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Baylor University Institute for Oral History

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The Khmer Rouge took control of the Cambodian government in 1975, with the goal of turning the country into a communist agrarian utopia. In reality, they emptied the cities and evacuated millions of people to labor camps where they were starved and abused.

Doctors, teachers and other educated people, as well as monks, the rich, and anyone perceived to be in opposition were tortured and killed.

It is estimated that between 1.7 and 2 million Cambodians died during the 4 year reign of the Khmer Rouge, with little to no outcry from the international community.

Precursors to Genocide: Rise of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot

The Communist Party of Kampuchea, informally known as the Khmer Rouge, referencing the majority ethnicity of the country and red as the color of communism, was originally born out of the struggle against French colonization and was influenced by the Vietnamese. The movement was fueled by the first Indochina War in the 1950s, evolving into an official party in 1968 and grew over the next 20 years.

In the years leading up to the Khmer Rouge's regime, the neighboring Vietnam War spilled over into Cambodia. U.S. troops used Cambodia as a regrouping zone in addition to bombing parts of the country to destroy suspected Viet Cong targets, setting the foundation for animosity toward the West.

In March 1970, Marshal Lon Nol, backed by pro-American associates, staged a successful coup to depose Prince Sihanouk as the head of state. The Khmer Rouge headed by Pol Pot, allied itself with Sihanouk, setting the stage to become a major player in the civil war that followed.

With help from the Vietnamese, the Khmer Rouge began beating Lon Nol's forces on the battlefields. And their growth was aided by the fact that Lon Nol's Khmer Republic government, with assistance from the U.S., dropped about a half million tons of bombs on the country, killing as many as 300,000 people between January and August of 1973, further disenchanting them from the West.

On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized control of the country's capital city, Phnom Penh, effectively ousting the Lon Nol government. They immediately began emptying the city's population into labor camps in the countryside, where physical abuse, disease, exhaustion, and starvation were extremely prevalent.

Their policies were radical adaptations of Maoist and Marxist-Leninist theories, attempting to transform Cambodia into a rural, classless society comprised of collectivized farms. The country's name was changed to Democratic Kampuchea in 1976 and Pol Pot declared it "Year Zero" as he began building his new republic.

The hypocrisy of the Khmer Rouge can be directly seen in their leadership, as many of the higher ranking officials were university-educated. In particular was "Brother Number One" - Pol Pot himself. Born as Saloth Sar in 1925, he came from a small village roughly 100 miles north of Phnom Penh. His family was relatively affluent and owned 50 acres of rice paddy, roughly 10 times the national average. He attended a French Catholic primary school in Phnom Penh until 1949, when he moved to Paris for post-secondary education and became active in communist groups.

Genocide Begins

The Khmer Rouge regime was extremely brutal. The regime generally singled out doctors, teachers, monks, journalists, the rich, artists, anyone with an education, and ethnic or religious minorities. But they also executed people who could no longer work or make the journey to the camps, those perceived to be in opposition to the party (whether or not this was true), as well as the families of those were deemed undesirable so that they could not be chased down for revenge.

Unlike in other genocides or conflicts, no one was immune from being branded an enemy of the state. Even if one was considered to be on the right side that could change the next day - many Khmer Rouge members were also killed during purges.

Children and babies were not exempt from their cruelty; it was often noted "to stop the weeds you must also pull up their roots." Anyone affiliated with Lon Nol's regime or military was also immediately killed.

No evidence was needed in order to send one to prison and people often fabricated their confessions of various crimes, with the belief that this would end their torment. In reality, they were more often than not executed once they gave up a list of names of new people to arrest.

In the beginning, executions were not necessary - starvation served as an effective tool to dispose of undesirable populations, but as more and more people were sent to prison, the Khmer Rouge moved over to a system of "killing fields," establishing hundreds all over Cambodia.

As the genocide progressed, survival was determined by one's ability to do work on the collective farms. This meant many of Cambodia's elderly, handicapped, ill, and children became targets due to their inability to undertake harsh manual labor.

Money, free markets, schools, private property, foreign styles of clothing, religious practices, and other aspects of traditional Khmer culture were abolished, and buildings such as schools, pagodas, and government properties were turned into prisons, stables, camps, and granaries. Family relationships were heavily criticized, and the Khmer Rouge insisted that everyone consider "Angka" (translated to the Organization, referring to the top level of the regime) as their mother and father. Child soldiers were a huge tool of the Khmer Rouge, as they were easy to control and would follow orders without hesitation, to the point where many were forced to shoot their own parents.

