Dehumanization: Tuol Sleng Prison
STAGE 3 - DEHUMANIZATION
Historically, genocidaires have dehumanized targeted groups by depicting them as animals, vermin, insects, diseases, or tumors. This rhetoric constructs a narrative which justifies the "cleansing" of society. The mass murder of a people or peoples is facilitated through this process.
Dehumanization literally means to deprive a person or group of human qualities or attributes.
Courtesy of DCCam. Tuol Sleng Prison.
It should noted that classification, symbolization, and dehumanization all reinforce one another and are deeply intertwined. Racially or ideologically inspired hate speech inherently dehumanizes the "other", but is also simultaneously sharpens divisions within society …show more content…
and strengthens the power of hate symbols.
Dr. Alexender Hinton discusses how genocidal regimes "manufacture differences," creating dangerous dichotomies: us versus the enemy, workers versus exploiters, patriotic versus treasonous, etc. Below is a passage from Hinton's Why Did They Kill?, which describes the process of dehumanization under the Khmer Rouge:
"If the crystallization of difference involves essentialization, the gmarking of difference,h a second dimension of manufacturing difference, is concerned with the processes through which the victim groups are stigmatized. This ideological marking, which follows the contours of the crystallized differences, further sets gthemh apart from the larger social community through devaluation. As less than fully human beings, these gothersh are depicted as legitimate targets of violence whose execution should not pose a moral dilemma. Killing them is not murder, but rather like the slaughter of a lowly animal. Haing Ngor captured this sense of dehumanization during DK when he explained why his commune leader, Comrade Chev, killed and ordered the execution of so many people: gWe werenft quite people. We were lower forms of life, because we were enemies. Killing us was like swatting flies, a way to get rid of undesirables.h
Khmer Rouge ideology demonized the goppressor classesh and its other genemies,h likening them to an impurity that threatened the wellbeing of the revolutionary society. In fact, the marking of difference is frequently characterized by metaphors of purity and contamination depicting gthemh as permeating the boundaries that have been envisioned and crystallized by the genocidal regime?as an invasion that infects gus.h Like the human body, which is endangered by gmicrobesh or spirits crossing within, the sociopolitical body is threatened by gthem.h Such beings are, to use Mary Douglasfs phrase, gmatter out of place,h a dangerous source of pollution that needs to be eliminated" (Hinton 284).
The Khmer Communist Party was established in Cambodia, 1951.
Originally sponsored by Vietnam, Khmer Communist Party was dedicated to the formation of a Cambodian socialist state. The party planned to follow the Maoist approach of initiating widespread revolution through initial insurgent activities in the countryside. By 1960, Khmer Communist Party was moving beyond merely expressing Maoist philosophies; the group was now actively engaging the Cambodian government in battle. Utilizing terrorist tactics, the terrorist group would battle the Cambodian government from 1960 to 1975. During this time, Cambodia's long-time leader Norodom Sihanouk dubbed the guerilla organization the Khmer …show more content…
Rouge.
Genocides do not occur spontaneously; they are planned. Organization, the fourth stage, simply refers to how a genocide is organized. Stanton explains that organization does not presuppose formal organization. Indeed, many times organization is informal or decentralized.
During the Cambodia Civil War and Vietnamese War, the Khmer Rouge had time to prepare. Their organization involved plans to take control of the government as well as how to rid the country of Vietnamese, foreign influence, and "enemies" who needed to be re-educated (murdered).
Courtesy of DCCam. Khmer Rouge Cadres.
Methods of Organization:
Evacuation of Phnom Penh
Distribution of "old people" and "new people" into work collectives: Old people were the peasant class and new people were city dwellers. The KR gave preferential treatment to the "old people".
Separation of families
Separation of children and adults
Processing city-dwellers and asking them to provide autobiographies in order to document their class background
Documentation and photographs of prisoners at Tuol Sleng
Polarization, the fifth stage, occurs when extremists attempt to intensify divisions (oftentimes fabricated) between groups. In this stage, moderates are usually under attack.
Alexander Hinton discusses how regimes "manufacture differences," creating dangerous dichotomies: Us versus the enemy, Workers versus exploiters, Patriotic versus Treasonous, "new" person vs. "old" person.
Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons. Tuol Sleng Victims
As described in the classification section, the Khmer Rouge classified individuals according to several different dichotomies:
Base People versus New People -- As noted by several scholars, new people often received fewer rations and more physically strenuous work assignments
Us versus the Enemy -- The Khmer Rouge deemed anyone suspected of being a threat to their ideology as an "enemy." This included intellectuals, city-dwellers, anyone with ties to the West, religious leaders, and ethnic minorities.
As noted in the Dehumanization section, the rhetoric employed enabled soldiers to view their victims as an "other," as something less than human, which in turn made killing easier.
The preparation stage is the stage before the actual extermination. Once a situation has reached this level on the genocide spectrum, Greg Stanton advises a genocide emergency should be declared. At this point, a blueprint for genocide is drawn out. Death lists are written. Society is polarized. Victim groups are identified and oftentimes relocated or evacuated.
(photo courtesy of DCCam.)
The Khmer Rouge was secretive from the very start. They had an agenda that did included the eradication of Vietnamese Communists in Cambodia, yet they relied on them as allies. In preparation, the KR in Cambodia secretly killed off Cambodians that had been trained by the North Vietnamese communists. They were also forced to remain low key because they were violently attacked by Sihanouk's government. Ironically, after his exile, he would join forces with the KR. But the alliance with Sihanouk, as with the Vietnamese was superficial. The KR had their own highly radical agenda.
The forced evacuation of Phnom Penh of April 17th 1975 by the Khmer Rouge certainly was a preparatory step in the genocide.
Adam Jones describes this as a policy of urbicide, meaning "deliberate attempts at the annihilation of cities as mixed physical, social and cultural spaces." The KR constructed a national assembly out of a theater in Phnom Penh
Space under the Khmer Rouge were transformed. The sinister S-21, otherwise known as Toul Sleng, is a school that was turned into a torture and killing center. Under the supervision of Kaing Guek Eav (otherwise known as "Duch"; see "Justice" section) at least 12,272 people were killed at Toul Slang.
Extermination, the seventh stage, is the actual mass killing of targeted groups. This is what people see as genocide, which legally it is, but Greg Stanton illustrates to us that when we apply the stages we see that extermination is facilitated by the fulfillment of preceding stages.
Courtesy of DCCam.
Adam Jones, in Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, points to three Khmer Rouge Genocidal Institutions that led to
"extermination":
Forced Labor -- the Khmer Rouge imposed a strict work regime that required both new and base people to work grueling hours, from dusk until dawn. Starvation was rampant as local cadres provided little food and would not allow workers to supplement their rations by growing their own food.
Mass Executions -- the Khmer Rouge targeted both "class enemies" and ethnic minorities like the Muslim Chams, Vietnamese, and Chinese. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands were executed by the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975-1978.
Internal Purges -- As leadership paranoia increased and as local cadres failed to be meet ambitious production goals, the central leadership began to carry out widespread purges. Several victims went through Tuol Sleng, a prison in Phnom Penh that was one of the several such centers across Democratic Kampuchea.
Cultural Genocide
Courtesy of DCCam.
This picture shows the destruction of pagoda and Buddha's statute, an action which constitutes cultural genocide. More than just physical violence, genocidal regimes seek to destroy the identity of a group or groups. The Cham Muslim population of Cambodia were fiercely oppressed during the KR reign. During this time they were forced to eat pork (going against their religion), forbidden by punishment of death to speak their native non-Khmer languages, and forced to watch and partake in the destruction of their religious symbols and their holy book, the Q'ran.
STAGE 8 - DENIAL
According to Greg Stanton, denial always necessarily follows a genocide and "is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres." To deny their guilt, perpetrators hide evidence and coerce victims into not speaking the truth. As long as perpetrators are allowed to act with impunity genocide is likely to occur again.
We discuss the Denial component of the Cambodian genocide in detail in the Justice section of our site. Here are some pictures from mass grave excavation sites shortly after the Vietnamese takeover:
The Cambodia Holocaust is the largest mass genocide ever recorded in the history of Asia. An estimated number of 1.2 to three million Cambodians, Vietnamese, Laotian, Thai, Indian, Pakistani, British, United States, New Zealand, and Australian people were either executed, starved, or worked to death (Cambodian Communities out of Crisis). This ghell on earthh lasted for four years until Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978. The Communist group named the Khmer Rouge is responsible for these mass killings.
(Image 1) Important Questions
When learning about Genocide there are a few questions that are important to think about. What drove the Khmer Rouge to commit these killings? What were their goals and how did they follow through with them? How and why did the Khmer Rouge get away with the worst mass genocide in Asian history? The response to the last question is a difficult one especially because the leaders of the Khmer Rouge have yet to face punishment. Cambodians would like to erase the years of 1975-1978 from their past, but the numerous mass graves and the presence of past Khmer Rouge members in the Northwestern jungles of the country, still haunt the victims and the survivors. After this holocaust the world said, gNever Again.h Sadly, since this day, the words gNever Againh have been repeated four or of past Khmer Rouge members in the Northwestern jungles of the country, still haunt the victims and the survivors.
