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Kampuchea ( km, កម្ពុជា ), officially known as Democratic Kampuchea (DK; km, កម្ពុជាប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ ) from 5 January 1976, was a
one-party A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government ...
totalitarian Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...
state which encompassed modern-day
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand ...
and existed from 1975 to 1979. It was controlled by the
Khmer Rouge The Khmer Rouge (; ; km, ខ្មែរក្រហម, ; ) is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 ...
(KR), the name popularly given to the followers of the
Communist Party of Kampuchea The Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK),, UNGEGN: , ALA-LC: ; french: Parti communiste du Kampuchea also known as the Khmer Communist Party,
(CPK), and was founded when KR forces defeated the Khmer Republic of
Lon Nol Marshal Lon Nol ( km, លន់ នល់, also ; 13 November 1913 – 17 November 1985) was a Cambodian politician and general who served as Prime Minister of Cambodia twice (1966–67; 1969–71), as well as serving repeatedly as defence min ...
in 1975. Between 1975 and 1979, the state and its ruling Khmer Rouge regime were responsible for the deaths of millions of Cambodians through forced labour and genocide. The KR lost control of most Cambodian territory to the Vietnamese occupation. From 1979 to 1982, Democratic Kampuchea survived as a
rump state A rump state is the remnant of a once much larger state, left with a reduced territory in the wake of secession, annexation, occupation, decolonization, or a successful coup d'état or revolution on part of its former territory. In the last case ...
. In June 1982, the Khmer Rouge formed the
Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea The Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK; km, រដ្ឋាភិបាលចំរុះកម្ពុជាប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ, ''Roathaphibal Chamroh Kampuchea Pracheathipatai''), renamed in 1990 to the N ...
(CGDK) with two non-communist guerrilla factions, which retained international recognition. The state was renamed as Cambodia in 1990 in the run-up to the UN-sponsored
1991 Paris Peace Agreements The Paris Peace Agreements ( km, សន្ធិសញ្ញាសន្តិភាពទីក្រុងប៉ារីស ឆ្នាំ១៩៩១; french: Accords de paix de Paris), formally titled Comprehensive Cambodian Peace Agreeme ...
.


Background and establishment

In 1970, Premier
Lon Nol Marshal Lon Nol ( km, លន់ នល់, also ; 13 November 1913 – 17 November 1985) was a Cambodian politician and general who served as Prime Minister of Cambodia twice (1966–67; 1969–71), as well as serving repeatedly as defence min ...
and the National Assembly deposed
Norodom Sihanouk Norodom Sihanouk (; km, នរោត្តម សីហនុ, ; 31 October 192215 October 2012) was a Cambodian statesman, Sangkum and FUNCINPEC politician, film director, and composer who led Cambodia in various capacities throughout h ...
as the head of state. Sihanouk, opposing the new government, entered into an alliance with the Khmer Rouge against them. Taking advantage of Vietnamese occupation of eastern Cambodia, massive United States
carpet bombing Carpet bombing, also known as saturation bombing, is a large area bombardment done in a progressive manner to inflict damage in every part of a selected area of land. The phrase evokes the image of explosions completely covering an area, in th ...
ranging across the country, and Sihanouk's reputation, the Khmer Rouge were able to present themselves as a peace-oriented party in a coalition that represented the majority of the people. Thus, with large popular support in the countryside, the capital
Phnom Penh Phnom Penh (; km, ភ្នំពេញ, ) is the capital and most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since the French protectorate of Cambodia and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its economic, indus ...
finally fell on 17 April 1975 to the Khmer Rouge. The KR continued to use Sihanouk as a figurehead for the government until 2 April 1976 when Sihanouk resigned as head of state. Sihanouk remained under comfortable, but insecure, house arrest in Phnom Penh, until late in the war with Vietnam he departed for the United States where he made Democratic Kampuchea's case before the Security Council. He eventually relocated to China. Thus, prior to the KR's takeover of Phnom Penh in 1975 and the start of the Zero Years, Cambodia had already been involved in the
Third Indochina War The Third Indochina War was a series of interconnected armed conflicts, mainly among the various communist factions over strategic influence in Indochina after Communist victory in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in 1975. The conflict primari ...
and tensions between Cambodia and Vietnam were growing due to differences in communist ideology and the incursion of Vietnamese military presence within Cambodian borders. The context of war destabilised the country and displaced Cambodians while making available to the KR the weapons of war. The KR leveraged on the devastation caused by the war to recruit members and used this past violence to justify the similarly, if not more, violent and radical policies of the regime. The birth of DK and its propensity for violence must be understood against this backdrop of war that likely played a contributing factor in hardening the population against such violence and simultaneously increasing their tolerance and hunger for it. Early explanations for the KR brutality suggest that the KR had been radicalised during the war years and later turned this radical understanding of society and violence onto their countrymen. This backdrop of violence and brutality arguably also affected everyday Cambodians, priming them for the violence that they themselves perpetrated under the KR regime.
Phnom Penh Phnom Penh (; km, ភ្នំពេញ, ) is the capital and most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since the French protectorate of Cambodia and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its economic, indus ...
fell on 17 April 1975. Sihanouk was given the symbolic position of Head of State for the new government of Democratic Kampuchea and, in September 1975, returned to Phnom Penh from exile in Beijing. After a trip abroad, during which he visited several communist countries and recommended the recognition of Democratic Kampuchea, Sihanouk returned again to Cambodia at the end of 1975. A year after the Khmer Rouge takeover, Sihanouk resigned in mid-April 1976 (made retroactive to 2 April 1976) and was placed under house arrest, where he remained until 1979, and the Khmer Rouge remained in sole control.


Evacuation of cities

The deportations were one of the markers of the beginning of the Khmer Rouge rule. They demanded and then forced the people to leave the cities and live in the countryside.
Phnom Penh Phnom Penh (; km, ភ្នំពេញ, ) is the capital and most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since the French protectorate of Cambodia and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its economic, indus ...
—populated by 2.5 million people —was soon nearly empty. The roads out of the city were clogged with evacuees. Similar evacuations occurred throughout the nation. The conditions of the evacuation and the treatment of the people involved depended often on which military units and commanders were conducting the specific operations. Pol Pot's brother – Chhay, who worked as a Republican journalist in the capital – was reported to have died during the evacuation of
Phnom Penh Phnom Penh (; km, ភ្នំពេញ, ) is the capital and most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since the French protectorate of Cambodia and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its economic, indus ...
. Even Phnom Penh's hospitals were emptied of their patients. The Khmer Rouge provided transportation for some of the aged and the disabled, and they set up stockpiles of food outside the city for the refugees; however, the supplies were inadequate to sustain the hundreds of thousands of people on the road. Even seriously injured hospital patients, many without any means of conveyance, were summarily forced to leave regardless of their condition. The foreign community, about 800 people, was quarantined in the French embassy compound, and by the end of the month the foreigners were taken by truck to the Thai border. Khmer women who were married to foreigners were allowed to accompany their husbands, but Khmer men were not permitted to leave with their foreign wives. Western historians claim that the motives were political, based on deep-rooted resentment of the cities. The Khmer Rouge was determined to turn the country into a nation of peasants in which the corruption and "parasitism" of city life would be completely uprooted. In addition, Pol Pot wanted to break up the "enemy spy organisations" that allegedly were based in the urban areas. Finally, it seems that Pol Pot and his hard-line associates on the CPK Political Bureau used the forced evacuations to gain control of the city's population and to weaken the position of their factional rivals within the communist party.


