Introduction Cambodia is a country in Southeast Asia that gained its independence in 1953. During the 1960s, Cambodia (also known as The Khmer Republic) was led by Prince Sihanouk, who adopted a policy of neutrality during the Vietnam War by giving support to both sides. The Vietcong used areas inside Cambodia as a place to launch guerrilla attacks into South Vietnam while the USA was ‘allowed’ by Sihanouk to bomb these Vietcong hideouts. An estimated 75,000 Cambodians were killed in these bombing attacks. (Northwestern University 2012). US troops were allowed to move freely in and out of Cambodia to continue their fight with the Vietcong. Demonstrations in the capital city, Phnom Penh, occurred in protest of the Vietnamese presence in Cambodia. …show more content…
John Pilger is an acclaimed Australian journalist, war correspondent, filmmaker and author. He and his team entered Cambodia at the end of the Khmer Rouge Regime in 1979. They compiled reports with supporting photographs and videos. These were world exclusives in that this was the first full report released by a westerner on the Cambodian Genocide. Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia was the first complete documentary film to be made about the Cambodian genocide and was initially broadcasted on British television. It is now available online. The documentary was directed and produced by the English documentary filmmaker, David …show more content…
Despite the meagre rations people received and were expected to live on, scrounging for food was forbidden, considered a waste of time, and treated as a capital offense. Yathay (1987) recalls how in one camp, one can of rice was expected to feed eight people. A Chinese man named Tao reported that the majority of the time they would eat rice gruel, with a handful of rice in a pot of water used to feed twenty to thirty people. (Becker 1998). In some places, a ration would be half a pound of rice per person per month. (Pilger 1979). Cambodia used to be a society where, even if not everybody was wealthy, everybody had something to eat. Now, thousands of people (particularly the ‘new’ people) were dying from starvation and