Choeung Ek ( Khmer : ជើងឯក , Cheung Êk [cəːŋ ʔaek] ) is a former orchard in Dangkao , Phnom Penh , Cambodia , that was used as a Killing Field between 1975 and 1979 by the Khmer Rouge in perpetrating the Cambodian genocide . Situated about 17 kilometres (11 mi) south of the city centre, it was attached to the Tuol Sleng detention centre . The bodies of 8,895 victims were exhumed from the site after the fall of the Rouge, who would have been executed there—typically with pickaxes to conserve bullets—before being buried in mass graves.
115-542: It is the best-known of the approximately 300 Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge regime collectively executed over one million people as part of their Cambodian genocide between 1975 and 1979. Mass graves containing 8,895 bodies were discovered at Choeung Ek after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. Many of the dead were former political prisoners who the Khmer Rouge kept in their Tuol Sleng detention center and in other Cambodian detention centers. Today, Choeung Ek
230-520: A centralized and bureaucratic effort which was undertaken by the Khmer Rouge regime, according to documents which were recently published by the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) as a result of the discovery of Khmer Rouge internal security documents which instructed the killings across Cambodia. However there were also instances of "indiscipline and spontaneity in the mass killings." On top of that, Etcheson has also proven that as
345-646: A comprehensive peace agreement was reached between the contending parties in Cambodia which called for the withdrawal of Vietnamese military forces and the creation of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) with the responsibility of enforcing a ceasefire, organizing elections for a new Cambodian government, and repatriating Cambodians still in refugee camps in Thailand or in border camps. UNHCR supervised
460-475: A mass demonstration which was staged by members of the local Cham community who were shot at by the regime's soldiers. The Cham forcefully retaliated with swords and blades, killing a few soldiers, only to be retaliated against by the regime's military reinforcements, which annihilated the villagers and their property. In another account which was given by Cham refugees in Malaysia, thirteen leading figures within
575-517: A minefield. The Preah Vihear incident stimulated the international humanitarian community into action to help Cambodians who often arrived at the Thai border in the last extremity of starvation. By the end of 1979, Vietnamese offensives against the Khmer Rouge and other opposition groups plus a threatened famine in Cambodia had forced 750,000 people, many of them combatants against the Vietnamese, to
690-704: A new Cambodia. In June 1975, Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge officials met with Mao Zedong in Beijing, where Mao lectured Pol Pot on his "Theory of Continuing Revolution under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (无产阶级专政下继续革命理论)", recommending two articles which were written by Yao Wenyuan and sending Pol Pot over 30 books which were authored by Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels , Vladimir Lenin , and Joseph Stalin as gifts. During this meeting, Mao said to Pol Pot: We agree with you! Much of your experience
805-574: A rebellion by the Cham in Region 21 of the Eastern Zone had broken out against the Khmer Rouge after community leaders were arrested. The rebellion was forcefully repressed by the regime and no records of casualties were documented. As much as there are records of these restrictions, resistance, and repressions, there are also accounts by members of the Cham community which deny the oppression which it
920-485: A result of the systematic and mass killings which were based on political affiliations, ethnicity, religion, and citizenship, a third of Cambodia's population perished, so the Khmer Rouge is effectively guilty of committing genocide. David Chandler has argued that, even though ethnic minorities fell victim to the Khmer Rouge regime, they were not specifically targeted by it because of their ethnic backgrounds, instead, they were targeted because they were considered enemies of
1035-661: A second outflow of refugees , many of whom escaped to neighboring Thailand and, to a lesser extent, Vietnam. In 2003, by agreement between the Cambodian government and the United Nations, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia ( Khmer Rouge Tribunal ) were established to try the members of the Khmer Rouge leadership responsible for the Cambodian genocide. Trials began in 2009. On 26 July 2010,
1150-559: A two-year transitionary period that ended with the appointment of Deng Xiaoping as its new paramount leader in December of 1978. During the transition period, Pol Pot made an official visit to China in July 1977 and he was welcomed by chairman Hua Guofeng and other high-ranking CCP officials, with the People's Daily calling him the "Comrade from Cambodia" ( 柬埔寨战友 ). Pot also toured around
1265-482: Is a memorial, marked by a Buddhist stupa . The stupa has acrylic glass sides and is filled with over 5,000 human skulls. Some lower levels are opened during the day so that the skulls can be seen directly. Many have been shattered or smashed in. Tourists are encouraged by the Cambodian government to visit Choeung Ek. Apart from the stupa, there are pits from which the bodies were exhumed. Human bones still litter
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#17327753687051380-401: Is better than ours. China is not qualified to criticize you. We committed errors of the political routes for ten times in fifty years—some are national, some are local…Thus I say China has no qualification to criticize you but to applaud you. You are basically correct…During the transition from the democratic revolution to adopting a socialist path, there exist two possibilities: one is socialism,
1495-412: Is disputed and difficult to disentangle from the broader Cambodian Civil War . Estimates range from 30,000 to 500,000. Sliwinski estimates that approximately 17% of total civil war deaths can be attributed to U.S. bombing, noting that this is far behind the leading causes of death, as the U.S. bombing was concentrated in underpopulated border areas. Ben Kiernan attributes 50,000 to 150,000 deaths to
1610-460: Is usually estimated at between one and three million persons. On December 25, 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and soon took over most of the country, establishing a pro-Vietnamese government to rule Cambodia, which they called the People's Republic of Kampuchea . Tens of thousands of Cambodians were killed in the invasion or executed by the new government. The remnants of the Khmer Rouge retreated to