The constitution

The Khmer Rouge abolished the Royal Government of National Union of Kampuchea (established in 1970). Cambodia did not have any sort of government until the proclamation of the Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea on 5 January 1976. The Khmer Rouge continued to use King
Norodom Sihanouk Norodom Sihanouk (; km, នរោត្តម សីហនុ, ; 31 October 192215 October 2012) was a Cambodian statesman, Sangkum and FUNCINPEC politician, film director, and composer who led Cambodia in various capacities throughout h ...
as a figurehead for the government until 2 April 1976, when Sihanouk resigned as head of state. Sihanouk remained under insecure house arrest in Phnom Penh, until late in the war with Vietnam when he departed for the United States where he made Democratic Kampuchea's case before the Security Council. He eventually relocated to China. The "rights and duties of the individual" were briefly defined in Article 12. They included none of what are commonly regarded as guarantees of political human rights except the statement that "men and women are equal in every respect." The document declared, however, that "all workers" and "all peasants" were "masters" of their factories and fields. An assertion that "there is absolutely no unemployment in Democratic Kampuchea" rings true in light of the regime's massive use of force. The Constitution defined Democratic Kampuchea's
foreign policy A state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterally or through ...
principles in Article 21, the document's longest, in terms of "independence, peace, neutrality, and nonalignment." It pledged the country's support to anti-
imperialist Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power ( economic and ...
struggles in the
Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
. In light of the regime's aggressive attacks against
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...
ese, Thai, and Lao territory during 1977 and 1978, the promise to "maintain close and friendly relations with all countries sharing a common border" bore little resemblance to reality. Governmental institutions were outlined very briefly in the Constitution. The legislature, the
Kampuchean People's Representative Assembly The Kampuchean People's Representative Assembly ( km, សភាតំណាងប្រជាជនកម្ពុជា, ) was the official name of the unicameral legislature of Cambodia during the Democratic Kampuchea period. It was established ...
(KPRA), contained 250 members "representing workers, peasants, and other working people and the Kampuchean Revolutionary army." One hundred and fifty KPRA seats were allocated for peasant representatives; fifty, for the armed forces; and fifty, for worker and other representatives. The legislature was to be popularly elected for a five-year term. Its first and only election was held on 20 March 1976. " New People" apparently were not allowed to participate. The executive branch of government also was chosen by the KPRA. It consisted of a state presidium "responsible for representing the state of Democratic Kampuchea inside and outside the country." It served for a five-year term, and its president was head of state. Khieu Samphan was the only person to serve in this office, which he assumed after Sihanouk's resignation. The judicial system was composed of "people's courts", the judges for which were appointed by the KPRA, as was the executive branch. The Constitution did not mention regional or local government institutions. After assuming power, the Khmer Rouge abolished the old provinces () and replaced them with seven zones; the Northern Zone, Northeastern Zone, Northwestern Zone, Central Zone, Eastern Zone, Western Zone, and Southwestern Zone. There were also two other regional-level units: the Kracheh Special Region Number 505 and, until 1977, the Siemreab Special Region Number 106. The zones were divided into (regions) that were given numbers. Number One, appropriately, encompassed the Samlot region of the Northwestern Zone (including Battambang Province), where the insurrection against Sihanouk had erupted in early 1967. With this exception, the damban appear to have been numbered arbitrarily. The damban were divided into (districts), (subdistricts), and (villages), the latter usually containing several hundred people. This pattern was roughly similar to that which existed under Sihanouk and the Khmer Republic, but inhabitants of the villages were organized into (groups) composed of ten to fifteen families. On each level, administration was directed by a three-person committee (, or ). CPK members occupied committee posts at the higher levels. Subdistrict and village committees were often staffed by local poor peasants, and, very rarely, by "new people." Cooperatives (), similar in jurisdictional area to the , assumed local government responsibilities in some areas.


Organisation of Democratic Kampuchea

In January 1976, the
Communist Party of Kampuchea The Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK),, UNGEGN: , ALA-LC: ; french: Parti communiste du Kampuchea also known as the Khmer Communist Party,
(CPK) promulgated the Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea. The Constitution provided for a
Kampuchean People's Representative Assembly The Kampuchean People's Representative Assembly ( km, សភាតំណាងប្រជាជនកម្ពុជា, ) was the official name of the unicameral legislature of Cambodia during the Democratic Kampuchea period. It was established ...
(KPRA) to be elected by secret ballot in direct general elections and a State Praesidium to be selected and appointed every five years by the KPRA. The KPRA met only once, a three-day session in April 1976. However, members of the KPRA were never elected, as the Central Committee of the CPK appointed the chairman and other high officials both to it and to the State Praesidium. Plans for elections of members were discussed, but the 250 members of the KPRA were in fact appointed by the upper echelon of CPK. All power belonged to the Standing Committee of CPK, the membership of which comprised the Secretary and Prime Minister
Pol Pot Pol Pot; (born Saloth Sâr;; 19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was a Cambodian revolutionary, dictator, and politician who ruled Cambodia as Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea between 1976 and 1979. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist ...
, his Deputy Secretary
Nuon Chea Nuon Chea ( km, នួន ជា; born Lao Kim Lorn; 7 July 1926 – 4 August 2019), also known as Long Bunruot ( km, ឡុង ប៊ុនរត្ន) or Rungloet Laodi ( th, รุ่งเลิศ เหล่าดี), was a Cambodian c ...
and seven others. It was known also as the "Centre", the "Organisation" or "
Angkar The Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK),, UNGEGN: , ALA-LC: ; french: Parti communiste du Kampuchea also known as the Khmer Communist Party,
", and its daily work was conducted from Office 870 in Phnom Penh. For almost two years after the takeover, the Khmer Rouge continued to refer to itself as simply Angkar. It was only in a March 1977 speech that Pol Pot revealed the CPK's existence. It was also around that time that it was confirmed that Pol Pot was the same person as Saloth Sar, who had long been cited as the CPK's general secretary.


Administrative

The Khmer Rouge government did away with all former Cambodian traditional administrative divisions. Instead of provinces, Democratic Kampuchea was divided into geographic zones, derived from divisions established by the Khmer Rouge when they fought against the ill-fated
Khmer Republic The Khmer Republic ( km, សាធារណរដ្ឋខ្មែរ, ; french: République khmère) was a pro-United States military-led republican government of Cambodia that was formally declared on 9 October 1970. The Khmer Republic wa ...
led by General Lon Nol. There were seven zones, namely the Northwest, the North, the Northeast, the East, the Southwest, the West and the center, plus two Special Regions, i.e. the Kratie Special Region no 505 and (before mid-1977) the Siemreap Special Region no 106. The regions were subdivided into smaller areas or . These were known by numbers, which were assigned without a seemingly coherent pattern. Villages were also subdivided into 'groups' ( ) of 15–20 households who were led by a group leader ( ).


Legal

The Khmer Rouge destroyed the legal and judicial structures of the Khmer Republic. There were no courts, judges, laws or trials in Democratic Kampuchea. The "people’s courts" stipulated in Article 9 of the Constitution were never established. The old legal structures were replaced by re-education, interrogation and security centres where former Khmer Republic officials and supporters as well as others were detained and executed.


