Throughout history, the world has bared witness to many genocides. Even in today’s current era, there are people trying to eliminate certain races in several countries. Among these genocides of the past, is a country in Southeast Asia called Cambodia. In the 1960’s, this fairly large country that is roughly the size of Oklahoma, had a population of over 7 million people. The country was full of educators and successful people, until the uprising of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge on April 17, 1975. The Khmer Rouge, formerly known as the Communists Party of Kampuchea, wanted to turn Cambodia into an “Agrarian Utopia.” However, this unrealistic goal was nothing close to a utopia. Pol Pot, the leader of this destructive plan, forced millions of
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In the labor camps, Cambodians in disagreement or of higher class were starved, tortured, and killed. One notoriously famous prison was the S-21, where people were interrogated using extreme methods. At first, the main method was starvation until the prisons started to overflow with people. It was then that the Khmer Rouge started creating “killing fields” all over the country. The children, elderly, and ill were killed off faster this way, due to the extreme physical labor and conditions in these fields. Over 1 million people were estimated to have died in these fields and buried in mass graves. The Khmer Rouge was also known for using and manipulating children soldiers, for they were easily controlled at young ages. Some sadistic soldiers even forced the children to shoot their own parents. Neither the U.S. or Europe chose to fully acknowledge the murder and genocide in Cambodia at this time. For if you openly identify and call attention to a problem, you are expected to solve it. One significant difference this genocide has compared to others is that no one was really safe. Even members of the Khmer Rouge were killed regularly in purges. After this tragedy ended on January 7, 1979, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and overthrew the Khmer Rouge, almost 2 million Cambodians had been estimated dead. They then proceeded to emplace a socialist regime formed of people who were against
In the labor camps, Cambodians in disagreement or of higher class were starved, tortured, and killed. One notoriously famous prison was the S-21, where people were interrogated using extreme methods. At first, the main method was starvation until the prisons started to overflow with people. It was then that the Khmer Rouge started creating “killing fields” all over the country. The children, elderly, and ill were killed off faster this way, due to the extreme physical labor and conditions in these fields. Over 1 million people were estimated to have died in these fields and buried in mass graves. The Khmer Rouge was also known for using and manipulating children soldiers, for they were easily controlled at young ages. Some sadistic soldiers even forced the children to shoot their own parents. Neither the U.S. or Europe chose to fully acknowledge the murder and genocide in Cambodia at this time. For if you openly identify and call attention to a problem, you are expected to solve it. One significant difference this genocide has compared to others is that no one was really safe. Even members of the Khmer Rouge were killed regularly in purges. After this tragedy ended on January 7, 1979, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and overthrew the Khmer Rouge, almost 2 million Cambodians had been estimated dead. They then proceeded to emplace a socialist regime formed of people who were against