1725-613: The Cardamon Mountains near the border with Thailand and other resistance movements sprang up in western Cambodia. During the rule of the Khmer Rouge only a few thousand Cambodians had been able to escape Cambodia and take refuge in Thailand. With the Vietnamese invasion, the floodgates opened and Cambodians attempted to cross into Thailand in large numbers. In June 1979, the Thai government forced more than 40,000 Cambodian refugees back into Cambodia at Preah Vihear temple. 3,000 or more Cambodians were killed attempting to cross
1840-730: The Great Chinese Famine . Kenneth M. Quinn , the author of a doctoral dissertation about the "origins of the radical Pol Pot regime" is "widely acknowledged as the first person to report on the genocidal policies of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge." While he was employed as a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. State Department in Southeast Asia, Quinn was stationed at the South Vietnamese border for nine months between 1973 and 1974. While there, Quinn "interviewed countless Cambodian refugees who had escaped
1955-499: The Kampong Cham Province , where the largest Cham Muslim community could be found. The brothers told their father about the adventures which they had experienced as participants in the revolution, adventures which included the killing of Khmers and the consumption of pork, in the hope that they would be able to convince their father to join the communist cause. The father, who remained silent, was clearly not impressed by
2070-590: The National United Front of Kampuchea . In 1970 alone, the Chinese reportedly gave the United Front 400 tons of military aid. In April 1974, Sihanouk and Khmer Rouge leaders Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan met with Mao in Beijing; Mao supported many of the policies proposed by the Khmer Rouge, but he did not want the Khmer Rouge to marginalize Sihanouk after they won the civil war and established
2185-550: The United Nations led Cambodia toward an elected government and repatriated 360,000 Cambodians, emptying and closing the refugee camps. In 1969, the United States began extensive bombing of North Vietnamese sanctuaries and bases, mostly in eastern Cambodia. The bombing later expanded to target the Khmer Rouge. During the same time period, the Khmer Rouge began its rise as an indigenous guerrilla force to challenge
2300-482: The Vietnam War . The second phase was the rule of the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979. The Khmer Rouge murdered or starved about one-fourth of the 8 million population in the Cambodian genocide . In 1979, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and overthrew the Khmer Rouge. Vietnam and the Cambodian government it created ruled the country for the next 12 years. The Khmer Rouge and other groups fought a guerrilla war against
2415-575: The communist revolution in China , class conflicts , Communist International , etc. Pol Pot also met with other officials, including Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen . He was particularly impressed by Kang Sheng 's lecture on how to conduct a political purge . In 1970, Lon Nol overthrew Sihanouk, who fled to Beijing, where Pol Pot was also visiting. On the advice of the CCP, the Khmer Rouge changed its position, and in order to support Sihanouk, it established
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#17327753687052530-438: The genocide . Pol Pot was influenced by Marxism–Leninism and he wanted to transform Cambodia into an entirely self-sufficient agrarian socialist society that would be free from foreign influences. Stalin's works have been described as a "crucial formative influence" on his thought. Mao's works were also heavily influential, particularly influential was Mao's booklet which was titled On New Democracy . Jean-Jacques Rousseau
2645-519: The sarong ; farmers were forced to wear rudimentary dark or black clothing; religious activities like the recitation of the mandatory daily prayers were forbidden. Vickery notes that the Cambodian Cham were discriminated against by the Khmer before the beginning of the war "in some localities", partly because the Cham were stereotyped as being practitioners of black magic. In other localities,
2760-406: The 1969-1973 bombing range from 40,000 to more than 150,000. The impact of the Khmer Rouge on the rural population was severe. Their tactics were "terror, violence, and force." The civil war forced many Cambodians in the countryside to flee to the cities for safety. The population of Phnom Penh increased from 600,000 to more than 2 million. Resupply of the city by land and sea was cut off by
2875-685: The Article 1 of the Law on the Establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers, jurisdiction ratione temporis is limited to the period from 17 April 1975 to 6 January 1979 https://www.eccc.gov.kh/sites/default/files/legal-documents/KR_Law_as_amended_27_Oct_2004_Eng.pdf In 1975, upon the victory of the Khmer Rouge over the Khmer Republic's forces, two brothers of Cham descent who had joined the Khmer Rouge as soldiers returned home to Region 21 within
2990-682: The Cambodian Civil War vary widely. Sihanouk used a figure of 600,000 civil war deaths, while Elizabeth Becker reported over a million civil war deaths, military and civilian included. Other researchers were unable to corroborate such high estimates. Marek Sliwinski notes that many estimates of the dead are open to question and may have been used for propaganda, suggesting that the true number lies between 240,000 and 310,000. Judith Banister and E. Paige Johnson described 275,000 war deaths as "the highest mortality that we can justify". Patrick Heuveline states that "Subsequent reevaluations of
3105-507: The Cambodian army. Documents which were uncovered from the Soviet Union 's archives reveal that the invasion was launched at the Khmer Rouge's explicit request after negotiations were held with Nuon Chea. A North Vietnamese force quickly overran large parts of eastern Cambodia, reaching within 15 miles (24 km) of Phnom Penh before being pushed back. By June, three months after Sihanouk's removal, they had swept government forces from
3220-492: The Cambodian issue. As a result of Chinese and Western opposition to the Vietnamese invasion of 1978 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge continued to hold Cambodia's United Nations (UN) seat until 1982, after which the seat was filled by a Khmer Rouge-dominated coalition which was known as the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK). Owing to support from China, Thailand, other South East Asian countries,
