The Cambodian Homicide: The Native American Genocide

These native peoples, first mislabeled as Indians by an explorer named Christopher Columbus, divided themselves into many different tribes, each with its own government, language, traditions and religions. Europeans, who slowly poured into the Indian's land, did not respect the Indians beliefs, interrupted their peaceful life and would do almost anything to get the land to them selves. The settlers also believed the land that both the Indians and the settlers lived on was theirs to themselves. They began to push the Native Americans off of their own land. Many of them fought back to keep their homes, some succeeded, some didn't.

Natives were humiliated and dehumanized. Spaniards did not see the huge genocide that was going on , they just saw the land they was stealing from the natives and the money they were getting out of it. Time past and more and more settled in what now is called the United States. The Englishmen have settled near the east coast when coming to the Americas. English settlements kept growing so they needed to wipe out the natives out to have the land. “Not able to enslave the Indians, and not able to live with them, the English decided to exterminate them” (page, 19). The Indians learned that Europeans were and will always be stronger than them. They learned that European weapons will always be more powerful then whatever they made. Europeans had guns, Indians had spares. Europeans were devious and trick Indians to turn to each other. Tribes were tricked by these masterminds and started conflicted with each other and battles. The Europeans had mass murdered the native Americans with no sympathy. The native Americans could not do anything about it so they had to listen to the European due to the fact they were more powerful. As for the Englishmen they used any type of excuse to get into war. Europeans called native Americans Indians because when Columbus arrived in America he believed that he was in India so he thought they were Indians, its in politically incorrect but calling them Indians is okay because they truly traveled from Asia to America

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 took place from 1975 to 1979 in the Southeastern Asian country of Cambodia. The genocide was a brutal massacre that killed 1.4 to 2.2 million people, about 21% of Cambodia’s population. This essay, will discuss the history of the Cambodian genocide, specifically, what happened, the victims and the perpetrators and the world’s response to the genocide.

It’s hard to imagine that people would support and act upon plans to kill millions of innocent human beings. The Holocaust and Cambodian genocide were two of the most horrific genocides in the history of civilization. The Holocaust and Cambodian genocide has not only similarities but also differences. How they treated their victims, USA involvement, and that they both killed millions of people are some things they share. Differences they include are the people they targeted, how the two leaders took office and lastly where these to genocides took place.

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 .

Historically, the people of the United States and the Native tribes couldn’t live together, they fought because the two sides competed for superiority. The United States Government sought to put an end to the violent clashes with the American people and the Natives tribes. A resolution was the Indian Removal Act, with this, the United States became safer, wealthier, and stronger; And the Natives, which they saw as inferior, would leave. This Act wasn’t easy for the Native tribes, they left the land their ancestors had built them, and experienced a long road ahead of them to rebuild again.

Genocide is an important human rights issue. When a person or persons take it into their hands to violate someone’s given rights, it should be considered an act punishable. For people to understand the severity of their actions, their actions must have serious consequences. These consequences must be so extreme to the relevance to the act punishable that those who are planning on partaking in a similar act are made well aware of the possible punishments. If people are better educated on the subject of genocide, the reports of genocidal cases might decrease, making genocide a less extreme problem not only in the United States, but the entire world.

The slow yet brutal destruction of their population took place from 1492-1891. According to the legal definition by the UN, this act is considered genocide which was perpetrated by both European colonizers and the United States government. Tensions escalated and soon they were dehumanized to the point where massacres such as Wounded Knee, hundreds of innocent Native Americans were slaughtered by American soldiers. A significant precedent of the genocide was when White Americans began making Indians the “other”. By viewing them as uncivilized creatures, it is easy to separate oneself from a group so different.

The other side of the story to our great American history is not as pretty as they teach us in grade school. The American Holocaust by David Stannard is a novel full of live excerpts from eyewitnesses to the genocide of the American Indians. He goes as far as to describe what life was most likely like before Europeans came to the Americas and obliterated the "Paradise" so described. Columbus even wrote how beautiful the places were in which he committed acts against the Natives so horrific, it was hard to read about, let alone talk about. The Natives were so innocent and naive, that when Columbus would "show them his sword" they would grab the end and in effect slice open their hand. These people had no chance of

Many times we may hear but not respond, we see and don’t move and having the ability to take action we don’t even move a finger until the situation is out of control. It’s amazing how ignorant and stubborn the human race can be. This is exactly the response of many nations when it comes to genocide. Genocide is the systematic killing of all the people from a national, ethnic, or religious group. Two of the most recent genocides in history are the genocide of Rwanda and the genocide of Cambodia.

The Cambodian oppressors wanted everyone to be equal, no differences (Friedman 32). Genocide is a serious topic as it disrupts all peace and tranquility. This genocide occurred in 1975 through 1979, in which people suffered tremendously for this long period of time. Places and buildings were taken over, and as Tyner said, “Former wats and schools, for example were converted into security centers.”

Before 1970, the biggest minority ethnic groups in Cambodia were the Vietnamese, the Chinese and the Muslim Cham. They composed about 15% of the Cambodian population, but the Khmer Rouge regime claimed that they only represented about 1% of the total population (Kiernan, 80). The group statically had written them off. The Vietnamese community was totally eradicated during the genocide. Around a hundred thousand people were driven out of Cambodia during the first year after the civil war in 1975 (Kiernan, 80). The ones who stayed in Cambodia ended being killed. In 1979, it was almost impossible to find a Vietnamese person who survived in Cambodia. Many witnesses of the genocide describe it as being a systematic racial extermination (Kiernan,

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

The ethnic conflict discussed in this paper will be about the Khmer Rouge (khmaε \ˈrüzh) in Cambodia during 1975 and 1979. The Khmer Rouge was a political party led by communist leader Pol Pot. During their establishment over Cambodia, many people died if they were opposing the new political rule. The Khmer Rouge wanted a classless society--no one was poor or rich-everyone had enough to eat. They believe they could solve the poverty issue among many villages by implementing an agricultural system. This meant more farmers and laborers were needed. People were sent to farms as laborers to grow rice. Those people who were not able to work were executed--mostly the elderly and young children. Copious amount of people died every day, not just from execution. Starvation and diseases became prevalent. No one was safe, not even the leaders were safe. Thus, begins the Khmer Rouge genocide. In Shirley A. Fedorak’s chapter, she had stated that, “genocide is the extreme form of ethnic conflict” (61). Genocide, also called ethnic cleansing, is the act of wiping out a whole ethnic group of people. According to Fedorak’s chapter, ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more ethnic groups with one group having the state of power (64). In the case of the Khmer Rouge, politics is the main element that separates the ethnic groups. This is an anthropological approach to this conflict.