Cambodian genocide

the genocide of as many as 3 million Cambodians and ethnic minorities in Cambodia by the Khmer Rogue regime in 1975–79

During the Cambodian genocide (Khmer: ហាយនភាពខ្មែរ or ការប្រល័យពូជសាសន៍ខ្មែរ), As many as 3,000,000 Cambodians (​13 of the Cambodian population) were killed by the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot.[1][2][3] It lasted from 17 April 1975 to 7 January 1979.[4]

Cambodian genocide
Part of the aftermath of the Cambodian Civil War
Skulls from victims of the Cambodian genocide
LocationDemocratic Kampuchea
Date17 April 1975 – 7 January 1979 (3 years, 8 months and 20 days)
TargetCambodia's previous leaders, business leaders, journalists, students, doctors, lawyers, Buddhists, Chams, Chinese Cambodians, Christians, intellectuals, Thai Cambodians, Vietnamese Cambodians
Attack type
Genocide, classicide, politicide, ethnic cleansing, extrajudicial killings, torture, famine, forced labor, unethical human experiments, forced disappearances, deportation, crimes against humanity
Deaths1,500,000–3,000,000
PerpetratorsKhmer Rouge
MotiveMarxism-Leninism, Maoism, Anti-Buddhism, anti-Cham sentiment, anti-Christianity, anti-intellectualism, anti-Thai sentiment, anti-Vietnamese sentiment, Khmer ultranationalism, Sinophobia and Islamophobia
A photograph depicted Khmer Rouge victims at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, September 22, 2016. (Nem Sopheakpanha/VOA Khmer)

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge wanted to roll back Cambodia to "Year Zero," when every inhabitant was a rural farmer.[source?] Soldiers forced millions of people to move from Cambodia's cities into forced labor camps in the countryside.[4][5] Hundreds of thousands died there from starvation, exhaustion, and disease.[4][5]

The Khmer Rouge murdered more than 1.3 million people in "killing fields," then buried them in mass graves. In secret prisons like S-21, they tortured and executed hundreds of thousands of people.[4][6] In January 1979, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and removed the Khmer Rouge from power. This ended the Cambodian genocide.[4][5]

Cambodian Civil War

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Before 1953, Cambodia was part of French Indochina. It gained its independence in 1953, and became the Kingdom of Cambodia.[7] The Communist Party of Kampuchea, namely the Khmer Rouge, wanted to make Cambodia into a communist country.[7]

In the 1960s, they built up an army, namely the Kampuchea Revolutionary Army, in the country's eastern forests. They got help from the Viet Cong, the Pathet Lao, the North Vietnamese army and the Chinese Communist Party.[8][9][10][11]

Beginning in 1967, the Khmer Rouge's army fought the Kingdom of Cambodia in the Cambodian Civil War. They wanted to take power from Prince Norodom Sihanouk and make Cambodia into a communist country.[7] In 1970, Lon Nol led a coup and took control of the country.[7] He was not a communist. He was pro-American and pro-capitalist, and the United States supported his coup.[12][dubious ]

The Vietnam War

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In 1970, the United States and South Vietnam were fighting the Vietnam War against North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. Lon Nol's new Cambodian government formed alliances with the United States and South Vietnam (two capitalist countries).[13] Meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge (a communist party) had alliances with North Vietnam and the Viet Cong (which were trying to make Vietnam a communist country).[1]

Between 1970 and 1973, the United States military purportedly bombed large areas of the Cambodian countryside.[12] Allegedly, 150,000 peasants were killed in these bombings.[14] The United States had also supported Lon Nol's rise to power.[1] The Khmer Rouge "used the United States' actions to recruit followers and as an excuse for [their] brutal policies," according to the Holocaust Museum Houston.[12]

Khmer Rouge

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Khmer Rouge uniform.

On 17 April 1975, the Khmer Rouge captured Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh and took over the country.[15] They renamed it "Democratic Kampuchea." This ended the Cambodian Civil War and began the Cambodian genocide.[4][15]

Beliefs

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The Khmer Rouge were a "fanatical Communist movement ... which imposed a ruthless agenda of forced labor, thought control, and mass execution" across Cambodia.[16] Most members were teenage peasant boys.[14] The Khmer Rouge believed the people in Cambodia's cities had been poisoned and corrupted by the ideas of Western capitalism.[17] They wanted to return Cambodia to "Year Zero," a time when everybody in the country was a rural farmer.[source?]

