The Cambodian Genocide: A Tragedy Hidden from the World

2053 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Discuss the Cambodian genocide

Genocide is the mass slaughter of a certain type of people because of who they are. The Cambodian Genocide was the mass slaughtering of people who were foreign, educated people, not Khmer (the native race in Cambodia), as well as other people the Khmer Rouge considered to be enemies. It was one of the most horrific events in modern history, and it was discovered years after it began. It took place over a four-year period, from 1975-1979, and left a profound impact on not only Cambodia, but also the world.
Pol Pot, the leader of the Cambodian Genocide, sought to impose his view of a perfect communist society throughout Cambodia, with everyone completely equal in economic status, class, and job. Pol Pot believed that the only way to create this society was to force everyone in the country to be rural peasants. To do this, he considered everyone who was not a rural peasant working in the fields to be an enemy to him and to the well-being of the country. The Khmer Rouge, the organization headed by Pol Pot, killed or kicked out all of the foreigners and many other types of people the Khmer Rouge believed were their enemies. Millions of people were put in labor camps and were forced to work for hours upon hours with insufficient food and water, and little healthcare.
The Cambodian Genocide started because the Khmer Rouge wanted to create a pure Communist society in Cambodia. In order to do this, they decided to deconstruct the entire country back to its peasant beginnings and eliminate anyone who was above the status of a peasant or was not Cambodian. The Khmer Rouge’s dream of perfect communism ultimately failed, however, because it was impossible for a society to succeed with only one profession. Even rural peasants needed doctors an...

... middle of paper ...

... working in poor conditions with no medicine, and there were no doctors to help with the sickness. Without trained professionals, a country will fall into ruin, like Cambodia did. What happened in Cambodia clearly shows that it is impossible to impose a utopian view on millions of people in a country today. For a country to flourish, it needs people in many different types of roles, including doctors to cure illness, teachers to educate the next generation of citizens, merchants to buy and sell the products created by other citizens, and many more professions. A country today cannot survive if it just has 100% peasants, seeking to survive on their crop production. The Cambodian Genocide also shows the dangers of any government trying to impose racial purity, which has been shown only to lead to many deaths and inhumane acts of cruelty, without any resulting benefit.

Show More
Related

  • Hernan Cortes Trial

    1598 Words  | 4 Pages

    Lawyer: the word genocide, is the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group.

    Read More

  • 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

  • The Holocaust and the Cambodian Genocide: Similar or different? How about Both?

    888 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although the two genocides are quite different at a first glance, they are interestingly similar upon deeper inspection. For starters, the Holocaust is best known for it’s brutal and inhumane treatment of prisoners, such as tattooing a number on their arm against their will and feeding them food that is not even fit for dogs to consume (“Holocaust”). It may be shocking for some people to hear that in Cambodia, it was just as atrocious, maybe even worse. During the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975 most Cambodians were forced to leave their homes on such short notice that numerous families were killed on cite for not evacuating quickly enough. Those ‘lucky’ enough to escape immediate death were forced to work, unpaid, in labor camps until the fatigue wore down their immune system and they died of some wretched disease (“Genocide”). Another intriguing similarity betw...

    Read More

  • Bosnian Genocide Research Paper

    1078 Words  | 3 Pages

    Genocide is the act of killing a lot of people, depending on their race, ethnicity, and religion. There are 8 stages of genocide, which include extermination and denial. The victims of the Bosnian genocide consists of elders, women, men, children, and even babies. The Bosnian genocide is a war between Bosnian Serbians and Bosnian Muslims to which the republic can control Bosnia. Many Serbains deny the fact that his genocide even happened, even though there is scientific proof that this genocide happened.

    Read More

  • Differences Between The Holocaust And Native American Genocide

    1334 Words  | 3 Pages

    The word “genocide” is a general term. It is vague and could be used to group together and refer to a number of very unique events in history. Defined as the systematic murder of a specific group of people, genocides have occurred since ancient times. America’s most famous genocide, and the longest genocide in history, was the Native American Genocide. Considered to have begun the day the Mayflower hit the shore of Massachusetts, and ended in 1924 when the Indian Citizenship Act was past, the Native American Genocide lasted for over four centuries. In the 15th century, over 10 million Native Americans lived on the land that is part of the modern day United States. By 1900, that number was a mere 300,000. Most Americans, however, hardly know

    Read More

  • The Horrors of Genocide: Night, by Elie Wiesel

    1706 Words  | 4 Pages

    To start off with, what is genocide? Genocide is the killing of a massive number of people of in a group. Genocide has not only been practices in the present day, but it has been practiced for m...

