Cambodia Genocide

In the novel, ‘Never Fall Down’ by Patricia McCormick, the story follows a young boy by the name of Arn who lives in Battambang Cambodia, April 1975. This is the year when the Khmer Rouge began their invasion of Cambodia under the reign Pol Pot. “In the History Place” article, we learn that Pol Pot was the leader of a Cambodian Communist group. After being forced to retreat into the jungle, he formed an armed group of rebels, called the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot and his group then waged a war against the current leader’s movement. Because of the recent destabilization in Cambodia, there was an intense support for Pol Pot. Inspired by Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, he began enforcing radical ideals such as, erasing Cambodia’s history up until

The Elimination: A Survivor of the Khmer Rouge Confronts His Past and the Commandant of the Killing Fields. Rithy Panh is an internationally and critically acclaimed Cambodian documentary film director and screenwriter. Rithy Panh was a young boy when Khmer Rouge revolutionaries arrived in Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975.

The denial of human rights in Ukraine and Cambodia has had huge impacts on regional and international communities. Ukraine was very independent, and Stalin wanted to remove the threat that the Ukrainians were becoming. In Cambodia, Pol Pot attempted to create a utopian Communist agrarian society.

The Khmer Rouge has taken over Cambodia. This is much like what is happening in the Soviet Union. It may look different but the mass murdering and cruelty has lead both countries into a state which is not looked at kindly. Each country was in the same situation from the standpoint of the citizens. Rights were taken away, torture and cruel deaths occurred, and the death of many was looked at by the powerful as a worthy cause to the country as a whole. These are some of the key similarities of the two countries in their states of distress. But, the biggest point of similarity between the two would be the leaders and how they view the country they are leading. Both Cambodia and the Soviet Union are run by murderous people/groups which have a particular trait in common. They both have vision. Vision for a better country, but neither know how to create better country’s through the growth of their country, both believe that unity and equality is vital among the average person. This creates strife and tension from leader to citizen, unfortunately the result is death to the weaker. We see this outcome in both countries. Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge was responsible

On May 19, 1925, one of the cruelest leaders was born in Central Cambodia. This soon to be dictator of Cambodia was known as Pol Pot. At the age of 20, he traveled to France to study radio electronics, instead he became assimilated in Marxism. Later that year he was kicked out and sent back to Cambodia. When he returned in 1953, he joined an underground communist group that was formed due to the fact Cambodia had just been liberated by the French government. By 1962, Pol Pot had formed a communist party in Cambodia. He formed an army known as the Khmer Rouge or the Red Cambodians. When the United States bombed the Vietnam in Eastern Cambodia, instead hurting the Vitense the majority monarchy's troops were killed and he was replaced. On April 17, 1975, thirteen years after he claimed Cambodia his country, he had complete control.

They also shut down factories, schools, universities, hospitals, and all other private institutions because the Khmer Rouge considered it western advances. The Khmer Rouge also killed different The Khmer Rouge killed approximately one and a half to three million Cambodians lost their lives at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.  On July 25, 1983, the Research Committee on Pol Pot’s Genocidal Regime issued its final report, including detailed province-by-province data.  The data showed that the number of deaths was 3,314,768.  About 25 percent of the population died because of the Khmer Rouge idea of relocating the people to

Similarly, the Cambodians and Jews have both stood witness to the executions of one race. During the Cambodian Genocide, Pol Pot the leader, wiped out millions of educated Cambodians who were doctors, teachers, lawyers, bilingual, etc. His overall goal was to make the Kingdom of “Cambodia” a utopian society where everyone was equal and he reigned as king. In fact, the Khmer Rouge rounded up and separated family members to work in different villages in Cambodia. In addition, older men and young boys were sent to fight in the war. Women were distributed across Cambodia either working in kitchens, working fields, or hospitals while their infant children assisted them. Just like Pol Pot, in the Holocaust, Hitler’s goal was to make Germany a country where everyone had the same physical appearance, blue eyes and blonde hair. Unfortunately, Jews did not have that appearance. During the Cambodian Genocide and the Holocaust, the officers beat and prodded the victims that did not meet their expectations and were abruptly displaced from their homes. In comparison to the Cambodians, Germany’s dictator, Adolf Hitler, had one goal to execute all Jews, just like how Pol Pot had a goal to kill all educated Cambodians. Both the Cambodians in the Cambodian Genocide and the Jews in the novel Night were treated similarly because both victims were displaced out of their homes, overworked, mistreated, and starved.