They thought this would create an agrarian socialist utopia – a perfect, farm-based society without social classes, where people would share property.[4][17] They did not believe that money, free markets, or educated professions, such as medicine, engineering, law or teaching, should exist. To the Khmer Rouge, being a poor farm worker was the only acceptable lifestyle. They viewed educated people, including qualified professionals, as a threat.[4][17]

Genocide

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Forced migration

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The Khmer Rouge began the genocide immediately after capturing Phnom Penh.[4][15] In just a few days, they forced everyone in the city into the countryside to do forced labor on farms.[4][18] Eventually, they did the same in every city and town in Cambodia.[19] According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM):[15]

By the afternoon of that very first day, soldiers using bullhorns began ordering the city’s two million residents into the countryside. Houses and schools were emptied at gunpoint, with shots fired if people did not move fast enough. Not even hospitals were spared, with patients forced into the streets [. ...] Thousands of people died in the chaos along jammed roads leading from the capital.

Cancellation of human rights

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As per the Cambodia Tribunal Monitor, the Khmer Rouge "turned the country into a huge detention center".[20] They abolished all civil rights and human rights. The peasants lost the right to vote, participate in the government or criticize the government. People who questioned the government were often tortured or murdered.[16]

All private properties were taken away by the Khmer Rouge.[20] Civilians could not choose who to marry, where to work or what to wear – everybody had to wear "peasant work clothes".[21] A person could only gather and talk with one other person at a time.[20] People were not allowed to have cars, there was no public transportation, and there were strict rules about leisure activities.[20]

In cities across the country, the Khmer Rouge closed banks, shops, offices, pagodas, mosques, churches, factories, hospitals, schools, and universities.[16][21] They made all of these things illegal:[14][17][20][22]

Collectivization

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Imitating Maoist China, the Khmer Rouge immediately collectivized Cambodia. They abolished personal property rights and forced everybody to work on farms.[4][22] Pol Pot wanted to double the amount of rice Cambodia was growing immediately, using the new collectivized farms.[21]

Soldiers forced millions of people on death marches into the countryside for slave labor, from dawn to dusk, digging canals, building dams and growing crops.[16] They were given little food or training, with a few to no proper tools. Hundreds of thousands died of exhaustion or starvation.[22]

 
The photo of a young Khmer Rouge victim.

Nationwide mass murder

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Soon after they took power, the Khmer Rouge murdered thousands of politicians, soldiers, and civilians who had worked for Lon Nol's government.[20] The Khmer Rouge imprisoned, tortured and murdered tens of thousands of Cambodians who refused to be "re-educated" or questioned the regime.[12] They killed large numbers of professionals, including but not limited to doctors, lawyers and teachers.[23]

As per the Encyclopaedia Britannica, they also killed "anyone who could remotely be described as 'intellectual,' which included anyone wearing [eyeglasses] or who could speak a foreign language."[23] At a single prison in Phnom Penh, famously known as the Security Prison 21, they executed at least 15,000 people.[21] The victims included many loyal Khmer Rouge members who who Pol Pot suspected of treason.[4]

The Khmer Rouge made everybody in Cambodia follow its policies. However, they persecuted some specific groups. These included educated people, such as doctors, lawyers, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Chinese Cambodians, Thai Cambodians and Vietnamese Cambodians.[4][23] Between 70% and 80% of all Muslims in Cambodia were killed during the genocide.[23]

 
Impact of the genocide on Cambodia's average life expectancy.

Child indoctrination

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The Khmer Rouge deliberately broke families apart. They did not want Cambodians to be loyal to anyone or anything except the state. Starting at age 8, children were taken from their parents and put in labor camps.[24] There, they were taught that the state was now their parent.[17]

According to the Holocaust Museum Houston:[12]

In an effort to create a society [...] in which people worked for the common good, the Khmer Rouge placed people in collective living arrangements — or communes — and enacted “re-education” programs [. ...] People were divided into categories that reflected the trust that the Khmer Rouge had for them; the most trustworthy were called “old citizens.” The pro-West and [people who lived in cities] began as “new citizens” and could move up to “deportees,” then “candidates” and finally “full rights citizens”; however, most citizens never moved up.

As per the Holocaust Day Memorial Trust:[17]

For the Khmer Rouge, children were central to the revolution as they believed they could be easily moulded, conditioned and indoctrinated. They could be taught to obey orders, become soldiers and kill enemies. Children were taught to believe that anyone not conforming to the Khmer laws were corrupt enemies.

Famine and shortage

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The Khmer Rouge's policies created a widespread famine. Between 500,000 to 1,500,000 Cambodians died directly from this famine,[22] made worse by the shortage of medicines for illnesses and pandemics associated with weakened public health from the famine, which could have easily been avoided without the Khmer Rouge's policies. Meanwhile, the country's doctors had been killed or sent to the countryside, causing many more peasants to die from easily curable diseases.[4][22]

In January 1979, communist Vietnam invaded Cambodia. They wanted to oust Pol Pot from power as his army had crossed the Cambodian–Vietnamese border to massacred Vietnamese civilians.[25] They removed the Khmer Rouge from power and propped up another pro-Vietnamese communist dictatorship.[25] Hundreds of thousands of survivors fled to refugee camps in Thailand.[23] Many later immigrated to the United States.