International Response

The international community was largely silent during the course of the genocide. Neither the U.S. nor Europe called attention to the genocides as they were happening, although scholars and others in the West tried to bring attention to the atrocities being committed. At this time the U.S. had just lost the war in Vietnam, resulting in the government's reluctance to involve itself in the region again. While their public stance against the killing gradually strengthened, it did not amount to action. It wasn't until the regime was overthrown that the atrocities that had been committed gained the focus of the international media. However, this still did not lead to an international investigation.

The killing fields were sites set up all over the country where the Khmer Rouge took people to be killed once they could no longer work, had "confessed" to their alleged crimes, or simply just were not seen as being useful anymore. It is estimated that over one million people were killed at these sites and were buried in mass graves.

Today many of the killing fields have been excavated to give the victims a proper burial but some are also inaccessible due to landmines. One of the more famous ones is Choeung Ek located on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Here people were taken for execution after enduring torture and interrogation at the S-21 prison, a former high school. It has been turned into a memorial site for visitors to learn about the genocide and pay their respects to the victims.

In 1984, a movie entitled " The Killing Fields " was released. It documented the horrifying conditions that Cambodians were forced to live in through the stories of American journalist Sydney Schanberg and his Cambodian colleague Dith Pran. When the Khmer Rouge takes Phnom Penh, Schanberg is able to evacuate but Pran is not, and he is eventually arrested. The movie shows the ordeal he is put through and his harrowing escape. For many outside of the country, this was their first look at what the Khmer Rouge regime was like.

Fall of the Khmer Rouge

Clashes with Vietnam broke out in 1977 and on January 7, 1979 Vietnam invaded Cambodia, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge and installing a socialist regime comprised of Khmer Rouge defectors. The rest of the party fled west into the jungles along the Thai border, carrying out guerilla attacks against the Vietnamese.

Many of the Khmer Rouge's members escaped to Thailand, where they received aid from Western countries. Soviet-bloc countries also sought to keep Cambodia's seat at the UN, and the U.S. voted in favor of this too. While they did not necessarily condone the Khmer Rouge's actions, they also wanted to show their disapproval of Vietnam's presence in Cambodia, one of many ways that Cold War politics fueled decision making.

For another decade, the Khmer Rouge fought the Vietnam-backed government with support from China and the Soviet Union. The violence and instability of this period result in the deaths of thousands of Cambodians, as well as a large influx of hundreds of thousands refugees into Thailand, still traumatized by their experiences under the Khmer Rouge and in search of food, medical care, and security.

In 1989, Vietnam withdrew their troops due to economic sanctions the U.S. had placed on Cambodia and a lack of aid from the Soviet Union (their main supporter). A temporary coalition government was formed and in 1991 a peace agreement was signed between opposing parties. Elections were set for 1993, and the former monarch, Prince Sihanouk, was elected.

Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge as an insurgency until 1997 when he was arrested and placed under house arrest. The organization continued to exist until 1999, by which point most members had defected, been arrested, or died.

On August 13, 1978, members of the Khmer Rouge unexpectedly attacked and kidnapped Kerry Hamill, John Dawson Dewhirst and Stuart Glass - three friends linked by their love of rowing - after their ship was inadvertently blown into the dangerous waters of Cambodia. Glass was immediately shot while Hamill and Dewhirst were taken as hostages into the notorious S-21 prison.

Brother Number One, directed by New Zealand filmmaker Annie Goldson, reveals Rob Hamill's intimate journey to forgiveness as he testifies at the Cambodia War Crimes Tribunal on behalf of his brother, Kerry Hamill.

Through real footage of the trial, viewers are provided an emotional connection with Rob Hamill as he confronts Comrade Duch, the Prison Chief of S-21 and the man that brutally tortured and murdered his brother.

The title of the documentary offers compelling insight as well. The double entendre of Brother Number One not only refers to Kerry, the first of three brothers born to the Hamill family, but also to Pol Pot, the main political leader of the Cambodia genocide, who was known as "Brother Number One" in Communist propaganda.

Life after the Khmer Rouge

Rebuilding the country was extremely difficult as there was little foreign aid and all existing infrastructure had been destroyed by Pol Pot's regime. For a long time, the country did not have any doctors, teachers, engineers, or other professionals because they had all been executed.