Military

During the Democratic Kampuchea days, the 68,000-member Khmer Rouge-dominated CPNLAF ( Cambodian People's National Liberation Armed Forces) force, which completed its conquest of Phnom Penh, Cambodia in April 1975, was renamed the RAK (
Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea The Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea ( km, កងទ័ពរំដោះកម្ពុជា, RAK) was the Armed Forces of Democratic Kampuchea. History During the Democratic Kampuchea days, the 68,000-member Khmer Rouge-dominated CPNLAF (C ...
). This name dated back to the peasant uprising that broke out in the Samlot district of Battambang Province in 1967. Under its long-time commander and then Minister of Defense
Son Sen Son Sen ( km, សុន សេន ; 12 June 1930 – 15 June 1997), alias Comrade Khieu () or "Brother Number 89", was a Cambodian Communist politician and soldier. A member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea/ Party ...
, the RAK had 230 battalions in 35 to 40 regiments and in 12 to 14 brigades. The command structure in units was based on three-person committees in which the political commissar ranked higher than the military commander and his deputy. Cambodia was divided into zones and special sectors by the RAK, the boundaries of which changed slightly over the years. Within these areas, the RAK's first task was the peremptory execution of former
Khmer National Armed Forces The Khmer National Armed Forces ( km, កងកម្លាំងប្រដាប់អាវុធជាតិខ្មែរ; french: Forces armées nationales khmères, FANK) were the official armed defense forces of the Khmer Republic, a ...
(FANK) officers and of their families, without trial or fanfare to eliminate KR enemies. The RAK's next priority was to consolidate into a national army the separate forces that were operating more or less autonomously in the various zones. The Khmer Rouge units were commanded by zonal secretaries who were simultaneously party and military officers, some of whom were said to have manifested "
warlord A warlord is a person who exercises military, economic, and political control over a region in a country without a strong national government; largely because of coercive control over the armed forces. Warlords have existed throughout much of h ...
characteristics". Troops from one zone were frequently sent to another zone to enforce discipline. These efforts to discipline zonal secretaries and their dissident or ideologically impure cadres gave rise to the purges that were to decimate RAK ranks, to undermine the morale of the victorious army, and to generate the seeds of rebellion. In this way, the KR used the RAK to sustain and fuel its violent campaign.


Society under Democratic Kampuchea

According to Pol Pot, Cambodia was made up of four classes:
peasants A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...
,
proletariat The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philo ...
,
bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. Th ...
, and feudalists. Post-revolutionary society, as defined by the 1976 Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea, consisted of workers, peasants, and "all other Kampuchean working people." No allowance was made for a transitional stage such as China's "New Democracy" in which "patriotic" landlord or bourgeois elements were permitted to play a role in socialist construction. Sihanouk writes that in 1975 he,
Khieu Samphan Khieu Samphan ( km, ខៀវ សំផន; born 28 July 1931) is a Cambodian former communist politician and economist who was the chairman of the state presidium of Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) from 1976 until 1979. As such, he served as ...
, and Khieu Thirith went to visit
Zhou Enlai Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman M ...
, who was gravely ill. Zhou warned them not to attempt to achieve
communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
in a single step, as China had attempted in the late 1950s with the
Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstr ...
. Khieu Samphan and Khieu Thirith "just smiled an incredulous and superior smile." Khieu Samphan and
Son Sen Son Sen ( km, សុន សេន ; 12 June 1930 – 15 June 1997), alias Comrade Khieu () or "Brother Number 89", was a Cambodian Communist politician and soldier. A member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea/ Party ...
later boasted to Sihanouk that "we will be the first nation to create a completely communist society without wasting time on intermediate steps." Although conditions varied from region to region, a situation that was, in part, a reflection of factional divisions that still existed within the CPK during the 1970s, the testimony of refugees reveals that the most salient social division was between the politically suspect " new people", those driven out of the towns after the communist victory, and the more reliable "old people", the peasants who had remained in the countryside. The working class was a negligible factor because of the evacuation of the urban areas and the idling of most of the country's few factories. The one important working class group in pre-revolutionary Cambodia—labourers on large rubber plantations—traditionally had consisted mostly of Vietnamese immigrants and thus was politically suspect. The number of people, including refugees, living in the urban areas on the eve of the communist victory probably was somewhat more than 3 million, out of the total population of roughly 8 million. As mentioned, despite their rural origins, the refugees were considered "new people"—that is, people unsympathetic to Democratic Kampuchea. Some doubtless passed as "old people" after returning to their native villages, but the Khmer Rouge seem to have been extremely vigilant in recording and keeping track of the movements of families and of individuals. The lowest unit of social control, the (group), consisted of ten to fifteen nuclear families whose activities were closely supervised by a three-person committee. The committee chairman was selected by the CPK. This grassroots leadership was required to note the social origin of each family under its jurisdiction and to report it to persons higher up in the
Angkar The Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK),, UNGEGN: , ALA-LC: ; french: Parti communiste du Kampuchea also known as the Khmer Communist Party,
hierarchy. The number of "new people" may initially have been as high as 2.5 million. The "new people" were treated as forced labourers. They were constantly moved, were forced to do the hardest physical labour, and worked in the most inhospitable, fever-ridden parts of the country, such as forests, upland areas, and swamps. "New people" were segregated from "old people", enjoyed little or no privacy, and received the smallest rice rations. When the country experienced food shortages in 1977, the "new people" suffered the most. The medical care available to them was primitive or nonexistent. Families often were separated because people were divided into work brigades according to age and sex and sent to different parts of the country. "New people" were subjected to unending political indoctrination and could be executed without trial. The situation of the "old people" under Khmer Rouge rule was more ambiguous. Refugee interviews reveal cases in which villagers were treated as harshly as the "new people", enduring forced labour, indoctrination, the separation of children from parents, and executions; however, they were generally allowed to remain in their native villages. Because of their age-old resentment of the urban and rural elites, many of the poorest peasants probably were sympathetic to Khmer Rouge's goals. In the early 1980s, visiting Western journalists found that the issue of peasant support for the Khmer Rouge was an extremely sensitive subject that officials of the People's Republic of Kampuchea were not inclined to discuss. Although the Southwestern Zone was one original centre of power of the Khmer Rouge, and cadres administered it with strict discipline, random executions were relatively rare, and "new people" were not persecuted if they had a cooperative attitude. In the Western Zone and in the Northwestern Zone, conditions were harsh. Starvation was general in the latter zone because cadres sent rice to
Phnom Penh Phnom Penh (; km, ភ្នំពេញ, ) is the capital and most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since the French protectorate of Cambodia and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its economic, indus ...
rather than distributing it to the local population. In the Northern Zone and in the Central Zone, there seem to have been more executions than there were victims of starvation. Little reliable information emerged on conditions in the Northeastern Zone, one of the most isolated parts of Cambodia. On the surface, society in Democratic Kampuchea was strictly
egalitarian Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hu ...
. The
Khmer language Khmer (; , ) is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Khmer people, and the official and national language of Cambodia. Khmer has been influenced considerably by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious registers, thro ...
, like many in Southeast Asia, has a complex system of usages to define speakers' rank and social status. These usages were abandoned,
neologisms A neologism Ancient_Greek.html"_;"title="_from_Ancient_Greek">Greek_νέο-_''néo''(="new")_and_λόγος_/''lógos''_meaning_"speech,_utterance"is_a_relatively_recent_or_isolated_term,_word,_or_phrase_that_may_be_in_the_process_of_entering_com ...
were introduced, and everyday vocabulary was altered to encourage a more collectivist mentality. People were encouraged to call each other "friend", or "comrade" (in Khmer, ), and to avoid traditional signs of deference such as bowing or folding the hands in salutation. They were also encouraged to talk about themselves in the plural "we" rather than the singular "I". The language was transformed in other ways. The Khmer Rouge invented new terms. People were told they must "forge" () a new revolutionary character, that they were the "instruments" () of the Angkar, and that nostalgia for pre-revolutionary times (, or "memory sickness") could result in their receiving Angkar's "invitation" to be deindustrialised and to live in a concentration camp. Despite the ideological commitment to radical equality, CPK members, local-level leaders of poor peasant backgrounds who collaborated with Angkar, and the armed forces constituted a clearly recognizable elite. They had a higher standard of living and received special privileges not enjoyed by the rest of the population. Refugees agree that, even during times of severe food shortages, members of the grassroots elite had adequate, if not luxurious, supplies of food. One refugee wrote that "pretty new bamboo houses" were built for Khmer Rouge cadres along the river in Phnom Penh. Members of the Central Committee could go to China for medical treatment, and the highest echelons of the party had access to imported luxury products. They also had a tendency to
nepotism Nepotism is an advantage, privilege, or position that is granted to relatives and friends in an occupation or field. These fields may include but are not limited to, business, politics, academia, entertainment, sports, fitness, religion, an ...
similar of the Sihanouk-era elite. Pol Pot's wife,
Khieu Ponnary Khieu Ponnary ( km, ខៀវ ពណ្ណារី, 3 February 1920 – 1 July 2003) was the first wife of Pol Pot, sister of Khieu Thirith and sister-in-law to Ieng Sary. Biography Khieu Ponnary was born on 3 February 1920 in Battambang Pro ...
, was head of the Association of Democratic Khmer Women and her younger sister, Khieu Thirith, served as minister of social action. These two women were considered among the half-dozen most powerful personalities in Democratic Kampuchea. Son Sen's wife, Yun Yat, served as minister for culture, education and learning. Several of Pol Pot's nephews and nieces were given jobs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. One of
Ieng Sary Ieng Sary ( km, អៀង សារី; 24 October 1925 – 14 March 2013) was a Cambodian politician who was the co-founder and senior member of the Khmer Rouge. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea le ...
's daughters was appointed head of the
Calmette Hospital Calmette Hospital ( km, មន្ទីរពេទ្យកាល់ម៉ែត, ) or L'hôpital Calmette, located on Monivong Boulevard in Phnom Penh, is a public hospital managed by Ministry of Health and funded by the Cambodian and French ...
although she had not graduated from secondary school. A niece of
Ieng Sary Ieng Sary ( km, អៀង សារី; 24 October 1925 – 14 March 2013) was a Cambodian politician who was the co-founder and senior member of the Khmer Rouge. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea le ...
was given a job as English translator for Radio Phnom Penh although her fluency in the language was relative. Family ties were important, both because of the culture and because of the leadership's intense secretiveness and distrust of outsiders, especially of pro-Vietnamese communists. Different ministries, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Industry, were controlled and exploited by powerful Khmer Rouge families. Administering the diplomatic corps was regarded as an especially profitable fiefdom. According to Craig Etcheson, an authority on Democratic Kampuchea, members of the revolutionary army lived in self-contained colonies, and they had a "distinctive warrior-caste ethos." Armed forces units personally loyal to Pol Pot, known as the "Unconditional Divisions", were a privileged group within the military. The Khmer Rouge regime was also characterized by "totalitarian puritanism" with any sex before marriage being punishable by death in many cooperatives and zones.


