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Cambodia Genocide

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The Cambodian Genocide occurred from April 1975 until 1979 in Cambodia, a country in South East Asia, well-known for its ancient kingdoms and artefacts. The Cambodian Genocide refers to the attempt to revolutionise Cambodia’s peasant farming society in accordance to Chinese communism ideas and beliefs by Khmer Rouge part leader, Pol Pot. The Khmer is the predominant ethnic group of Cambodia, accounting for 90% of the entire population and is extremely relevant to the genocide, while the Khmer Rouge was The Communist Party of Kampuchea. During 1970, Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia was overthrown in a military coup, where lieutenant-general Lon Nol was elected as the new president of the ‘Khmer Republic. As vengeance, Sihanouk and his forces formed …show more content…

Cambodians grew suspicion towards Lon Nol’s government politics and opposed such a force. By 1975, Pol Pot’s force had grown to over 700,000 men. During 1975, Lon Nol’s government was officially defeated by the Khmer Rouge, causing the death of 156,000 Cambodian citizens. The reign of a brutal and murderous society had begun. Under Pol Pot’s leadership, an extreme programme was imposed to revolutionise Cambodia into a communist country, where all citizens were expected to work as labourers, farmers and peasants in one huge federation of farms in accordance to the Chinese agricultural model. All intellectual, educated or wealthy people who opposed the Khmer Rouge were eliminated. The disabled, old, ill and young who were in no condition to work were either driven out of their towns or killed on the spot. A slogan that described Pol Pot’s rule was 'To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.’ Cambodians at this time were treated harshly, surviving on minimum rations, living in public communes with constant food shortages and epidemic

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937 Words | 4 Pages

The pills dance in my palms, gleaming white and inviting…. Somewhere in Cambodia, I dream that Pa and Ma are sleeping together in the ground. I close my eyes and wait for Pa to come take me with him. In her crib, Tori cries but I ignore her.” (180-181) Loung has a deep need to kill herself not only because of her painful memories of Cambodia but also because of her grieving for Pa, Ma, Keav and Geak.

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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. Starting that day, he and his family were designated “new people”—the revolution’s code for those who needed “re-education”—and forcibly evacuated out of the city. That day began a terrifying experience that gradually took away most of his family, forcing Rithy to survive a series of brutal, and often arbitrarily cruel, ordeals.

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896 Words | 4 Pages

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. When Stalin came into power after Lenin’s death in 1924, the government was struggling to control and unwieldy empire.

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The leader during Cambodian Genocide was Pol Pot and his communists, the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge intended on revolutionizing the Cambodian society. Pol Pot vision to create a new and better Cambodia and wanted to restore the country as an “agrarian society”. Immediately after Pol Pot took over Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh’s residents. The people were stripped of all their stuff and were forced to work in fields.

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1490 Words | 6 Pages

The Silent Holocaust: The Guatemalan Genocides 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

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1219 Words | 5 Pages

Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father is a vivid, detailed memoir of a young girl’s experiences in Cambodia throughout the Khmer Rouge era. It records in expressive detail the horrors suffered by the Ung and her family while living under the oppressive rule of the insane Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile, First They Killed Her Sister by Soneath Hor, Sody Lay and Grantham Quinn is a lengthy criticism in direct opposition to the aforementioned memoir. Although the authors of First They Killed Her Sister made some excellent points throughout their assessment of First They Killed my Father such as showing how Ung having misrepresented some aspects of Khmer culture and history, they completely and utterly failed in their attempt to discredit her based on the claims that she perpetuated racial tension and distorted what really happened in 1970s Cambodia, which breaks down the few good points they did have. The critics correctly assert and prove that Ung misrepresented certain aspects of Khmer culture and history, showing that at times, Ung’s description of what had happened was distorted or partially fabricated.

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1016 Words | 5 Pages

The vast majority of the population finds Asia to consist of: China, Japan, and India; however, on any ordinary day in Cambodia, the social normality of mass starvation led too many withering lives of innocent prisoners. With the staggering displacement of about twenty-five percent of the population, Pol Pot succeeded in becoming an indirect murderer. In addition, estate possessions were seized by the Khmer Rouge while many of these guiltless captives suffered in these inhumane punishments. Impecunious and malnourished, many of these impoverished people struggled in the attempt to survive this barbarous time period. Likewise, the prisoners of the Holocaust departed with little nourishment to satisfy hunger.

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“Torture and execution were frequent in the collective farms. The majority of the victims of the regime were killed in the farms giving rise to the phrase, ‘the killing fields.’” ( Terror, Museum of Communist), The killing fields are notorious in the Cambodia, similar to the Holocausts death marches, they both are exhausting systematic labour which resulted in

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The Khmer Rouge was a revolutionary group who wanted to reconstruct Cambodian society.   On April 17, 1975 the Khmer Rouge attacked the capitol Phnom Penh. As soon as the Khmer Rouge got to the capitol they started to force the people to leave all their possessions and march to the rural part of Cambodia. “Hospital patients

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1021 Words | 5 Pages

Both of the genocides mainly involved similarities between people and society. In both genocides the people were starved almost to death they were extremely skinny and very weak. “Once the Khmer Rouge took power, they instituted a radical reorganization of Cambodian society. This meant the forced removal of city dwellers into the countryside, where they would be forced to work as farmers, digging canals and tending to crops. Gross mismanagement of the country’s economy led to shortages of food and medicine, and untold numbers of people succumbed to disease and starvation.

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The Cambodian genocide had became an event in history of a horrific tragedy that was initiated by many bad people who did not have moral sense, compassion, or hear. The Khmer rouge could not be forgiven or even given lesser time sentence for they murder countless of innocent children and their parents and enslaved many others. This Genocide will be an event that should not be repeated. That is it should be an tragedy to learn from that violence, tortured, and cruel enslaving should not be set against the

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993 Words | 4 Pages

First They Killed My Father is a memoir written by Loung Ung and her account of the Cambodian government overthrow by the Khemer Rouge. The account begins when Loung is five years old, as she recalls living in Phnom Penh with her six siblings, Meng, Khouy, Keav, Kim, Chou, and Geak, her mother, and her father. While living in the city, the Khemer Rouge storm the city and overthrow the government, while forcing all people in Phnom Penh to evacuate. After evacuating their home, Loung and her family are sent to labor camps where they are punished and starved for four years. In her memoir, Loung reflects on the people she lost and the hardships she endured, while at the same time showing her family’s unbreakable love and courage.

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654 Words | 3 Pages

These ideas came from the Chinese Communist agricultural model. Cambodia had a population of just over 7 million people and almost all of them were buddhists. The genocide started from a harsh climate of political and social turmoil (Krkljes). The Cambodian genocide had taken the lives of many innocent people just as the Holocaust had taken the lives of Elie Wiesel’s loved ones in the book Night right

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490 Words | 2 Pages

On a mid-April day in 1975, the Khmer Rouge invaded Phnom Penh, forcing Loung’s family to pack everything they could and leave the city. Eventually, they reached Krang Truop where Loung’s uncle lives.

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755 Words | 4 Pages

This quote is from Loung, who reiterates an explanation given to her by her older brother about the Khmer Rouge. This piece of text shows us the deep division that the Khmer Rouge has with other countries and

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