PTSD was very prevalent among survivors, though it largely went untreated throughout the 1990s due to the lack of healthcare professionals in the country, as well as a tradition of silence surrounding the atrocities. The level of destruction inflicted by the Khmer Rouge has greatly contributed to the large amounts of poverty that many Cambodians face today.

In 2003, the Cambodian government agreed to the establishment of a UN-backed tribunal to prosecute those who committed atrocities between 1975 and 1979, resulting in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). Unfortunately by this time many of the top-level Khmer Rouge members had either died or fled the country and were unable to be prosecuted. This included Pol Pot, who died of natural causes in 1998 without any charges pressed against him.

The ECCC has been criticized for its speed and inefficiency - there have only been five indictments and one conviction, including Pol Pot's second-in-command Nuon Chea and, Kaing Guek Eav (known as Duch) the commandant of the infamous S-21 prison in Phnom Penh where thousands were held for interrogation and torture.

Cambodia today is still in a state of recovery from the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. The country is laden with millions of landmines, which have contributed to more deaths and disabilities even up to the present. It is estimated that roughly 40,000 people in Cambodia are amputees due to landmines. Many families separated during the period of the regime still have not reunited.

Though the Khmer Rouge no longer exists, many participants in Cambodian politics were previously influential members of the organization. This includes Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge battalion commander. There are also former members living in the countryside; in many villages people have lived side by side with them for decades.

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The Cambodian Genocide - United to End Genocide

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The Khmer Rouge took control of the Cambodian government in 1975, with the goal of turning the country into a communist agrarian utopia. In reality, they emptied the cities and evacuated millions of people to labor camps where they were starved and abused.

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40 Years After Khmer Rouge Rule, Cambodia Grapples With Legacy

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The Khmer Rouge officially fell on Jan. 7, 1979, but the legacy of the regime and its genocide is still pervasive. Here's what to know.

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Some 3 million people died in the killing fields of the Cambodian genocide.

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33 Haunting Photos From The Killing Fields Of The Cambodian Genocide

Few horrors compare to the killing fields of the Cambodian genocide.

Over four short years, from 1975 to 1979, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge systematically exterminated up to 3 million people. The people of Cambodia had to live in fear, knowing that they might be the next one dragged out to the killing fields. The chances of being chosen were indeed high - by the end of the massacre, the Khmer Rouge had wiped out nearly 25 percent of the population.

The nightmare began in Phnom Penh, with the end of the Cambodian Civil War. It was the last stronghold of the right-wing, military-led Khmer Republic, and with its fall, Cambodia came into the hands of the dictator Pol Pot and his communist Khmer Rouge regime.

When the Khmer Rouge emerged from the civil war victorious and marched down the streets, thousands of terrified people fled, some rushing for the border with Thailand while others flooded the gates of the French Embassy.

The massacres soon began and the Cambodian genocide was underway. The fighters who had stood up against the Khmer Rouge were executed en masse. Then the Khmer Rouge turned on civilians, driving the people into the countryside and killing thousands in the process.

Soon, the Khmer Rouge was rounding up anyone who did anything that could be seen as capitalist. Selling a product or talking to anyone from the world beyond Cambodia's borders was treated like an act of treason. Those caught were sent to so-called re-education camps like Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek, a fate that nearly always meant getting tortured and killed.

Adults were forced to dig their own graves before they were slaughtered with spades and sharpened bamboo. Their children, meanwhile, were smashed to death against the trunks of trees and thrown into the mass graves where their parents lay.

There were more than 150 of these execution centers across the country. One of the most brutal, Tuol Sleng, was a former school that transformed into a factory of death. About 20,000 people ended up locked inside of its walls - and only seven got out alive.

The massacres on the killing fields stopped when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1979 and brought an end to the Khmer Rouge. As the Vietnamese marched through Cambodia, they found places like Tuol Sleng. They uncovered mass graves full of thousands of human remains - and found photos of some of the many people who had been lost in the Cambodian genocide.
Next, view some haunting portraits of prisoners during the Cambodian genocide and learn more about the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. Then, learn about the brutality of Belgium's Leopold II and his genocide in Africa.