(Image 2) After this holocaust the world said, gNever Again.h Sadly, since this day, the words gNever Againh have been repeated four or five times. Why has the global community not adhered to this phrase? The U.N. has agreed to a tribunal that will hopefully bring justice to the country. The Khmer Rouge got away with murder for twenty-eight years. The factors that enabled them to do this, are now enabling the Janjaweed militiamen in Darfur, Sudan to continue with their killings. The fact that the Khmer Rouge got away with murder, sets an example that others will as well. There are lessons to be learned from this. Background Information
Prior to the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia faced the side effects of both the Cold War and the Vietnam War. The Cold War left the world divided among communists and non-communists along with neighboring country Vietnam. The Northern Vietnamese communists took over the country in a desire to unite the Vietnamese under one communist rule. The United States sent troops into Southern Vietnam and bombed Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos trying to protect them from the communists. The United States failed and Vietnam became the Socialist republic of Vietnam (gThe Vietnam War-Americafs Longest War).
Sihanouk (Image 3) In Cambodia, Sihanouk, the president stepped down and eventually joined forces with his past enemies: the Khmer Rouge. Lon Nol became the president and the Cambodian people who were 85% peasant farmers grejoiced in great numbers at Sihanoukfs fall and seemed oblivious to its consequences.h In addition, gthe vast majority of
Cambodians, either illiterate or equipped with only a smattering of education, cheered whatever their leaders told them to cheer and hoped their lives, lived from hand to mouth, would not sufferh (Kamm pg.52). During this period of uncertainty in the Cambodian government, the communists took advantage of their weakness and started to become more organized and powerful.
Lon Nol (Image 4) The Vietnamese communists started taking over the borders of Cambodia. From 1970-1975 the communists conquered Cambodian cities and the refugees fled to the capital city of Phnom Penh. The United States sent aid and weapons and bombed cities trying to kill as many communists as possible. On April 1, 1975, the Khmer Rouge arrived in the capital city. Although the Cambodians feared the Khmer Rouge, their presence signified an end to the American bombings and the communists bombing against the Americans, and they welcomed peace. What Cambodians thought was going to be an end to the Five Years War, became the beginning of the largest genocide in Asian History.
Khmer Rouge Soldiers
(Image 5) What drove the Khmer Rouge to commit these killings? (Goals)
The Khmer Rougefs goal was to create a new Cambodia based on self-sufficiency through an agrarian society (Horsington). Based on this type of communism every citizen would be equal, therefore there would be no social classes. They strived for a community without books, money, schools, hospitals, or religion (Cambodian Communities out of Crisis). They wanted to transform the population into a labor workforce that would strengthen the countryfs economy (Horsington). This required a strong agricultural base supported by small industries, which they thought would lead to economic and industrial development. The Khmer Rouge desired a new Cambodia and after conquering Phnom Penh, they established 1975 as the gyear zeroh marking the beginning of a new gDemocratic Kampucheah (Horsington). Their four-year plan intended to eradicate the economic, social, and cultural establishments of the goldh Cambodia (Horsington). Overall, the Khmer Rouge killed millions of Cambodians in an effort to establish a communist regime where all are equal and have no rights.
How did the Khmer Rouge follow through with their goals?
Once the Khmer Rouge had gained power, and stabilized their four-year plan, they set in on their prize possession: the capital city of Phnom Penh. On April 1, 1975, President Lon Nol stepped down from his presidency in fear of his life. He knew that the Khmer Rouge was about to attack, and he being the prime opposition of their cause, fled for his life. With the republican government in ruins and no military resistance, the Khmer Rouge soldiers marched into the capital on April 17, 1975, and evacuated 2.5 million people out of the city in two to three days (gDemocratic Kampuchea, 1975-78h).
Current Day Phnom Penh
(Image 6) All other cities were evacuated, and the people were moved into the rural areas of the country. All civil servants, police, and military officers were automatically killed along with the educated peoples of the upper classes (gThe Fall of Phnom Penhh). These people were seen as a threat to the Khmer Rouge and their goals. The Khmer Rouge justified this evacuation by telling the Cambodians it was because of the threat of an American bombing (gDemocratic Kampuchea, 1975-78h). Others were told that there were so many people so the people had to be brought to the food on the farmers instead of the food being brought to the people(gDemocratic Kampuchea, 1975-78h). No matter what people were told, they were being lied to, and were secretly being lead into a ghell on earth.h The Khmer Rouge planned to gpurify the Urban dwellersh and gturn the country into a nation of peasants in which the corruption and parasitism of city life would be completely uprootedh (gDemocratic Kampuchea, 1975-78h).
Photo of excavation pits at the Killing Fields.
(Image 7) After the Khmer Rouge had effectively transported all the urban people into the rural areas, the four-year plan began. They effectively transformed all Cambodians into a labor workforce that grew rice until they died. Cambodians were killed for not working hard enough, stealing food (because they were not allowed to eat the food they grew), wearing jewelry, having sexual relations, or expressing emotions or grief (gDemocratic Kampuchea 1975-78h). To reduce the number of firearms used communists killed people by putting them in plastic bags or striking them with pick axes. Along with being murdered, Cambodians died of hunger, disease, exhaustion, and exposure (gRevolutionary Terrorh). One million people were executed either in the gKilling Fieldsh or in the gSecurity Office.h This term originated during the filming of the movie gThe Killing Fields.h It is estimated that approximately 16,000 people died in the Killing Fields (gRevolutionary Terrorh). The Khmer Rouge would trick people into going into empty fields by saying that a family member was waiting for them or they were going to cultivate rice in a new area. Once the people arrived they would line them up and either shoot them or beat them with a hoe. The bodies were left there which is why there are bones strewed about the countryside even in 2006 (Cambodian Communities in Crisis).
Children Executed by the Khmer Rouge
(Image 8) Another means for mass murder was the eSecurity Office 21f (S-21) which was established in May 1976 as a place for interrogation and extermination. S-21 was the equivalent of Auschwitz during the Jewish Holocaust. People who were suspected to be a supporter of the former government were sent to S-21 and if they did not admit, they were tortured until they said they were a supporter (sometimes they had to lie to live). In 1976, 2,250 prisoners were admitted to S-21, 2,330 prisoners in 1977, and 5,765 prisoners in 1978 (Cambodian Communities out of Crisis). These numbers do not include children, which were a large percentage of eSecurity Office 21.f
Security regulations in S-21
(Image 9) End of the Genocide
On December 25, 1978, the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge fled to the northwestern jungles of the country. Despite the fact that Cambodians were now free, famine and starvation continued to haunt the land. It was not until the signing of the Paris Peace Agreement in 1991 that other nations began to do business and invest in Cambodia.
Forced Labor
(Image 10) Did the Khmer Rouge get away with a mass murder?
The Khmer Rouge got away with the murder of 1.2 to three million people between the years of 1975-1978. Although the director of the S-21 is in prison and six other Khmer Rouge leaders will face a trial in 2007 at the U.N. Khmer Rouge Genocide Tribunal, the Khmer Rouge can never be punished enough for their destruction of the culture, society, economy, and the corruption of the mindset of the gold Cambodia.h The leader Pol Pot got away with leading the mass killings because he died in 1998. The Khmer Rouge placed a sense of distrust and hatred in Cambodians hearts that no jail time can take away. No matter what happens at the trial, the victims of the genocide will never come back to life and true justice can never be served. Because of this, the Khmer Rouge got away with murder. How can this be when after the Jewish Holocausts and numerous other Holocausts global leaders stated, gNever Again.h The response from the world should be, gNever Again?h How did the Khmer Rouge get away with this? The answer is, through lies and deceit. Cambodians were ignorant of the fact that the Khmer Rouge never gave public service announcements to the world or the Cambodians (Kamm pg. 134). In March 1978, Pol Pot (the leader of the Khmer Rouge) spoke with Yugoslav journalists who were in the country. He fooled the global community by feeding them lies such as we have genough rice to feed our peopleh when numerous amounts of people were dying every day because of starvation, and gwe have eliminated malaria.h Pol Pot even said, gAnother outstanding result is the basic elimination of the illiteracy, which was a blemish in the former societyh (Kamm pg. 134). Pol Pot eradicated all sources of education as well as killing all educated people and educators. What is sad is that the International community believed these lies, while millions of people were dying.
The Khmer Rouge has gotten away with murder for twenty-seven years because the global community has failed to put pressure on Cambodia to bring the murderers to a trial. Because of this it has taken many years to gain U.N., global, and national emotional and financial support for the tribunal. There are a few lessons to be learned from Cambodia. It has taken the U.N. twenty-seven years to bring the perpetrators to justice. There is a genocide occurring in Darfur, Sudan at this very minute and it is not being stopped. Cambodia is an example to the entire world and the Janjaweed (the killers in Darfur) that one CAN get away with a mass murder. It is the hope of many that this tribunal in Cambodia will help bring focus to the genocide in eastern Africa.
The Tribunal
Child looking at skulls: Tribunal is important so younger generations learn of their past.
