Pol Sar And The Khmer Rouge

679 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay on khmer rouge genocide in cambodia

The Khmer Rouge years was a period of time that devastated all of the small country Cambodia, a story that was so well told by Loung Ung about the Pol Pot regime. The Khmer Rouge years was from 1975 to 1979 (http://www.cambodiatribunal.org). The Khmer Rouge, otherwise known as Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), conquered Cambodia for four years. The Khmer Rouge forced people to work in the fields including children. To make matters worse, the people that were forced to work were also malnourished and were living in grim conditions (http://www.wcl.american.edu).
Saloth Sar, or better known by this alias Pol Pot, was a serial killer. 2 million people in Cambodia died in the years of 1975-1979 and Pol Pot was the reason those people lost their lives. He was the controller of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, otherwise known as the Khmer Rouge. Hélène Lambert from the University of Exeter writes, "[Pol Pot was] often described as a calm, kind, and smiling person on the outside, he was, in fact, a mass murderer." There has been many heated debates over whether or not Pol Pot was the commander for a genocide.
The Pol Pot regime was about racial ideology, the belief that one race is superior to another. For example in the Pol Pot regime, Chinese and Vietnamese communities were focused on for extermination. Also another injured party was people with differing political views of Pol Pot. Pol Pot’s political view was communism. Pol Pot’s purpose was to be the dominant controller. Pol Pot depended on word-of-mouth to divide the citizens into three different divisions. These divisions were “full rights”, “candidates”, and “depositees”. He killed nearly one-quarter of the country’s population. Pol Pot was a very cruel man. He tortured...

... middle of paper ...

...rible for all of Cambodia. Things that happened in the Khmer Rouge years are still around today. In Cambodia it is common for when parents grow of old age and are unable to take care of themselves, their children will take care of them. Since so many people were killed in the Khmer Rouge, those of the elderly that lived most likely no longer have children to take care of them. Another lasting effect of the Pol Pot regime, is the fact that Pol Pot killed anyone who was educated. He killed the educated people because he was worried that they would threaten his power. So Cambodia will now be struggling on educating the Cambodian people. Pol. Pot also wiped out a lot of ethnicity in Cambodia. An author at Regional Geography writes "Cambodia is the least ethnically diverse country in Southeast Asia because of Pol Pot." Cambodia is improving more and more day by day.

Show More
Related

  • French Colonial Strategies in Indochina

    545 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Holocaust vs. Cambodian Genocide

    711 Words  | 2 Pages

    Compared to Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot looks like the good guy! Even though both dictators were incredibly bad Hitler takes the cake for managing to kill and torture over 6 million people. On the other hand Pot wanted to make everyone work on one huge federation of collective farms. The Holocaust was an attempt by Hitler and the Nazi party to take over Europe and create a “Master Race” (“Holocaust,” “Some”). The Holocaust lasted from 1933 to 1945, when Hitler finally committed suicide in fear of being captured by American troops. This genocide took place all throughout Europe. It started in Germany and spread all the way to Great Britain. (“Some”). The Cambodian Genocide was an attempt by the Khmer Rouge to take over and centralize all Cambodian farmers (“Cambodian”). This genocide lasted from 1975 to 1978 when the Khmer rouge was finally overthrown by the Vietnamese (“Cambodian”). The Cambodian genocide happened in Cambodia, a country in south-east Asia. Khmer Rouge, started in 1960 and their leader Pot are the reason for the horrible genocide (“Cambodian”). Both Genocides are different in there own ways. The goal of the Cambodian genocide was to revert back to “year zero” and to make everyone work on a huge collection of farms. Whereas the goal of the Holocaust was to create a “master race” which ended up killing over 6 million people. These genocides are also similar in many ways, two of which are their government overthrows and who they killed.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Matalo And Stalin

    1866 Words  | 4 Pages

    This essay will concentrate on the comparison and analysis of two communist figures: Mao Zedong, leader of the Communist Party in China, and Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union. The main focus of this paper will be to explore each figure’s world view in depth and then compare and contrast by showing their differences and similarities. Joseph Stalin was a realist dictator of the early 20th century in Russia. Before he rose to power and became the leader of the Soviet Union, he joined the Bolsheviks and was part of many illegal activities that got him convicted and he was sent to Siberia (Wood, 5, 10). In the late 1920s, Stalin was determined to take over the Soviet Union (Wiener & Arnold, 1999).