Education

The Khmer Rouge regarded traditional education with undiluted hostility. After the fall of Phnom Penh, they executed thousands of teachers. Those who had been educators prior to 1975 survived by hiding their identities. Aside from teaching basic mathematical skills and literacy, the major goal of the new educational system was to instill revolutionary values in the young. For a regime at war with most of Cambodia's traditional values, this meant that it was necessary to create a gap between the values of the young and the values of the nonrevolutionary old. The regime recruited children to spy on adults. The pliancy of the younger generation made them, in Angkar's words, the "dictatorial instrument of the party." In 1962 the communists had created a special secret organisation, the Democratic Youth League, that, in the early 1970s, changed its name to the
Communist Youth League of Kampuchea Communist Youth League of Kampuchea ( km, សម្ព័ន្ធយុវកុក, UNGEGN: ''Sâmpoăn Yŭvôkŏk'') was a youth organization of Democratic Kampuchea (in present-day Cambodia) and the youth wing of the Communist Party of Kampuche ...
. Pol Pot considered Youth League alumni as his most loyal and reliable supporters and used them to gain control of the central and the regional CPK apparatus. The powerful Khieu Thirith, minister of social action, was responsible for directing the youth movement. Hardened young cadres, many little more than twelve years of age, were enthusiastic accomplices in some of the regime's worst atrocities. Sihanouk, who was kept under virtual house arrest in Phnom Penh between 1976 and 1978, wrote in ''War and Hope'' that his youthful guards, having been separated from their families and given a thorough indoctrination, were encouraged to play cruel games involving the torture of animals. Having lost parents, siblings, and friends in the war and lacking the
Buddhist values Buddhist ethics are traditionally based on what Buddhists view as the enlightened perspective of the Buddha. The term for ethics or morality used in Buddhism is ''Śīla'' or ''sīla'' (Pāli). ''Śīla'' in Buddhism is one of three sections of ...
of their elders, the Khmer Rouge youth also lacked the inhibitions that would have dampened their zeal for
revolutionary terror Revolutionary terror, also referred to as revolutionary terrorism or a reign of terror, refers to the institutionalized application of force to counterrevolutionaries, particularly during the French Revolution from the years 1793 to 1795 (see t ...
.


Health

Health facilities in the years 1975 to 1978 were abysmally poor. Many physicians either were executed or were prohibited from practicing. It appears that the party and the armed forces elite had access to Western medicine and to a system of hospitals that offered reasonable treatment, but ordinary people, especially "new people", were expected to use traditional plant and herbal remedies that were of debatable usefulness. Some bartered their rice rations and personal possessions to obtain aspirin and other simple drugs.


Religion

Article 20 of the 1976 Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea guaranteed religious freedom, but it also declared that "all reactionary religions that are detrimental to Democratic Kampuchea and the Kampuchean People are strictly forbidden." About 85 percent of the population followed the
Theravada ''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school ...
school of
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
. The country's 40,000 to 60,000 Buddhist monks, regarded by the regime as social parasites, were defrocked and forced to work in the rural co-operatives and irrigation projects. Many monks were executed; temples and pagodas were destroyed or turned into storehouses. Images of the
Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...
were defaced and dumped into rivers and lakes. People who were discovered praying or expressing religious sentiments were often killed. The Christian and Muslim communities also were even more persecuted, as they were labelled as part of a pro-Western cosmopolitan sphere, hindering Cambodian culture and society. The Roman Catholic cathedral of Phnom Penh was completely razed. The Khmer Rouge forced Muslims to eat pork, which they regard as forbidden ''(
ḥarām ''Haram'' (; ar, حَرَام, , ) is an Arabic term meaning 'Forbidden'. This may refer to either something sacred to which access is not allowed to the people who are not in a state of purity or who are not initiated into the sacred knowl ...
).'' Many of those who refused were killed. Christian clergy and Muslim
imam Imam (; ar, إمام '; plural: ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a worship leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Islamic worship services, lead prayers, serve ...
s were executed. One hundred and thirty
Cham Cham or CHAM may refer to: Ethnicities and languages *Chams, people in Vietnam and Cambodia **Cham language, the language of the Cham people ***Cham script *** Cham (Unicode block), a block of Unicode characters of the Cham script *Cham Albania ...
mosques were destroyed. Despite its ideological iconoclasm, many historical monuments were left undamaged by the Khmer Rouge; for Pol Pot's government, like its predecessors, the historic state of
Angkor Angkor ( km, អង្គរ , 'Capital city'), also known as Yasodharapura ( km, យសោធរបុរៈ; sa, यशोधरपुर),Headly, Robert K.; Chhor, Kylin; Lim, Lam Kheng; Kheang, Lim Hak; Chun, Chen. 1977. ''Cambodian-Engl ...
was a key point of reference.


