The Genocide in Cambodia

One of the dearest topics in my list is the genocide war in Cambodia. So dreadful how evil destroys human.

A genocidal war broke out in the whole of Cambodia in 1975-1979. Who was the culprit? A Cambodian himself, Pol Pot. He was Khmer by race, the indigenous race in the country. This war has resulted in the killing of approximately 2 million khmer people, men, women as well as children out of a population of 8 million (25% of the country’s population)

Why did he do this? Pol Pot believes in indigenous sentiment, that a country must be original without the intervention of other culture such as the modern western (although he himself was educated in France and later involved in the French communist militia).

This sentiment is a mirror of the communism mindset that he adopted while studying in France. Everything must be originally traditional Khmer, but since Cambodia was already involved in the international arena, like other countries in Asia too, a tough and huge effort has been made by Pol Pot to create a pure Cambodia and turn into an agrarian society, communist style. 

 Photo by: http://incredibleimages4u.blogspot.com

Side-note: This sentiment is the exact sentiment of Adolf Hitler as well. His fundamental beliefs:  the German or 'Aryan' master-race must be kept 'pure', with no intermarriage; Germany must be made great again, taking new territory to the east as its rightful lebensraum ('space for living'); the Aryans' greatest enemy is the Jews - http://www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_holocaust.html

The enemies of Pol Pot were those fellow Cambodian who live with western influence, who had jobs outside agriculture field (singers, artists, doctors etc) and especially those who worked for the government before. Pol Pot was also suspicious over the Vietnamese so they made it into his list of enemies as well. 

___________________________________________________________________________________

The start of the blackest years of the Cambodian

April 17, 1975 – Pol Pot communist regime defeated the Cambodian Government and thus took over in governing the country. This new government was called The Khmer Rouge. They rammed into Phnom Penh and ordered an immediate evacuation of the residence from PP to a new place.

This was the order they gave the city people: “Take as little as you can, you will not need your city belongings. You can return in 3 days time, no one is allowed to stay here. The U.S will bomb the city, the U.S will bomb the city!”

Everyone packed their things and started the march, they didn’t know where they were heading, everyone simply followed the crowd and the Khmer Rouge’s soldiers had their eyes on everyone. The march continued for several weeks, and months, along the way, many died of hunger and exhaustion. Also, many were killed by the soldiers because seemed that they didn’t belong to Cambodia.

These people were doctors, lawyers, executives, bankers, business owners, government employees, engineers, professionals, basically those who had jobs in Phnom Penh other than farmers. All were brutally killed, raped and tortured. The Khmer Rouge has a slogan “to spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss”.  Those who were farmers back in Phnom Penh, can live and joined the new status they were given called ‘the new people’ (basically means original khmer).

Great division among families were widely practiced, parents and small children live in one province, their daughters lived in another, and their sons in another. Pol Pot and his gang, they are called the Angka, said “if there is no unity, there will be no rise against Angka”.

He brainwashed the people – sons killed their fathers and mothers, relatives killed each other, falling in love is forbidden, playing is forbidden, religion was banned, all leading Buddhist monks were killed and temples destroyed. Every level of people from the youngest to the oldest worked in the paddy fields. Every province has their own paddy fields. Millions of tones of paddy were produced each year, but the Cambodian has only liquid rice to eat, twice a day i.e. lunch and dinner.

If you were the last on the queue, you won’t get any rice; all you get was liquid with nothing inside. So they were hungry all the time, that they didn’t have the energy to fight, all they care was to have something to eat. Starvation is one of Angka’s strategies as well.

So for whom was the millions tones of paddy? CHINA! Pol Pot was fascinated with the Chinese communist regime and established a relationship with them. China produced weaponry for the Khmer Rouge and in return they received millions tones of rice each year. With this agreement, the people of Cambodia continue to suffer back then. 

___________________________________________________________________________________

The end of the war

It began in 1978 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia because of Khmer Rouge’s constant border attack. This has given the Cambodian, HOPE. Do check the book First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung (on page 165), and see how hope lifted the people’s motivation to survive, although they were still in constant hunger and weakness.

___________________________________________________________________________________

First they killed my father a daughter of Cambodia remembers

All these details of the lives of millions of Cambodian in the Khmer Rouge era was written beautifully and as detailed as she can remember, in Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father.

Loung was only 5 years old when this horrific war happened. She, with her 6 other siblings and parents braved through the war and she have the details for us to remind ourselves that evil exist.

An excerpt from Loung Ung’s book:

            As April turns into May and May into June, the leaves shrivel, the trees turn brown, and the river streams dry up. Under the summer sun, the stench of death is so strong in the village, I cover my nose and mouth with my hands and breathe only the air that filters through my fingers.

            There are so many dead people here. The neighbours are too weak to bury all the corpses. Often the bodies are left in the hot sun, until the smell permeates the surrounding air, causing everyone passing by to pinch their noses. The flies come buzzing around the corpses and lay millions of eggs on the bodies. When the bodies are finally buried, they are nothing more than large nests of maggots.

            For lack of anything else to do when my body gets too sick to work in the garden, I often watch the villagers dispose of the corpses. I see them dig a hole underneath the hut of the dead family and cringe as they push the bodies into the hole. The dead families are buried together in one grave. There were times when such scenes terrified me, but I have seen the ritual performed so many times that I now feel nothing. The people who die here have no relatives to grieve for them.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Loung Ung now lives in Ohio with her husband and she is a national spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine Free World, a program of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. Besides First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (P.S.), she is also the author of Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind (P.S.)

“This book left me gasping for air…In the end the horror of the Cambodian genocide is matched only by the author’s indomitable spirit.” – Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking.

Related books and movies about Cambodia Genocide:

Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind by Loung Ung

S21 prison is located in Phnom Penh, the capital. It was where thousands were tortured and killed by the Khmer Rouge soldiers. Victims would be chained and kept here before they are sent to the Killing Fields, located in outskirts of the capital. In this documentary, interviews were carried out with the victims as well as those who used to work for Pol Pot as S21 guards. I’ve been to S21 myself and thousands of pictures during S21 operation are displayed. Not only pictures of victims and killings, but also each room in S21 are kept in its originality (minus the bloods) to show us how the Khmer Rouge torture and kill the victims.

 

A movie based on real story in the genocidal war. A story of a New York Times correspondent, Sidney Schanberg who found friendship with a Khmer, Dith Pran. Dith Pran has an opportunity to escape Cambodia when the US army evacuates the Cambodian citizens but Schanberg managed to persuade Dith to stay and keep sending him first hand news. But Schanberg dreaded with guilt, did his best to arrange for Dith’s escape but Dith was captured by the Khmer Rouge. What happened to Dith?