The Changed Out By The Khmer Rouge And The Cambodian Genocide

Ever since the actions in Cambodia occurred, it has been debated whether it was an actual genocide. The general definition of genocide is the purposeful and methodical execution of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia demonstrated that a government can be guilty of genocide against its own nation. The radical communist party led by Pol Pot took over Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. After 1979, the Khmer Rouge left a traumatized Cambodian culture that continues to undergo the repercussions of the genocide. People over the age of forty in Cambodia have stories to tell of fear, cruelty, hunger and the loss of family members. However, the Cambodian government is not making an effort to recognize the negative occurrences that have posed itself in the history of their culture.

Vietnam eventually overthrew the Khmer Rouge and effectively installed a socialist regime consisting of Khmer Rouge defectors. Most members of the Khmer Rouge escaped and fled to Thailand to receive assistance from the western countries. The Soviet Union would end up fighting the Khmer Rouge with help from China and Vietnam for over a decade. Due to economic sanctions that the U.S. placed on Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge had to withdraw their troops and leave. Afterward, a peace agreement was signed and a coalition government was formed and former monarch, Prince Sihanouk, was elected to run. Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge until 1997, when he was placed under house arrest until he died of natural causes without any charges being pressed against him (“The Cambodian Genocide”). The Khmer Rouge lasted until 1999, when most of it’s members died off or been arrested (“The Cambodian Genocide). After the genocide, the world was silent and refused to talk about it. Craig Etcheson, a Cambodia expert from George Mason University, felt that “For many years, their was a virtual taboo on even speaking of the Khmer Rouge, as if their words were … a malevolent spirit lurking in the corner of every room (Hume and Coren). Most of the Cambodian citizens were too afraid to speak up because they did not want to relive the horrors of what occurred. In essence, the Cambodian genocide was one of many genocides throughout history that share similarities with other

Did you know that one and a half to three million people died in the genocide by the Khmer Rouge which was led by Pol pot? The Khmer Rouge was a organization that took over the country of Cambodia and forced their people to live in villages, that were controlled by them. The Khmer Rouge had beliefs that modern day items such as technology, jobs, and other necessities were a negative stimulus to a person's life. In the memoir, First they killed my father a young girl named Loung Ung tells her story of how the genocide affected her life. The book starts off with her and her family in Phnom Penh, before the Khmer Rouge takeover, which occurred in 1975 from 1979.

Later that same year, Pot and the Khmer Rouge took control over Cambodia. Pot wasted no time in starting his mission to reconstruct Cambodia. He thought that all the educated people needed to be killed (Melicharova). Also he thought that all noncommunist aspects of Cambodia needed to be wiped out. All rights you had were now gone. Religion was banned and if you were any kind of leader among the Buddhist monks, you were killed instantly (Melicharova). All kids were taken away and sent to work in the fields (Melicharova). If anyone was currently working and had a job, they were immediately killed along with their family members. It got so bad that you could be killed for just laughing, crying, and knowing another language. The Khmer Rouge motto was “To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss” (Melicharova). If you were lucky enough to escape death, you were put into the fields working usually from 4am to 10pm unpaid (“Pol”). From lack of food and sleep, people often became very ill which sadly led to death.

In 1975, The Khmer Rouge became the ruling political party of Cambodia after overthrowing the Lon Nol government. Following their leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge imposed an extreme form of social engineering on Cambodian society. They wanted to form an anti-modern, anti-Western ideal of a restructured “classless agrarian society'', a radical form of agrarian communism where the whole population had to work in collective farms or forced labor projects. The Khmer Rouge revolutionary army enforced this mostly with extreme violence. The book “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers”, written by Luong Ung, is the author’s story of growing up during this time period. She was five years old when the Khmer Rouge came

The Khmer Rouge forces took over Cambodia, and evacuated the nation's cities. They emptied schools, hospitals, factories and abolished all forms of money and wages. Religion, popular culture, and all forms of self expression were forbidden. They were forced into the countryside to do forced labor, and got less than 90 grams of rice a day. Where most people died from fatigue, disease, execution, and starvation. Now people of Cambodia are exchanging this terrible genocide for healing. Trying to find peace and a resolution for all those who have lost loved ones, or encountered this terrible genocide

There exists a country in Southern Asia, known as Cambodia. This is a small and poor country that experienced dramatic changes in the past century. The Cambodian, or Khmer, society was a very capitalistic country consisted a small population of the rich and a large majority of the poor. The wealth gap between the rich and the poor proved to be fatal. This unreliable economic system soon became the cause of the Khmer Civil War in 1967. This civil war was started by the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), who later renamed themselves to Khmer Rouge. Led by Pol Pot, this Kampuchea party was made up of mainly the lower and middle class who greatly despised the rich, who they believed shared a narcissistic view and an extreme corruption. The Khmer Rouge was able to defeat the Khmer Republic and took over

The Cambodian Genocide initially started during the vietnam war. Cambodia was practically in the middle of it working neutral. They still got bombed many times though, mostly from the US and communism eventually began trying to change something but what really happened was the Cambodian Genocide of the 20th century. The genocide ended with over 2,000,000 deaths. (P.P.I.C.)

