Cambodian Genocide

Cambodia

What

The Cambodian Genocide refers to the attempt of Khmer Rouge party leader Pol Pot to nationalize and centralize the peasant farming society of Cambodia virtually overnight, in accordance with the Chinese Communist agricultural model. This resulted in the deaths of over 25% of the country’s population in three years, from 1975 when the Khmer Rouge seized power until they were overthrown by the Vietnamese in 1979. [1]

Where

Cambodia, a country in Southeast Asia, is about the size of Wisconsin; its capital is Phnom Penh. [2] In the years preceding the genocide, the population of Cambodia was just over 7 million, almost all of whom were Buddhists. [3] The country is bordered by Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. [4]

When

Decolonization

The genocide emanated from a harsh climate of political and social turmoil that began during the French decolonization of Southeast Asia in the early 1950s and continued until the late 1980s. [5]

Cambodia gained independence from France in 1953 after nearly 100 years of colonial rule. [6] Power was given to Cambodia’s Prince Sihanouk. During his rule, civil war broke out in neighboring Vietnam between Communist North Vietnam and the South Vietnamese Army, which was aided by the US. Cambodia maintained neutrality by giving support to both sides, allowing the Viet Cong to use Cambodian ports to ship in supplies, while allowing the US to secretly bomb Viet Cong hideouts in Cambodia. [7]

In 1970, Prince Sihanouk was deposed in a military coup led by his own Cambodian Lieutenant-General Lon Nol, a response to the turbulent political climate of Southeast Asia during this time. [8] Lon Nol was made president of the new Khmer Republic while Prince Sihanouk and his followers joined forces with a communist guerrilla organization known as the Khmer Rouge. [9] Soon after, civil war broke out. [10]

Rise of the Khmer Rouge

The Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement was founded in 1960. The movement’s leader, Pol Pot, was educated in France and was an admirer of Maoist (Chinese) communism. [11] Pol Pot envisioned the creation of a new Cambodia based on the Maoist-Communist model with the aim to deconstruct Cambodia to a primitive “Year Zero,” wherein all citizens would participate in rural work projects and Western innovations would be destroyed. [12] Pol Pot brought in Chinese training tactics and Viet Cong support for his troops and soon produced a formidable military force. [13]

In 1970, the Khmer Rouge began a civil war with the U.S.-backed Khmer Republic, which was under Lieutenant-General Lon Nol at the time. [14] Lon Nol’s government assumed a pro-Western, anti-Communist stance and demanded the withdrawal of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces from Cambodia. [15] The Khmer Rouge guerillas deposed Lon Nol’s government in 1975, and within days of overthrowing the government, the Khmer Rouge began the mission to reconstruct Cambodia on the communist model of Mao’s China. [16] These extremist policies led to the Cambodian genocide.

In order to achieve the “ideal” communist model, the Khmer Rouge believed that all Cambodians had to work as laborers on collective farms and anyone who opposed this system would be eliminated. [17] The list of those who were targeted for elimination by the Khmer Rouge included intellectuals, educated people, professionals, monks, religious enthusiasts, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Cambodians with Chinese, Vietnamese, or Thai ancestry. [18] The Khmer Rouge also frequently executed its own members on suspicions of treachery. [19]

A victim of Khmer Rouge with her baby

Under the threat of death, Cambodians nationwide were forced from their homes and villages. The ill, disabled, old, and young incapable of making the journey to collectivized farms and labor camps were killed on the spot. [20] People who refused to leave were killed, along with anyone who appeared to oppose the new regime. People from cities were forcibly evacuated to the countryside. All political and civil rights of citizens were abolished. [21] Children were taken from their parents and placed in forced labor camps. [22] Factories, schools, universities, hospitals, and all other private institutions were shut down and former owners, employees, and their extended families were murdered. Religion was banned. Leading Buddhist monks and Christian missionaries were killed, and temples and churches were burned. [23] While racist sentiments did exist within the Khmer Rouge, most of the killing was inspired by the extremist propaganda of a militant communist transformation. It was common for people to be shot for speaking a foreign language, wearing glasses, smiling, or crying. [24] One Khmer slogan best illuminates Pol Pot’s ideology: “To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.” [25]