    Read More

  • Khmer Rouge Regime: Repression of Intellectuals 1975-1979

    1122 Words  | 3 Pages

    On December 25th, 1978 Vietnam organized a invasion of Cambodia. On January 7th, 1979, Phnom Penh was no longer controlled by Pol Pot, who fled to Thailand with the remains of his Khmer Rouge regime. A new government, created by Khmer Rouge defectors, was instituted. Once Pol Pot lost control of the capital of Cambodia he lost a substantial amount of power and no longer could face the people of Cambodia and the Vietnam troops head-on. He decided to flee to Thailand to continue his plans of creating a communist government in Cambodia. For the next 17 years he continued fighting Cambodian governments but eventually lost complete control of the Khmer Rouge. Before he could be tried for what he did throughout the years 1975-1979 he died of a heart attack (i.e. heart attack was caused by a

    Read More

  • Two Similar but Different Genocides: The Holocaust and Cambodian Genocide

    1100 Words  | 3 Pages

    "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. .

    Read More

  • Pol Pot, The Khmer Rouge, and Cambodian Genocide

    1133 Words  | 3 Pages

    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, he ruthlessly imposed an extremist system to restructure Cambodia. Populations of Cambodia's inner-city districts were vacated from their homes and forced to walk into rural areas to work. All intellectuals and educated people were eradicated and together with all un-communist aspects of traditional Cambodian society. The remaining citizens were made to work as laborers in various concentration camps made up of collective farms. On these farms, people would harvest the crops to feed their camps. For every man, woman, and child it was mandatory to labor in the fields for twelve to fifteen hours each day. An estimated two million people, or twenty-one percent of Cambodia's population, lost their lives and many of these victims were brutally executed. Countless more of them died of malnourishment, fatigue, and disease. Ethnic groups such as the Vietnamese, Chinese, and Cham Muslims were attacked, along with twenty other smaller groups. Fifty percent of the estimated 425,000 Chinese living in Cambod...

    Read More

  • What are the Causes of Inequality?

    2446 Words  | 5 Pages

    Prak, K, B, & Schuette, S. (2007). Gender and Women in politics in Cambodia. Henrich Boll

    Read More

  • The Cambodian Genocide

    985 Words  | 2 Pages

    Cambodia would become a battle ground for American troops fighting in Vietnam for four years; the war would kill up to 750,000 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 to the conflicts that caused the Cambodian genocide. In the 1970’s the Khmer Rouge guerrilla 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.

    Read More

  • Khmer Rouge's Tragic Quest for Equality

    327 Words  | 1 Pages

    Pol Pot was a Cambodian Revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge outbreak that led to many many deaths. Before Pot began all of this craziness he went to college on full scholarship to study radio electronics. He quickly became vastly interested in Marxism and ended up losing his scholarships. Pol Pot then returned to Cambodia and joined the underground Communist movement. (The History Place; Genocide

    Read More

  • Manipulation of Youth by Dictators

    1303 Words  | 3 Pages

    Influencing people at a young age is one tactic used by Hitler in Nazi Germany and by Big Brother in 1984 to keep the future of their nations devoted. This tactic is made evident in Nazi Germany and in 1984 by the youth organizations set up by both dictators’. These organizations make their youth feel like they are involved. Both Hitler and Big Brother have ways to brainwash the youth into following. The Spies in 1984 and the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany grow up living the way that their dictator had set up and for the rest of their lives they will be faithful and devoted; it’s the only way that they know. These tactics are especially cruel because the youth have no way of knowing what’s going to happen, it just seems like the right thing to do at the time. The reason Hitler and Big Brother’s manipulation of the youth is so intriguing is because it is purely elementary.