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Child Soldiers, Mass Graves, And The Killing Fields - 33 Harrowing Photos Of The Cambodian Genocide

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Romano Cagnoni/Hulton Archive/Getty Images Wikimedia Commons Bettmann/Getty Images Express/Archive Photos/Getty Images Roland Neveu/LightRocket via Getty Images Like this gallery?Share it: 33 Haunting Photos From The Killing Fields Of The Cambodian Genocide Few horrors compare to the killing fields of the Cambodian genocide.

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The Cambodian Genocide: Summary, Facts & Statistics - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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When you hear the word genocide, you probably think of the Holocaust. Unfortunately, there are many more that might come to mind. The last century has been a grim chapter in human history that has seen genocides occurring all over the world. One of the grisliest occurred in Cambodia.

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Pol Pot was a political leader whose communist Khmer Rouge government led Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. During that time, an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians died of starvation, execution, disease or overwork. One detention center, S-21, was so notorious that only seven of the roughly 20,000 people imprisoned there are known to have survived. The Khmer Rouge, in their attempt to socially engineer a classless communist society, took particular aim at intellectuals, city residents, ethnic Vietnamese, civil servants and religious leaders. Some historians regard the Pol Pot regime as one of the most barbaric and murderous in recent history.

Pol Pot: The Early Years

Saloth Sar, better known by his nom de guerre Pol Pot, was born in 1925 in the small village of Prek Sbauv, located about 100 miles north of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. His family was relatively affluent and owned some 50 acres of rice paddy, or roughly 10 times the national average.

In 1934, Pol Pot moved to Phnom Penh, where he spent a year at a Buddhist monastery before attending a French Catholic primary school. His Cambodian education continued until 1949, when he went to Paris on a scholarship. While there, he studied radio technology and became active in communist circles.

Did you know? Millions of people living in Cambodia were killed during the brutal regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Their bodies were buried in mass graves that became known as "killing fields." The phrase later became the title of a movie about the horrors of the Khmer Rouge era, The Killing Fields.

When Pol Pot returned to Cambodia in January 1953, the whole region was revolting against French colonial rule. Cambodia officially gained its independence from France later that year.

Khmer Rouge

Pol Pot, meanwhile, joined the proto-communist Khmer People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP), which had been set up in 1951 under the auspices of the North Vietnamese. From 1956 to 1963, Pol Pot taught history, geography and French literature at a private school while simultaneously plotting a revolution.

In 1960 Pol Pot helped to reorganize the KPRP into a party that specifically espoused Marxism-Leninism. Three years later, following a clampdown on communist activity, he and other party leaders moved deep into the countryside of northern Cambodia, encamping at first with a group of Viet Cong.

Pol Pot, who had begun to emerge as Cambodian party chief, and the newly formed Khmer Rouge guerilla army, launched a national uprising in 1968. Their revolution started off slowly, though they were able to gain a foothold in the sparsely populated northeast.

The Khmer Rouge Seizes Control

In March 1970, General Lon Nol initiated a military coup while Cambodia's hereditary leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was out of the country. A civil war then broke out in which Prince Norodom allied himself with the Khmer Rouge, and Lon Nol received the backing of the United States.

Both the Khmer Rouge and Lon Nol's troops purportedly committed mass atrocities. At the same time, about 70,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese soldiers stormed across the Vietnam-Cambodian border to fight North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops who had taken sanctuary in Cambodia.

U.S. President Richard M. Nixon also ordered a secret bombing campaign as part of the Vietnam War. Over the span of four years, U.S. planes dropped 500,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia, more than three times the amount dropped on Japan during World War II.

By the time the U.S. bombing campaign ended in August 1973, the number of Khmer Rouge troops had increased exponentially, and they now controlled approximately three-quarters of Cambodia's territory. Soon after, they began shelling Phnom Penh with rockets and artillery.

A final assault of the refugee-filled capital started in January 1975, with the Khmer Rouge bombarding the airport and blockading river crossings. A U.S. airlift of supplies failed to prevent thousands of children from starving.

Finally, on April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge entered the city, winning the civil war and ending the fighting. About half a million Cambodians had died during the civil war, yet the worst was still to come.

Cambodian Genocide

Almost immediately after taking power, the Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh's 2.5 million residents. Former civil servants, doctors, teachers and other professionals were stripped of their possessions and forced to toil in the fields as part of a re-education process.

Those that complained about the work, concealed their rations or broke rules were usually tortured in a detention center, such as the infamous S-21, and then killed. During the Cambodian genocide, the bones of millions of people who died from malnutrition, overwork or inadequate health care also filled up mass graves across the country.