(Image 10) Even though it has been twenty-eight years since the genocide, Cambodia has to have a trial because of the gConvention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocideh which states that countries have to prosecute committers of genocide (Horsington). There is some concern that the tribunal will not be fair because it will consist of 200 Cambodian judges and prosecutors and 100 foreigners (Mydans). A Cambodian woman names Taing Kim Sam who lived through the Genocide said, gI still worry that the government judges will take sides with the Khmer Rougeh (Nakashima). The tribunal will take three years to complete and will consist of one year of investigations, one year for the trial, and one year for appeals (Mydans). The goals of the trial are to goffer justice to the victims and survivors, to prevent similar atrocities in the future, and to give the younger generation clear picture of what happened (Osnos). The tribunal is also a chance for the world to gunderstand our recurring global nightmare and, perhaps, convince ourselves that it is worth doing more to stop it (Osnos).
Conclusion Will this tribunal help the global community realize that as humans, they can no longer stand by and watch genocides occur without helping the victims? Maybe this tribunal will bring more attention to the current genocide in Darfur, Sudan. Maybe it will force people to revisit the phrase, gNever Againh and see if the global community can actually follow through with those words. In the future, it would be nice to think that genocides will never occur, but even if they do, let us hope that it will not take twenty-eight years to bring the guilty forward, and let us hope that no one will ever be able to get away with genocide just as the Khmer Rouge did in the 1970fs.
ou canft escape knowing about the Cambodia genocide when visiting the country.
The Khmer Rouge regime was only officially in power from 1975 -1979, but in that short time inflicted deep wounds on Cambodia and its people that will endure for generations to come.
During their time in power the Khmer Rouge, led by Cambodia Pol Pot, affected a Cambodia genocide that left around 1.7 million Cambodians dead: murdered at the hands of a megalomaniac leader.
Pol Potfs attempts to turn Cambodia into a Maoist communist state and peasant farming community left one quarter of the countryfs population dead from over work, starvation and execution. No one in Cambodia was untouched by the Cambodia genocide.
Every single Cambodian citizen lost family members, or was injured in some way by the Khmer Rougefs influence in the country.
Pol Potfs rise to power was facilitated by the instability of the Cambodia and Vietnamese region and he gained some popular support from Cambodians who were fed up with being bombed by the Americans who were trying to eradicate the North Vietnamese from Cambodia.
When the US invaded Cambodia to drive out the North Vietnamese, they went deeper into the country and ultimately joined forces with Pol Potfs Khmer Rouge.
In 1975 when the US had withdrawn from Vietnam, Cambodia was left with a government that was riddled with corruption and incompetence and had lost American support and the support of the Cambodian people. Seizing his chance at overthrowing a weak government Pol Pot and his army of Khmer Rouge peasants marched into Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975 and took political control of Cambodia.
Within days of seizing control of the government Pol Pot began his very own gGreat Leap Forwardh and Cultural Revolution in an attempt to turn Cambodia into a Maoist pastoral society. The Khmer Rouge began to gcleanseh the country of evil threats to Cambodiafs agrarian utopia such as western influences, intellectualism, city life, religion and capitalism.
All foreigners were deported from the country and embassies closed, other languages were banned, newspapers and TV stations were all shut down, money was forbidden, religion banned, education and health care stopped and even parental guardianship was taken away. Cambodia was completely closed off from the rest of the world.
The Killing Fields
One of the most infamous of Pol Potfs horrific achievements was the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Most of Phnom Penhfs residents were forcibly removed at gunpoint from the city and made to work in the fields as slaves.
The people were worked until they collapsed and died of exhaustion, from disease or starvation. Workers were given only one portion of rice every two days to nourish them while starting the work day at 4am in the fields and not stopping until 10pm at night. They were constantly guarded by soldiers who would kill for even the smallest misdemeanor.
Remains from the Killing Fields
All throughout the country the Khmer Rouge undertook purges to rid the society of any of the old non-Maoist ideals and influences. Under Pol Pot entire groups of Cambodia society were ear-marked for extermination such as Buddhist monks, western educated individuals (despite the fact that Pol Pot had been educated in France), all Khmer Muslims, bureaucrats, large and medium landowners and intellectuals.
The Khmer Rouge also divided Cambodians into three categories and your category decided the relative harshness of your work and the amount of rations you received: individuals with full rights, candidates for full rights and those who had no rights whatsoever.
So in short...
Today people can visit the Killing Fields outside of Phnom Penh, where mass graves have been found. It is a chilling reminder of the tyranny, hardship and suffering that the Cambodians have endured in recent history. The Security Prison 21 (S-21) was a school house used by the Khmer Rouge for torture and executions is today known as Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
Tuol Sleng Museum
The museum can be visited in Phnom Penh and in the rooms where tortures and executions took place there is still blood that dried where it splattered years previously. It is estimated that around 17,000 Cambodians were imprisoned at the school, where they were beaten and tortured into naming family and friends and then executed.
These sites are painful and harrowing to visit, but they serve as a constant reminder of the Cambodia genocide and the universal value of freedom and democracy. They are also a testament to the bravery of the Cambodian people.
Sihanouk had a complicated relationship with the Khmer Rouge. While he sometimes allied himself with the group, at other times the insurgent group would challenge government forces. In 1970, Lon Nol overthrew Sihanouk's government, at which time Sihanouk found refuge in Beijing, China. Any confusion regarding Khmer Rouge's complicated relationship with the Cambodian government ended once Lon Nol took power. Khmer Rouge battled Lon Nol's government from 1970 to 1975. On April 17, 1975, Khmer Rouge captured the capital city of Phnom Penh. Khmer Rouge governed Cambodia from 1975 to 1978. The terrorist organization-turned-state government enacted an infamously brutal campaign against Cambodian citizens. Following the model of an agricultural-socialist state, Khmer Rouge emptied urban centers and forces the evacuees to work for agricultural communes. The Cambodian people were severely mistreated and overworked under Khmer Rouge's rule. In addition, the new government executed its educated citizens. During Khmer Rouge's three and a half year rule, an estimated 1.5 million people were killed though executions, starvation, and brutal working conditions.
Current Goals: In December 1978, Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia and removed Khmer Rouge from power. However, Khmer Rouge was still a substantial threat and played a significant role in the civil war that continued for over a decade. In 1991, the Paris Peace Accords were signed, which guaranteed democratic elections and a ceasefire. Khmer Rouge broke the cease-fire at various periods between 1991 and 1998, reverting once again to its terrorist activities. Khmer Rouge's ability to engage in significant terrorist actions decreased throughout the 1990s. The remaining vestiges of Khmer Rouge surrendered on December 5, 1998, ending the Khmer Rouge insurgency.
before the genocide
Cambodia is a country in South East Asia, less than half the size of California and twice the size of Scotland. Once it was the centre of the ancient kingdom of the Khmer, and its capital was Angkor, famous for its 12th century temples. The present day capital is Phnom Penh. In 1953 Cambodia gained independence after nearly 100 years of French rule. In the 1960s the population was over 7m, almost all Buddhists, under the rule of a monarch, Prince Sihanouk.
In 1970 Prince Sihanouk was deposed in a military coup. The leader of the new right-wing government was lieutenant-general Lon Nol, who was made president of the 'Khmer Republic'. Prince Sihanouk and his followers joined forces with a communist guerrilla organisation founded in 1960 and known as the Khmer Rouge. They attacked Lon Nol's army and civil war began.
Cambodia was also caught up in another country's war. Cambodia's neighbour to the east is Vietnam, which had also fought against the French to gain independence. When the French were defeated in 1954, Vietnam was divided in two: communist North Vietnam and pro-Western South Vietnam (backed by the USA). Civil war immediately broke out. The Viet Cong, a group of Vietnamese communist guerrillas (backed by North Vietnam and China), based themselves in the jungles of South Vietnam and fought against the South Vietnamese army from there. In 1964, the USA entered the Vietnam war, with airpower, firebombs and poisonous defoliants, but found they could not budge the determined Vietnamese communists. The inconclusive war in Vietnam cost many American and Vietnamese lives, devastated the country, and achieved nothing but misery for anyone caught up in it, including the Cambodians.
Under Prince Sihanouk, Cambodia had preserved neutrality during the Vietnamese civil war by giving a little to both sides: Vietnamese communists were allowed to use a Cambodian port to ship in supplies, the USA were allowed to bomb - secretly and illegitimately - Viet Cong hideouts in Cambodia. When US-backed Lon Nol took over, US troops felt free to move into Cambodia to continue their struggle with the Viet Cong. Cambodia had become part of the Vietnam battlefield. During the next four years, American B-52 bombers, using napalm and dart cluster-bombs, killed up to 750,000 Cambodians in their effort to destroy suspected North Vietnamese supply lines.
The Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement in 1970 was small. Their leader, Pol Pot, had been educated in France and was an admirer of Maoist (Chinese) communism; he was also suspicious of Vietnam's relations with Cambodia. The heavy American bombardment, and Lon Nol's collaboration with America, drove new recruits to the Khmer Rouge. So did Chinese backing and North Vietnamese training for them. By 1975 Pol Pot's force had grown to over 700,000 men. Lon Nol's army was kept busy trying to suppress not only Vietnamese communists on Cambodian territory but also Cambodia's own brand of communists, the Khmer Rouge.