Ethnic minorities

The Khmer Rouge banned by decree the existence of
ethnic Chinese The Chinese people or simply Chinese, are people or ethnic groups identified with China, usually through ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, or other affiliation. Chinese people are known as Zhongguoren () or as Huaren () by speakers of s ...
, Vietnamese, Muslim
Cham Cham or CHAM may refer to: Ethnicities and languages *Chams, people in Vietnam and Cambodia **Cham language, the language of the Cham people ***Cham script *** Cham (Unicode block), a block of Unicode characters of the Cham script *Cham Albania ...
, and 20 other minorities, which altogether constituted 15% of the population at the beginning of the Khmer Rouge's rule. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese were raped, mutilated, and murdered in regime-organised massacres. Most of the survivors fled to Vietnam. The
Cham Cham or CHAM may refer to: Ethnicities and languages *Chams, people in Vietnam and Cambodia **Cham language, the language of the Cham people ***Cham script *** Cham (Unicode block), a block of Unicode characters of the Cham script *Cham Albania ...
, a Muslim minority who are the descendants of migrants from the old state of
Champa Champa ( Cham: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ; km, ចាម្ប៉ា; vi, Chiêm Thành or ) were a collection of independent Cham polities that extended across the coast of what is contemporary central and southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd ...
, were forced to adopt the
Khmer language Khmer (; , ) is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Khmer people, and the official and national language of Cambodia. Khmer has been influenced considerably by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious registers, thro ...
and customs. Their communities, which traditionally had existed apart from Khmer villages, were broken up. Forty thousand Cham were killed in two districts of Kampong Cham Province alone. Thai minorities living near the Thai border also were persecuted. The state of the Chinese Cambodians was described as "the worst disaster ever to befall any ethnic Chinese community in Southeast Asia". Cambodians of Chinese descent were massacred by the Khmer Rouge under the justification that they "used to exploit the Cambodian people". The Chinese were stereotyped as traders and moneylenders, and therefore were associated with capitalism. Among the Khmer, the Chinese were also resented for their lighter
skin color Human skin color ranges from the darkest brown to the lightest hues. Differences in skin color among individuals is caused by variation in pigmentation, which is the result of genetics (inherited from one's biological parents and or individu ...
and cultural differences. Hundreds of Chinese families were rounded up in 1978 and told that they were to be resettled, but were actually executed. At the beginning of the Khmer Rouge's rule in 1975, there were 425,000 ethnic Chinese in Cambodia. By the end in 1979, there were 200,000. In addition to being a proscribed ethnic group by the government, the Chinese were predominantly city-dwellers, making them vulnerable to the Khmer Rouge's revolutionary ruralism. The government of the People's Republic of China did not protest the killings of ethnic Chinese in Cambodia. The policies of the Khmer Rouge towards Sino-Cambodians seems puzzling in light of the fact that the two most powerful people in the regime and presumably the originators of the racist doctrine, Pol Pot and Nuon Chea, both had mixed Chinese-Cambodian ancestry. Other senior figures in the Khmer Rouge state apparatus such as Son Sen and Ta Mok also had Chinese ethnic heritage. In the late 1980s, little was known of Khmer Rouge policies toward the tribal peoples of the northeast, the Khmer Loeu. Pol Pot established an insurgent base in the tribal areas of Ratanakiri Province in the early 1960s, and he may have had a substantial Khmer Loeu following. Predominantly animist peoples, with few ties to the Buddhist culture of the lowland Khmers, the Khmer Loeu had resented Sihanouk's attempts to "civilise" them. There were also high rates of
sexual violence Sexual violence is any sexual act or attempt to obtain a sexual act by violence or coercion, act to traffic a person, or act directed against a person's sexuality, regardless of the relationship to the victim.World Health Organization., World re ...
during the regime.


Terror

A security apparatus called
Santebal The ''Santebal'' ( km, សន្តិបាល, ; meaning "keeper of peace") was the secret police of the Khmer Rouge's Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime in Cambodia. The Santebal was in charge of internal security and running prison camps like ...
was part of the Khmer Rouge organizational structure well before 17 April 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took control over Cambodia.
Son Sen Son Sen ( km, សុន សេន ; 12 June 1930 – 15 June 1997), alias Comrade Khieu () or "Brother Number 89", was a Cambodian Communist politician and soldier. A member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea/ Party ...
, later the Deputy Prime Minister for Defense of Democratic Kampuchea, was in charge of the Santebal, and in that capacity he appointed Kang Kek lew (Comrade Duch) to run its security apparatus. When the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, Duch moved his headquarters to Phnom Penh and reported directly to Son Sen. At that time, a small chapel in the capital was used to incarcerate the regime's prisoners, who totaled fewer than two hundred. In May 1976, Duch moved his headquarters to its final location, a former high school known as Tuol Sleng, which could hold up to 1,500 prisoners. The Khmer Rouge government arrested,
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts ...
d, and eventually executed anyone suspected of belonging to several categories of supposed "enemies": * Anyone with connections to the former government or with foreign governments. * Professionals and
intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator o ...
s—in practice this included almost everyone with an education, people who understood a foreign language, and even people who required
glasses Glasses, also known as eyeglasses or spectacles, are vision eyewear, with lenses (clear or tinted) mounted in a frame that holds them in front of a person's eyes, typically utilizing a bridge over the nose and hinged arms (known as temples ...
. However, ironically, Pol Pot himself was a university-educated man (albeit a drop-out) with a taste for
French literature French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than F ...
and was also a fluent French speaker. Many artists, including musicians, writers, and filmmakers were executed. Some like
Ros Serey Sothea Ros Serey Sothea ( km, រស់ សេរីសុទ្ធា/ ; c. 1948 – c. 1977) was a Cambodian singer. She was active during the final years of the First Kingdom of Cambodia and into the Khmer Republic period. She sang in a variety o ...
,
Pen Ran Pen Ran ( km, ប៉ែន រ៉ន, ), (c. 1944 – c. 1979) also commonly known as Pan Ron in some Romanized sources intended for English-speaking audiences, was a Cambodian singer and songwriter who was at the height of her popularity in the ...
, and
Sinn Sisamouth Sinn Sisamouth; (c. 1932 – c. 1976) was a Cambodian singer-songwriter active from the 1950s to the 1970s. Widely considered the "King of Khmer Music", Sisamouth, along with Ros Serey Sothea, Pen Ran, Mao Sareth, and other Cambodian arti ...
gained posthumous fame for their talents and are still popular with Khmers today. * Ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Thai and other minorities in Eastern Highland, Cambodian Christians (most of whom were Catholic, and the Catholic Church in general),
Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
and the Buddhist monks. * "Economic saboteurs:" many of the former urban dwellers (who had not starved to death in the first place) were deemed to be guilty by virtue of their lack of agricultural ability. Through the 1970s, and especially after mid-1975, the party was also shaken by factional struggles. There were even armed attempts to topple Pol Pot. The resultant purges reached a crest in 1977 and 1978 when thousands, including some important KCP leaders, were executed. Today, examples of the torture methods used by the Khmer Rouge can be seen at the
Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum ( km, សារមន្ទីរឧក្រិដ្ឋកម្មប្រល័យពូជសាសន៍ទួលស្លែង) or simply Tuol Sleng ( km, ទួលស្លែង, link=no, ; lit. "Hill of ...
. The museum occupies the former grounds of a high school turned prison camp that was operated by Comrade Duch. The torture system at Tuol Sleng was designed to make prisoners confess to whatever crimes they were charged with by their captors. In their confessions, the prisoners were asked to describe their personal backgrounds. If they were party members, they had to say when they joined the revolution and describe their work assignments in DK. Then the prisoners would relate their supposed treasonous activities in chronological order. The third section of the confession text described prisoners' thwarted conspiracies and supposed treasonous conversations. In the end, the confessions would list a string of traitors who were the prisoners' friends, colleagues, or acquaintances. Some lists contained over a hundred names. People whose names were on the confession list were often called in for interrogation. Typical confessions ran into thousands of words in which the prisoner would interweave true events in their lives with imaginary accounts of their espionage activities for the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
, the KGB, or
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...
. 17,000 people passed through Security Prison 21 (now the
Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum ( km, សារមន្ទីរឧក្រិដ្ឋកម្មប្រល័យពូជសាសន៍ទួលស្លែង) or simply Tuol Sleng ( km, ទួលស្លែង, link=no, ; lit. "Hill of ...
), before they were taken to sites (also known as the
Killing Fields The Killing Fields ( km, វាលពិឃាត, ) are a number of sites in Cambodia where collectively more than one million people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime (the Communist Party of Kampuchea) during its rule of t ...
), outside Phnom Penh such as
Choeung Ek Choeung Ek ( km, ជើងឯក, ) is the site of a former orchard and mass grave of victims of the Khmer Rouge – killed between 1975 and 1979 – in Dangkao Section, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, about south of the Phnom Penh city centre. It is t ...
where most were executed (often with pickaxes, to save bullets) and buried in
mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact ...
s. Of the thousands who entered Tuol Sleng only twelve are known to have survived.


