The Cambodian Genocide
Background Information
The Cambodian Genocide refers to the time from 1975-1979 when the Khmer Rouge slaughtered about 25 percent of Cambodia's population. The Khmer Rouge committed this genocide because they wanted to take Cambodia back to "year zero". In "year zero", Cambodia would be a simple, communistic farming society in which all men were equal. In "year zero" there was no religion, no possessions, and no monetary units. The citizens would remain uneducated and would perform difficult physical labor every day. ("(1) Who Were", 2013) |
This video provides an overview and background information of the Cambodian Genocide. (Masciari, 2008)
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Targets
The Khmer Rouge took officially took control of Cambodia in 1975 and began their killing spree. They executed anyone who stood in the way of their plan to take Cambodia back to "year zero",in which everyone would live in simple, communistic farming societies and perform demanding physical labor every day. The Khmer Rouge targeted several people in this genocide. The biggest group of people targeted were knows to the Khmer Rouge as the "new people". The "new people" were the citizens who lived in cities. These people were thought to be the source of capitalism in Cambodia and were therefore condemned to death. Cambodians with higher educations such as doctors and lawyers were targeted because they promoted urbanization. Another large group of people that were targeted were the Cambodians that weren't considered pure. These were citizens that were half Vietnamese or half Japanese. Elderly and sick Cambodians were also targeted because they could not perform the required labor. The last major group of people that were targeted were the soldiers of the Khmer Rouge themselves. The soldiers were continuously subjected to psychological evaluations to find out where their loyalties were. If any soldier was suspected of being a traitor, they were sent to the infamous S-21 detention center to be tortured into giving confessions of treason and then killed.
("(1) Who Were", 2013) |
Number of people Killed
By the end of the Cambodian genocide, a population that was previously close to eight million had dwindled by approximately 2.4 million people or a quarter of the Cambodian population. The Khmer Rouge killed this massive number of people with man-made famine and mass killings. Another 35 thousand foreigners had also been killed from the war efforts to stop the Khmer Rouge. (Rummel, 2002) |
This video shows the killing fields of Cambodia where millions of people were murdered. ("Choeung Ek", 2013)
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