Chaeyoung Kim

Kylie Lagrisola

Mr. Castro

English II

26 May 2017

Cambodian Genocide

Genocide is the systematic killing of a whole group of people. The word Geno comes

from the Greek word genos which means birth race and family. -Cide comes from the latin

word -cida which means to kill. Genocide is deliberately killing members of a group by

causing serious bodily or mental harm, inflicting conditions of life or physical destruction and

trying to prevent future births in the group and would transfer children to the other group.

Cambodia was under the rule of France from 1863 to 1953, which lasted for 90 years,

until Cambodia won its independence from France when King Sihanouk ruled the Kingdom of

Cambodia. In 1965, King Sihanouk broke off relations with the U.S and allowed the North

Vietnamese guerrillas to set up bases in Cambodia. After this, in 1969, the U.S began to drop

bombs on Cambodian land to destroy suspected North Vietnamese supply lines. In 1970, prime

minister Lon Nol overthrew Sihanouk and declare the Khmer Republic and sent the army to fight

the North Vietnamese in Cambodia. The United States bombed most of the countryside of

Cambodia and manipulated Cambodian politics to support the rise of pro-West Lon Nol as the

leader of Cambodia between 1970 and 1973 during the Vietnam War. Over a few years, the

Cambodian army lost territory against the North Vietnamese and communist Khmer Rouge

guerrillas. In 1975, prime minister Lon Nol was dethroned by Pol Pot and the name of the

country changed to the Democratic Kampuchea. The Khmer Rouge then created the phrase Year
Zero meaning that this was the start of a new beginning. They used the United States actions

of bombing the North to recruit followers and as an excuse for the brutal policies they exercised

when in power. Then from 1977 to 1979, Cambodia had a war with Vietnam. On January 1979,

the Vietnamese took Phnom Penh, making Pol Pot and the rest of the Khmer Rouge forces flee to

Thailand. After their escape, it took many years to gain back what was lost.

The Khmer Rouge are guilty of genocide because they forced the citizens in the cities to

leave their homes and to work in the countryside. They also forced the citizens to work in labor

camps where many died due to malnutrition, starvation, and disease. The S-21 jail in Phnom

Penh, Tuol Sleng is one example of a labor camp. In the S-21 jail, more than 17,000 men,

women, and children were imprisoned for years during the regimes power. The Khmer Rouge

are also guilty of killing people in killing fields if they were no longer fit to work or committed

a crime.

Pol Pot was the main cause of all the deaths of about 2 million people. He was born as

Saloth Sar on May 19, 1925 in Kompong Thong province in central Cambodia. Back then, the

country was ruled by France. Pot Pot, whose family was relatively rich, was educated in France.

In 1949, he won a scholarship to study in Paris where he became involved in communist politics.

He returned to Cambodia in 1953 and became one of the leaders of an underground communist

movement, the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot along with the Khmer Rouge Regime rose up into

power and ruled over the citizens using force. The Communist Party of Kampuchea also known

as the Khmer Rouge created the state, Democratic Kampuchea and ruled until 1979. Pol Pot

visualized Cambodia to be free of any modern technology, religion and education and he would

have anyone killed who didnt fit his ideal. This is when Pol Pot started planning the genocide.

Pol Pot was opposed to modern technology and education because of the U.S. attacking
suspected North Vietnamese supply lines which was held on Cambodian land and killed his

citizens. What Pol Pot is doing is the fourth stage of what makes this a genocide, organization.

He forced the citizens of Cambodia to move to the countryside at gunpoint with the idea of

making them work in the farms. He used a slogan saying, What is rotten must be removed(A

brief history of The Khmer Rouge, Dan Fletcher, Time, 2009). The slogan is saying that people

who were killed and who were going to killed are the people who are rotten, so this is an

example of dehumanization, which is a stage of what makes this a genocide. He began emptying

hospitals, closing down schools, factories and abolishing money and wages, taking away the

peoples basic freedoms.

The victims of this genocide can be categorized into three: genocide against religious

group, ethnic groups, and educated groups. Pol Pot was against anyone who had a religion and

people of different ethnicities. For the religious group, the main target was Buddhism. Out of a

total of 2,680 Buddhist monks from eight of Cambodias 3,000 monasteries, only 70 monks were

found to have survived in 1979. We can find the evidence for this from a CPK document, which

was written on September 1975. In the book titled, The Cambodian Genocide: Century of

Genocide, by Ben Kiernan, Kiernan quotes a victim who said Monks have disappeared from

90 to 95 per cent. Monasteries are largely abandoned. The foundation pillars of Buddhism

have disintegrated. In the future they will dissolve further (2004). For the ethnic groups, targets

were the Vietnamese, the Chinese, and the Cham Muslim. Unlike most other Communist

regimes, the Pol Pot regimes view of these groups, who made up over 15% of the Cambodian

population, was to deny their existence. So, the regime of Pol Pot announced that these groups

were only 1% of the population. For the Vietnamese community, they were entirely removed.