3335-542: The Cham Muslim community were killed by the regime in June 1975. The supposed reason for the killings was because some of them were "leading prayers instead of attending a CPK meeting", while the others were purportedly "petitioning for the permission on marriage ceremonies." Cambodian humanitarian crisis The Cambodian humanitarian crisis from 1969 to 1993 consisted of a series of related events which resulted in
3450-428: The Cham communities could be found across Cambodia, various Cham communities might have experienced the effects of the Khmer Rouge's pre-1975 rule differently; some communities experienced the repressions and restrictions but other communities did not. When Pol Pot consolidated his power by the end of 1975, the persecution became more severe, and it indiscriminately affected all of the Cham people. This could well be one of
3565-482: The Cham people to participate in the revolution. Sos Man's Islamic Movement was also tolerated by the Khmer Rouge's leadership between 1970 and 1975. The Chams were gradually forced to abandon their faith and their distinct practices, a campaign which was launched in the Southwest as early as 1972. Ten Cham villages were taken over by the Khmer Rouge in 1972–1973, where new Cham leaders were installed, and they forced
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3680-556: The Cham were renamed "Islamic Khmers" in an attempt to disassociate them from their ancestral heritage and ethnicity and force them to assimilate into the larger and Khmer-dominated Democratic Kampuchea. The Khmer Rouge believed that the Cham would jeopardize their attempts to establish close-knit communities where everyone could be easily monitored. As a result, the regime decided to disperse the Cham by deporting them from their respective localities and forcing them to work as peasants across Cambodia, hence forcing them to directly contribute to
3795-460: The Cham were well-assimilated within the host communities, speaking the Khmer language and marrying Khmers, Vietnamese, and Chinese. Between 1972 and 1974, the Khmer Rouge intensified the enforcement of the restrictions which they imposed on the Cham because they believed that the Cham were a threat to their communist agenda due to the existence of their unique language, their culture, their beliefs, and their independent communal system. Additionally,
3910-434: The Cham. The Khmer Rouge officially blamed minority groups, particularly the Cham and the Vietnamese, for the country's ills. The regime initially ordered the expulsion of ethnic Vietnamese from Cambodia but then conducted large scale massacres of large numbers of Vietnamese civilians who were being deported out of Cambodia. The regime then prevented the remaining 20,000 ethnic Vietnamese from fleeing, and much of this group
4025-402: The Eastern Zone demonstrated their displeasure with the Khmer Rouge's restrictions by beating their drums—they traditionally beat their drums in order to inform locals that it is time to recite the daily prayers—at local mosques . This act of communal defiance prompted the blanket arrest of many Cham Muslim leaders and religious teachers. In February 1974, the Cham who lived in Region 31, which
4140-548: The Geneva Conventions, and genocide of the Vietnamese ethnic, national and racial group. The Chamber additionally convicted Nuon Chea of genocide of the Cham ethnic and religious group under the doctrine of superior responsibility . Both Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were sentenced to terms of life imprisonment. In 1968, the Khmer Rouge officially launched a nation-wide insurgency across Cambodia. Even though
4255-606: The Khmer Rouge a "chauvinist" regime, due to its anti-Vietnam and anti-religion policies. Stephen Heder also believed that the Khmer Rouge were not guilty of genocide, stating that the atrocities of the regime were not motivated by racism . Ben Kiernan makes the argument that it was indeed a genocide and he disagrees with these three scholars, by bringing forth examples from the history of the Cham people in Cambodia, as did an international tribunal finding Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan guilty of 92 and 87 counts of said crime respectively. Genocide scholar Gregory Stanton concluded that
4370-429: The Khmer Rouge among the Cambodian peasantry. According to Ben Kiernan, the Khmer Rouge "would not have won power without U.S. economic and military destabilization of Cambodia. ... It used the bombing's devastation and massacre of civilians as recruitment propaganda and as an excuse for its brutal, radical policies and its purge of moderate communists and Sihanoukists." Pol Pot biographer David P. Chandler writes that
4485-494: The Khmer Rouge and, by the time the government surrendered on April 17, 1975, many of the inhabitants were starving. During the civil war, 200,000 to 300,000 Cambodians died from all causes. The first action of the Khmer Rouge on taking power in Phnom Penh was to order the populace to abandon the cities of Cambodia. "One third to one half of the population of the country was forced by the communists at gunpoint to walk into
4600-474: The Khmer Rouge banned the existence of more than 20 minority groups, which constituted 15% of Cambodia's population. While Cambodians in general were victims of the Khmer Rouge regime, the persecution, torture, and killings committed by the Khmer Rouge are considered an act of genocide according to the United Nations as ethnic and religious minorities were systematically targeted by Pol Pot and his regime. Scholars and historians have varying opinions on whether
4715-438: The Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and frogmarched Cambodians to labor camps in the countryside, where mass executions, forced labor , physical abuse, torture, malnutrition , and disease were rampant. In 1976, the Khmer Rouge renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea . The massacres ended when the Vietnamese military invaded in 1978 and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime. By January 1979, 1.5 to 2 million people had died due to
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4830-729: The Khmer Rouge received came from China, including at least US$ 1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid in 1975 alone. After it seized power in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge wanted to turn the country into an agrarian socialist republic , founded on the policies of ultra- Maoism and influenced by the Cultural Revolution . Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge officials met with Mao in Beijing in June 1975, receiving approval and advice, while high-ranking CCP officials such as Politburo Standing Committee member Zhang Chunqiao later visited Cambodia to offer help. To fulfill its goals,