 
The former S-21 prison (now Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum) through barbed wire

Trials

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In 2006, the United Nations and the Cambodian government established a special court called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). This court has tried some former Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes against humanity.[12]

Kaing Guek Eav – also known as Comrade Duch – was the first to be tried before the ECCC. Eav was the head of Security Prison 21 during the genocide. The court found him guilty of crimes against humanity and breaking the Geneva Conventions of 1949.[26] He was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment.[27]

In 2011, the ECCC convicted two top Khmer Rouge officials, Noun Chea and Khieu Samphan, for crimes against humanity, genocide, and breaking the Geneva Conventions.[27]

Denial

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Academia

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A photograph depicted Khmer Rouge victims at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, September 22, 2016.
 
Skulls from victims of the Cambodian genocide.

On the debate about the Cambodian genocide, American political scientist Donald W. Beachler remarked,[28]

Many of those who had been opponents of U.S. military actions in Vietnam and Cambodia feared that the tales of murder and deprivation under the Khmer Rouge regime would validate the claims of those who had supported U.S. government actions aimed at halting the spread of communism. Conservatives pointed to the actions of the Khmer Rouge as proof of the inherent evils of communism and evidence that the U.S. had been right to fight its long war against communists in Southeast Asia.

Despite the abundance of verified testimonies from Cambodian refugees and foreign witnesses, Cambodian genocide denial within academia was widespread in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia etc.[29][30]

Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman

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With the transnational academic-cultural network tied to their prominence in Western academia, American scholars Noam Chomsky (1928 – ) and Edward S. Herman (1925 – 2017) published several books discrediting the survivors, objecting to the genocide classification and the confirmed death toll of the Cambodian genocide,[31] which influenced hundreds of millions worldwide into doing the same.[31]

Gareth Porter

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In 1976, American historian Gareth Porter (1942 – ) co-authored the book Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution with George Hildebrand in which he denied that one million Cambodians had already been killed by the Khmer Rouge. On May 3, 1977, Porter repeated his denial at the Solarz hearing in the U.S. Congress.[32]

Historians have been critical of Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution. Particularly, historian Bruce Sharp conducted an in-depth research on the citations of that book. Of the 50 citations in a chapter of that book, 33 were traced to the state propaganda of the Khmer Rouge, while 6 from that of the CCP,[33] which served as a proof of their confirmation bias and intellectual dishonesty.[33]

Recalling the encounter later in his life, Solarz called Porter's Cambodian genocide denial "cowardly and contemptible," comparing him to those who denied the Holocaust.[34]: 40 

Samir Amin

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Egyptian-French economist Samir Amin had been a good friend of Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan since they were studying in France in the Cold War's early years.[35] When the Cambodian genocide was exposed, Amin continued to hail the Khmer Rouge as the most superior communist model.[36] When asked again about the Cambodian genocide in 1986, Amin retorted with an inversion of reality by blaming the "American imperialists," Vietnamese communists and Lon Nol for the suffering of the Cambodians.[37]

Responses

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François Ponchaud

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François Ponchaud (1939 – ) is a French priest who lived in Cambodia during the genocide. As a witness, he documented the genocide in his book Cambodge Année Zéro (Cambodia: Year Zero), which attracted biased criticism from Noam Chomsky and Gareth Porter who denied the genocide. In response, Ponchaud called out their intellectual dishonesty,

They say there have been no massacres [...] blame for the tragedy of the Khmer people on the American bombings. [...] For them, refugees are not a valid source [. ...] if something seems impossible to their personal logic, then it doesn't exist. Their only sources for evaluation are deliberately chosen official statements. Where is that critical approach which they accuse others of not having?

Sophal Ear

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Cambodian-American historian Sophal Ear satirically referred to the biased narrative of pro-Khmer Rouge Western academic leftists as the Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia (STAV),[38]

[They] hoped for, more than anything, a socialist success story with all the romantic ingredients of peasants, fighting imperialism, and revolution.

William Shawcross

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British journalist William Shawcross criticized the STAV academics as well. His criticism was endorsed by human rights activist David Hawk who pointed out that

Western governments were indifferent to the Cambodian genocide due to the influence of anti-war academics on the American left who obfuscated Khmer Rouge behavior, denigrated the post-1975 refugee reports, and denounced the journalists who got those stories.

