the rich, artists, and/or anyone with an education. They also targeted various religious and ethnic groups during the genocide like, religious enthusiasts, Buddhists,

Numerous genocides have occurred throughout the twentieth century, beginning with the Turkish genocide against the Armenians. One genocide in particular, the Cambodian genocide, is considered by many to be one of the most ruthless genocides of the twentieth century. The Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), better known as the Khmer Rouge, was led by a communist dictator known to the world as Pol Pot. His regime abused the Cambodian people at an unimaginable scale. His attempts to transform Cambodia into a classless society, where there would be no distinction between rich and poor along with no exploitation, resulted in the devastation of about one-fifth of the population due to starvation, malnutrition, torture, exhaustion, and even illness. To make matters worse, families were separated, young children were forced into labor camps, and people were left in the field to rot. Although relatively underexamined, the Cambodian genocide goes down as one of the most atrocious genocides of the twentieth century.

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,

In 1975, the Communist Party of Kampuchea, led by Pol Pot, invaded Phnom Penh and overthrew Lon Nol’s U.S. supported military dictatorship. The Communist Party of Kampuchea, otherwise known as the Khmer Rouge, was a Cambodian political party that based its ideals on nationalism, communism, and agrarian socialism. The Khmer Rouge first gained attention during communist movement that emerged from the anti-colonial struggle against France. During French rule, Cambodia was under the influence of western ideas and culture. Because Cambodia had been a French Protectorate since 1863, many aspects of Cambodian culture and identity were lost within French colonial rule. After seizing power over Cambodia in 1975 and it was renamed as Democratic Kampuchea. The Cambodian genocide occurred because a radical idea of nationalism and ended up wiping out one-third of Cambodia’s population. A debate surrounding Cambodian nationalism has been argued while investigating the history of the Khmer Rouge. Michael Vickery, the author of the book Cambodia 1975-1982, argued that the Khmer Rouge was inspired by the peasants to create a nation in which everyone had the same living standards.Ben Kiernan, director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University, argued that by favoring the peasants, the Khmer Rouge destroyed the working class. Kiernan also argues that “Pol Potism” rose from the idea of Cambodian nationalism. In 1976, Pol Pot created the “Four Year Plan” to build socialism in

The CPK had started its revolution; slowly taking over Cambodia had finally ruled it over by April 17, 1975. While doing so they had also been recruiting people who seemed worthy enough to help make this revolution happen. Their forces had grown up 700,000 some being children who were taken and forcibly recruited. During that time they had defeated Lol Nol (general of Cambodia) and his forces. They had controlled about 85 percent of the countries territory and had killed about 300,000 citizens for the next three years if they seemed to have any intellect who had seemed unworthy of the new world. It took about 20 years for the “roots” to take control and grow. After taking over and defeating the army, they

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

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.

The Khmer Rouge (KR) was a communist guerrilla organisation which opposed the Cambodian government in the 1960’s due to the counties involvement and downfall due to the Vietnam War, taking full power of the nation in 1975. Cambodia became involved in the Vietnam due to their neighbouring vicinity to the country, as well its ruler of the time, Prince Sihanouk and his contradictory actions. Sihanouk was eventually overthrown, as his support of both opposing forces; America (non-communist) and the Viet Cong (communist) created much conflict. Lon Nol took over, allying with the USA.