4945-430: The Khmer Rouge under the justification that they "used to exploit the Cambodian people". The Chinese were stereotyped as traders and moneylenders associated with capitalism, while historically the group attracted resentment due to their lighter skin color and cultural differences. Hundreds of Cham, Chinese and Khmer families were rounded up in 1978 and told that they were to be resettled, but were actually executed. At
5060-466: The Khmer Rouge's new recruits were apolitical peasants who fought in support of the King, rather than for communism , of which they had little understanding. By 1975, with Lon Nol's government running out of ammunition due to its loss of support from the U.S., it was clear that its collapse was imminent. On 17 April 1975, the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh and ended the civil war. Mortality estimates for
5175-629: The Khmer Rouge's policies, including 200,000–300,000 Chinese Cambodians , 90,000–500,000 Cambodian Cham (who are mostly Muslim ), and 20,000 Vietnamese Cambodians . 20,000 people passed through the Security Prison 21 , one of the 196 prisons the Khmer Rouge operated, and only seven adults survived. The prisoners were taken to the Killing Fields , where they were executed (often with pickaxes , to save bullets) and buried in mass graves . Abduction and indoctrination of children
5290-538: The Khmer Rouge's revolutionary ruralism and its evacuation of city residents to farms. The government of the People's Republic of China did not protest against the killings of ethnic Chinese in Cambodia, despite its awareness of the atrocities and its simultaneous condemnation of the Vietnamese government's mistreatment of ethnic Chinese who lived in Vietnam. According to Ben Kiernan, the "fiercest extermination campaign
5405-411: The Khmer Rouge's rise to power. Vickery—erroneously, as has been proven by the research which was more recently conducted by Ben Kiernan —argued that the number of Cham victims who were killed during the Khmer Rouge's rule of Cambodia was around 20,000 which would still be a substantial part of the Cham group and would thus constitute the crime of genocide by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The killings were
5520-660: The Khmer Rouge, hoped for resettlement abroad. Khao-I-Dang reached a peak population of 160,000 in March 1980, but with resettlement, repatriation (sometimes involuntary), and transfer to other camps the population declined to 40,000 by December 1982 and the camp took on a status described as "the most elaborately serviced refugee camp in the world." Site Two Refugee Camp grew to a population of 160,000 in 1987. Both refugee and border camps were characterized by fighting among political factions, violence, rape, depression, and inactivity. The refugee camps were declared closed to new arrivals by
5635-602: The Khmer Rouge. As a result, Pol Pot has been described as "a genocidal tyrant" by journalists and historians such as William Branigin. The British sociologist Martin Shaw described the Cambodian genocide as "the purest genocide of the Cold War era". The attempt to purify Cambodian society along racial, social and political lines led to purges of Cambodia's previous military and political leadership, along with business leaders, journalists, students, doctors, and lawyers. Due to
5750-468: The Khmer language, and even inter-marrying with the majority Khmers as well as with the minority Chinese and Vietnamese. The diverse ethnic and cultural practices of Cambodians began to deteriorate during the rise of the Khmer Rouge in 1972, when the Cham were prohibited from practising their faith and culture: Cham women were required to keep their hair short like the Khmers; Cham men were not allowed to wear
5865-654: The Thai border. Most were prevented from entering Thailand, but resided in makeshift camps along the border, although more than 100,000 were inside Thailand at Khao-I-Dang Holding Center. Many of the new arrivals were malnourished or starving. Fighting between the Vietnamese and anti-Vietnamese forces disrupted Cambodian rice production in 1979. A country-wide famine was anticipated in 1980. Aid agencies estimated that up to 2.5 million Cambodians were at risk of starvation. The pro-Vietnamese government in Phnom Penh demanded that all humanitarian aid be channeled through it, and some UN and aid organizations attempted to work with
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#17327753687055980-518: The Trial Chamber convicted Kang Kek Iew for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The Supreme Court Chamber increased his sentence to life imprisonment. Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were tried and convicted in 2014 of crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. On 28 March 2019, the Trial Chamber found Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan guilty of crimes against humanity, grave breaches of
6095-426: The U.S. bombing. The relationship between the United States' massive bombing of Cambodia and the growth of the Khmer Rouge in recruitment and popular support has been a matter of interest to historians. Some scholars, including Michael Ignatieff , Adam Jones and Greg Grandin , have cited the United States intervention and bombing campaign from 1965 to 1973 as a significant factor that led to increased support for
6210-570: The U.S., and some Western countries, the CGDK held Cambodia's UN seat until 1993, long after the Cold War ended. China trained Khmer Rouge soldiers on its soil from 1979 to at least 1986, "stationed military advisers with Khmer Rouge troops as late as 1990", and "supplied at least $ 1 billion in military aid" during the 1980s. There are allegations of United States support for the Khmer Rouge , because they wished to weaken Vietnam's influence in Southeast Asia. The UK has also been accused of helping
6325-399: The Vietnamese and Cambodian government continued and hundreds of thousands of Cambodians continued to reside in refugee camps in Thailand or on the border with Thailand. About 260,000 of the refugees were resettled abroad, more than one-half of them in the United States . The final phase of the Cambodian humanitarian crisis was its resolution in 1991–1993. Vietnam withdrew from the country and