Under Pol Pot, the state controlled all aspects of a person's life. Money, private property, jewelry, gambling, most reading material and religion were outlawed; agriculture was collectivized; children were taken from their homes and forced into the military; and strict rules governing sexual relations, vocabulary and clothing were laid down.

The Khmer Rouge, which renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea, even insisted on realigning rice fields in order to create the symmetrical checkerboard pictured on their coat of arms.

At first, Pol Pot largely governed from behind the scenes. He became prime minister in 1976 after Prince Norodom was forced to resign. By that time, border skirmishes were occurring regularly between the Cambodians and the Vietnamese.

The fighting intensified in 1977, and in December 1978 the Vietnamese sent more than 60,000 troops, along with air and artillery units, across the border. On January 7, 1979, they captured Phnom Penh and forced Pol Pot to flee back into the jungle, where he resumed guerrilla operations.

Pol Pot's Final Years

Throughout the 1980s, the Khmer Rouge received arms from China and political support from the United States, which opposed the decade-long Vietnamese occupation. But the Khmer Rouge's influence began to decrease following a 1991 ceasefire agreement, and the movement completely collapsed by the end of the decade.

In 1997 a Khmer Rouge splinter group captured Pol Pot and placed him under house arrest. He died in his sleep on April 15, 1998, at age 72 due to heart failure. A United Nations-backed tribunal has convicted only a handful of Khmer Rouge leaders of crimes against humanity.

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Pol Pot was a political leader whose communist Khmer Rouge government led Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. During that time, an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians died of starvation, execution, disease or overwork. One detention center, S-21, was so notorious that only seven of the roughly 20,000 people imprisoned there are known to have survived.

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The Cambodian Genocide refers to the attempt of Khmer Rouge party leader Pol Pot to nationalize and centralize the peasant farming society of Cambodia virtually overnight, in accordance with the Chinese Communist agricultural model. This resulted in the deaths of over 25% of the country's population in three years, from 1975 when the Khmer Rouge seized power until they were overthrown by the Vietnamese in 1979. [1]

Cambodia, a country in Southeast Asia, is about the size of Wisconsin; its capital is Phnom Penh. [2] In the years preceding the genocide, the population of Cambodia was just over 7 million, almost all of whom were Buddhists. [3] The country is bordered by Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. [4]
Decolonization
The genocide emanated from a harsh climate of political and social turmoil that began during the French decolonization of Southeast Asia in the early 1950s and continued until the late 1980s. [5]

Cambodia gained independence from France in 1953 after nearly 100 years of colonial rule. [6] Power was given to Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk. During his rule, civil war broke out in neighboring Vietnam between Communist North Vietnam and the South Vietnamese Army, which was aided by the US. Cambodia maintained neutrality by giving support to both sides, allowing the Viet Cong to use Cambodian ports to ship in supplies, while allowing the US to secretly bomb Viet Cong hideouts in Cambodia. [7]

In 1970, Prince Sihanouk was deposed in a military coup led by his own Cambodian Lieutenant-General Lon Nol, a response to the turbulent political climate of Southeast Asia during this time. [8] Lon Nol was made president of the new Khmer Republic while Prince Sihanouk and his followers joined forces with a communist guerrilla organization known as the Khmer Rouge. [9] Soon after, civil war broke out. [10]
Rise of the Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement was founded in 1960. The movement's leader, Pol Pot, was educated in France and was an admirer of Maoist (Chinese) communism. [11] Pol Pot envisioned the creation of a new Cambodia based on the Maoist-Communist model with the aim to deconstruct Cambodia to a primitive "Year Zero," wherein all citizens would participate in rural work projects and Western innovations would be destroyed. [12] Pol Pot brought in Chinese training tactics and Viet Cong support for his troops and soon produced a formidable military force. [13]

In 1970, the Khmer Rouge began a civil war with the U.S.-backed Khmer Republic, which was under Lieutenant-General Lon Nol at the time. [14] Lon Nol's government assumed a pro-Western, anti-Communist stance and demanded the withdrawal of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces from Cambodia. [15] The Khmer Rouge guerillas deposed Lon Nol's government in 1975, and within days of overthrowing the government, the Khmer Rouge began the mission to reconstruct Cambodia on the communist model of Mao's China. [16] These extremist policies led to the Cambodian genocide.