Cambodians who survived the purges and marches became unpaid laborers who worked on minimum rations for endless hours. They were forced to live in public communes, similar to military barracks, with constant food shortages and rampant diseases. [26] Virtual slave labor, starvation, injury, and illness caused many Cambodians to become incapable of performing physical work, and they were killed by the Khmer Rouge as expenses to the system. [27] These conditions of genocide continued for three years until Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978 and ousted the Khmer Rouge government in 1979. Civilian deaths were estimated to total to over 2 million people. [28]

Cambodians continued to suffer after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. Countless numbers of people fled to Thailand. Many died of starvation or stepped on land mines that the Khmer Rouge soldiers had placed along the western border to prevent their victims from fleeing. Those who made it to Thailand brought malaria, typhoid, cholera, and a host of other illnesses into the camps. [29] Human rights groups estimate that 650,000 people died in the year following the fall of the Khmer Rouge. [30]

How

Following his coup of Prince Sihanouk in 1970, Lon Nol abandoned the neutrality stance of the Prince, establishing close ties with the US and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. U.S. troops felt free to move into Cambodia to continue their struggle with the Viet Cong. [31] Cambodia soon became a battlefield, harboring U.S. troops, airbases, barracks, and weapons. As many as 750,000 Cambodians were killed from 1970-1974 by American B-52 bombers, using napalm and dart cluster-bombs to destroy suspected Viet Cong targets in Cambodia. [32] The heavy American bombardment and Lon Nol’s collaboration with America drove new recruits to Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement.

Photos of young Khmer Rouge fighters

Many Cambodians had become disenchanted with Western democracy due to the huge loss of Cambodian lives resulting from the US involving Cambodia in the Vietnam War. Pol Pot’s communism brought images of new hope, promise, and national tranquility for Cambodia. By 1975, Pol Pot’s force had grown to over 700,000. [33] Within days of the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia in 1975, Pol Pot had put into motion his extremist policies of collectivization, government confiscation and control of all properties, and communal labor. [34]

While the Khmer Rouge was gaining power, the U.S. government had very little interest in the events that were occurring in Southeastern Asia. The American Embassy was concerned with Cambodia solely in relation to the effect on the Vietnam War. U.S. Embassy staff in Phnom Penh was not particularly interested in the regime or the victims. General William Westmoreland, the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, stated, “The Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient.” [35]

Response

When the Vietnamese invaded in 1978, they were first seen as liberators from the genocidal regime of Pol Pot. [50] However, when the Vietnamese took control in 1979, Cambodia was already in ruins. The economy had failed under Pol Pot, and all professionals, engineers, technicians, and planners who could potentially reorganize Cambodia had been killed in the genocide. [36] After Cambodia fell under Communist Vietnamese control, foreign relief aid from any Western democratic state was unlikely. Instead, the US and UK offered financial and military support to the Khmer Rouge forces in exile, who had sworn opposition to Vietnam and communism. The Vietnamese, originally seen as liberators, soon began to be viewed as unwelcome occupiers, not only because of their lengthy ten-year stay in Cambodia, but also because of the hundreds of years of animosity between the two countries. [50] This hostile Vietnamese occupation and the continued threat of Khmer Rouge guerilla forces left Cambodia in underdeveloped conditions until Vietnam’s eventual withdrawal in 1989. [37] In the military conflicts of 1978-1989, an additional 14,000 Cambodian civilians perished. [38] In 1991, a peace agreement was finally reached, and Buddhism was reinstated as the official religion. The nation’s first democratic elections were held in 1993. [39]

Skulls of the victims of Khmer Rouge. Image by @Istolethetv on Flickr| Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) | License

