Fm Rouge Research Paper

The Khmer Rouge:
The Rise, the Use, and the Fall
Renee Cifra
World History, Period 4
Leslie Rogers
29 April, 2013

The Khmer Rouge:
The Rise, the Use, and the Fall In the early 1950s, a communist movement sparked up against the French’s attempt to colonize in Southeastern Asia. About twenty years later, the organization became formerly known as the Khmer Rouge (French for Red Khmer), named by King Norodom Sihanouk, the king of Cambodia at the time. In 1963, the Red Khmers gained Pol Pot as their secretary and leader, and he guided them into a civil war that broke out in Cambodia between the communists and the Cambodian government. It lasted for a span of five years, from 1970 and 1975, and ending with the fall of the Phnom Penh
It was made official when the communist party took control over the city of Phnom Penh in April 17, 1975, declaring their victory in the Civil War. A few days later, the Khmer Rouge had forced an estimated two million residents of Phnom Penh to the countryside to take up strictly rice farming. Thousands died during the evacuation, but the nearly the total two million evacuated were killed by the end of the Khmer’s regime (Dy, 2007). Often compared to the Holocaust, the Cambodian Genocide replayed many similar factors such as ethnic cleansing, and hopes for creating a new Cambodia in general. Those ill, protestant, or handicapped were killed on the spot or imprisoned, and those deemed useless were executed (Panh, 2003). Pol Pot named this year Year Zero: a new beginning, where he would rid the country of school, hospitals, churches, and religion. He aimed to return Cambodia to an agricultural farming nation, nothing more than that. The Khmer Rouge killed more than a majority of teachers and doctors, and destroyed most of all schools in the process (Stevens, 2010). Labor camps that Cambodians were later sent to became known as the “Killing Fields” and most of the food grown there was kept for the Khamers Rouges, leaving little to none for the laborers themselves. By the end of the Rouge’s four-year terror reign, Cambodia had lost its elite class, proving to have devastating effect in
The Cambodians and Vietnamese began to have clashes, and by late 1978, Viet troops and forces for the United Front for the National Salvation of Kampuchea fought their way back into Cambodia. By January 7th the next year, Vietnamese troops had captured Phnom Penh. Thus began the retreat of the Reds. Leaders and known officials of the Khmer Rouge fled westward towards territories in Thai. Aside from the Red Khmer’s fleet, UN voted against the communist party having a seat in the General Assembly. In 1982, the Vietnamese helped establish a new government – The People’s Republic of Kampuchea – led by Heng Samrin (Dy, 2007). The Khmer Rouge continued to exist until 1999, where the movement had totally collapsed, all of its leaders being either arrested or dead (Dy,