Genocide is not only a murderous madness, but the thought of a political Utopia, tempting many political leaders of multi-ethnic, religious, and cultural societies throughout history. From 1978 to 1983, General Efrain Rios Montt conducted inhumane acts and brutal killings against indigenous communities in Guatemala. ‘Death squads’ were sent into communities, killing anyone with a trace of fear in order to, “Dry up the human sea in which the guerrilla fish swim,” as stated by Montt. Although rebellion support was gained from cruel acts carried out by the government, troops responded to rebellious guerilla movements with massive massacres on innocent civilians. The Guatemalan genocides were

Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, is no ordinary dictator; he was highly driven by the ideology of total revolution which had four separate, but related components. First, and most important of all, is the push for total independence and self-reliance, second, the dictatorship of the proletariat, third, total and immediate economic revolution, and lastly, a complete transformation of Khmer social values (Jackson 135). To implement this ideology of total revolution, the Khmer Rouge had to resort to permanent purges in order to eliminate all potential competitors and to “create a society with no past and no alternatives” (Jackson 137). Pol Pot divided Cambodian society into five classes: the working, the peasants the bourgeoisie, the capitalist, and the feudal class. However, in an effort to create an egalitarian society, the only acceptable classes were the “workers, peasants, and the revolutionary army” (Jackson 136). In April of 1975, the Communist party had gained enough power to capture the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. Once capturing the city, the communists began emptying it of its inhabitants and replacing them with peasants. Along with the inhabitants, the communists destroyed Western consumer goods, burned books and libraries, severed most of its diplomatic relations, abolished money, and markets. Evidently, the ideology of total revolution could only be carried out through mass bloodshed and destruction; in the words of Franz Fanon: “true liberation cannot come without violence and that the only true revolutionaries are those who participate directly in the shedding of blood” (Jackson

The Khmer Rouge was are the regime that controlled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Throughout the 196, the Khmer Rouge operated as the armed wing of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, the name, the party used for Cambodia (“Khmer Rouge”). The group mainly operated in remote jungles and the mountain area, near the Vietnam Border. the Khmer Rouge did not have popular support across Cambodia, particularly in the cities, including the capital Phnom Penh (History.com). The Regime started to gain more support in 1970 when a military coup led to the expulsion of Cambodia’s monarch at the time; The Khmer Rouge took this opportunity and joined forces with the former leader in an effort to gain control of the country once again. The

In First they Killed My Father by Loung Ung, Loung Ung writes about what her family experienced living under the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian genocide.The pattern expected of people that experience atrocities like the ones Loung Ung and her family did is that, if they are to survive, they’ll want to take revenge upon the people who are responsible for it or at least see justice for the people that lost their lives during the genocide. While she does not carry out the revenge herself, in one of the most brutal chapters of the book, Loung Ung, does exactly what’s expected when she goes to watch the execution of a Khmer rouge soldier, despite her sister telling her that she didn’t want to attend at that she shouldn’t attend either. Loung

The mass killing of 25 percent of a country's population is classified as a genocide;also a sin and immoral action of those upstanders and bystanders that witness, initiate or, participated in the Cambodian genocide. These people that initiated the Khmer rouge and set forth the Cambodian genocide are sinners, mass murders, and cruel. To kill a babies, the elderly, and enslave many children and adults. To starve and exterminate them as well. The Khmer rouge and all its members should be tried and sentenced for their sins against the innocent.

The Holocaust and the Cambodian genocide are acutely similar in many ways. The Holocaust took place under Adolf Hitler, which was the country’s sole leader. On January 30, of 1933, Adolf Hitler was named the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (An Introductory History). At the same time, the Cambodian genocide, who also had a sole leader, was named Pol Pot. Pol Pot’s entire outline was to reconstruct the country, just as Adolf Hitler had (Cambodia 1975). To reconstruct Cambodia, Pol Pot had been influenced by Mao Zedong, who had turned China into a communist country (“Cambodia 1975”). During the Holocaust, a countless amount of deaths occurred. About 11 million people had been killed during the Holocaust and only about

Ousting the Lon Nol government. “Khmer immediately began to empty the city and country's population into labor camps.” Cambodia’s Prime Minister Norodom Sihanouk adopted an official policy of neutrality. Sihanouk ousted in 1970 by his own general Lon Nol. “Khmers government constitutes “genocide” began shortly after their seizure of power from the government of Lon Nol in 1975.” This lasted until Khmer was overthrown by his own, the Vietnamese in 1978. Khmer couldn't withstand the Vietnamese because there were so many against him.

Pol Pot was the leader of the communist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia that ruled from 1975 to 1979. Under the regime, approximately 2 million people died from execution or lack of food or illnesses. Many detention centers are also said to have conditions so harsh that only a handful of the thousands of people in them survived. This mass extinction was a result of aiming to create a classless peasant/farmer society. Believing this, Pot and the Khmer Rouge worked to rid the country of “intellectuals, city residents, ethnic Vietnamese, civil servants, and religious leaders” (History.com). The Khmer Rouge finally came to an end when the Vietnamese military invaded Cambodia in 1979. Pol Pot died 20 years later without ever having been convicted of crime or clearing his name.