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Cambodian genocide historical context
The causes of the cambodian genocide essay
Cambodian genocide historical context
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Throughout the years 1975-1979 the Communist Khmer Rouge Regime party held control of the Cambodia and instituted the Angkar government system. In this system evolution and change was frowned upon. Intellectuals like students, teachers, monks, government officials, military workers, etc were considered corrupt. In the eyes of the Angkar, a model citizen was a peasant farmer who lived in the countryside and did not own any type of technology or possess any Western influence. Intellectuals (i.e. people who lived in cities like Phnom Penh) were forced to evacuate their homes and move into villages in the countryside. These villages were controlled by village chiefs and soldiers from the Khmer Rouge regime. The new villagers were forced to work long hours in the rice fields and the community gardens with …show more content…
very little food (i.e. a small bowl of rice and one salted fish). In order to survive the families had to scavenge for food, other than what was given to them. This led to many people dying of starvation and disease. Along with death by starvation and disease many innocent Cambodians were tortured killed by the Khmer Rouge soldiers. The Khmer Rouge soldiers would take groups of 10-15 Cambodians away from villages and work camps. Once they were far enough from the villages, without any chance of people witnessing their crimes, they would line up the Cambodians in a row and execute them one by one.
Some Cambodians were shot. Others were hit over the head with hammers. Some Cambodians were executed by having their heads and other body parts cut off. At the end of the Cambodian Genocide (i.e. 1975-1979) over 2,400,000 innocent people were killed by the Khmer Rouge.
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
drug overdose). The majority of the Khmer Rouge, along with Pol Pot did not face severe consequences for their actions. Many of the government officials who were apart of the new government were responsible for the deaths of millions and were never tried for their actions. Only a select few of the communist Khmer Rouge regime were tried in court for their actions. Others were able to live the rest of their lives freely in Cambodia, without ever being punished for the horrifying acts they committed. An example of this is the Head of State and leader of the Angka Loeu from 1976 to 1979 (i.e. Khieu Samphan). Samphan was previously educated in France and joined a Khmer Student Intellectual group in the 1950s. As leader Samphan was the public face of the Khmer Rouge regime. Samphan was interviewed by an Italian magazine after a conference in Colombo (i.e. in August 1976). In the interview he admitted that a million “war criminals” had died since the Khmer Rouge took control. These so called “war criminals” were actually innocent people that the Khmer Rouge had murdered. It had been only a year into the genocide and over a million innocent lives were lost. A few months ago (i.e. February 2016) Samphan was brought to court (i.e. International Tribunal=Cambodia’s UN-backed tribunal) to be tried for his crimes against humanity and for participation in a genocide. Samphan believed he should not be held responsible for the crimes committed during the Cambodian genocide. In court he stated, " ‘It is easy to say that I should have known everything, I should have understood everything and thus I could have intervened or rectified the situation at the time,’ he told the court. ‘Do you really think that that was what I wanted to happen to my people? The reality was that I did not have any power,’ he said.” (BBC World News) Previously to the trial, Samphan was living freely. He did not have to face the consequences of his actions until more than 3 decades after the Khmer Rouge lost control of Cambodia. In his case justice was eventually served but many other former Khmer Rouge members have been able to live out their lives freely without having to deal with the consequences of their actions (i.e. A life sentence in jail). Some Khmer Rouge soldiers that were able to live out their lives free of corporal punishment include Leng Sary, a Khmer Rouge who died before ever being convicted for his crimes, and Leng Thirith, a Khmer Rouge who was declared unable to stand trial. At the time Khieu Samphan was tried for his actions ex-Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea was also tried for the same offenses (i.e. crimes against humanity and participation in a genocide). During the years of the genocide Nuon Chea was second in line to Pol Pot, usually referred to “Brother Number Two”. As second in command he served as Chief ideologist and had great influence over the ideas and thinking of the Angkar government system. Many believe Nuon Chea was directly to blame for the long work hours and starvation in the Cambodian countryside. After the Khmer Rouge lost control he went north-west of Cambodia with his other “brothers”. In 1998 he was granted a pardon as part of a peace deal by Prime Minister Hun Sen. International tension led to his arrest in 2007 as well as being put ons trial. Nuon Chea denied the allegations against him declaring that he did not tell Khmer Rouge soldiers “to mistreat or kill people, to deprive them of food or commit any genocide" (BBC World News). Towards the end of the trial Nuon Chea expressed his remorse for the crimes committed throughout the Cambodian genocide. He felt responsible for the damage to his country but never admitted to the allegations set forth against him. As you can see, many Khmer Rouge leaders were not brought to justice. The few that were denied the had any knowledge of what was going on during the Cambodian genocide. As a society we can combat the corruptness of war and genocide by educating ourselves and being aware of what is going on in countries outside of America.
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.
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...
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.