In 1975 North Vietnamese forces seized South Vietnam's capital, Saigon. In the same year Lon Nol was defeated by the Khmer Rouge. It's estimated that 156,000 died in the civil war - half of them civilians.
the genocide
Under Pol Pot's leadership, and within days of overthrowing the government, the Khmer Rouge embarked on an organised mission: they ruthlessly imposed an extremist programme to reconstruct Cambodia (now under its Khmer name Kampuchea) on the communist model of Mao's China. The population must, they believed, be made to work as labourers in one huge federation of collective farms. Anyone in opposition - and all intellectuals and educated people were assumed to be - must be eliminated, together with all un-communist aspects of traditional Cambodian society.
So, at short notice and under threat of death, the inhabitants of towns and cities were forced to leave them. The ill, disabled, old and very young were driven out as well, regardless of their physical condition: no-one was spared the exodus. People who refused to leave were killed; so were those who didn't leave fast enough, and those who wouldn't obey orders.
All political and civil rights were abolished. Children were taken from their parents and placed in separate forced labour camps. Factories, schools and universities were shut down; so were hospitals. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists and professional people in any field (including the army) were murdered, together with their extended families. Religion was banned, all leading Buddhist monks were killed and almost all temples destroyed. Music and radio sets were also banned. It was possible for people to be shot simply for knowing a foreign language, wearing glasses, laughing, or crying. One Khmer slogan ran 'To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.'
People who escaped murder became unpaid labourers, working on minimum rations and for impossibly long hours. They slept and ate in uncomfortable communes deliberately chosen to be as far as possible from their old homes. Personal relationships were discouraged; so were expressions of affection. People soon became weak from overwork and starvation, and after that fell ill, for which there was no treatment except death.
Also targeted were minority groups, victims of the Khmer Rouge's racism. These included ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai, and also Cambodians with Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai ancestry. Half the Cham Muslim population was murdered, and 8,000 Christians.
The imposition of a murderous regime always leaves its leaders afraid: afraid of losing power, failing to prevent vengeance, and facing betrayal by ambitious rivals. The Khmer Rouge repeatedly interrogated their own members, imprisoning and executing them on the slightest suspicion of treachery or sabotage.
Civilian deaths in this period, from executions, disease, exhaustion and starvation, have been estimated at well over 2m.
.
With macabre bureaucratic precision the Kmer Rouge photographed their victims before torturing and killing them. This picture is all that remains of a mother and child murdered in Tuol Sleng Prison sometime between 1975 and 1979.
after the genocide
The Khmer Rouge's links with China meant hostility between the Pol Pot government and Vietnam (soon to be briefly invaded by China for ill-treating Vietnam's ethnic Chinese). In 1978 Vietnam invaded Kampuchea and overthrew the Khmer Rouge. The guerrillas were driven into the western jungles and beyond to Thailand. Vietnam (now a communist republic forging links with the Soviet Union) set up a puppet government composed mainly of recent defectors from the Khmer Rouge. This new socialist government was comparatively benign, but found it hard to organise the necessary reconstruction programme: Pol Pot's policies had ruined the economy, there wasn't much foreign aid; all the competent professionals, engineers, technicians and planners had been killed.
The Khmer Rouge in retreat had some help from American relief agencies - 20,000 to 40,000 guerrillas who reached Thailand received food aid -and the West also ensured that the Khmer Rouge (rather than the Vietnam-backed communist government) held on to Cambodia's seat in the United Nations: the Cold War continued to dictate what allegiances and priorities were made.
The Khmer Rouge went on fighting the Vietnam-backed government. Throughout the 1980s the Khmer Rouge forces were covertly backed by America and the UK (who trained them in the use of landmines) because of their united hostility to communist Vietnam. The West's fuelling of the Khmer Rouge held up Cambodia's recovery for a decade.
Under international pressure, Vietnam finally withdrew its occupying army from Cambodia. This decision had also been forced by economic sanctions on Cambodia (the US's doing), and by a cut-off in aid from Vietnam's own backer, the Soviet Union. The last troops left Cambodia in 1989, and its name was officially restored. In the 1978-1989 conflict between the two countries (and their behind-the-scenes international string-pullers) up to 65,000 had been killed, 14,000 of whom were civilians.
In Cambodia, under a temporary coalition government, it was once again legal to own land. The state religion, Buddhism, was revived. In 1991 a peace agreement between opposing groups was signed. Democratic elections, and a peacekeeping force to monitor them, were arranged for 1993, and the former monarch, Prince Sihanouk, was elected to lead the new government.
The Khmer Rouge guerrillas, of course, opposed Cambodia's political reforms, but their organisation had begun to crumble. Many defected to the new government; many entered into deals to get immunity from prosecution. When Pol Pot accused one of his close aides of treachery, leading Khmers arrested him, and in 1997 staged a show trial. The government, meanwhile, made plans for a tribunal to bring former Khmer Rouge leaders to justice. Not surprisingly, those who have spoken publicly all lay the blame for genocide on Pol Pot, and claim no knowledge of the killing. They have also blamed people who are dead and can't argue, or accused 'enemy agents' from the American CIA, the Russian KGB, and Vietnam, all said to have organised the atrocity for obvious political reasons.
From 1995 mass graves began to be uncovered, revealing the genocide's horrifying extent. The resurrected bones and skulls have been preserved to create simple and potent memorials of the dead in 'the killing fields' where they died. At the torture centre in Phnom Penh, where the Khmer Rouge terrorised and murdered their own members, not only skulls but also identity photographs of the victims are displayed on the walls: this bleak, unhappy place has also become a memorial.
In 1998 Pol Pot died of natural causes. His last home in the jungle, a complex of huts and bunkers, which is also the site of his cremation, has become an attraction for visitors. The government has plans to create a fully equipped tourist resort there, in the hope of reviving a trade which had collapsed after the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 2001.
witness
'I was a foreign journalist in Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge marched in victorious in April 17 1975, their faces cold, a deadness in their eyes. They ordered the city evacuated. Everyone was to head for the countryside to join the revolution. They killed those who argued against leaving. Two million frightened people started walking out of the capital. The guerrilla soldiers even ordered the wounded - between five and ten thousand of them - out of overflowing hospitals where the casualties had been so heavy in the last days of the war that the floors were slick with blood. Most couldn't walk, so their relatives wheeled them out on their beds, with plasma and serum bags attached, and began rushing them along the streets. I watched many Cambodian friends being herded out of Phnom Penh. Most of them I never saw again. All of us felt like betrayers, like people who were protected and didn't do enough to save our friends. We felt shame. We still do.'
'Cambodian warriors have a battlefield custom, going back centuries, of cutting the livers from the bodies of their foes, then cooking and eating them. The belief is that this imparts strength and also provides a talisman of protection against being killed. Among pictures from Cambodia rejected by Associated Press were one of a smiling soldier eating the liver of a Khmer Rouge fighter he had killed, one of decapitated corpses being dragged along, and one of a human head being lowered by the hair into boiling water. Many of us are relieved to be protected from such images, but when we support a war we lack a full grasp of what we agree to.'
'The refugees I met at a UN camp on the Thai border in 1975 all had horrible tales to tell. They spoke of Khmer Rouge cadres beating babies to death against trees, of any adult suspected of ties to the old regime beings clubbed to death or shot, of starvation and total lack of medical care, of men with glasses being killed because they were "intellectuals". It was absolutely clear to me that these refugees were telling the truth. History shows that refugees usually do.'
issues
'A Vietnam Memorial stands in Washington. That long, handsome black stone wall condemns the war in Vietnam man by man, one at a time, name after name. The war is real because those names belonged to real men who lived with their names to identify them, and now are dead. Why are these men dead? By what right and for what reason were they sent off to be killed? The Vietnam memorial is a lesson in stone: mourn the dead, never excuse the war.
The whole of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos is a war memorial. The Vietnamese have never been able to count their dead and wounded. Cambodians, subjected to 3,500 secret bombing raids, and Laotians, are a separate and unknown casualty toll...The bulk of the dead were peasants, who died of hunger and disease, died in massacres, died because they lived on that day's battleground, died because artillery sprayed random shells over the countryside. Mainly they died under the fire and steel that rained from the skies. American planes dropped more tonnage of bombs here than was dropped by anyone anywhere in the whole of World War Two.'
Civilians now form the greatest number of casualties in war. They are regarded with indifference by the warring armies, and with concealed indifference by warring governments (which may not be their own). What about the attitude to casualties in local conflicts?
Civilian citizens may be treated without respect by unelected leaders who take power, reinforce it with armed gangs, and embark on a rule of terror. What can be done (nonviolently) to make that process impossible?
In Cambodia it was war that gained the unelected Khmer Rouge its surge of recruits, and war that equipped them with weapons and the will to use them. What parallel examples are there in present day society and communities? The Khmer Rouge were a band of bullies, on a large scale. How can the desire to bully be defused?
All these are vital issues. There is another: the involvement of powerful armies from outside the conflict, who intervene for political reasons of their own and, in the case of Cambodia, illegally. Political awareness is needed to tackle this. Meanwhile, are there equivalent situations locally to think about and learn from?
