Cambodian Genocide Essay

Research project and presentation write up: Genocides in the 1970s For this project I worked with Madison Latonie to cover the genocides of the 1970s, including the Bangladesh genocide, the Cambodian genocide, and the East Timor genocide. Of these, I was responsible for completing the section on the Cambodian Genocide and the factual elements of the East Timor genocide. I was honestly shocked at how many horrific genocides took place in this single decade, and the seeming lack of international response that I feel these situations should warrant. The Cambodian genocide began when the Khmer Rouge, aka the Communist Party of Kampuchea, took power on April 17, 1975 by overthrowing the existing leader, Lon Nol. A communist coup had been in the

There was no free market, foreign clothing styles were not permitted, all cultural traditions and customs were abolished, and buildings such as schools or religious places were converted into camps, prisons, sables, or granaries (Cambodian Genocide). Family relations were also made to be a taboo, everyone was to view the government elite, or the Angka, as their parents. This way of thinking allowed the government to usalize child soldiers to keep citizens in line and prevent retaliation

An estimated 200,000 people died as a direct result of the Indonesian government and military actions between 1975 and the late 1990s. Those who the soldiers did not directly kill likely died of starvation either in internment camps, their own villages, or in the hills while hiding after the invasion. Killing was abundant at the hand of the Indonesian soldiers and many villages were completely exterminated, such as Remexio and Aileu, with few survivors. Dili’s bishop, Mgr. Coste Lopez, describes the scene of the initial invasion in 1975, “The soldiers who landed started killing everyone they could find. There were many dead bodies in the streets.”