Explaining the violence


Violence as a collective action

While the historical context and ideological underpinnings of the KR regime provide reasons for why the
Cambodian genocide The Cambodian genocide ( km, របបប្រល័យពូជសាសន៍នៅកម្ពុជា) was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Communist Party of Kampuchea gener ...
occurred, more explanations must be had for the widespread violence that was carried out by Cambodians against Cambodians. Anthropologist Alexander Hinton's research project to interview perpetrators of violence during the KR regime sheds some light on the question of collective violence. Hinton's analysis of top-down initiatives shows that perpetrators in the KR were motivated to kill because KR leaders were effectively able to "localize their ideologies" to appeal to their followers. Specifically, Hinton spoke to two ideological palimpsests that the KR used. First, the KR tapped on the Khmer notion of disproportionate revenge to motivate a resonant equivalent—class rage against previous oppressors. Hinton uses the example of revenge in the Cambodian context to illustrate how closely violence can be tied to and explained by the Buddhist notion of karma, which dictates that there is a cycle of cause and effect in which one's past actions will affect one's future life. Next, the KR leadership built on local notions of power and patronage vis-à-vis Wolters’ mandala polity to establish their authority as a potent centre. In so doing, the KR escalated the suspicion and instability inherent within such patronage networks, setting the stage for distrust and competition on which political purges were based.


Violence as an individual action

After establishing the historical and ideological context as the backdrop, Hinton delves deeper into the complexities of perpetrator motivation through using both macro- and micro-level analyses to uncover how ideology is linked to psychocultural processes. Under the KR, the encroachment of the public sphere into that which was once private space made constant group-level interactions. Within these spaces, cultural models such as face, shame, and honour were adapted to KR notions of social status and bound up with revolutionary consciousness. Thus, individuals were judged and their social status was based on these adapted KR conceptions of hierarchy which were predominantly political in nature. Within this framework, the KR constructed essentialised categories of identity which crystallised difference and inscribed these differences on victim's bodies, providing the logic and impetus for violence. To save face and preserve one's social status within the KR hierarchy, Hinton argues that first, violence was practised by cadres to avoid shame or loss of face; and second, that shamed cadres could restore their face through perpetrating violence. At the level of individuals, the need for social approval and belonging to a community, even one as twisted as the KR, contributed to obedience, motivating violence within Cambodia.


Economy

Democratic Kampuchea's economic policy was similar to, and possibly inspired by, China's radical
Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstr ...
that carried out immediate collectivisation of the Chinese countryside in 1958. During the early 1970s, the Khmer Rouge established "mutual assistance groups" in the areas they occupied. After 1973, these were organised into "low-level cooperatives" in which land and agricultural implements were lent by peasants to the community but remained their private property. "High-level cooperatives", in which private property was abolished and the harvest became the collective property of the peasants, appeared in 1974. "Communities", introduced in early 1976, were a more advanced form of high-level cooperative in which communal dining was instituted. State-owned farms also were established. Far more than the Chinese communists, the Khmer Rouge pursued the ideal of economic self-sufficiency, specifically the version that
Khieu Samphan Khieu Samphan ( km, ខៀវ សំផន; born 28 July 1931) is a Cambodian former communist politician and economist who was the chairman of the state presidium of Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) from 1976 until 1979. As such, he served as ...
had outlined in his 1959 doctoral dissertation. Currency was abolished, and domestic trade or commerce could be conducted only through barter. Rice, measured in tins, became the most important medium of exchange, although people also bartered gold, jewelry, and other personal possessions. Foreign trade was almost completely halted, though there was a limited revival in late 1976 and early 1977. China was the most important trading partner, but commerce amounting to a few million dollars was also conducted with France, the United Kingdom, and with the United States through a Hong Kong intermediary. From the Khmer Rouge perspective, the country was free of foreign economic domination for the first time in its 2,000-year history. By mobilising the people into work brigades organised in a military fashion, the Khmer Rouge hoped to unleash the masses' productive forces. There was an "
Angkor Angkor ( km, អង្គរ , 'Capital city'), also known as Yasodharapura ( km, យសោធរបុរៈ; sa, यशोधरपुर),Headly, Robert K.; Chhor, Kylin; Lim, Lam Kheng; Kheang, Lim Hak; Chun, Chen. 1977. ''Cambodian-Engl ...
ian" component to economic policy. That ancient kingdom had grown rich and powerful because it controlled extensive irrigation systems that produced surpluses of rice. Agriculture in modern Cambodia depended, for the most part, on seasonal rains. By building a nationwide system of irrigation canals, dams, and reservoirs, the leadership believed it would be possible to produce rice on a year-round basis. It was the "new people" who suffered and sacrificed the most to complete these ambitious projects. Although the Khmer Rouge implemented an "agriculture first" policy in order to achieve self-sufficiency, they were not, as some observers have argued, "back-to-nature" primitivists. Although the 1970–75 war and the evacuation of the cities had destroyed or idled most industry, small contingents of workers were allowed to return to the urban areas to reopen some plants. Like their Chinese counterparts, the Cambodian communists had great faith in the inventive power and the technical aptitude of the masses, and they constantly published reports of peasants' adapting old mechanical parts to new uses. Similar to Mao's regime, which had attempted unsuccessfully to build a new steel industry based on backyard furnaces during the Great Leap Forward, the Khmer Rouge sought to move industry to the countryside. Significantly, the seal of Democratic Kampuchea displayed not only sheaves of rice and irrigation sluices, but also a factory with smokestacks.