    Read More

  • Bosnia-Herzegovina genocide

    1442 Words  | 3 Pages

    Genocide, the systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group. From 1992-1995 that was happening in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, conflict between the three main ethnic groups, the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, resulted in genocide committed by the Serbs against the Muslims in Bosnia.

    Read More

  • Pol Sar And The Khmer Rouge

    679 Words  | 2 Pages

    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).

    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

  • The Cambodian Genocide

    985 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • The Tibetan Genocide

    4115 Words  | 9 Pages

    The Chinese have repeatedly tortured, imprisoned, and murdered Tibetans all for what they claim is national unity. While the oppression of the Tibetan people began in the 1950’s with the invasion of China, it continues just as strongly today. From religious oppression and unfair trials to the torture of nuns and monks, the Chinese abuse even the most reverent aspects of Tibetan culture. Political prisoners, whether they are monks, nuns or lay people, are tortured with utter disregard for human rights. Chinese laws have also been established to eradicate the Tibetan people entirely. Women often must endure forced abortions and sterilization due to Chinese birth policies. Through all of these crimes against humanity, China repeatedly commits acts of genocide as established by the United Nations.

    Read More

  • Rwandan Genocide: Unraveling a Historical Catastrophe

    604 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Rwandan Genocide was a terrible event in history caused by a constantly weakening relationship between two groups of people. The country of Rwanda is located in Africa and consists of multiple groups of people. Majority of Rwanda is Hutu, while a smaller amount of people are Tutsis. The genocide started due to multiple events that really stretched the relationship between the two groups to its end. One of the starting factors was at the end of World War 1. Rwanda was a German colony but then was given to Belgium “who favored the minority Tutsis over the Hutus, exacerbated[exacerbating] the tendency of the few to oppress the many”(History.com). This created a feeling of anger towards the Tutsis, because they had much more power then Hutus.

    Read More

  • The Rwandan Genocide: Factors that Contribute to Genocide

    2659 Words  | 6 Pages

    Genocide is the “deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.” (Dictionary.com, 2010) In 1924, after World War I, Belgian colonists entered Rwanda and allowed the Tutsi dynasty to remain in power. However, after World War II concepts of right and wrong changed. Since the Belgians had been favouring the Tutsis, this change in ethics caused the Belgians to have compassion on the Hutus and promote the Hutu cause, creating tension. (Thompson, 2007) It was the Belgians who cre...

    Read More

  • Essay On The Holocaust Genocide

    1225 Words  | 3 Pages

    What is a genocide? “Genocide is a deliberate, systematic destruction of racial, cultural or political groups. ”(Feldman 29) What is the Holocaust? “Holocaust, the period between 1933-1945 when Nazi Germany systematically persecuted and murdered millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and many other people.

    Read More

  • Cambodian American

    2405 Words  | 5 Pages

    Unfortunately, set aside all of those captured beauty that Cambodia has, at one point in time in its history; darkness devoured this fragile nation and turned it upside down. This peaceful nation was once ruled by the French as part of French Indochina. With the struggled that Cambodian government undertaken to restore balanced and granting their nation’s independence back from the European colonization, they paid a price. The years of sad and worn out history of this nation’s corrupt government, turmoil, and followed by years of civil war thus making them in a state of dire emergence. Furthermore, with their bordering neighbor’s war, Vietnam, with the United States, Cambodia was slowly dragged into the state of darkness during the Nixon Administration. The Nixon administration conducted secret bombings in Cambodia in the early 1970’s because Vietnam forces had their bases camped in the Cambodian province. As a result of this misleading casualty, it led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot. His influence gained many fellow native supports in Cambodia. Pol Pot and his entourage brought ...

    Read More

More about The Cambodian Genocide: A Tragedy Hidden from the World

Open Document