In order to achieve the "ideal" communist model, the Khmer Rouge believed that all Cambodians had to work as laborers on collective farms and anyone who opposed this system would be eliminated. [17] The list of those who were targeted for elimination by the Khmer Rouge included intellectuals, educated people, professionals, monks, religious enthusiasts, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Cambodians with Chinese, Vietnamese, or Thai ancestry. [18] The Khmer Rouge also frequently executed its own members on suspicions of treachery. [19]

Under the threat of death, Cambodians nationwide were forced from their homes and villages. The ill, disabled, old, and young incapable of making the journey to collectivized farms and labor camps were killed on the spot. [20] People who refused to leave were killed, along with anyone who appeared to oppose the new regime. People from cities were forcibly evacuated to the countryside. All political and civil rights of citizens were abolished. [21] Children were taken from their parents and placed in forced labor camps. [22] Factories, schools, universities, hospitals, and all other private institutions were shut down and former owners, employees, and their extended families were murdered. Religion was banned. Leading Buddhist monks and Christian missionaries were killed, and temples and churches were burned. [23] While racist sentiments did exist within the Khmer Rouge, most of the killing was inspired by the extremist propaganda of a militant communist transformation. It was common for people to be shot for speaking a foreign language, wearing glasses, smiling, or crying. [24] One Khmer slogan best illuminates Pol Pot's ideology: "To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss." [25]

Cambodians who survived the purges and marches became unpaid laborers who worked on minimum rations for endless hours. They were forced to live in public communes, similar to military barracks, with constant food shortages and rampant diseases. [26] Virtual slave labor, starvation, injury, and illness caused many Cambodians to become incapable of performing physical work, and they were killed by the Khmer Rouge as expenses to the system. [27] These conditions of genocide continued for three years until Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978 and ousted the Khmer Rouge government in 1979. Civilian deaths were estimated to total to over 2 million people. [28]

Cambodians continued to suffer after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. Countless numbers of people fled to Thailand. Many died of starvation or stepped on land mines that the Khmer Rouge soldiers had placed along the western border to prevent their victims from fleeing. Those who made it to Thailand brought malaria, typhoid, cholera, and a host of other illnesses into the camps. [29] Human rights groups estimate that 650,000 people died in the year following the fall of the Khmer Rouge. [30]

Following his coup of Prince Sihanouk in 1970, Lon Nol abandoned the neutrality stance of the Prince, establishing close ties with the US and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. U.S. troops felt free to move into Cambodia to continue their struggle with the Viet Cong. [31] Cambodia soon became a battlefield, harboring U.S. troops, airbases, barracks, and weapons. As many as 750,000 Cambodians were killed from 1970-1974 by American B-52 bombers, using napalm and dart cluster-bombs to destroy suspected Viet Cong targets in Cambodia. [32] The heavy American bombardment and Lon Nol's collaboration with America drove new recruits to Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement.

Many Cambodians had become disenchanted with Western democracy due to the huge loss of Cambodian lives resulting from the US involving Cambodia in the Vietnam War. Pol Pot's communism brought images of new hope, promise, and national tranquility for Cambodia. By 1975, Pol Pot's force had grown to over 700,000. [33] Within days of the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia in 1975, Pol Pot had put into motion his extremist policies of collectivization, government confiscation and control of all properties, and communal labor. [34]

While the Khmer Rouge was gaining power, the U.S. government had very little interest in the events that were occurring in Southeastern Asia. The American Embassy was concerned with Cambodia solely in relation to the effect on the Vietnam War. U.S. Embassy staff in Phnom Penh was not particularly interested in the regime or the victims. General William Westmoreland, the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, stated, "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient." [35]

When the Vietnamese invaded in 1978, they were first seen as liberators from the genocidal regime of Pol Pot. [50] However, when the Vietnamese took control in 1979, Cambodia was already in ruins. The economy had failed under Pol Pot, and all professionals, engineers, technicians, and planners who could potentially reorganize Cambodia had been killed in the genocide. [36] After Cambodia fell under Communist Vietnamese control, foreign relief aid from any Western democratic state was unlikely. Instead, the US and UK offered financial and military support to the Khmer Rouge forces in exile, who had sworn opposition to Vietnam and communism. The Vietnamese, originally seen as liberators, soon began to be viewed as unwelcome occupiers, not only because of their lengthy ten-year stay in Cambodia, but also because of the hundreds of years of animosity between the two countries. [50] This hostile Vietnamese occupation and the continued threat of Khmer Rouge guerilla forces left Cambodia in underdeveloped conditions until Vietnam's eventual withdrawal in 1989. [37] In the military conflicts of 1978-1989, an additional 14,000 Cambodian civilians perished. [38] In 1991, a peace agreement was finally reached, and Buddhism was reinstated as the official religion. The nation's first democratic elections were held in 1993. [39]