And why are 'intellectuals' seen as a threat?
Historically, genocidaires have dehumanized targeted groups by depicting them as animals, vermin, insects, diseases, or tumors. This rhetoric constructs a narrative which justifies the "cleansing" of society. The mass murder of a people or peoples is facilitated through this process.
Dehumanization literally means to deprive a person or group of human qualities or attributes.
Courtesy of DCCam. Tuol Sleng Prison.
It should noted that classification, symbolization, and dehumanization all reinforce one another and are deeply intertwined. Racially or ideologically inspired hate speech inherently dehumanizes the "other", but is also simultaneously sharpens divisions within society …show more content…
and strengthens the power of hate symbols.
Dr. Alexender Hinton discusses how genocidal regimes "manufacture differences," creating dangerous dichotomies: us versus the enemy, workers versus exploiters, patriotic versus treasonous, etc. Below is a passage from Hinton's Why Did They Kill?, which describes the process of dehumanization under the Khmer Rouge:
"If the crystallization of difference involves essentialization, the gmarking of difference,h a second dimension of manufacturing difference, is concerned with the processes through which the victim groups are stigmatized. This ideological marking, which follows the contours of the crystallized differences, further sets gthemh apart from the larger social community through devaluation. As less than fully human beings, these gothersh are depicted as legitimate targets of violence whose execution should not pose a moral dilemma. Killing them is not murder, but rather like the slaughter of a lowly animal. Haing Ngor captured this sense of dehumanization during DK when he explained why his commune leader, Comrade Chev, killed and ordered the execution of so many people: gWe werenft quite people. We were lower forms of life, because we were enemies. Killing us was like swatting flies, a way to get rid of undesirables.h
Khmer Rouge ideology demonized the goppressor classesh and its other genemies,h likening them to an impurity that threatened the wellbeing of the revolutionary society. In fact, the marking of difference is frequently characterized by metaphors of purity and contamination depicting gthemh as permeating the boundaries that have been envisioned and crystallized by the genocidal regime?as an invasion that infects gus.h Like the human body, which is endangered by gmicrobesh or spirits crossing within, the sociopolitical body is threatened by gthem.h Such beings are, to use Mary Douglasfs phrase, gmatter out of place,h a dangerous source of pollution that needs to be eliminated" (Hinton 284).
The Khmer Communist Party was established in Cambodia, 1951.
Originally sponsored by Vietnam, Khmer Communist Party was dedicated to the formation of a Cambodian socialist state. The party planned to follow the Maoist approach of initiating widespread revolution through initial insurgent activities in the countryside. By 1960, Khmer Communist Party was moving beyond merely expressing Maoist philosophies; the group was now actively engaging the Cambodian government in battle. Utilizing terrorist tactics, the terrorist group would battle the Cambodian government from 1960 to 1975. During this time, Cambodia's long-time leader Norodom Sihanouk dubbed the guerilla organization the Khmer …show more content…
Rouge.
Genocides do not occur spontaneously; they are planned. Organization, the fourth stage, simply refers to how a genocide is organized. Stanton explains that organization does not presuppose formal organization. Indeed, many times organization is informal or decentralized.
During the Cambodia Civil War and Vietnamese War, the Khmer Rouge had time to prepare. Their organization involved plans to take control of the government as well as how to rid the country of Vietnamese, foreign influence, and "enemies" who needed to be re-educated (murdered).
Courtesy of DCCam. Khmer Rouge Cadres.
Methods of Organization:
Evacuation of Phnom Penh
Distribution of "old people" and "new people" into work collectives: Old people were the peasant class and new people were city dwellers. The KR gave preferential treatment to the "old people".
Separation of families
Separation of children and adults
Processing city-dwellers and asking them to provide autobiographies in order to document their class background
Documentation and photographs of prisoners at Tuol Sleng
Polarization, the fifth stage, occurs when extremists attempt to intensify divisions (oftentimes fabricated) between groups. In this stage, moderates are usually under attack.
Alexander Hinton discusses how regimes "manufacture differences," creating dangerous dichotomies: Us versus the enemy, Workers versus exploiters, Patriotic versus Treasonous, "new" person vs. "old" person.
Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons. Tuol Sleng Victims
As described in the classification section, the Khmer Rouge classified individuals according to several different dichotomies:
Base People versus New People -- As noted by several scholars, new people often received fewer rations and more physically strenuous work assignments
Us versus the Enemy -- The Khmer Rouge deemed anyone suspected of being a threat to their ideology as an "enemy." This included intellectuals, city-dwellers, anyone with ties to the West, religious leaders, and ethnic minorities.
As noted in the Dehumanization section, the rhetoric employed enabled soldiers to view their victims as an "other," as something less than human, which in turn made killing easier.
The preparation stage is the stage before the actual extermination. Once a situation has reached this level on the genocide spectrum, Greg Stanton advises a genocide emergency should be declared. At this point, a blueprint for genocide is drawn out. Death lists are written. Society is polarized. Victim groups are identified and oftentimes relocated or evacuated.
(photo courtesy of DCCam.)
The Khmer Rouge was secretive from the very start. They had an agenda that did included the eradication of Vietnamese Communists in Cambodia, yet they relied on them as allies. In preparation, the KR in Cambodia secretly killed off Cambodians that had been trained by the North Vietnamese communists. They were also forced to remain low key because they were violently attacked by Sihanouk's government. Ironically, after his exile, he would join forces with the KR. But the alliance with Sihanouk, as with the Vietnamese was superficial. The KR had their own highly radical agenda.
The forced evacuation of Phnom Penh of April 17th 1975 by the Khmer Rouge certainly was a preparatory step in the genocide.
Adam Jones describes this as a policy of urbicide, meaning "deliberate attempts at the annihilation of cities as mixed physical, social and cultural spaces." The KR constructed a national assembly out of a theater in Phnom Penh
Space under the Khmer Rouge were transformed. The sinister S-21, otherwise known as Toul Sleng, is a school that was turned into a torture and killing center. Under the supervision of Kaing Guek Eav (otherwise known as "Duch"; see "Justice" section) at least 12,272 people were killed at Toul Slang.
Extermination, the seventh stage, is the actual mass killing of targeted groups. This is what people see as genocide, which legally it is, but Greg Stanton illustrates to us that when we apply the stages we see that extermination is facilitated by the fulfillment of preceding stages.
Courtesy of DCCam.
Adam Jones, in Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, points to three Khmer Rouge Genocidal Institutions that led to
"extermination":
Forced Labor -- the Khmer Rouge imposed a strict work regime that required both new and base people to work grueling hours, from dusk until dawn. Starvation was rampant as local cadres provided little food and would not allow workers to supplement their rations by growing their own food.
Mass Executions -- the Khmer Rouge targeted both "class enemies" and ethnic minorities like the Muslim Chams, Vietnamese, and Chinese. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands were executed by the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975-1978.
Internal Purges -- As leadership paranoia increased and as local cadres failed to be meet ambitious production goals, the central leadership began to carry out widespread purges. Several victims went through Tuol Sleng, a prison in Phnom Penh that was one of the several such centers across Democratic Kampuchea.
Cultural Genocide
Courtesy of DCCam.
This picture shows the destruction of pagoda and Buddha's statute, an action which constitutes cultural genocide. More than just physical violence, genocidal regimes seek to destroy the identity of a group or groups. The Cham Muslim population of Cambodia were fiercely oppressed during the KR reign. During this time they were forced to eat pork (going against their religion), forbidden by punishment of death to speak their native non-Khmer languages, and forced to watch and partake in the destruction of their religious symbols and their holy book, the Q'ran.
STAGE 8 - DENIAL
According to Greg Stanton, denial always necessarily follows a genocide and "is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres." To deny their guilt, perpetrators hide evidence and coerce victims into not speaking the truth. As long as perpetrators are allowed to act with impunity genocide is likely to occur again.
We discuss the Denial component of the Cambodian genocide in detail in the Justice section of our site. Here are some pictures from mass grave excavation sites shortly after the Vietnamese takeover:
The Cambodia Holocaust is the largest mass genocide ever recorded in the history of Asia. An estimated number of 1.2 to three million Cambodians, Vietnamese, Laotian, Thai, Indian, Pakistani, British, United States, New Zealand, and Australian people were either executed, starved, or worked to death (Cambodian Communities out of Crisis). This ghell on earthh lasted for four years until Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978. The Communist group named the Khmer Rouge is responsible for these mass killings.
(Image 1) Important Questions
When learning about Genocide there are a few questions that are important to think about. What drove the Khmer Rouge to commit these killings? What were their goals and how did they follow through with them? How and why did the Khmer Rouge get away with the worst mass genocide in Asian history? The response to the last question is a difficult one especially because the leaders of the Khmer Rouge have yet to face punishment. Cambodians would like to erase the years of 1975-1978 from their past, but the numerous mass graves and the presence of past Khmer Rouge members in the Northwestern jungles of the country, still haunt the victims and the survivors. After this holocaust the world said, gNever Again.h Sadly, since this day, the words gNever Againh have been repeated four or of past Khmer Rouge members in the Northwestern jungles of the country, still haunt the victims and the survivors.
