Essay On The Cambodian Genocide

From the dawn of time to even now, genocides have been happening throughout history. Some earlier genocides have not even been recorded or documented. Genocides happen because one group wants complete control and absolute power of another. People can be killed for having different ideals or being different. Knowing this, one could see that genocides only end with senseless and brutal discrimination and death. From 1975 to 1979, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge carried out a genocide in Cambodia killing all people who seemed to oppose them and their communist government (“The Cambodian Genocide”).

It’s hard to imagine that people would support and act upon plans to kill millions of innocent human beings. The Holocaust and Cambodian genocide were two of the most horrific genocides in the history of civilization. The Holocaust and Cambodian genocide has not only similarities but also differences. How they treated their victims, USA involvement, and that they both killed millions of people are some things they share. Differences they include are the people they targeted, how the two leaders took office and lastly where these to genocides took place.

The definition of genocide is killing a large group of people of a certain origin. The Holocaust was in Germany and started in 1933. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were in charge of the Holocaust. The Cambodian Genocide took place in Cambodia. Cambodia is in Southeast Asia (“Cambodian”). Pol Pot was the leader of Khmer Rouge and the group was in charge of the Cambodian Genocide (“Cambodian”). The Cambodian Genocide started in 1975 and ended in 1978 because Khmer Rouge was ended by Vietnam (“Cambodian”). The Holocaust and the Cambodian Genocide are similar in the administrations’ treatment of their victims and in the fact that their victims were desperate for a leader, but different in U.S. involvement and government motivation.

The United States was a bystander because supporting the Khmer Rouge was a safer option for their country. The United States was currently in the Vietnam and Cold Wars, so they were trying to balance power away from Vietnam and the USSR (Springer 2006). The United States was in a right vs. right ethical dilemma. It was right for them to protect their citizens by doing whatever necessary

“How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think” (Hitler, Mein Kampf). As time passed, there has been many times in history where a genocide has occurred. A genocide is a one-sided massacre from one party toward an ethnic or different group of people. As genocides occurred, questions such as “Why do people kill?” and “How can people allow these atrocities to occur?” are asked. There have been many theories made up as people researched the reason behind genocides. Throughout different centuries in history, genocides such as the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the Asian genocide, have occurred because of the negative psychological effects on the people caused by propaganda, corrupted leaders, and differences in ethnic groups.

Many times we may hear but not respond, we see and don’t move and having the ability to take action we don’t even move a finger until the situation is out of control. It’s amazing how ignorant and stubborn the human race can be. This is exactly the response of many nations when it comes to genocide. Genocide is the systematic killing of all the people from a national, ethnic, or religious group. Two of the most recent genocides in history are the genocide of Rwanda and the genocide of 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

and reading the temperature on time could’ve been a difficulty. Another error could be not making the experiment a fair test by stirring or knocking over the beaker. Recording the temperature incorrectly could be an error due to this experiment because as the temperature increases, the red line can sometimes be in between a number and a number so the number has to be rounded off which isn’t very accurate. Using a stopwatch to time each minute that passed could’ve been a difficulty because when reading the temperatures, it can take a while to round off the nearest temperature and therefore, time has already passed a minute. In other words, when the time shows a minute, reading can already take up to a minute and ten seconds. Stirring the beaker of the melted ice could’ve been an error because to do this, it makes the experiment unfair because you have changed the temperature and making the ice melt faster. Knocking over the beaker could’ve also been an error because accidents happen when bodies are not careful of their surroundings.

The term ‘war’ as defined by the Oxford Dictionary is explained as “a state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country” (Oxforddictionaries.com, 2016). The concept of war has created contrasting views on the relationship between war and genocide as well as the effect that war has on genocide. The term ‘genocide’ literally means ‘the killing of a race’ and is arguably the most atrocious crime conceivable (Gunter, 2011). It is a specific term that refers to crimes that are committed against groups with intent to destroy their existence (Ushmm.org, 2016). There are various motives and numerous reasons as to why genocides may occur, however this paper will seek to address the extent to how, if at all, the concept of war being a necessary condition for the occurrence of genocide, as well as looking at correlations between war and genocide using specific examples to determine whether war is a necessary condition or not.

The crime of genocide is one of the most devastating human tragedies throughout the history. And the word genocide refers to an organised destruction to a specific group of people who belongs to the same culture, ethnic, racial, religious, or national group often in a war situation. Similar to mass killing, where anyone who is related to the particular group regardless their age, gender and ethnic background becomes the killing targets, genocide involves in more depth towards destroying people’s identity and it usually consists a fine thorough plan prearranged in order to demolish the unwanted group due to political reasons mostly. While the term genocide had only been created recently in 1943 by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish legal

Genocide, a dire event, has been recurring time and time again throughout history. In the past, there was the Holocaust, where Hitler exterminated over six million Jews based on his anti-semitic views. Elie Wiesel, a Jewish author, has become a very influential man in educating the world of the true events of the Holocaust due to his involvement in the disaster. Presently, a genocide is occurring in the Darfur region of southern Sudan, in which according to Cheryl Goldmark, “a systematic slaughter of non-Arab residents at the the hands of Arab militiamen called Janjaweed” has been taking place since 2003. (1) Not only is genocide a tragic historical event, it also continuously occurs today.

The Cambodian Genocide happened between 1975 and 1979 in Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge, a guerrilla group, over threw the government and started a regime to bring Cambodia back to year zero . The Khmer Rouge called this the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea . Their aim was to purify society from the influence of the west, and to create a communist country . The Khmer Rouge started this by destroying what was left of the old society and executing the wealthy, educated and military people. They banned all outside languages and religion. An estimated figure of 1.7 million Cambodians where killed during this period by the Khmer Rouge .

When I was young I remember moving cities and I thought it was going to be the end of the world for me. One of the thoughts that always went through my mind was what if I do not fit in? or will I be able to make any friends? Luckily for me I was able to speak English and I knew I could communicate with people if I had to. This was not the case for Cambodian refugees when they moved to the United States because the Khmer Rouge was attacking Cambodia. Thousands of people moved to the United States and many of these people were kids who did not have a saying whether they wanted to stay or come with their parents because they could not take care of themselves. Many of these kids are now suffering because they fell into the wrong crowds and committed a crime when they were young and due to the antiterrorism and death penalty act they are now being deported back to Cambodia, which they know nothing about, and some of them do not even know how to speak the language. I will be talking about the Cambodian kids that were affected by their parents moving to the United States and how the antiterrorism and death penalty act has affected some of them.

Dead bodies everywhere you turn. The smell of gunpowder, filth, and death choke your lungs. You wonder everyday whether it will be your last. All your body feels is pain; all your heart feels is emptiness. One might think this is how life was for Jews during the Jewish Holocaust. In reality, this is how life was for many Cambodians during the reign of Pol Pot between 1975 and 1979. This event, known to many as the Cambodian genocide, left a profound mark on the world around us.

If the offender of the law is indeed worthy of being punished, how then would utilitarianism justify the degree to which the individual is punished? With the ultimate ends to punishment being the promotion of the greatest good, the proportions to which coercive force is used are determined via subordinate ends. These subordinate ends define the punishment as only positive as a response to the initial crime - the secondary act of evilness by punishment is what allows the injustice of the crime to be righted, inducing the prospect of a brighter future. Bentham goes on to suggest that these proportions must ensure that the offender loses the motivation to commit future mischief, must be proportionate to the extremeness of the act committed (by