The Cambodian Genocide: The Khmer Rouge

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 .

No matter how many times history repeats itself, people still have the tendency to not learn from their mistakes. This statement is relevant when discussing the topic of genocide. When a person hears the word genocide they think of the Holocaust. But really there are multiple genocides with at least an equal to greater impact on the world today. Most people don't even know what the most devastating genocide wads. It was the Native American Genocide. Another example of deadly genocides is the Cambodian Genocide. This was an attempt to form an utopian society. More so it was a ethnic cleansing of the entire Cambodian population. This essay will compare and Contrast the Native American Genocide to the deadly Cambodian Genocide.

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

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 angered Prince Sihanouk formed a small movement called the Khmer Rouge that plotted to overthrow Lon Nol who was now our leader. Thankfully; after a few years of derelict, the Khmer rouge began to lose political power; But, that changed with the rise of Pol Pot, who is formally educated in radio technology. Pol Pot revitalized the fading Khmer Rouge and the group began regaining popularity as a Marxism-Leninism group which attracted the support from other communist countries such as China; but the Khmer rouge even received extensive military aid from the U.S and Britain. Even today as I am forced to work twelve hours a day at hard labor I think to myself if the genocide would all be possible without the "help" of the U.S, Britan, and

In 1975, The Khmer Rouge became the ruling political party of Cambodia after overthrowing the Lon Nol government. Following their leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge imposed an extreme form of social engineering on Cambodian society. They wanted to form an anti-modern, anti-Western ideal of a restructured “classless agrarian society'', a radical form of agrarian communism where the whole population had to work in collective farms or forced labor projects. The Khmer Rouge revolutionary army enforced this mostly with extreme violence. The book “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers”, written by Luong Ung, is the author’s story of growing up during this time period. She was five years old when the Khmer Rouge came

These people ranged from intellectuals, doctors, children and other Khmer Rouge members. Anyone who could not travel to the camps or work was seen as useless, and would be killed in cold blood. Even children and infants were targeted because the Khmer Rouge thought that in order “ ‘to stop the weeds you must pull up the roots’ ” (“The Cambodian Genocide”). Pol Pot knew that if the children understood the torture that they were going through, they would go against him in the future. The Khmer Rouge did not want any chance for a revolt and would do anything to keep it that way. Pol Pot believed that Cambodia should be a rural, classless society without any rich or poor people where people were forced to farm rice to trade to other

Defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, the term genocide is “the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group” [1]. The tragic events that occurred in the nation of Cambodia in 1975 is an example of genocide due to the mass killings that took place. Khmer Rouge, an authoritative organization, was the main source towards the genocide that occurred due to their opinions on mass production, which led to the deaths of thousands of Cambodian citizens. The passion between Khmer Rouges ideas behind mass production was very resilient which led to controlled actions and intentions causing the genocide to take place. Scared Sacred by Velcrow Ripper stated that the Khmer Rouge group directed the younger generations to partake in the involvement of mass killings. Furthermore, Ripper also said that any refusal of these killings would lead to an immediate execution [2]. These acts by the Khemer Rouge are exemplified in Extraordinary Evil written by Barbara Coloroso, as she said that the “bully chooses the target because of the targets real or perceived race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or ethnicity, and which, when legitimized, institutionalized, and politicized, can progress to Genocide”[3]. This statement by Coloroso is related to the Khmer Rouge because as stated previously, the Khmere Rouge

The Cambodian Genocide, similar to every other genocide during the 20th century, occurred because of a government’s desire to equalize the citizens under their rule. Executed by the Khmer Rogue, the genocide involved the classification, displacement, and eventual extermination of around 25% of Cambodia’s population. In their pursuit of a utopian society, the Khmer Rouge capitalized on Cambodia’s fear of war to not only rise to power, but also rationalize their actions during the genocide. Despite hoping for peace after the civil war, the Cambodian people instead faced four years of genocide under the Khmer Rouge, where no citizen was safe from persecution.

The dominance of the Khmer Rouge ended when Vietnam invaded Cambodia, and Phnom Penh fell on January 7th of 1979. E. Gottesman has written that Cambodian and Vietnamese officials had essentially been handed a blank slate of a country, with no institutions. Vietnam introduced a regime that had no popular support other than it being an alternative to the Khmer Rouge. Some view this date as the day Cambodia was liberated, whist others relate it to the beginning of Vietnamese occupation. Although the Khmer Rouge was no longer dominant in Cambodia they continued to wage guerilla warfare and the civil war did not conclude until Pol Pot’s death in 1998.

During the initial stages of the Khmer Rouge, there was a lack of understanding and misconception presented by the government, on why the change was being implemented. Many survivors recalls initially believing

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.

To satisfy their radical beliefs, the Khmer Rouge instituted several discriminatory and violent policies included forced evacuation from major cities and towns, torture, the use of forced labor and mass execution, which were unfortunately targeted towards the ethnic, religious and socio-economic minorities of Cambodia.