(Image 2) After this holocaust the world said, gNever Again.h Sadly, since this day, the words gNever Againh have been repeated four or five times. Why has the global community not adhered to this phrase? The U.N. has agreed to a tribunal that will hopefully bring justice to the country. The Khmer Rouge got away with murder for twenty-eight years. The factors that enabled them to do this, are now enabling the Janjaweed militiamen in Darfur, Sudan to continue with their killings. The fact that the Khmer Rouge got away with murder, sets an example that others will as well. There are lessons to be learned from this. Background Information
Prior to the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia faced the side effects of both the Cold War and the Vietnam War. The Cold War left the world divided among communists and non-communists along with neighboring country Vietnam. The Northern Vietnamese communists took over the country in a desire to unite the Vietnamese under one communist rule. The United States sent troops into Southern Vietnam and bombed Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos trying to protect them from the communists. The United States failed and Vietnam became the Socialist republic of Vietnam (gThe Vietnam War-Americafs Longest War).
Sihanouk (Image 3) In Cambodia, Sihanouk, the president stepped down and eventually joined forces with his past enemies: the Khmer Rouge. Lon Nol became the president and the Cambodian people who were 85% peasant farmers grejoiced in great numbers at Sihanoukfs fall and seemed oblivious to its consequences.h In addition, gthe vast majority of
Cambodians, either illiterate or equipped with only a smattering of education, cheered whatever their leaders told them to cheer and hoped their lives, lived from hand to mouth, would not sufferh (Kamm pg.52). During this period of uncertainty in the Cambodian government, the communists took advantage of their weakness and started to become more organized and powerful.
Lon Nol (Image 4) The Vietnamese communists started taking over the borders of Cambodia. From 1970-1975 the communists conquered Cambodian cities and the refugees fled to the capital city of Phnom Penh. The United States sent aid and weapons and bombed cities trying to kill as many communists as possible. On April 1, 1975, the Khmer Rouge arrived in the capital city. Although the Cambodians feared the Khmer Rouge, their presence signified an end to the American bombings and the communists bombing against the Americans, and they welcomed peace. What Cambodians thought was going to be an end to the Five Years War, became the beginning of the largest genocide in Asian History.
Khmer Rouge Soldiers
(Image 5) What drove the Khmer Rouge to commit these killings? (Goals)
The Khmer Rougefs goal was to create a new Cambodia based on self-sufficiency through an agrarian society (Horsington). Based on this type of communism every citizen would be equal, therefore there would be no social classes. They strived for a community without books, money, schools, hospitals, or religion (Cambodian Communities out of Crisis). They wanted to transform the population into a labor workforce that would strengthen the countryfs economy (Horsington). This required a strong agricultural base supported by small industries, which they thought would lead to economic and industrial development. The Khmer Rouge desired a new Cambodia and after conquering Phnom Penh, they established 1975 as the gyear zeroh marking the beginning of a new gDemocratic Kampucheah (Horsington). Their four-year plan intended to eradicate the economic, social, and cultural establishments of the goldh Cambodia (Horsington). Overall, the Khmer Rouge killed millions of Cambodians in an effort to establish a communist regime where all are equal and have no rights.
How did the Khmer Rouge follow through with their goals?
Once the Khmer Rouge had gained power, and stabilized their four-year plan, they set in on their prize possession: the capital city of Phnom Penh. On April 1, 1975, President Lon Nol stepped down from his presidency in fear of his life. He knew that the Khmer Rouge was about to attack, and he being the prime opposition of their cause, fled for his life. With the republican government in ruins and no military resistance, the Khmer Rouge soldiers marched into the capital on April 17, 1975, and evacuated 2.5 million people out of the city in two to three days (gDemocratic Kampuchea, 1975-78h).
Current Day Phnom Penh
(Image 6) All other cities were evacuated, and the people were moved into the rural areas of the country. All civil servants, police, and military officers were automatically killed along with the educated peoples of the upper classes (gThe Fall of Phnom Penhh). These people were seen as a threat to the Khmer Rouge and their goals. The Khmer Rouge justified this evacuation by telling the Cambodians it was because of the threat of an American bombing (gDemocratic Kampuchea, 1975-78h). Others were told that there were so many people so the people had to be brought to the food on the farmers instead of the food being brought to the people(gDemocratic Kampuchea, 1975-78h). No matter what people were told, they were being lied to, and were secretly being lead into a ghell on earth.h The Khmer Rouge planned to gpurify the Urban dwellersh and gturn the country into a nation of peasants in which the corruption and parasitism of city life would be completely uprootedh (gDemocratic Kampuchea, 1975-78h).
Photo of excavation pits at the Killing Fields.
(Image 7) After the Khmer Rouge had effectively transported all the urban people into the rural areas, the four-year plan began. They effectively transformed all Cambodians into a labor workforce that grew rice until they died. Cambodians were killed for not working hard enough, stealing food (because they were not allowed to eat the food they grew), wearing jewelry, having sexual relations, or expressing emotions or grief (gDemocratic Kampuchea 1975-78h). To reduce the number of firearms used communists killed people by putting them in plastic bags or striking them with pick axes. Along with being murdered, Cambodians died of hunger, disease, exhaustion, and exposure (gRevolutionary Terrorh). One million people were executed either in the gKilling Fieldsh or in the gSecurity Office.h This term originated during the filming of the movie gThe Killing Fields.h It is estimated that approximately 16,000 people died in the Killing Fields (gRevolutionary Terrorh). The Khmer Rouge would trick people into going into empty fields by saying that a family member was waiting for them or they were going to cultivate rice in a new area. Once the people arrived they would line them up and either shoot them or beat them with a hoe. The bodies were left there which is why there are bones strewed about the countryside even in 2006 (Cambodian Communities in Crisis).
Children Executed by the Khmer Rouge
(Image 8) Another means for mass murder was the eSecurity Office 21f (S-21) which was established in May 1976 as a place for interrogation and extermination. S-21 was the equivalent of Auschwitz during the Jewish Holocaust. People who were suspected to be a supporter of the former government were sent to S-21 and if they did not admit, they were tortured until they said they were a supporter (sometimes they had to lie to live). In 1976, 2,250 prisoners were admitted to S-21, 2,330 prisoners in 1977, and 5,765 prisoners in 1978 (Cambodian Communities out of Crisis). These numbers do not include children, which were a large percentage of eSecurity Office 21.f
Security regulations in S-21
(Image 9) End of the Genocide
On December 25, 1978, the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge fled to the northwestern jungles of the country. Despite the fact that Cambodians were now free, famine and starvation continued to haunt the land. It was not until the signing of the Paris Peace Agreement in 1991 that other nations began to do business and invest in Cambodia.
Forced Labor
(Image 10) Did the Khmer Rouge get away with a mass murder?
The Khmer Rouge got away with the murder of 1.2 to three million people between the years of 1975-1978. Although the director of the S-21 is in prison and six other Khmer Rouge leaders will face a trial in 2007 at the U.N. Khmer Rouge Genocide Tribunal, the Khmer Rouge can never be punished enough for their destruction of the culture, society, economy, and the corruption of the mindset of the gold Cambodia.h The leader Pol Pot got away with leading the mass killings because he died in 1998. The Khmer Rouge placed a sense of distrust and hatred in Cambodians hearts that no jail time can take away. No matter what happens at the trial, the victims of the genocide will never come back to life and true justice can never be served. Because of this, the Khmer Rouge got away with murder. How can this be when after the Jewish Holocausts and numerous other Holocausts global leaders stated, gNever Again.h The response from the world should be, gNever Again?h How did the Khmer Rouge get away with this? The answer is, through lies and deceit. Cambodians were ignorant of the fact that the Khmer Rouge never gave public service announcements to the world or the Cambodians (Kamm pg. 134). In March 1978, Pol Pot (the leader of the Khmer Rouge) spoke with Yugoslav journalists who were in the country. He fooled the global community by feeding them lies such as we have genough rice to feed our peopleh when numerous amounts of people were dying every day because of starvation, and gwe have eliminated malaria.h Pol Pot even said, gAnother outstanding result is the basic elimination of the illiteracy, which was a blemish in the former societyh (Kamm pg. 134). Pol Pot eradicated all sources of education as well as killing all educated people and educators. What is sad is that the International community believed these lies, while millions of people were dying.
The Khmer Rouge has gotten away with murder for twenty-seven years because the global community has failed to put pressure on Cambodia to bring the murderers to a trial. Because of this it has taken many years to gain U.N., global, and national emotional and financial support for the tribunal. There are a few lessons to be learned from Cambodia. It has taken the U.N. twenty-seven years to bring the perpetrators to justice. There is a genocide occurring in Darfur, Sudan at this very minute and it is not being stopped. Cambodia is an example to the entire world and the Janjaweed (the killers in Darfur) that one CAN get away with a mass murder. It is the hope of many that this tribunal in Cambodia will help bring focus to the genocide in eastern Africa.
The Tribunal
Child looking at skulls: Tribunal is important so younger generations learn of their past.
