The Khmer Rouge For Modern Cambodia

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

Between the years of 1975 and 1979, an estimated 1.5 to 3 million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian genocide. First They Killed My Father is the story from the perspective of a five year old girl, Loung Ung, and how her life was changed by the Khmer Rouge. Her and her family were forced out of their home, and into labor camps where they were to work for food in order to survive. They relied on each other, and pushed through the Hell that they were unfortunately placed into. In the memoir, First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung, the author demonstrates how the Khmer Rouge use the techniques of confiscation, dress regulations, and food rations in order to remain in control of the citizens.

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

This paper investigates and distinguishes, through my opinion, the impacts that Khmer Rouge’s also known as the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) had on a global scale. First, by addressing the impacts to the immediate country, Cambodia and the tactics used by this abhorrent organization. Furthermore, the ideologies used by said organization, to instill fear and distrust in the population; which lead to there early demise, but not after 1.7 million people lost or sacrificed there lives for their country, per se. The lesson to be learned from this is, no matter who you are or what power you have, eventually you will have to answer to the international community if you commit such egregious acts of violence.

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

Genocides are defined as a large group of killings often of a specific ethnic group or nation. Genocides targeting specific groups happen all over the world. Sometimes they are well known, while in other cases they are hidden and not published as much. Unlike the Holocaust, The Khmer Rouge Regime caused a smaller scale genocide in the heart of Cambodia. Beginning in the late 1960s the Khmer Rouge Regime came into power. Their leader Pol Pot committed atrocities, killing a little over two million innocent people. Pol Pot believed that this new society was becoming evil. He decided to bring the city of Phnom Penh back to the middle ages with communal farming. He murdered every “intellectual” of the country. He killed anyone who had any education, or even worse, glasses. He isolated the city and everybody in it. There are many stories coming from the victim's point of view and how they felt as 2.2 million of their own were killed. There are also reasons of why the Cambodian government's committed this atrocity. Finally, there are the views from America and its feelings towards watching the genocide go down from outside the country. Looking through all of these different lenses of this genocide help get a big picture of how and why something so horrific could have happened.

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

The response to the Cambodian genocide did not result in the assistance of ending the horror but rather was not dealt with. Some foreign journalist wrote about the atrocities of what was occurring in the beginning. This led the Khmer Rouge to seal off Cambodia from the rest of the world, although some of the terror was still being revealed. People who interview refugees in Thailand were able to get shine light into the situation with stories of starvation, disease, and mass executions. Eventually, the United States denounced all the things that the Khmer Rouge was doing. Many people in the south of Asia, however, did not believe all of what the United States said the Khmer Rouge was doing and thought they were trying to dramatize the situation.

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

Before any research, I vaguely understood why Vietnam liberated the Cambodians. As I was the first generation in the United States, it concealed me from Vietnam’s history and their interactions with foreign nations. Nonetheless, I understood that North Vietnam previously sponsored the Khmer Rouge Regime. The financing was as a result of the Allies funding the Lon Nol, Capitalistic Administration during the Vietnam War. A few years after the war ended, the new Communist Regime turned against their subsidized, Vietnamese government and commenced a war. Unfortunately, lacking information meant I could only conclude one thing: Communistic expansion commenced the war. Cambodia’s extreme ideologies must have angered Vietnam. When juxtaposed, the

The Cambodian Genocide (1975-1979) was a period of complete chaos and destruction. In The Killing Fields, Eyewitness Accounts The Cambodian Genocide, and The Endurance of the Cambodian Family Under the Khmer Rouge Regime: An Oral History, Cambodia became controlled by the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge entered Cambodia on April 17, 1975 in preparation for a nationwide “liberation campaign” (Mam, 119). The Khmer Rouge’s goals were to create a communist revolution that would place power in the hands of the peasants to benefit the state. They wanted to increase agricultural production and transform the Cambodian society (Mam, 119). Before the Khmer Rouge rose to power, Cambodian class, family, and religion played a huge role in Cambodian identity. The family tried to remain strong through resistance, making it difficult for the KR to implement their harsh plans. However, the Khmer Rouge did implement horrific policies that caused many Cambodians to endure suffering that lasted until the Vietnamese forces liberated Cambodia in 1979.

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.

"Pol Pot and the Prosecution of the Khmer Rouge Leadership in Cambodia." History Behind the Headlines: The Origins of Conflicts Worldwide. Ed. Sonia G. Benson, Nancy Matuszak, and Meghan Appel O'Meara. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Student Resources in Context. Web. 24 Nov.

The documentary Enemies of the People exposes some buried truths of the Khmer Rouge genocide through personal interviews. Thet Sambath spent ten years befriending village farmers who participated in the killings and Nuon Chea, the second in command, to get to the truth of what happened and why. Throughout the documentary, connections can be made to the fear of an imagined other as a threat to Cambodia, the banality of evil that fueled the genocide.

Although the Khmer Rouge had a more than questionable approach to making socialism an important part of Cambodia, a lot of the country's problems that were going on would be fixed with socialism. For example, the country was in severe poverty.