Foreign relations

The Democratic Kampuchea regime maintained close ties with China, its main backer, and to a lesser extent with
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...
. In 1977, in a message congratulating the Cambodian comrades on the 17th anniversary of the CKP,
Kim Jong-il Kim Jong-il (; ; ; born Yuri Irsenovich Kim;, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Ki ...
congratulated the Cambodian people for having "wiped out counterrevolutionary group of spies who had committed subversive activities and sabotage". On taking power, the Khmer Rouge spurned both the Western states and the Soviet Union as sources of support. Instead, China became Cambodia's main international partner. With Vietnam increasingly siding with the Soviet Union over China, the Chinese saw Pol Pot's government as a bulwark against Vietnamese influence in Indochina. It is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid which the Khmer Rouge received came from
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
, and in 1975 alone, at least US$1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid came from China. The relationship between the Chinese and Cambodian governments was nevertheless marred by mutual suspicion and China had little influence on Pol Pot's domestic policies. It had a greater influence on Cambodia's foreign policy, successfully pushing the country to pursue rapprochement with Thailand and open communication with the U.S. to combat Vietnamese influence in the region. After Mao died in September 1976, Pol Pot praised him and Cambodia declared an official period of mourning. In November 1976, Pol Pot travelled secretly to Beijing, seeking to retain his country's alliance with China after the
Gang of Four The Gang of Four () was a Maoist political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and were later charged with a series of treasonous crimes. The gang ...
were arrested. From Beijing, he was then taken on a tour of China, visiting sites associated with Mao and the Chinese Communist Party. While Democratic Kampuchea held Cambodia's UN seat and was internationally recognized, only the following countries had an embassy in Cambodia:
Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
,
Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and share ...
,
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
,
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...
,
Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...
,
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
,
Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist s ...
,
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
,
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...
and
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...
. Democratic Kampuchea itself, on the other hand, established embassies in various countries:
Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and share ...
,
Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...
,
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Ara ...
,
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
,
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...
,
Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...
,
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
,
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
,
Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist s ...
,
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...
,
Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...
,
USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...
,
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...
and
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...
. The Chinese were the only country allowed to retain their old Phnom Penh embassy. All other diplomats were made to live in assigned quarters on the Boulevard Monivong. This street was barricaded off and the diplomats were not permitted to leave without escorts. Their food was brought to them and provided through the only shop that remained open in the country.


Ideology


Ideological influences

The Khmer Rouge was heavily influenced by
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also Romanization of Chinese, romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the List of national founde ...
, the
French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European ...
and the writings of
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
and
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
as well as ideas of Khmer racial superiority. Turning to look at the roots of the ideology which guided the KR intellectuals behind the revolution, it becomes evident that the roots of such radical thought can be traced to an education in France that started many of the top KR officials on the road to thinking that communism demanded violence. Influences from the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
led many who studied in Paris to believe that Marxist political theory that was based on
class struggle Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor. The form ...
could be applied to the national cause in Cambodia. The premise of class struggle sowed the ideological seeds for violence and made violence appear all the more necessary for the revolution to succeed. In addition, because many of the top KR officials such as
Pol Pot Pol Pot; (born Saloth Sâr;; 19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was a Cambodian revolutionary, dictator, and politician who ruled Cambodia as Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea between 1976 and 1979. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist ...
,
Khieu Samphan Khieu Samphan ( km, ខៀវ សំផន; born 28 July 1931) is a Cambodian former communist politician and economist who was the chairman of the state presidium of Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) from 1976 until 1979. As such, he served as ...
and
Kang Kek Iew Kang Kek Iew, also spelled Kaing Guek Eav ( km, កាំង ហ្គេកអ៊ាវ, ; 17 November 1942 – 2 September 2020), ''nom de guerre'' Comrade Duch ( km, មិត្តឌុច, ) or Hang Pin, was a Cambodian convicted war ...
(also known as Duch) were educators and intellectuals, they were unable to connect with the masses and were alienated upon their return to Cambodia, further fuelling their radical thought.
Michael Vickery Michael Theodore Vickery (April 1, 1931 – June 29, 2017) was an American historian, lecturer, and author known for his works about the history of Southeast Asia. Life Vickery was born on April 1, 1931, in Billings, Montana. After acquiring ...
downplays the importance of personalities in explaining the DK phenomenon, noting that DK leaders were never considered evil by prewar contemporaries. This view is challenged by some including Rithy Phan, who after interviewing Duch, the head of Tuol Sleng, seems to suggest that Duch was a fearsome individual who preyed on and seized upon the weaknesses of others. All in all, the historical context of civil war, coupled with the ideological ferment in Cambodian intellectuals returning from France, set the stage for the KR revolution and the violence that it would propagate.


Operationalising ideology through violence

The Khmer Rouge was determined to turn the country into a nation of peasants in which the
corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...
and "parasitism" of city life would be completely uprooted. Communalisation was implemented by putting men, women and children to work in the fields, which disrupted family life. The regime claimed to have "liberated" women through this process and according to Zal Karkaria "appeared to have implemented Engels's doctrine in its purest form: women produced, therefore they had been freed". Under the leadership of
Pol Pot Pol Pot; (born Saloth Sâr;; 19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was a Cambodian revolutionary, dictator, and politician who ruled Cambodia as Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea between 1976 and 1979. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist ...
, cities were emptied, organised religion was abolished, and private property, money and markets were eliminated. An unprecedented genocide campaign ensued that led to annihilation of about 25% of the country's population, with much of the killing being motivated by Khmer Rouge ideology which urged "disproportionate revenge" against rich and powerful oppressors. Victims included such class enemies as rich capitalists, professionals, intellectuals, police and government employees (including most of Lon Nol's leadership), along with ethnic minorities such as Chinese, Vietnamese, Lao and
Cham Cham or CHAM may refer to: Ethnicities and languages *Chams, people in Vietnam and Cambodia **Cham language, the language of the Cham people ***Cham script *** Cham (Unicode block), a block of Unicode characters of the Cham script *Cham Albania ...
. The Khmer Rouge regime was one of the most brutal in recorded history, especially considering how briefly it ruled the country. Based on an analysis of mass grave sites, the DC-Cam Mapping Program and
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
estimated that the Khmer Rouge executed over 1.38 million people. If deaths from disease and starvation are counted, as many as 2.5 million people died as a result of Khmer Rouge rule. This included most of the country's minority populations. For instance, the country's ethnic Vietnamese population was almost completely wiped out; nearly all ethnic Vietnamese who did not flee immediately after the takeover were exterminated.