Imagery and politics are two closely related concepts. “Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be” (McLuhan, 1971). The image has the power to make or break the politician. The impact of imagery also applies to the Government as a whole. The image created by the government influences the support of the population; because of this correlation, information regarding government affairs goes through filters; information that could negatively impact the image of the government may not be provided to the public depending on how important it may be for the general population to know. In the beginning of the Vietnam War, Laos was declared a neutral zone at a conference in Geneva by the United States and the Soviet Union (Jones, 2007). As the disputes about Laos’ future government structure continued, the United States believed it was time to take action and continue their fight against communism (Young; Buzzanco, 2006). The Americans were fighting the Cold War for the containment of communism and to make the world safe for democracy. If Laos became a communist country, communism would not be contained; this led to the Secret War. American officials did everything in their power to keep the information regarding the Secret War in Laos hidden. The prime reason for failing to acknowledge the public of the happenings in Laos, was to aid the government in the protection of their image. Many American citizens were against the government because of the war in Vietnam, which had started 10 years prior to the Secret War; knowing about Laos would give the general population more reason to protest. Furthe...
Most people in the world have not heard of the genocide going on in Laos today. Most people have not taken notice, read about it or bother to spend more than thirty seconds of their lives learning about it. The world has managed to almost entirely ignore the genocide of the Hmong people in Laos for over 30 years and still allows this crime against humanity to continue. Since the 1970s, the ethnic Hmong people in the Southeast Asian country of Laos have been persecuted by the Laotian government (Malakunas, 2000). This harassment is a direct result of the Hmong’s link to the Central Intelligence Agency in the United States in what has become to be known as the Secret War (Malakunas, 2000). The Laotian government officials directing this massacre have not been detained due to lack of evidence (Sommer P.4).
"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. .
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 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...
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.
" Rejoice O young man in thy youth..." (Ecclesiastics). This quote begins the movie, Platoon, and serves as an ironic comment on what is to follow. Both the interviews in the text and the movie, Platoon, attempt to explain a significant human experience, one that was essentially a metamorphosis for many who took part in it. Vietnam was crucial to all who experienced it. The one constant thing is change.
In the year of 1969, the president at this time in history, Richard Nixon and the Secretary of State, henry Kissinger authorized a top secret bombing campaign is eastern Cambodia, which harbored the Vietnamese bases and part of the ‘Ho Chi Minh” trail. In the year of 1970 the neutralist Prince Sihanouk, who led the country as head of the state and had managed at the time to keep Cambodia out of war in Vietnam and Laos, was overthrown in a coup by Lon Nol. A civil war between the year of 1970 to the year of 1975 between the American-backed Lon Nol government and the North Vietnamese soldiers and their Cambodian communist allies, the Khmer Rouge, killed tens of thousands of people and displaced over two million, mostly to the capital Phnom Penh, but also to Thailand and Vietnam. Indiscriminate American saturation bombing of the countryside in 1969-1973 a show of the American war in Vietnam devastated eastern Cambodia, also known as Kampuchea, forcing many villagers to flee the countryside or join the Khmer Rouge. The United States of America dropped more bombs on Cambodia, also known as Kampuchea, than it
Another similarity between the ideology of the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge is physical destruction. This technique not only indicates the main murder plan of the perpetrators, but also displays how they destroy their enemies by starvation, long hours of overwork, and diseases. During the Holocaust, the Nazis sorted out the weak and useless Jews, kept and forced other Jews to work ceaselessly. Along with that, the Nazis starved their targets or made them exhausted to death. According to the article “Genocide - A Modern Crime”, Raphael Lemkin states that the Nazis cut off Jews’ nutritional ingredients by giving them just a little amount of food rations, such as they only allowed protein rations of 20 per cent to the Jews. Moreover, the Jewish people
We live in a world where deaths of celebrities and government officials take front page news, and are supported by fundraisers, and memorials in the memory of these people. Not to mention the countless internet posts about them. Two million innocent people were tortured and killed in cold blood just as digital cameras were becoming a part of our everyday life. This is too recent to forget about the wrongdoings that these people were put through by their dictator, Pol Pot. This genocide shows some similarities to the South African Apartheid that segregated races for the belief that one race was superior to the others. During the Genocide of 2 million Cambodian citizens in 1975, many civil liberties were violated through no fault of their own. They were taken away from their homes, separated by their family and segregated in order to create the perfect race of Cambodians , with no care for the well being of the general people. During this “year zero” the goals were to isolate Cambodia, purify it of western society, capitalism, and religious diversity. This destroyed any ethnic diversity, and cultural identity, which violates many civil rights on its own. The mass relocation of the Cambodian population from their families and homes violated their civil liberties. This is because as a citizen of a country you trust your leaders to provide you with freedom, not take everything you worked for away. This is morally wrong and made the lives of these people very difficult.
Once American troops left Cambodia, the time known as the Khmer Rouge era started for Cambodia. This era contained four years of Pol Pot having control over the terrifying army. As he has control over this army, he leads them into Phnom Penh and starts the mass killing known as The Killing Fields. This area of land which was once a torturing ground and killing fields, is now the biggest tourist attraction in Cambodia. The goal of the Khmer Rouge was not to eliminate the Cambodian race but instead was to teach them to become loyal communists. As with all attempts at implementing communism, it was a total failure.
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.