6440-418: The Vietnamese invasion and continued its material support to the Khmer Rouge. In early 1979, China launched an invasion of Vietnam to retaliate against Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia. Deng was convinced by a conversation with Singapore's prime minister Lee Kuan Yew to limit the scale and duration of the war. Following the one-month war, Singapore attempted to serve as a mediator between Vietnam and China on
6555-420: The Vietnamese occupiers and the Cambodian government. In 1979 and 1980, the chaos caused hundreds of thousands of Cambodians to rush to the border with Thailand to escape the violence and to avoid the famine which threatened Cambodia. Humanitarian organizations coped with the crisis with the "land bridge", one of the largest humanitarian aid efforts ever undertaken. From 1981 to 1991, the guerrilla war against
6670-479: The accounts which were given by his sons. Instead, he grabbed a cleaver, killed his sons, and told his fellow villagers that he killed the enemy. When the villagers pointed out that he murdered his own sons, he recounted the stories which his sons had previously told to him, citing the Khmer Rouge's hatred for Islam and the Cham people. This event prompted the villagers to make a unanimous agreement, that night, they would kill all Khmer Rouge soldiers who were stationed in
6785-411: The advanced and the backward, even when Communism is realized. Today we cannot explain it completely. Pol Pot replied: "The issue of lines of struggle raised by Chairman Mao is an important strategic issue. We will follow your words in the future. I have read and learned various works of Chairman Mao since I was young, especially the theory on people's war . Your works have guided our entire party." On
6900-488: The agrarian self-sufficiency of the area's isolated tribes—while the Khmer Rouge gained power. Attempts to implement these goals (formed upon the observations of small, rural communes) into a larger society were key factors in the ensuing genocide. One Khmer Rouge leader said that the killings were meant for the "purification of the populace." The Khmer Rouge virtually forced Cambodia's entire population to divide itself into mobile work teams. Michael Hunt has written that it
7015-460: The agricultural production model of Dazhai , a product of Mao's era. Chen Yonggui , Vice Premier of China and the leader of Dazhai, visited Cambodia in December 1977, commending the achievement of its movement towards communism. In 1978, Son Sen , a Khmer Rouge leader and the Minister of National Defense of Democratic Kampuchea , visited China and obtained its approval for military aid. In
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#17327753687057130-488: The area. The next morning, more Khmer Rouge soldiers descended upon the area with heavy weapons, and they surrounded the village, killing every single villager in it. Similarly, in June or July 1975, the Khmer Rouge authorities in Region 21 of the Eastern Zone tried to confiscate all copies of the Qur'an from the people, and at the same time, they tried to impose a mandatory short haircut on Cham women. The authorities encountered
7245-402: The beginning of the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1975, there were 425,000 ethnic Chinese in Cambodia. By the end of 1979, there were just 200,000, most of them were stuck in Thai refugee camps and the rest of them were stuck in Cambodia. 170,000 Chinese fled from Cambodia and moved to Vietnam, and others were repatriated. The Chinese were predominantly city-dwellers, making them vulnerable to
7360-562: The bombing "had the effect the Americans wanted—it broke the Communist encirclement of Phnom Penh", but also accelerated the collapse of rural society and increased social polarization. Craig Etcheson agrees that U.S. intervention increased recruitment for the Khmer Rouge but disputes that it was a primary cause of the Khmer Rouge victory. According to William Shawcross , the United States bombing and ground incursion plunged Cambodia into
7475-602: The border and entered the village, slaughtering 3,157 Vietnamese civilians. This caused an urgent response from the Vietnamese government, precipitating the Cambodian–Vietnamese War in which the Khmer Rouge was ultimately defeated. The state of the Chinese Cambodians during the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime was alleged to be "the worst disaster ever to befall any ethnic Chinese community in Southeast Asia." Cambodians of Chinese descent were massacred by
7590-442: The border. "Vast numbers of Cambodians with oxcarts and bicycles...came to the border every day" and were given sacks of rice to take home with them. The land bridge was a "huge and successful operation," distributing together with other aid operations, including rice distribution to occupants of urban Phnom Penh, about 150,000 metric tons of rice, other food, and rice seed to Cambodians from December 1979 to September 1980. While
7705-478: The brutal clutches of the Khmer Rouge." Based upon the compiled interviews and the atrocities he witnessed firsthand, Quinn wrote "a 40-page report about it, which was submitted throughout the U.S. government." In the report, he wrote that the Khmer Rouge had "much in common with those of totalitarian regimes in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union ." Quinn has written of the Khmer Rouge that "[w]hat emerges as
7820-429: The chaos that Sihanouk had worked for years to avoid. Since the 1950s, Pol Pot made frequent visits to the People's Republic of China , where he received political and military training—especially on the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat —from the personnel of the CCP. From November 1965 to February 1966, high-ranking CCP officials such as Chen Boda and Zhang Chunqiao trained him on topics such as
7935-709: The communists as early as the 1950s, with a Cham elder, Sos Man joining the Indochina Communist Party and rising through the ranks to become a major in the Party's forces. He then returned home to the Eastern Zone in 1970 and joined the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and he co-established the Eastern Zone Islamic Movement with his son, Mat Ly. Together, they became the mouthpiece of the Khmer Rouge and they encouraged
8050-465: The countryside in tropical temperatures and monsoon rains without provision for food, water, shelter, physical security, or medical care." The urban dwellers who survived were forced to create new settlements in the jungle. Former civil servants and soldiers of the Lon Nol government were executed. The death toll from execution, starvation, and disease during the almost four years of Khmer Rouge rule