In the 1960’s a group named the Khmer Rouge surfaced, but was with few members. They were led by Pol Pot, a man who would soon bring terror to all Cambodians. Their goal was to bring Cambodia into a primal state, where everyone

In the years of 1975 to 1979, Pol Pot became the head of the most murderous revolution of our time. His communist regime with the Khmer Rouge created one of the largest, yet greatly under-looked atrocities of the time. The genocide in his Democratic Kampuchea has created a death toll that could be as high as 3,000,000 people, or 25% of the country's population. (Chandler, 1999; Cambodia Genocide) In an attempt to refashion his country, "people were simply sacrificed to our struggle, not killed," as Pol Pot himself stated. (Pol Pot: Life of a Tyrant, 2000)

They turned the whole country into a detention centre which due to the crimes led to a graveyard for the many people killed there. The Khmer Rouge was led by Pol Pot which was surprisingly born in Cambodia. As short as a couple days after the Khmer Rouge took charge, they had 2 million people in Phnom Penh and surrounding cities to take part in agricultural work, which resulted in thousands of people dying in the move. They wanted to transform Cambodia into a country in which there was no rich people, no poor people, and no exploitation. In result to achieve what they wanted they; demolished money, free markets, normal schooling, private property, foreign clothing styles, religious practices, and traditional Khmer culture.

A genocide is the systematic extermination of an entire social, racial, or political group or nation, specifically those of a particular ethnicity. While the genocide in Cambodia is not as widely recognized as that of Rwanda or the Holocaust, millions of Cambodian citizens were murdered between the years of 1975 and 1979 under the control of the Khmer Rouge. The government depopulated cities and forcibly relocated citizens to collective farms known as Killing Fields because of the unspeakable amount of deaths of all ages that occurred there. Approximately 14,000 lives were taken in these fields due to the stringent rules placed upon the citizens. The Khmer Rouge advocated for social equality and transformed Cambodia into a pre-industrialized nation centered around agriculture. The loss of millions of lives led to significant demographic changes, ranging from an increase in the amount of elderly, homeless citizens, and to a decrease in ethnic diversity across the nation. The dictatorship simultaneously lessened the culture and identity of coming generations due to the execution of artists and musicians who brought forth important aspects of tradition. The destruction of infrastructure also contributed to the limitations of postwar Cambodia. In summary, The Khmer Rouge carried out a genocide that strongly influenced the demographics, culture, and infrastructure of Cambodian society.

There are many genocides that people are not aware of. One of them is the attempted genocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge was able to gain power and remain in control of Cambodia for years without interference because they isolated the country from any foreign influence. Other countries had no idea what was happening inside Cambodia until years later. The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot, wanted to create their own ideal communist society. So how did The Khmer Rouge gain so much power and control? Some argue that Pol Pot was the only one responsible for the power and control gained by the Khmer Rouge. On the other hand, others say that the notion of social hierarchy was

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 .

The Cambodian Genocide was the result of imperialism, ethnic supremacy, ultra-nationalism, anti-colonialism, a power grab, and religion. It began with the Cambodian people struggling against French colonization and grew in inspiration from Vietnam (end genocide). The French believed that Cambodia was a gateway into China to expand their trade with Southeast Asia. The French occupied southern Vietnam and wanted to expand their territory. There were many civil wars and invasions in Cambodia fought between the Vietnamese and Thai, and it greatly affected Cambodia. While the French did help Cambodia become independent and grew their infrastructure, while exploiting Cambodian labor, they failed to educate Cambodian people and establish a solid and effective judiciary system (Cambodia tribunal). Thus began their feelings of anti-colonialism. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. used Cambodia as a base to regroup, but also bombed the country to kill suspected Viet Cong targets. This began their feelings of imperialism and ultra-nationalism. The Khmer Rouge began feeling great animosity towards the West for their influenced corruption to Cambodian land and its people. Between January and August of 1973, 300,000 Cambodians were killed by American bombers that had joined forces with Lon Nol, head of the Khmer Republic.