About half of the 450,000 Vietnamese had been eradicated by the United States-backed Lon Nol
regime in 1970. Over 100,000 more were killed by the Pol Pot regime in the first year after its

victory in 1975. And the ones who remained in Cambodia were simply murdered. In the research

conducted in Cambodia since 1979 it has been impossible to find a Vietnamese resident who had

survived the Pol Pot years. Eyewitnesses from other ethnic groups, including the Khmers who

were married to Vietnamese said the scene that saw was a campaign of systematic racial

extermination. For Chinese, their population in Cambodia had about 425,000 people but only

200,000 survived after the genocide. They were not targeted for execution because of their race,

but they were made to work harder and much more miserable conditions than rural dwellers. The

previous sentence informs us that city dwellers were suffering more than rural dwellers, which

means they were discriminated. So it is the example of polarization, which is stage 5. The

Chinese died mainly because of the hunger and diseases like malaria. And like other foreign and

minority languages, the Chinese language was banned, and their cultural and ethnic community

were regulated. The Muslim Cham, who had the population of about 250,000 in 1975, lost their

religion, language, culture and their villages. The Muslim women were forced to cut their hair

and wearing the traditional Cham sarong was also banned. Instead, they had to wear only black

pajamas. This is an example of symbolism and identification of the stages of genocide. We can

find the evidence for the fact that the Cham Muslim lost their languages from the interview of

Nao Gha, one of the victim of Cham Muslim Genocide. She said, Our Cham leaders were

dismissed in 1976, and replaced by Khmers. We were not allowed to speak Cham. Only the

Khmer language was allowed. From 1977, they said: There are no Vietnamese, Chinese,

Javanese (Chams and Malays) only the Khmer race. Everyone is the same. (The Cambodian

Genocide, Century of Genocide, Ben Kiernan, 2004). In 1975, the Pol Pot government turned its

attention to the Chams with revenge. On an island in the Mekong River, they attempted to
collect all the copies of the Koran ( The Cambodian Genocide, Century of Genocide, Ben

Kiernan, 2004). Then the Chams took up swords and knives and killed half of a dozen troops.

Then the Pol Pot army emptied all 113 Cham villages in the country. Islamic schools and

religion, and the Cham language were banned. Also, thousands of Muslims were physically

forced to eat pork. Many were murdered for refusing. Pol Pot was not only against people of

different ethnicities and people with a religious background, but also was against people with an

education. Democratic Kampuchea divided its population into the old citizens, those who had

lived in Khmer Rouge Zones before 1975 and new citizens, those who had lived in the cities,

the last people of the Lon Nol regime. Pol Pot being so opposed to people with different

ethnicities and with religious backgrounds are examples of classifying the citizens, which is the

first stage of a genocide. Pol Pot felt as if these people were no longer needed so Pol Pot had all

cities evacuated in April 1975. People were often condemned just because they wore glasses or

used foreign languages. Hundreds of thousands of the educated middle-classes were tortured and

executed in special centres. People were imprisoned and executed just because they were

educated, which is the example of preparation,which is an example of extermination. In

conclusion, those victims were executed because they were different from what Pol Pot had

wanted his country to become.

While the citizens had to go through this horrible situation, the U.S knew that people

were suffering but still refused to act on it. They were reluctant to get engaged in another

potential battle after The Vietnam War defeat. Everyone outside this genocide-the ones who

werent involved- stayed quiet, not wanting to get caught up in this horrible genocide. The

citizens had to withhold this for four years until Vietnam troops invaded Cambodian borders,

expelling most of the Khmer Rouge including Pol Pot, where they ran off into the jungle to
Thailand. The only charges Pol Pot had to face was house arrest in his shelter, where he lived out

the rest of his life. While Pol Pot didnt face any charges, Khmer Rouge soldiers are still being

prosecuted for their crimes and their part during the Cambodian Genocide. For example, two

Khmer Rouge members, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, were being put on trial for their crimes

and their roles during the Cambodian Genocide. Both in their eighties, they were found guilty of

crimes against humanity and were sentenced to life in prison. Nuon Chea was the Prime

Minister, right next to Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan was the Head of State. Not all Khmer Rouge

members were caught, some simply died and others were arrested. While this was very real to

the people who had to experience this, Nuon Chea is saying,Why should we have killed our

own people? I do not see a reason? We wanted a clean, illuminating and peaceful regime.This

right here is an example of denial, the last stage of what makes this a genocide. Nuon is trying to

deny that they didnt kill all those 3 million people. He is denying that the Khmer Rouge had a

reason to kill all those people, while so many people died due to malnutrition, starvation, disease

and or being beaten or shot to death.

Even though with the Cambodian Genocide is over, there are still long-lasting effects

which still causes the citizens trouble. Many citizens leave this event with mental and

psychological problems, for example, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Many people are

still haunted with the the history of the genocide. Not only does this affect the people who

experienced the genocide, it also affects their children. The parents find it hard to provide for

their children after just getting out of the working fields and from being overworked. Many

people are unemployed and struggle to survive. Even though this is a tough subject to talk about

among the families who were involved, it is important to educate the children as to stop

something like this from happening again in the future. Another genocide may be possible, but if
we educate children, not just the children of the families involved, but also kids in school. We

wont have to worry about another genocide. All we have to do is to stay knowledgeable and try

not to repeat history.

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11

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