Cambodian Genocide Rough Draft The Cambodian Genocide occurred between 1975 and 1979. Pol Pot began with isolating Cambodia, and deporting all of the foreigners. The Cambodian Genocide was not only an attack on the people, but Cambodia’s pride, because there was no valid reason for doing this, the amount of people who were killed is ghastly, and how Cambodia looked after the genocide is horrendous. The Khmer Rouge was a murderous group, and their plan was to change the Cambodian society. On April 17 of 1975, the group marched into Phnom Penh, and forced all residents to evacuate into the country side. The members of the Khmer Rouge were mostly uneducated boys who had no idea what they were doing. Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, sent these people Hitler executed around 1 billion people, and Pol Pot executed 3,314,768! “To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss,” Pol Pot said. How can someone live with themselves after doing such a thing? I guess nobody really can, because some of the members of the Khmer Rouge were diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after the years of execution. Unfortunately, there was no treatment for this disorder. Thirty years after the violence ended, a tribunal was set up to investigate those responsible for the mass killings of the Khmer Rouge. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia was formed in 2003, and they were empowered to prosecute leaders of the Khmer Rouge who committed the mass crimes. Even years after the Khmer Rouge, there were still consequences for their actions. In the early 1990s, mass graves were uncovered throughout Cambodia. Each held hundreds of skeletal remains from Khmer Rouge execution grounds. The remains are now piled in barns that the Khmer Rouge has once used. “The skulls speak to us,” villagers said.
Between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot-the leader of the Khmer Rouge followed Maoist communism, which they thought they could create an agrarian utopia. Agrarian means that the society was based on agriculture. They wanted all members of society to be rural agricultural workers and killed intellectuals, who had been depraved by western capitalist ideas. A utopia means a perfect society. This idea went to extremes when The Khmer Rouge resumed that only pure people were qualified to build the revolution. They killed Cambodians without reasons by uncivilized actions such as: cutting heads, burying alive… There were about 1.7 million people killed by the Khmer Rouge.
Walker, Luke. "Cambodian Genocide." World Without Genocide. William Mitchell College of Law, 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .
"Cambodian Genocide." World without Genocide. William Mitchell College of Law, 2012. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. .
“The bones cannot find peace until the truth they hold in themselves has been revealed” This quote, said by Deputy Military Police Chief Nhim Seila, means that the deceased persecutors of the Cambodian Genocide cannot rest well until the reason for their actions has been told to the public. On April 17, 1975, soldiers of a communist group known as the Khmer Rogue, stormed into the capital city of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, and attacked the city, forcing all the citizens into the countryside to work vigorously for the Khmer Rouge. The stories of Samnang Shawn Vann and Sisowath Doung Chanto paint a picture of what it was like to live under this cruel group.
8 May 2014. <http://history1900s.about.com/od/people/a/Pol-Pot.htm> “The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot’s Regime”. Mtholyoke.edu. 11 May 2005. Web.
Daniel Goldhagen (2009) states that in less than four years, Cambodia’s political leaders induced their followers to turn Cambodia’s backwards and regressing society into a massive concentration camp in which they steadily killed victims. Furthermore, a deeper understanding of the Cambodian genocide is provided within Luong Ung’s personal narrative, “First They Killed My Father” (2000). Ung’s memoir is a riveting account of the Cambodian genocide, which provides readers with a personalized account of her family’s experience during the genocide. She informs readers of the causes of the Cambodian genocide and she specifies the various eliminationist techniques used to produce the ideological Khmer vision. Nonetheless, she falls short because
"Pol Pot in Cambodia 1975-1979." The History Place : Genocide in the 20th Century: Pol Pot in Cambodia 1975-1979. The History Place, n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .
Marks, Stephen P. "Elusive Justice For The Victims Of The Khmer Rouge." Journal Of International Affairs 52.2 (1999): 691. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 19 Dec. 2011. .
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 to 750,00 Cambodians through U.S. efforts to destroy suspected North Vietnamese supply lines. This devastation would take its toll on the Cambodian peoples’ morale and would later help to contribute that conflicts that caused the Cambodian genocide. In the 1970’s the Khmer rouge guerilla movement would form. The leader of the Khmer rouge, Pol Pot was educated in France and believed in Maoist Communism. These communist ideas would become important foundations for the ideas of the genocide, and which groups would be persecuted. The genocide it’s self, would be based on Pol Pot’s ideas to bring Cambodia back to an agrarian society, starting at the year zero. His main goal was to achieve this, romanticized idea of old Cambodia, based on the ancient Cambodian ruins, with all citizens having agrarian farming lives, and being equal to each other. Due to him wanting society to be equal, and agrarian based, the victims would be those that were educated, intellectuals, professionals, and minority ethnic g...
Over the years, there have been several horrible genocides. One of the most infamous genocides occurred in Rwanda in 1994. Within three months, approximately 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus were slaughtered. Beginning in April of 1994 a group called the Hutus began to slaughter the Tutsis without any remorse. The genocide was a result of high tensi...
The junta imprisoned, killed and tortured its opponents; dissolved congress; put limitations on the press; and banned political parties. An intelligence service known as DINA was established shortly after the coup. They kept secret detention centres where political prisoners were tortured, murdered or brutalised. A private enterprise economy was installed.
The question of moral validity has plagued societies for millennia. Unsurprisingly, this question afflicted Indonesia between 1965 and 1966. In the early days of October 1965, a group of conspirators took and killed six generals. The disagreement of whom caused this coup caused the killing of more than 80,000 (1,000,000 in some areas) people. This caused a social change from aristocrats to an Indonesian business class. For other peoples around the world, the view of this genocide was a victory over communism. While these killings were clearly morally deplorable, the result was an improved and restructured government; a victory for capitalism at the height of the Cold War.
“From 1975 to 1979 - through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labor - the Khmer Rouge systematically killed an estimated two million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the country's population” (Ung 5). This is a quote from Ung, a survivor of the Cambodian genocide and the author of the book First They Killed My Father. In this quote, Ung talks about four horrific years of her life living under the reign of the Khmer Rouge. During the reign of the Khmer Rouge, millions of innocent lives and those who survived, such as Ung, were left traumatized. Just like Ung, in the book The Gangster We Were All Looking For, the protagonist, a young Vietnamese girl is also left traumatized due to the wake of war in Vietnam.
Pol Pot was born in May 19, 1925 in Kampong Thom Province, French Indochina. Pol joined the Democratic Party of Cambodia in 1954. Then, with the independence of Cambodia took control of the popular revolutionary party in early 1960. This party he renamed as Khmer Rouge with which decided to start a revolt against the Government of Cambodia. In 1970, when he started to fight against US imperialism, he won broad popular support. In 1975, the Civil War ended and Pol Pot began to call himself "number one brother '. His regime banned religion and many educated people were arrested and imprisoned. In 1976, he carried people from Phnom Penh for rural areas, and in this place, he killed about 2 to 3 million people from starvation or executions. In
Some leaders of the Khmer Rouge still to this day deny guilt of the Cambodian genocide. Almost 40 years later they still deny responsibility for the deaths of millions of people. It is a crime in Cambodia to deny that atrocities were committed by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. "Not recognizing the crimes constitutes an insult to the souls of those who died during the [Khmer Rouge] regime, and brings suffering to the surviving family members of the victims," Says government lawmaker Cheam Yeap (The