Synopsis of the Cambodian Genocide

Cambodia is a Southeast Asian nation on the Gulf of Thailand. The landscape ranges from plains to the Mekong Delta to Mountainous territory. Cambodia holds several trade routes connecting China, India, and the majority of Southeast Asia. It’s bordered by Thailand in North to Northwest, Laos in the Northeast, and Vietnam in the east and southeast.

The Communist regime, known as the Khmer Rouge,  overtook Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. The majority of the population was forced to evacuate their homes and walk into the countryside. Those who outright opposed the regime were executed on the spot. Entire cities were exiled to the countryside in order to work on the farms. The Khmer Rouge believed they were “purifying” the population, and taking the “Super Great Leap Forward” to force all Cambodians into peasants farmers. The goal was to turn back the clock and begin at “Year 0.”

 After the Khmer Rouge was put in power, Cambodia became the Democratic Kampuchea, this was led by their leader Pol Pot. Their emblem consisted of a factory in the distance on top of crop fields and an embankment surrounded by a garland of rice ears. The production of rice was crucial to the Khmer Rouge’s idealistic “peasant farmer” population, nearly everyone was forced into slave labor in the rice fields. 

 The Khmer Rouge executed anyone who was thought to be loyal to a seemingly invisible regime known as Angkar, anyone though to support Angkar would be executed- whether or not there was evidence. The Khmer Rouge believed the population needed to be “cleansed,” which either been execution or detainment. One of the main targets were intellectuals, people who resided in cities, and people who outright practiced any religion. 

The Khmer Rouge established 189 interrogation centers throughout all of Cambodia. The most notorious center is known as S-21, in Tuol Sleng. A former high school was turned into a detainment camp, people were shackled within their cells. It is estimated that between 14,000 and 17,000 people were restrained and killed by Khmer cadres (soldiers) within the prison; most were murdered at a killing center known at Cheoung Ek. There are only 12 known survivors. 

The goal of the Khmer Rouge was to abolish all markers of identity. Men and women were required to wear black and shapeless clothing. The idea of the traditional family was stripped, children were separated from parents and forced into labor. People were not allowed to show emotion; humor, anger, disgust, and pity were discouraged. All identifying factors of humanity had to be abolished. 

The Killing Fields consisted of mass graves, filled with innocent Cambodians who were perceived as either education, religious, a traitor or sometimes all three. The original Killing Field was a couple of miles outside of Phnom Penh. Many were also executed for not being “hard enough workers.” In 1976, he unveiled his Four Year Plan, which was the financing of the economy through increased agricultural exports and nationalization of industry. This plan ruined the agricultural regularity and caused thousands of people to die from malnutrition.

The Khmer Rouge referred to the people from the cities as “New People.” They were seen as specimens contaminated by corruption, capitalism, imperialism, and intelligence. They were seen as needing to be “re-educated,” this forbade them of their rights and were practically indispensable. Those who were from rural areas were called “old people” or “base people.” They were forced to serve indoctrination sessions, where they had to reinvent themselves under the Khmer Rouge ideology.