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The Cambodian Genocide: The Khmer Rouge

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Cambodian Genocide
Cambodia was the site of a mass murder which occurred from 1975-1979 (Janikowski, 2006). This mass murder is known as the Cambodian Genocide because of the massive amounts of people that died. According to Janikowski (2006), “the country, which was renamed the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea, is thought to have lost between one and two million people—perhaps as much as a quarter of its total population—during the purges, mass executions, and starvation that marked the four years of Pol Pot's rule”. The Cambodian Genocide was carried out by The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot (Janikowski, 2006). Their goal was to purify the nation and extreme measures were taken to meet this goal, and many people ended up losing their lives in terrible ways. The United Nations define genocide as any intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious …show more content…

The first stage of the Khmer Rouge regime was to send the 2 million cambodians to labor camps to work on farms where there wasn’t enough food, little medical attention and harsh working conditions (“Killing Fields”, 2008). They were forced out of their homes and forced on a long journey which showed to be dangerous for the very young and old, as many of them ended up dying along the way. Soon after many more died from starvation and random executions (Spangenburg and Moser 56-57). If you lived in Cambodia during that time, you would be sent to a labor camp without any choice, and without any information of where you were going. They didn’t give them any food when they were on a monthlong journey and many ended up starving. The Khmer Rouge forced them out of their homes and changed their conditions, which ended in many deaths, they intended to destroy members of the

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