8165-494: The creation and maintenance of the new Cambodian economy. This move was undertaken in an attempt to ensure that the Cham would not congregate in an attempt to form their own community again, which would have undermined the regime's plan to establish centralized economic cooperatives. Slowly, those Cham who defied the restrictions which the Khmer Rouge imposed on them were arrested by the regime. Hence, in October 1973, Cham Muslims in
8280-624: The cultural underpinnings of the Khmer civilization and to impose a new society through purges, executions, and violence." Ben Kiernan has compared the Cambodian genocide to the Armenian genocide which was perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire during World War I and the Holocaust which was perpetrated by Nazi Germany during World War II . While each genocide was unique, certain features were common in all three genocides, and racism
8395-618: The death, displacement, or resettlement abroad of millions of Cambodians. The crisis had several phases. First was the Cambodian Civil War between the Lon Nol government and the Khmer Rouge from 1970 to 1975. This phase was also marked by intensive United States bombing from 1969 to 1973 of the Khmer Rouge and sanctuaries and bases inside Cambodia of the North Vietnamese Army as part of its strategy to win
8510-456: The demographic data situated the death toll for the [civil war] in the order of 300,000 or less". From 1970 to 1973, a massive United States bombing campaign against the Khmer Rouge devastated rural Cambodia. An earlier U.S. bombing campaign of Cambodia began on 18 March 1969 with Operation Breakfast , but U.S. bombing in Cambodia had commenced years before that. The number of Cambodian civilian and Khmer Rouge deaths caused by U.S. bombing
8625-465: The entire northeastern third of the country. After defeating those forces, the Vietnamese turned the newly won territories over to the local insurgents. The Khmer Rouge also established "liberated" areas in the southern and southwestern parts of the country, where they operated independently of the Vietnamese. After Sihanouk demonstrated his support for the Khmer Rouge by visiting them in the field, their ranks swelled from 6,000 to 50,000 fighters. Many of
8740-438: The explanation for the terror and violence that swept Cambodia during the 1970s is that a small group of alienated intellectuals, enraged by their perception of a corrupt society and imbued with a Maoist plan to create a pure socialist order in the shortest possible time, recruited extremely young, poor, and envious cadres, instructed them in harsh and brutal methods learned from Stalinist mentors, and used them to destroy physically
8855-400: The fact that the perpetrators and the victims of the mass murder were largely members of the same ethnic group, the term autogenocide was coined to describe the unique character of the genocide. According to Samuel Totten , 25% of the urban Khmer population or 500,000 people perished under the rule of the Khmer Rouge , along with 16% of the rural Khmer population or 825,000 people putting
8970-465: The former Cambodian government along with anyone whom it suspected of having connections with foreign governments, as well as professionals, intellectuals, the Buddhist monkhood , and ethnic minorities. Even those people who were stereotypically thought of as having intellectual qualities, such as wearing glasses or speaking multiple languages , were executed out of fear that they would rebel against
9085-454: The full-scale mass killing of the Cham people. American professor Samuel Totten and Australian professor Paul R. Bartrop estimate that these efforts would have completely wiped out the Cham population were it not for the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. In a Khmer Rouge official meeting took place in Sector 41, Kampong Cham province in 1977, a plan was proclaimed up to "smash enemies of
9200-621: The genocide, China was the largest military and economic supporter of the Khmer Rouge, supplying "more than 15,000 military advisers" and most of its external aid. It is estimated that at least 90% of foreign aid to Khmer Rouge came from China, with 1975 alone seeing US$ 1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid, "the biggest aid ever given to any one country by China". A series of internal crises in 1976 prevented Beijing from exerting substantial influence over Khmer Rouge policies. After Mao's death in September 1976, China underwent
9315-405: The government of North Vietnam were not informed about the Khmer Rouge's decision, its forces provided shelter and weapons to the Khmer Rouge after the insurgency began. North Vietnamese support for the Khmer Rouge's insurgency made it impossible for the Cambodian military to effectively counter it. For the next two years, the insurgency grew because Norodom Sihanouk did very little to stop it. As
9430-472: The government of Thailand, but Cambodians gained access through bribery or being smuggled into the camps. Many of the Cambodians in the refugee and border camps remained there for years, fearful of returning to their country and desiring resettlement abroad. A total of 260,000 Cambodians would be resettled between 1975 and 1997, mostly in the United States (153,000) and France (53,000). In October 1991,
9545-564: The government. The impact and interrelationship of the bombing and the growth of the Khmer Rouge is disputed by historians. On March 18, 1970, Lon Nol overthrew the government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk . Lon Nol initiated an unsuccessful campaign to oust the soldiers and cut the supply lines of the North Vietnamese in Cambodia. In response, the NVA poured out of the sanctuaries and captured additional Cambodian territory. This territory
9660-422: The government. However, there were reports of "delivery and distribution problems". The "land bridge" , conceived by aid worker Robert Patrick Ashe, was a relief measure that bypassed the Phnom Penh government. Humanitarian organizations and international aid agencies brought rice and other rice seed to Nong Chan Refugee Camp on the Cambodian border in Thailand and distributed the rice to Cambodians who came to
9775-506: The group as the SAS trained non Khmer Rouge soldiers of the CGDK coalition from 1985 to 1989 in Thailand. After the 1991 Paris Peace Accords , Thailand continued to allow the Khmer Rouge "to trade and move across the Thai border to sustain their activities ... although international criticism, particularly from the United States and Australia ... caused it to disavow passing any direct military support." Ideology played an important role in