On July 25, 1983, the "Research Committee on Pol Pot's Genocidal Regime" issued its final report, including detailed province-by-province data. Earlier data showed that close 2 million people had died under Pol Pot's regime, but the 1983 report showed that 3,314,768 people, an estimated 25% of the population, lost their lives in the "Pol Pot time." [40] This discrepancy in estimates could be due to differences in data collection methods, thereby resulting in either an undercounting of the 2 million statistic or an overcounting of 3 million statistic. [41]

In the early 1990s, mass graves were uncovered throughout Cambodia. They held hundreds of skeletal remains from Khmer Rouge execution grounds, known as killing fields. Survivors suffered high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder, but their trauma often went undiagnosed and almost always went untreated.

Bringing the perpetrators to justice has proven to be a difficult task. The UN called for a Khmer Rouge Tribunal in 1994; The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) was established, and trials finally began in November of 2007 and are ongoing today.

Many suspected perpetrators were killed in the military struggle with Vietnam or eliminated as internal threats to the Khmer Rouge itself. In 1997, Pol Pot was arrested by Khmer Rouge members; a "mock" trial was staged, and Pol Pot was found guilty. He died of natural causes in 1998. The last members of the Khmer Rouge were officially disbanded in 1999. [42]

The ECCC tribunal has been criticized for handing down only three convictions despite being operational for eleven years at a cost of $300 million. [43] This is in part due to the court prosecuting only senior leaders most responsible for the crimes. Additionally, Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge member, has opposed further indictments. Several government officials are former Khmer Rouge members and there have been considerable efforts to protect them, including denying access to witnesses because of their position.

Kaing Guek Eav, known as "Comrade Duch," Nuon Chea, and Khieu Samphan are the only perpetrators of the genocide to be convicted as of 2019. [44] Duch was found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes and was originally sentenced to 35 years in prison, but the sentence was overturned in 2011 in favor of life imprisonment. [45] Nuon Chea was found guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Chea appealed the verdict but the sentence was upheld in 2016. [46] Khieu Samphan was found guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide and sentenced to life imprisonment. He appealed the verdict, but his sentence was also upheld in 2016. [47]

Today, Cambodia's main industries are fabrics and tourism; foreign visitors to Cambodia surpassed six million in 2018. [48] However, corruption remains a serious issue in Cambodian politics. International aid from the US and other countries is often embezzled by bureaucrats. This illegal seizure of foreign aid has greatly added to the widespread income disparity which affects most Cambodian citizens today.

Human rights abuses soared in recent years, according to Human Rights Watch. In 2017, the leader of Cambodia's opposition party was arrested and the party was dissolved, leaving no opposition to contest the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) in the 2018 elections. [50] Therefore, in 2018 the CPP, led by Prime Minister Hun Sen, secured all 125 of Cambodia's National Assembly seats to create a one-party rule in the state. Since before the 2018 elections, the Prime Minister has continued to escalate political persecution against any political opposition, human rights workers, social activists, and intellectuals. [49] There have been arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings, and denial of citizens' rights to protest. Recently, new laws and amendments to existing laws have passed, many of which severely limit the freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly. [51]

From the international community, China is continuing to invest money into Cambodia to strengthen its alliance to the country and for access to valuable natural resources. Japan is also contributing large sums in investment and aid to compete with China for influence. [52] On the other hand, in 2019 the US both suspended aid to the Cambodian government and passed the "Cambodia Democracy Act" to impose sanctions against specific Cambodian officials involved in the current human right violations. [53] In February of 2020, the European Union also partially suspended its trade preferences in Cambodia due to the continued deterioration of rights. [54]

Justice for past atrocities in Cambodia appears to be progressing very slowly. There are currently four active cases open in the ECCC, one of which remains in a deadlock. [55] Looking forward, the creation of a one-party rule has corresponded with grave human rights violations that continue to build despite sanctions by both the EU and US, thereby leaving the future of human rights within Cambodia uncertain.