(Image 10) Even though it has been twenty-eight years since the genocide, Cambodia has to have a trial because of the gConvention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocideh which states that countries have to prosecute committers of genocide (Horsington). There is some concern that the tribunal will not be fair because it will consist of 200 Cambodian judges and prosecutors and 100 foreigners (Mydans). A Cambodian woman names Taing Kim Sam who lived through the Genocide said, gI still worry that the government judges will take sides with the Khmer Rougeh (Nakashima). The tribunal will take three years to complete and will consist of one year of investigations, one year for the trial, and one year for appeals (Mydans). The goals of the trial are to goffer justice to the victims and survivors, to prevent similar atrocities in the future, and to give the younger generation clear picture of what happened (Osnos). The tribunal is also a chance for the world to gunderstand our recurring global nightmare and, perhaps, convince ourselves that it is worth doing more to stop it (Osnos).
Conclusion Will this tribunal help the global community realize that as humans, they can no longer stand by and watch genocides occur without helping the victims? Maybe this tribunal will bring more attention to the current genocide in Darfur, Sudan. Maybe it will force people to revisit the phrase, gNever Againh and see if the global community can actually follow through with those words. In the future, it would be nice to think that genocides will never occur, but even if they do, let us hope that it will not take twenty-eight years to bring the guilty forward, and let us hope that no one will ever be able to get away with genocide just as the Khmer Rouge did in the 1970fs.
ou canft escape knowing about the Cambodia genocide when visiting the country.
The Khmer Rouge regime was only officially in power from 1975 -1979, but in that short time inflicted deep wounds on Cambodia and its people that will endure for generations to come.
During their time in power the Khmer Rouge, led by Cambodia Pol Pot, affected a Cambodia genocide that left around 1.7 million Cambodians dead: murdered at the hands of a megalomaniac leader.
Pol Potfs attempts to turn Cambodia into a Maoist communist state and peasant farming community left one quarter of the countryfs population dead from over work, starvation and execution. No one in Cambodia was untouched by the Cambodia genocide.
Every single Cambodian citizen lost family members, or was injured in some way by the Khmer Rougefs influence in the country.
Pol Potfs rise to power was facilitated by the instability of the Cambodia and Vietnamese region and he gained some popular support from Cambodians who were fed up with being bombed by the Americans who were trying to eradicate the North Vietnamese from Cambodia.
When the US invaded Cambodia to drive out the North Vietnamese, they went deeper into the country and ultimately joined forces with Pol Potfs Khmer Rouge.
In 1975 when the US had withdrawn from Vietnam, Cambodia was left with a government that was riddled with corruption and incompetence and had lost American support and the support of the Cambodian people. Seizing his chance at overthrowing a weak government Pol Pot and his army of Khmer Rouge peasants marched into Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975 and took political control of Cambodia.
Within days of seizing control of the government Pol Pot began his very own gGreat Leap Forwardh and Cultural Revolution in an attempt to turn Cambodia into a Maoist pastoral society. The Khmer Rouge began to gcleanseh the country of evil threats to Cambodiafs agrarian utopia such as western influences, intellectualism, city life, religion and capitalism.
All foreigners were deported from the country and embassies closed, other languages were banned, newspapers and TV stations were all shut down, money was forbidden, religion banned, education and health care stopped and even parental guardianship was taken away. Cambodia was completely closed off from the rest of the world.
The Killing Fields
One of the most infamous of Pol Potfs horrific achievements was the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Most of Phnom Penhfs residents were forcibly removed at gunpoint from the city and made to work in the fields as slaves.
The people were worked until they collapsed and died of exhaustion, from disease or starvation. Workers were given only one portion of rice every two days to nourish them while starting the work day at 4am in the fields and not stopping until 10pm at night. They were constantly guarded by soldiers who would kill for even the smallest misdemeanor.
Remains from the Killing Fields
All throughout the country the Khmer Rouge undertook purges to rid the society of any of the old non-Maoist ideals and influences. Under Pol Pot entire groups of Cambodia society were ear-marked for extermination such as Buddhist monks, western educated individuals (despite the fact that Pol Pot had been educated in France), all Khmer Muslims, bureaucrats, large and medium landowners and intellectuals.
The Khmer Rouge also divided Cambodians into three categories and your category decided the relative harshness of your work and the amount of rations you received: individuals with full rights, candidates for full rights and those who had no rights whatsoever.
So in short...
Today people can visit the Killing Fields outside of Phnom Penh, where mass graves have been found. It is a chilling reminder of the tyranny, hardship and suffering that the Cambodians have endured in recent history. The Security Prison 21 (S-21) was a school house used by the Khmer Rouge for torture and executions is today known as Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
Tuol Sleng Museum
The museum can be visited in Phnom Penh and in the rooms where tortures and executions took place there is still blood that dried where it splattered years previously. It is estimated that around 17,000 Cambodians were imprisoned at the school, where they were beaten and tortured into naming family and friends and then executed.
These sites are painful and harrowing to visit, but they serve as a constant reminder of the Cambodia genocide and the universal value of freedom and democracy. They are also a testament to the bravery of the Cambodian people.
Sihanouk had a complicated relationship with the Khmer Rouge. While he sometimes allied himself with the group, at other times the insurgent group would challenge government forces. In 1970, Lon Nol overthrew Sihanouk's government, at which time Sihanouk found refuge in Beijing, China. Any confusion regarding Khmer Rouge's complicated relationship with the Cambodian government ended once Lon Nol took power. Khmer Rouge battled Lon Nol's government from 1970 to 1975. On April 17, 1975, Khmer Rouge captured the capital city of Phnom Penh. Khmer Rouge governed Cambodia from 1975 to 1978. The terrorist organization-turned-state government enacted an infamously brutal campaign against Cambodian citizens. Following the model of an agricultural-socialist state, Khmer Rouge emptied urban centers and forces the evacuees to work for agricultural communes. The Cambodian people were severely mistreated and overworked under Khmer Rouge's rule. In addition, the new government executed its educated citizens. During Khmer Rouge's three and a half year rule, an estimated 1.5 million people were killed though executions, starvation, and brutal working conditions.
Current Goals: In December 1978, Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia and removed Khmer Rouge from power. However, Khmer Rouge was still a substantial threat and played a significant role in the civil war that continued for over a decade. In 1991, the Paris Peace Accords were signed, which guaranteed democratic elections and a ceasefire. Khmer Rouge broke the cease-fire at various periods between 1991 and 1998, reverting once again to its terrorist activities. Khmer Rouge's ability to engage in significant terrorist actions decreased throughout the 1990s. The remaining vestiges of Khmer Rouge surrendered on December 5, 1998, ending the Khmer Rouge insurgency.
before the genocide
Cambodia is a country in South East Asia, less than half the size of California and twice the size of Scotland. Once it was the centre of the ancient kingdom of the Khmer, and its capital was Angkor, famous for its 12th century temples. The present day capital is Phnom Penh. In 1953 Cambodia gained independence after nearly 100 years of French rule. In the 1960s the population was over 7m, almost all Buddhists, under the rule of a monarch, Prince Sihanouk.
In 1970 Prince Sihanouk was deposed in a military coup. The leader of the new right-wing government was lieutenant-general Lon Nol, who was made president of the 'Khmer Republic'. Prince Sihanouk and his followers joined forces with a communist guerrilla organisation founded in 1960 and known as the Khmer Rouge. They attacked Lon Nol's army and civil war began.
Cambodia was also caught up in another country's war. Cambodia's neighbour to the east is Vietnam, which had also fought against the French to gain independence. When the French were defeated in 1954, Vietnam was divided in two: communist North Vietnam and pro-Western South Vietnam (backed by the USA). Civil war immediately broke out. The Viet Cong, a group of Vietnamese communist guerrillas (backed by North Vietnam and China), based themselves in the jungles of South Vietnam and fought against the South Vietnamese army from there. In 1964, the USA entered the Vietnam war, with airpower, firebombs and poisonous defoliants, but found they could not budge the determined Vietnamese communists. The inconclusive war in Vietnam cost many American and Vietnamese lives, devastated the country, and achieved nothing but misery for anyone caught up in it, including the Cambodians.
Under Prince Sihanouk, Cambodia had preserved neutrality during the Vietnamese civil war by giving a little to both sides: Vietnamese communists were allowed to use a Cambodian port to ship in supplies, the USA were allowed to bomb - secretly and illegitimately - Viet Cong hideouts in Cambodia. When US-backed Lon Nol took over, US troops felt free to move into Cambodia to continue their struggle with the Viet Cong. Cambodia had become part of the Vietnam battlefield. During the next four years, American B-52 bombers, using napalm and dart cluster-bombs, killed up to 750,000 Cambodians in their effort to destroy suspected North Vietnamese supply lines.
The Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement in 1970 was small. Their leader, Pol Pot, had been educated in France and was an admirer of Maoist (Chinese) communism; he was also suspicious of Vietnam's relations with Cambodia. The heavy American bombardment, and Lon Nol's collaboration with America, drove new recruits to the Khmer Rouge. So did Chinese backing and North Vietnamese training for them. By 1975 Pol Pot's force had grown to over 700,000 men. Lon Nol's army was kept busy trying to suppress not only Vietnamese communists on Cambodian territory but also Cambodia's own brand of communists, the Khmer Rouge.
