Cambodian genocide

The Cambodian genocide which ran from 1975 to 1979, cost the lives of an estimated one and a half to three million people.

"In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge received aid and assistance from the United States after their regime was overthrown by the Vietnamese in the late 1970s. Even though the nature of the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge was by then well known, the United States saw them as an important check on Vietnamese power in southeast Asia and consequently felt justi¤ed in assisting this genocidal state"

"In the 1970s, for example, the Kampuchean Khmer Rouge regime killed between one and two million of their own citizens in an abortive and disastrous attempt to create a radically new society. In their efforts to purify Cambodian society racially, socially, ideologically, and politically, the Khmer Rouge engineered the destruction of populations from almost every social category, including not only politicians and military leaders of the former government, but also business leaders, journalists, students, and professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and teachers, as well as ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese, and Muslim Chams. Eventually, after running out of enemies, the party turned on itself in a series of deadly internecine purges in which many former perpetrators themselves became victims"

Ideology

Ideology played an important role in the genocide. The desire of the Khmer Rouge to bring the nation back to a "mythic past", stop aid entering the nation from abroad, which in their eyes was a corrupting influence and restore the country to an agrarian society, and the manner in which they tried to implement this was one factor in the genocide.

"The perpetrators of the 1915 Armenian genocide, the Holocaust during World War II, and the Cambodian genocide of 1975–79 were, respectively, militarists, Nazis, and communists. All three events were unique in important ways. Yet racism – Turkish, German, and Khmer – was a key component of the ideology of each regime. Racism was also conflated with religion. Although all three regimes were atheistic, each particularly targeted religious minorities (Christians, Jews, and Muslims). All three regimes also attempted to expand their territories into a contiguous heartland (“Turkestan,” “Lebensraum,” and “Kampuchea Krom”), mobilizing primordial racial rights and connections to the land. Consistent with this, all three regimes idealized their ethnic peasantry as the true “national” class, the ethnic soil from which the new state grew."

"Pol Pot’s Cambodia perpetrated genocide against several ethnic groups, systematically dispersed national minorities by force, and forbade the use of minority and foreign languages.4 It also banned the practice of religion. The Khmer Rouge repressed Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism, but its fiercest extermination campaign was directed at the ethnic Cham Muslim minority."

Genocide denial

"In an interview just months before his death, Pol Pot, former Khmer Rouge leader and the architect of the Cambodian genocide, denied being responsible for the genocide committed against his people during the 1970s. Asserting that “I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people,” Pol Pot portrayed himself as a misunderstood and unfairly vili¤ed ¤gure, instead of the leader of a movement considered one of the most brutal of the twentieth century. Incredibly, he also declared, “Am I a savage person? My conscience is clear.”"

Bibliography

• Alvarez, Alex (2001). Governments, Citizens, and Genocide: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approach. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253338495. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Frey, Rebecca Joyce (2009). Genocide and International Justice. Facts On File. ISBN 978-0816073108. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kiernan, Ben (2003). "Twentieth-Century Genocides Underlying Ideological Themes from Armenia to East Timor". In Robert Gellately, Ben Kiernan (ed.). The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521527507. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)