9890-662: The insurgency grew in strength, the party openly declared itself to be the Communist Party of Kampuchea. Sihanouk was deposed in 1970 by Premier Lon Nol , with the support of the National Assembly , establishing the pro-United States Khmer Republic . On the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s advice, Sihanouk, who was in exile in Beijing , formed an alliance with the Khmer Rouge, and became
10005-577: The killing at a scale comparable to the genocide of the Roma (25% of the Roma population of Europe, or 130,000 to 500,000 people) and the genocide of Serbians (300,000 to 500,000 people) during the Holocaust . Ethnic Vietnamese , ethnic Thai , ethnic Chinese , ethnic Cham , Cambodian Christians , and other minorities were also targeted for persecution and genocide. The Khmer Rouge forcibly relocated minority groups and banned their languages . By decree,
10120-435: The killings were "largely the result of the spontaneous excesses of a vengeful, undisciplined peasant army." This point of view was also supported by Alexander Hinton , who cited an account by a former Khmer Rouge cadre who claimed that the killings were acts of retribution for the atrocities which were perpetrated by Lon Nol's soldiers when they killed people who were known to be former Viet Minh agents before Pol Pot and
10235-413: The land bridge was successful in helping to avert what appeared to be an impending famine in Cambodia, it was controversial among aid agencies. Some aid agencies favored cooperation with the government in Phnom Penh and accused the land bridge of encouraging a black market in food and assisting anti-government forces, including the Khmer Rouge. The impact of the land bridge can not be fully measured as there
10350-407: The leadership of Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea , Pol Pot . It resulted in the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly 25% of Cambodia's population in 1975 ( c. 7.8 million). Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were supported for many years by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its chairman, Mao Zedong ; it is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid which
10465-477: The mass killings and starvation by the Khmer Rouge did constitute genocide, both as defined in the Genocide Convention and in the broader definition of Raphael Lemkin, which includes destruction of political, social, and economic groups. The crimes were genocide under the Genocide Convention because they included the intentional destruction of a significant part of two ethnic groups, the Vietnamese and
10580-532: The new state grew." Analysis of existing mortality estimates show that men accounted for 81% of all violent deaths and 67% of all excess deaths in this period. The killing of about 50–70% of Cambodia's working-age men led to a shift in norms regarding the sexual division of labor and correlates with present-day indicators of women's economic advancements and increased representation in local-level elected office. The Khmer Rouge regime frequently arrested and executed anyone whom it suspected of having connections with
10695-472: The nominal head of a Khmer Rouge–dominated government-in-exile (known by its French acronym, GRUNK ) backed by China. Although thoroughly aware of the weakness of Lon Nol's forces and loath to commit American military force to the new conflict in any form other than air power, the Nixon administration announced its support for the new Khmer Republic. On 29 March 1970, North Vietnam launched an offensive against
10810-529: The other hand, during another meeting in August 1975, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai warned Sihanouk as well as Khmer Rouge leaders including Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary of the danger of radical movement towards communism, citing the mistakes in China's own Great Leap Forward . Zhou urged them not to repeat the mistakes that had caused havoc. Sihanouk later recalled that Khieu Samphan and Ieng Thirith responded only with "an incredulous and superior smile". During
10925-422: The other is capitalism. Our situation now is like this. Fifty years from now, or one hundred years from now, the struggle between two lines will exist. Even ten thousand years from now, the struggle between two lines will still exist. When Communism is realized, the struggle between two lines will still be there. Otherwise, you are not a Marxist. This is unity existing among opposites. If one mentions only one side of
11040-402: The persecution and killings which occurred during the rule of the Khmer Rouge should be considered genocide. These conflicting opinions exist because scholars who conducted research in Cambodia immediately after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 claimed that the victims could have been killed due to the circumstances which they were living under. For instance, Michael Vickery opined that
11155-425: The regime. Chandler also rejects the use of the terms "chauvinism" and "genocide" just to avoid drawing possible parallels to Hitler. This indicates that Chandler does not believe in the argument of charging the Khmer Rouge regime with the crime of genocide. Similarly, Michael Vickery holds a similar position to Chandler's, and refuses to acknowledge the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime as genocide; Vickery regarded
11270-525: The repatriation effort which resulted in 360,000 Cambodians returning to the country from refugee and border camps in Thailand. Khao-I-Dang and other refugee camps were closed. Their remaining population was transferred to Site Two which was closed in mid-1993 after its population was repatriated to Cambodia Elections in May 1993 established an independent Cambodian government and UNTAC was dismantled. A sizable number of UN and humanitarian aid workers remained in
11385-466: The revolution", stating that "the enemies of the revolution are many, but our biggest enemy are Cham. So the Plan calls for the destruction of all the Cham people before 1980." In fact, more telegrams were sent from Pol Pot to local governments between 1978 and 1979 than usual hastily ordered the total eradication of the Cham must be achieved before 1980. The Cham began to rise in prominence when they joined
11500-697: The same year, high-ranking CCP officials such as Wang Dongxing and Deng Yingchao visited Cambodia to offer support. Soon after Deng became the Paramount Leader of China , the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and ended the genocide by defeating the Khmer Rouge in January 1979. The People's Republic of Kampuchea was then established. In order to counter the power of the Soviet Union and Vietnam in Southeast Asia , China officially condemned