Download a one page PDF summary of this information here.
Updated: World Without Genocide, April 2020.
[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[9] Tavanna, op.cit

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[16] Tanvanna, op. cit.

[17] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Tavanna, op. cit.

[21] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Ibid.

[32] Tavanna, op. cit.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ibid.

[37] Ppu, op. cit.

[39] Ppu, op. cit.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Ibid.

[52] Ibid.

[55] https://www.eccc.gov.kh/en/node/39457

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Cambodian Genocide " World Without Genocide - Making It Our Legacy

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The Cambodian Genocide refers to the attempt of Khmer Rouge party leader Pol Pot to nationalize and centralize the peasant farming society of Cambodia virtually overnight, in accordance with the Chinese Communist agricultural model. This resulted in the deaths of over 25% of the country's population in three years, from 1975 when the Khmer Rouge seized power until they were overthrown by the Vietnamese in 1979.

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In the four years that the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia, it was responsible for one of the worst mass killings of the 20th Century.

The brutal regime, in power from 1975-1979, claimed the lives of up to two million people.

Under the Marxist leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge tried to take Cambodia back to the Middle Ages, forcing millions of people from the cities to work on communal farms in the countryside.

But this dramatic attempt at social engineering had a terrible cost.

Whole families died from execution, starvation, disease and overwork.

Communist philosophy

The Khmer Rouge had its origins in the 1960s, as the armed wing of the Communist Party of Kampuchea - the name the Communists used for Cambodia.

Based in remote jungle and mountain areas in the north-east of the country, the group initially made little headway.

But after a right-wing military coup toppled head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk in 1970, the Khmer Rouge entered into a political coalition with him and began to attract increasing support.

In a civil war that continued for nearly five years, it gradually increased its control in the countryside.

Khmer Rouge forces finally took over the capital, Phnom Penh, and therefore the nation as a whole in 1975.

During his time in the remote north-east, Pol Pot had been influenced by the surrounding hill tribes, who were self-sufficient in their communal living, had no use for money and were "untainted" by Buddhism.

When he came to power, he and his henchmen quickly set about transforming Cambodia - now re-named Kampuchea - into what they hoped would be an agrarian utopia.

Declaring that the nation would start again at "Year Zero", Pol Pot isolated his people from the rest of the world and set about emptying the cities, abolishing money, private property and religion, and setting up rural collectives.

Anyone thought to be an intellectual of any sort was killed. Often people were condemned for wearing glasses or knowing a foreign language.

Ethnic Vietnamese and Cham Muslims in Cambodia were also targeted.

Hundreds of thousands of the educated middle-classes were tortured and executed in special centres.

The most notorious of these centres was the S-21 jail in Phnom Penh, Tuol Sleng, where as many as 17,000 men, women and children were imprisoned during the regime's four years in power.

Hundreds of thousands of others died from disease, starvation or exhaustion as members of the Khmer Rouge - often just teenagers themselves - forced people to do back-breaking work.

Opening up

The Khmer Rouge government was finally overthrown in 1979 by invading Vietnamese troops, after a series of violent border confrontations.

The higher echelons of the party retreated to remote areas of the country, where they remained active for a while but gradually became less and less powerful.

In the years that followed, as Cambodia began the process of reopening to the international community, the full horrors of the regime became apparent.

Survivors told their stories to shocked audiences, and in the 1980s the Hollywood movie The Killing Fields brought the plight of the Khmer Rouge victims to worldwide attention.

Pol Pot was denounced by his former comrades in a show trial in July 1997, and sentenced to house arrest in his jungle home.

But less than a year later he was dead - denying the millions of people who were affected by this brutal regime the chance to bring him to justice.

The UN helped establish a tribunal to try surviving Khmer Rouge leaders, beginning work in 2009.

Only three Khmer Rouge leaders have ever been sentenced.

In August 2014, Nuon Chea - considered Brother Number 2 to Pol Pot - and the regime's head of state Khieu Samphan were jailed for life for crimes against humanity.

In November 2018, the tribunal also found them guilty of genocide over the attempted extermination of the Cham and Vietnamese minorities.

It remains the first and only genocide conviction against the Khmer Rouge.

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Khmer Rouge: Cambodia's years of brutality

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At least two million people died as the Marxist regime tried to turn back the clock in Cambodia.