In 1975 North Vietnamese forces seized South Vietnam's capital, Saigon. In the same year Lon Nol was defeated by the Khmer Rouge. It's estimated that 156,000 died in the civil war - half of them civilians.
the genocide
Under Pol Pot's leadership, and within days of overthrowing the government, the Khmer Rouge embarked on an organised mission: they ruthlessly imposed an extremist programme to reconstruct Cambodia (now under its Khmer name Kampuchea) on the communist model of Mao's China. The population must, they believed, be made to work as labourers in one huge federation of collective farms. Anyone in opposition - and all intellectuals and educated people were assumed to be - must be eliminated, together with all un-communist aspects of traditional Cambodian society.
So, at short notice and under threat of death, the inhabitants of towns and cities were forced to leave them. The ill, disabled, old and very young were driven out as well, regardless of their physical condition: no-one was spared the exodus. People who refused to leave were killed; so were those who didn't leave fast enough, and those who wouldn't obey orders.
All political and civil rights were abolished. Children were taken from their parents and placed in separate forced labour camps. Factories, schools and universities were shut down; so were hospitals. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists and professional people in any field (including the army) were murdered, together with their extended families. Religion was banned, all leading Buddhist monks were killed and almost all temples destroyed. Music and radio sets were also banned. It was possible for people to be shot simply for knowing a foreign language, wearing glasses, laughing, or crying. One Khmer slogan ran 'To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.'
People who escaped murder became unpaid labourers, working on minimum rations and for impossibly long hours. They slept and ate in uncomfortable communes deliberately chosen to be as far as possible from their old homes. Personal relationships were discouraged; so were expressions of affection. People soon became weak from overwork and starvation, and after that fell ill, for which there was no treatment except death.
Also targeted were minority groups, victims of the Khmer Rouge's racism. These included ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai, and also Cambodians with Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai ancestry. Half the Cham Muslim population was murdered, and 8,000 Christians.
The imposition of a murderous regime always leaves its leaders afraid: afraid of losing power, failing to prevent vengeance, and facing betrayal by ambitious rivals. The Khmer Rouge repeatedly interrogated their own members, imprisoning and executing them on the slightest suspicion of treachery or sabotage.
Civilian deaths in this period, from executions, disease, exhaustion and starvation, have been estimated at well over 2m.
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With macabre bureaucratic precision the Kmer Rouge photographed their victims before torturing and killing them. This picture is all that remains of a mother and child murdered in Tuol Sleng Prison sometime between 1975 and 1979.
after the genocide
The Khmer Rouge's links with China meant hostility between the Pol Pot government and Vietnam (soon to be briefly invaded by China for ill-treating Vietnam's ethnic Chinese). In 1978 Vietnam invaded Kampuchea and overthrew the Khmer Rouge. The guerrillas were driven into the western jungles and beyond to Thailand. Vietnam (now a communist republic forging links with the Soviet Union) set up a puppet government composed mainly of recent defectors from the Khmer Rouge. This new socialist government was comparatively benign, but found it hard to organise the necessary reconstruction programme: Pol Pot's policies had ruined the economy, there wasn't much foreign aid; all the competent professionals, engineers, technicians and planners had been killed.
The Khmer Rouge in retreat had some help from American relief agencies - 20,000 to 40,000 guerrillas who reached Thailand received food aid -and the West also ensured that the Khmer Rouge (rather than the Vietnam-backed communist government) held on to Cambodia's seat in the United Nations: the Cold War continued to dictate what allegiances and priorities were made.
The Khmer Rouge went on fighting the Vietnam-backed government. Throughout the 1980s the Khmer Rouge forces were covertly backed by America and the UK (who trained them in the use of landmines) because of their united hostility to communist Vietnam. The West's fuelling of the Khmer Rouge held up Cambodia's recovery for a decade.
Under international pressure, Vietnam finally withdrew its occupying army from Cambodia. This decision had also been forced by economic sanctions on Cambodia (the US's doing), and by a cut-off in aid from Vietnam's own backer, the Soviet Union. The last troops left Cambodia in 1989, and its name was officially restored. In the 1978-1989 conflict between the two countries (and their behind-the-scenes international string-pullers) up to 65,000 had been killed, 14,000 of whom were civilians.
In Cambodia, under a temporary coalition government, it was once again legal to own land. The state religion, Buddhism, was revived. In 1991 a peace agreement between opposing groups was signed. Democratic elections, and a peacekeeping force to monitor them, were arranged for 1993, and the former monarch, Prince Sihanouk, was elected to lead the new government.
The Khmer Rouge guerrillas, of course, opposed Cambodia's political reforms, but their organisation had begun to crumble. Many defected to the new government; many entered into deals to get immunity from prosecution. When Pol Pot accused one of his close aides of treachery, leading Khmers arrested him, and in 1997 staged a show trial. The government, meanwhile, made plans for a tribunal to bring former Khmer Rouge leaders to justice. Not surprisingly, those who have spoken publicly all lay the blame for genocide on Pol Pot, and claim no knowledge of the killing. They have also blamed people who are dead and can't argue, or accused 'enemy agents' from the American CIA, the Russian KGB, and Vietnam, all said to have organised the atrocity for obvious political reasons.
From 1995 mass graves began to be uncovered, revealing the genocide's horrifying extent. The resurrected bones and skulls have been preserved to create simple and potent memorials of the dead in 'the killing fields' where they died. At the torture centre in Phnom Penh, where the Khmer Rouge terrorised and murdered their own members, not only skulls but also identity photographs of the victims are displayed on the walls: this bleak, unhappy place has also become a memorial.
In 1998 Pol Pot died of natural causes. His last home in the jungle, a complex of huts and bunkers, which is also the site of his cremation, has become an attraction for visitors. The government has plans to create a fully equipped tourist resort there, in the hope of reviving a trade which had collapsed after the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 2001.
witness
'I was a foreign journalist in Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge marched in victorious in April 17 1975, their faces cold, a deadness in their eyes. They ordered the city evacuated. Everyone was to head for the countryside to join the revolution. They killed those who argued against leaving. Two million frightened people started walking out of the capital. The guerrilla soldiers even ordered the wounded - between five and ten thousand of them - out of overflowing hospitals where the casualties had been so heavy in the last days of the war that the floors were slick with blood. Most couldn't walk, so their relatives wheeled them out on their beds, with plasma and serum bags attached, and began rushing them along the streets. I watched many Cambodian friends being herded out of Phnom Penh. Most of them I never saw again. All of us felt like betrayers, like people who were protected and didn't do enough to save our friends. We felt shame. We still do.'
'Cambodian warriors have a battlefield custom, going back centuries, of cutting the livers from the bodies of their foes, then cooking and eating them. The belief is that this imparts strength and also provides a talisman of protection against being killed. Among pictures from Cambodia rejected by Associated Press were one of a smiling soldier eating the liver of a Khmer Rouge fighter he had killed, one of decapitated corpses being dragged along, and one of a human head being lowered by the hair into boiling water. Many of us are relieved to be protected from such images, but when we support a war we lack a full grasp of what we agree to.'
'The refugees I met at a UN camp on the Thai border in 1975 all had horrible tales to tell. They spoke of Khmer Rouge cadres beating babies to death against trees, of any adult suspected of ties to the old regime beings clubbed to death or shot, of starvation and total lack of medical care, of men with glasses being killed because they were "intellectuals". It was absolutely clear to me that these refugees were telling the truth. History shows that refugees usually do.'
issues
'A Vietnam Memorial stands in Washington. That long, handsome black stone wall condemns the war in Vietnam man by man, one at a time, name after name. The war is real because those names belonged to real men who lived with their names to identify them, and now are dead. Why are these men dead? By what right and for what reason were they sent off to be killed? The Vietnam memorial is a lesson in stone: mourn the dead, never excuse the war.
The whole of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos is a war memorial. The Vietnamese have never been able to count their dead and wounded. Cambodians, subjected to 3,500 secret bombing raids, and Laotians, are a separate and unknown casualty toll...The bulk of the dead were peasants, who died of hunger and disease, died in massacres, died because they lived on that day's battleground, died because artillery sprayed random shells over the countryside. Mainly they died under the fire and steel that rained from the skies. American planes dropped more tonnage of bombs here than was dropped by anyone anywhere in the whole of World War Two.'
Civilians now form the greatest number of casualties in war. They are regarded with indifference by the warring armies, and with concealed indifference by warring governments (which may not be their own). What about the attitude to casualties in local conflicts?
Civilian citizens may be treated without respect by unelected leaders who take power, reinforce it with armed gangs, and embark on a rule of terror. What can be done (nonviolently) to make that process impossible?
In Cambodia it was war that gained the unelected Khmer Rouge its surge of recruits, and war that equipped them with weapons and the will to use them. What parallel examples are there in present day society and communities? The Khmer Rouge were a band of bullies, on a large scale. How can the desire to bully be defused?
All these are vital issues. There is another: the involvement of powerful armies from outside the conflict, who intervene for political reasons of their own and, in the case of Cambodia, illegally. Political awareness is needed to tackle this. Meanwhile, are there equivalent situations locally to think about and learn from?
And why are 'intellectuals' seen as a threat?