    Read More

  • Individuals During Stalin's Regime

    861 Words  | 2 Pages

    During Stalin’s regime, the individual Russian was the center of his grand plan for better or worse. Stalin wanted all of his people to be treated the same. In the factory the top producer and the worst producer made the same pay. He wanted everyone to be treated as equals. His goal to bring the Soviet Union into the industrial age put tremendous pressure on his people. Through violence and oppression Stalin tried to maintain an absurd vision that he saw for the Soviet Union. Even as individuals were looked at as being equals, they also were viewed as equals in other ways. There was no one who could be exempt when the system wanted someone imprisoned, killed, or vanished. From the poorest of the poor, to the riches of the rich, everyone was at the mercy of the regime. Millions of individuals had fake trumped up charges brought upon them, either by the government or by others who had called them o...

    Read More

  • Similarities Between First They Killed My Father And Macbeth

    774 Words  | 2 Pages

    The reader has a front-row seat to the trials and turmoils of the people and feels the pain of the characters of the nonfiction. Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge militia invade Cambodia, imposing on the Cambodians, the system of Communism and making them refugees in their own land. “The base people will train us to be hard workers and teach us to have pride in our country. Only then will we be worthy to call ourselves Khmer,” (Ung 58). Pol Pot and his people hold the belief that the citizens of Phnom Penh did not have any pride in their roots because of the predominant Western values in the city. Fate in this case refers to the carefree Cambodian regime that Pol Pot felt was evil. Pol Pot uses free will to exert his authority over the universe by imposing Communist values on the people. Pol Pot’s actions proves that humanity is basically good until fate steps

    Read More

  • Cambodia

    702 Words  | 2 Pages

    Settled in the end of the fifth century, two groups established themselves in what is now present day Cambodia. The Champa controlled the central and southern part of Vietnam and the Funan is the southernmost part Vietnam and present-day Cambodia. Influences from both China and India were obvious as dance and music spread throughout the area. Ruling on its own till 1864 when the French absorbed it into French Indochina Along with Laos and Vietnam. For nearly a century, the French exploited Cambodia commercially, and demanded power over politics, economics, and social life. It was not until a leader Norodom Sihanouk proclaimed Cambodia's independence in 1949 which was later granted in 1953. Cambodia fell into chaos during the 1970’s as General Lon Nol and his connections to the Khmer Rouge brought Cambodia into a genocidal age. For a decade Cambodia was surrounded by despair and carnage until the reign of the Khmer Rouge ended in 1979. Slowly rebuilding of the nation began as outside countries and organization such as the United Nation helped to get Cambodia back on its feet. Plans were made for general elections by 1993 which lead to the constitutional monarchy that the country has today. With its cyclical and oppressive history, Cambodia future is optimistic with the economy growing rapidly due to industries such as tourism, textiles, oil and the traditional farming. Slowly the nation reaches to find its place among the other powerhouses in Southeast Asia and around the world.

    Read More

  • Destalinization

    2948 Words  | 6 Pages

    Through this program, he ruled the minority nations of the USSR such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan more strictly. This policy of expansion also helped Stalin seize a large portion of Poland, and it was done under the guise that it was to "enrich the nation." Stalin established a secret police force which was unyielding and went about it's business with an iron fist, bringing down dissenters, revolutionaries, and those that cheated in collectivization.

    Read More

  • Philippine War

    579 Words  | 2 Pages

    I don’t believe the Philippine War was justified. There are more ways than war to solve the annexation of the Philippines. I agree on some of the policies, but not all of the policies, that were in place during that time period.

    Read More

More about Pol Sar And The Khmer Rouge

Open Document