On July 25, 1983, the “Research Committee on Pol Pot’s Genocidal Regime” issued its final report, including detailed province-by-province data. Earlier data showed that close 2 million people had died under Pol Pot’s regime, but the 1983 report showed that 3,314,768 people, an estimated 25% of the population, lost their lives in the “Pol Pot time.” [40] This discrepancy in estimates could be due to differences in data collection methods, thereby resulting in either an undercounting of the 2 million statistic or an overcounting of 3 million statistic. [41]

In the early 1990s, mass graves were uncovered throughout Cambodia. They held hundreds of skeletal remains from Khmer Rouge execution grounds, known as killing fields. Survivors suffered high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder, but their trauma often went undiagnosed and almost always went untreated.

Bringing the perpetrators to justice has proven to be a difficult task. The UN called for a Khmer Rouge Tribunal in 1994; The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) was established, and trials finally began in November of 2007 and are ongoing today.

Many suspected perpetrators were killed in the military struggle with Vietnam or eliminated as internal threats to the Khmer Rouge itself. In 1997, Pol Pot was arrested by Khmer Rouge members; a “mock” trial was staged, and Pol Pot was found guilty. He died of natural causes in 1998. The last members of the Khmer Rouge were officially disbanded in 1999. [42]

Opening of the 10th session of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia Plenary. Image by Khmer Rouge Tribunal (ECCC)| Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) | License

The ECCC tribunal has been criticized for handing down only three convictions despite being operational for eleven years at a cost of $300 million. [43] This is in part due to the court prosecuting only senior leaders most responsible for the crimes. Additionally, Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge member, has opposed further indictments. Several government officials are former Khmer Rouge members and there have been considerable efforts to protect them, including denying access to witnesses because of their position.

Kaing Guek Eav, known as “Comrade Duch,” Nuon Chea, and Khieu Samphan are the only perpetrators of the genocide to be convicted as of 2019. [44] Duch was found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes and was originally sentenced to 35 years in prison, but the sentence was overturned in 2011 in favor of life imprisonment. [45] Nuon Chea was found guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Chea appealed the verdict but the sentence was upheld in 2016. [46] Khieu Samphan was found guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide and sentenced to life imprisonment. He appealed the verdict, but his sentence was also upheld in 2016. [47]

Today, Cambodia’s main industries are fabrics and tourism; foreign visitors to Cambodia surpassed six million in 2018. [48] However, corruption remains a serious issue in Cambodian politics. International aid from the US and other countries is often embezzled by bureaucrats. This illegal seizure of foreign aid has greatly added to the widespread income disparity which affects most Cambodian citizens today.

Human rights abuses soared in recent years, according to Human Rights Watch. In 2017, the leader of Cambodia’s opposition party was arrested and the party was dissolved, leaving no opposition to contest the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) in the 2018 elections. [50] Therefore, in 2018 the CPP, led by Prime Minister Hun Sen, secured all 125 of Cambodia’s National Assembly seats to create a one-party rule in the state. Since before the 2018 elections, the Prime Minister has continued to escalate political persecution against any political opposition, human rights workers, social activists, and intellectuals. [49] There have been arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings, and denial of citizens’ rights to protest. Recently, new laws and amendments to existing laws have passed, many of which severely limit the freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly. [51]

From the international community, China is continuing to invest money into Cambodia to strengthen its alliance to the country and for access to valuable natural resources. Japan is also contributing large sums in investment and aid to compete with China for influence. [52] On the other hand, in 2019 the US both suspended aid to the Cambodian government and passed the “Cambodia Democracy Act” to impose sanctions against specific Cambodian officials involved in the current human right violations. [53] In February of 2020, the European Union also partially suspended its trade preferences in Cambodia due to the continued deterioration of rights. [54]

Future

Justice for past atrocities in Cambodia appears to be progressing very slowly. There are currently four active cases open in the ECCC, one of which remains in a deadlock. [55] Looking forward, the creation of a one-party rule has corresponded with grave human rights violations that continue to build despite sanctions by both the EU and US, thereby leaving the future of human rights within Cambodia uncertain.