11615-554: The simpler reasons as to why the Cambodian government and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) have not prosecuted any Khmer Rouge members who perpetrated atrocities during the pre-1975 period, the period before Pol Pot consolidated his power. As a result, the accounts of those Cham who experienced the repressions prior to 1975 were not considered parts of the genocide , mainly because according to
11730-476: The site. On 3 May 2005, the Municipality of Phnom Penh announced that they had entered into a 30-year agreement with JC Royal Co. to develop the memorial at Choeung Ek. As part of the agreement, they are not to disturb the remains still present in the field. Cambodian genocide The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge under
11845-405: The two, this is metaphysics. I believe in what Marx and Lenin have said, that the path [of advance] would be tortuous ... Our state now is, as Lenin said, a capitalist state without capitalists. This state protects capitalist rights, and the wages are not equal. Under the slogan of equality, a system of inequality has been introduced. There will exist a struggle between two lines, the struggle between
11960-399: The village communities which assisted the locals by providing food and provisions to them, and there were no bans on local cultures or religions; even if restrictions were imposed, the consequences of them were not harsh. Many regarded the Khmer Rouge as heroes because they believed that the Khmer Rouge supported the peasantry during its war against the United States backed government. Because
12075-441: The villagers to work in the fields which were located away from their hometowns. A witness who was interviewed by Kiernan asserts that at that time, they were well-treated by the Khmer Rouge, and in 1974, they were allowed to return to their homes. Moreover, the Cham were classified as "depositee base people", making them vulnerable to persecution. Despite their plight, the Cham and the locals live side by side in many areas, speaking
12190-409: Was "an experiment in social mobilization unmatched in twentieth-century revolutions." The Khmer Rouge used a forced labor regime, starvation, forced resettlement , land collectivization , and state terror to keep the population in line. The Khmer Rouge's economic plan was named the "Maha Lout Ploh", a direct allusion to the " Great Leap Forward " of China that caused tens of millions of deaths in
12305-464: Was a major part of the ideology of all three regimes. All three regimes targeted religious minorities and they also tried to use force in order to expand their rule into what they believed were their historic heartlands (the Khmer Empire, Turkestan , and Lebensraum , respectively), and all three regimes "idealized their ethnic peasantry as the true 'national' class, the ethnic soil from which
12420-467: Was also executed. The Khmer Rouge also used the media to support their goals of genocide. Radio Phnom Penh called on Cambodians to "exterminate the 50 million Vietnamese." Additionally, the Khmer Rouge conducted many cross-border raids into Vietnam, where they slaughtered an estimated 30,000 Vietnamese civilians. Most notably, during the Ba Chúc massacre in April 1978, the Khmer Rouge military crossed
12535-469: Was directed against the ethnic Chams , Cambodia's Muslim minority." Islam was seen as an "alien" and "foreign" culture that did not belong in the new Communist system. Initially, the Khmer Rouge aimed for the " forced assimilation " of Chams through population dispersal. Pol Pot then began using intimidation efforts against the Chams that included the assassination of village elders, but he ultimately ordered
12650-555: Was handed over the Khmer Rouge. Around the same time, US and South Vietnamese troops initiated the Cambodian Campaign to oust North Vietnamese troops from the sanctuaries. The humanitarian consequences of U.S. bombing were high. The U.S. may have dropped a tonnage of bombs on Cambodia nearly equal to all the bombs dropped by the U.S. in World War II . Estimates of Cambodian military and civilian deaths resulting from
12765-562: Was located in the Western Zone, protested against the Khmer Rouge's policy which required fishermen to register their daily catch with the local cooperative and sell it to the cooperative at a low price. At the same time, the locals were also forced to buy those fish from the cooperative at a higher price. This policy prompted the locals to confront the cooperative to express their discontent, the locals were shot at, "killing and wounding more than 100", as one account put it. By December 1974,
12880-440: Was no means of monitoring the end use of the food it distributed. The border camps fluctuated in size during the 1980s depending upon the intensity of fighting inside Cambodia. Combatants took shelter in the border camps and both Vietnamese and Cambodian government forces frequently shelled the camps . Meanwhile, at Khao-I-Dang and other refugee camps a few miles inside Thailand, Cambodians, mostly urban middle-class survivors of
12995-634: Was one of Pol Pot's favorite authors, according to historian David Chandler. In the mid-1960s, Pol Pot reformulated his ideas about Marxism–Leninism to suit the Cambodian situation by advocating goals such as bringing Cambodia back to an alleged and mythical past of the powerful Khmer Empire , eradicating influences which he viewed as "corrupting", such as foreign aid and Western culture , as well as restoring Cambodia's agrarian society . Pol Pot's strong belief that Cambodia needed to be transformed into an agrarian utopia stemmed from his experience in Cambodia's rural northeast—where he developed an affinity for
13110-418: Was subjected to by the regime between 1970 and early 1975. While restrictions on certain activities like trade and travel were imposed during that period, they were understood to be the by-products of the ongoing civil war. Moreover, some Cham had also joined the revolution as soldiers and members of the Khmer Rouge. According to some local accounts, people had confidence in the Khmer Rouge when they first came to
13225-401: Was widespread, and many were persuaded or forced to commit atrocities. As of 2009, the Documentation Center of Cambodia has mapped 23,745 mass graves containing approximately 1.3 million suspected victims of execution. Direct execution is believed to account for up to 60% of the genocide's death toll, with other victims succumbing to starvation, exhaustion, or disease. The genocide triggered
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