Jakob Guhl

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Jakob Guhl, the Senior Manager, Policy and Research of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), said that Cambodian genocide denial among Western academic leftists was rooted in their dogmatic rejection of liberal democracy,[39] presumption of "moral superiority" of anti-capitalist regimes and division of political actors into binary categories (oppressors vs. oppressed) to justify "anti-hierarchical aggression" towards hypothetical oppressors, who are dehumanized to have their suffering denied.[39]

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References

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  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Khmer Rouge". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  2. "Cambodia". University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts: Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  3. 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13
  4. 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Khmer Rouge: Cambodia's years of brutality". BBC News. 2010-07-19. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  5. Chandler, David (2018-05-04). A History of Cambodia. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-96406-0.
  6. 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 "History of Cambodia". Encyclopedia Britannica. 2024-10-22. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  7. Chandler, David P. (2018). Brother Number One: A Political Biography Of Pol Pot. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-98161-6.
  8. Strangio, Sebastian. "China's Aid Emboldens Cambodia". Yale Global Online. Archived from the original on 17 December 2020. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  9. "The Chinese Communist Party's Relationship with the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s: An Ideological Victory and a Strategic Failure". Wilson Center. 13 December 2018. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
  10. Hood, Steven J. (1990). "Beijing's Cambodia Gamble and the Prospects for Peace in Indochina: The Khmer Rouge or Sihanouk?". Asian Survey. 30 (10): 977–991. doi:10.2307/2644784. ISSN 0004-4687. JSTOR 2644784.
  11. 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 "Genocide In Cambodia - Holocaust Museum Houston". hmh.org. 2023-08-02. Retrieved 2024-10-23.
  12. "Lon Nol". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  13. 14.0 14.1 14.2 "The Cambodian Genocide: Origins, Genocide, and Aftermath" (PDF). Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  14. 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 "Day One: April 17, 1975". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). Retrieved 2024-10-23.
  15. 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 "Cambodia 1975-1979". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. April 2018. Retrieved 2024-10-23.
  16. 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 17.5 "Khmer Rouge Ideology". Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  17. O'Kane, Rosemary H. T. (1993). "Cambodia in the Zero Years: Rudimentary Totalitarianism". Third World Quarterly. 14 (4): 735–748. ISSN 0143-6597.
  18. "BBC - History - Historic Figures: Pol Pot (1925-1998)". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2024-10-26.
  19. 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 20.5 "Khmer Rouge History". Cambodia Tribunal Monitor. Retrieved 2024-10-26.
  20. 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 "Cambodia - Civil War, Khmer Rouge, Genocide | Britannica". Britannica. 2024-10-22. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  21. 22.0 22.1 22.2 22.3 22.4 "Forced Labor and Collectivization". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  22. 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 23.4 "Cambodian Genocide". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  23. "Khmer Rouge Revolution". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 2024-10-26.
  24. 25.0 25.1 "Vietnam's forgotten Cambodian war". BBC News. 2014-09-14. Retrieved 2024-10-26.
  25. Rashid, Norul Mohamed. "Judgment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) against Kaing Guek Eav alias Duch (2010)". United Nations and the Rule of Law. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  26. 27.0 27.1 "The Extraordinary Chambers". Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  27. Beachler, Donald W. (2009) "Arguing about Cambodia: Genocide and Political Interest" Holocaust and Genocide Studies 23(2):214–38.
  28. Ear, Sophal (May 1995). The Khmer Rouge Canon 1975–1979: The Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia (PDF) (BA thesis). Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 August 2014. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  29. Sharp, Bruce (2023) [2003]. "Averaging Wrong Answers: Noam Chomsky and the Cambodian Controversy". Mekong Network. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
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  31. Human Rights in Cambodia." Hearing Before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, 95th Congress, 1st Session. 1977 May 3. Also available via Google Books.
  32. 33.0 33.1 Cite error: The named reference MK was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
  33. Thompson, Larry Clinton. 2010. Refugee Workers in the Indochina Exodus, 1975–1982. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland.
  34. "Specters of Dependency: Hou Yuon and the Origins of Cambodia's Marxist Vision (1955–1975) | Cross-Currents". cross-currents.berkeley.edu. Archived from the original on 25 November 2020. Retrieved 27 June 2020.
  35. Jackson, Karl (2014). Cambodia, 1975–1978: Rendezvous with Death. Princeton University Press. p. 246. ISBN 9781400851706.
  36. Gough, Kathleen (Spring 1986). "Roots of the Pol Pot Regime in Kampuchea". Contemporary Marxism (12/13).
  37. Ear, Sophal (May 1995). The Khmer Rouge Canon 1975–1979: The Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia (PDF) (BA thesis). Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 August 2014. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  38. 39.0 39.1 Guhl, Jakob (January 8, 2025). "Left Wing Extremism". Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). Retrieved January 14, 2025. [H]igh-profile far-left writers [...] downplayed the severity of the Holodomor [...] Decades later [...] Noam Chomsky argued that reports based on refugee testimony about the Cambodian genocide [...] were exaggerated propaganda [. ...] antisemitism on the far-left has a long history, including the persecution [...] against Soviet Jews [...] targeting Jewish institutions [. ...] prevalence of [...] conspiracy mentality provide two major openings to antisemitism.