Fall and aftermath

Not content with ruling Cambodia, the KR leaders also dreamed of reviving the Angkorian empire of a thousand years earlier, which ruled over large parts of what today are Thailand and Vietnam. This involved launching military attacks into southern Vietnam in which thousands of unarmed villagers were massacred. Immediately following the Khmer Rouge victory in 1975, there were skirmishes between their troops and Vietnamese forces. Many incidents occurred in May 1975. The Cambodians launched attacks on the Vietnamese islands of
Phú Quốc Phú Quốc () is the largest island in Vietnam. Phú Quốc and nearby islands, along with the distant Thổ Chu Islands, are part of Kiên Giang Province as Phú Quốc City, the island has a total area of and a permanent population of appr ...
and Thổ Chu causing the death of over 500 civilians and intruded into Vietnamese border provinces. In late May, at about the same time that the United States launched an airstrike against the oil refinery at
Kompong Som Sihanoukville (; km, ក្រុងព្រះសីហនុ, ), also known as Kampong Som ( km, កំពង់សោម, ), is a coastal city in Cambodia and the capital of Preah Sihanouk Province, at the tip of an elevated peninsul ...
, following the ''Mayagüez'' incident, Vietnamese forces seized the Cambodian island of Poulo Wai. According to
Republic of Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of t ...
, Poulo Wai was a part of Vietnam since the 18th century and the island was under Cambodian administrative management in 1939 in accordance with the decisions of French colonists. Vietnam has recognized Poulo Wai as part of Cambodia since 1976, and the recognition is seen as a sign of goodwill by Vietnam to preserve its relationship with Cambodia. The following month, Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, and Ieng Sary travelled secretly to Hanoi in May, where they proposed a Friendship Treaty between the two countries. In the short term, this successfully eased tensions. Although the Vietnamese evacuated Poulo Wai in August, incidents continued along Cambodia's northeastern border. At the instigation of the Phnom Penh regime, thousands of Vietnamese also were driven out of Cambodia. In May Cambodian and Vietnamese representatives met in Phnom Penh in order to establish a commission to resolve border disagreements. The Vietnamese refused to recognize the ''Brévié Line''—the colonial-era demarcation of maritime borders between the two countries—and the negotiations broke down. In late September, however, a few days before Pol Pot was forced to resign as prime minister, air links were established between Phnom Penh and Hanoi. With Pol Pot back at the forefront of the regime in 1977, the situation rapidly deteriorated. Incidents escalated along all of Cambodia's borders. Khmer Rouge forces attacked villages in the border areas of
Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
near Aranyaprathet. Brutal murders of Thai villagers, including women and children, were the first widely reported concrete evidence of Khmer Rouge atrocities. There were also incidents along the
Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist s ...
border. At approximately the same time, villages in Vietnam's border areas underwent renewed attacks. In turn, Vietnam launched air strikes against Cambodia. From 18 to 30 April 1978, Cambodian troops, after invading the Vietnamese province of
An Giang An Giang () is a province of Vietnam. It is located in the Mekong Delta, in the southwestern part of the country. Geography An Giang occupies a position in the upper reaches of the Mekong Delta. The Hậu Giang and Tiền Giang branches of t ...
, carried out the
Ba Chúc massacre Ba Chúc massacre () was a massacre carried out by the Liberation Army of Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge) from April 18 to April 30, 1978, in the town of Ba Chúc, An Giang Province, Vietnam killing 3,157 civilians. The Khmer Rouge army that invaded Vi ...
causing 3,157 civilian deaths in the province of
Tây Ninh Tây Ninh () is a provincial city in south-eastern Vietnam. It is the capital of Tây Ninh Province, which encompasses the town and much of the surrounding farmland. Tây Ninh is approximately to the northwest of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's la ...
, Vietnam. In September, border fighting resulted in as many as 1,000 Vietnamese civilian casualties. The following month, the Vietnamese counter-attacked in a campaign involving a force of 20,000 personnel. Vietnamese defense minister General
Võ Nguyên Giáp Võ Nguyên Giáp (; 25 August 1911 – 4 October 2013) was a Vietnamese general and communist politician who is regarded as having been one of the greatest military strategists of the 20th century. He served as interior minister in President ...
underestimated the tenacity of the Khmer Rouge, however, and was obliged to commit an additional 58,000 reinforcements in December. On 6 January 1978, Giap's forces began an orderly withdrawal from Cambodian territory. The Vietnamese apparently believed they had "taught a lesson" to the Cambodians, but Pol Pot proclaimed this a "victory" even greater than that of 17 April 1975. For several years, the Vietnamese government sought in vain to establish peaceful relations with the KR regime. But the KR leaders were intent on war. Behind this seeming insanity clearly lay the assumption that China would support the KR militarily in such a conflict. Faced with growing Khmer Rouge belligerence, the Vietnamese leadership decided in early 1978 to support internal resistance to the Pol Pot regime, with the result that the Eastern Zone became a focus of insurrection. War hysteria reached bizarre levels within Democratic Kampuchea. In May 1978, on the eve of
So Phim So Phim was a Khmer Issarak, No. 3 of the Permanent Bureau and of the Military Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, deputy head of the People's National Liberation Armed Forces of Kampuchea, secretary of East Zone ...
's Eastern Zone uprising, Radio Phnom Penh declared that if each Cambodian soldier killed thirty Vietnamese, only 2 million troops would be needed to eliminate the entire Vietnamese population of 50 million. It appears that the leadership in Phnom Penh was seized with immense territorial ambitions, i.e., to recover Kampuchea Krom, the
Mekong Delta The Mekong Delta ( vi, Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long, lit=Nine Dragon River Delta or simply vi, Đồng Bằng Sông Mê Kông, lit=Mekong River Delta, label=none), also known as the Western Region ( vi, Miền Tây, links=no) or South-weste ...
region, which they regarded as Khmer territory. Massacres of ethnic Vietnamese and of their sympathizers by the Khmer Rouge intensified in the Eastern Zone after the May revolt. In November,
Vorn Vet Vorn Vet ( km, វ៉ន វេត; 1929–1978) born Sok Thuok (), was a Cambodian politician who served as deputy prime minister for the economy of Democratic Kampuchea. He was murdered at the S-21 security camp in 1978. References ...
led an unsuccessful coup d'état. There were now tens of thousands of Cambodian and Vietnamese exiles on Vietnamese territory. On 3 December 1978,
Radio Hanoi Radio Hanoi was a propaganda radio station run by the North Vietnamese Army during the Vietnam War. It originated in 1945, when it broadcast from Hanoi a week after the declaration of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam with the declaration "This i ...
announced the formation of the
Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation The Kampuchea Khmer United Front for National Salvation (KUFNS; km, រណសិរ្សសាមគ្គីសង្គ្រោះជាតិកម្ពុជា), often simply referred to as Salvation Front or by its French acronym FUN ...
(KNUFNS). This was a heterogeneous group of communist and noncommunist exiles who shared an antipathy to the Pol Pot regime and a virtually total dependence on Vietnamese backing and protection. The KNUFNS provided the semblance, if not the reality, of legitimacy for Vietnam's invasion of Democratic Kampuchea and for its subsequent establishment of a satellite regime in Phnom Penh. In the meantime, as 1978 wore on, Cambodian bellicosity in the border areas surpassed Hanoi's threshold of tolerance. Vietnamese policy makers opted for a military solution and, on 22 December, Vietnam launched its offensive with the intent of overthrowing Democratic Kampuchea. A force of 120,000, consisting of combined armor and infantry units with strong artillery support, drove west into the level countryside of Cambodia's southeastern provinces. Together, the Vietnamese army and the National Salvation Front struck at the KR on 25 December. After a seventeen-day campaign, Phnom Penh fell to the advancing Vietnamese on 7 January 1979. Pol Pot and the main leaders initially took refuge near the border with Thailand. After making deals with several governments, they were able to use Thailand as a safe staging area for the construction and operation of new redoubts in the mountain and jungle fastness of Cambodia's periphery, Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders regrouped their units, issued a new call to arms, and reignited a stubborn insurgency against the regime in power as they had done in the late 1960s. For the moment, however, the Vietnamese invasion had accomplished its purpose of deposing an unlamented and particularly violent dictatorship. A new administration of ex-Khmer Rouge fighters under the control of Hanoi was quickly established (who are ruling till present), and it set about competing, both domestically and internationally, with the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government of Cambodia. Peace still eluded the war-ravaged nation, however, and although the insurgency set in motion by the Khmer Rouge proved unable to topple the new Vietnamese-controlled regime in Phnom Penh, it did nonetheless keep the country in a permanent state of insecurity. The new administration was propped up by a substantial Vietnamese military force and civilian advisory effort. As events in the 1980s progressed, the main preoccupations of the new regime were survival, restoring the economy, and combating the Khmer Rouge insurgency by military and by political means.


The Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea

The UN General Assembly voted by a margin of 71 to 35 for the KR to retain their seat at the UN, with 34 abstentions and 12 absentees. The seat was occupied by Thiounn Prasith, an old cadre of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary from their student days in Paris and one of the 21 attendees at the 1960 KPRP Second Congress. The seat was retained under the name 'Democratic Kampuchea' until 1982 and then '
Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea The Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK; km, រដ្ឋាភិបាលចំរុះកម្ពុជាប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ, ''Roathaphibal Chamroh Kampuchea Pracheathipatai''), renamed in 1990 to the N ...
' until 1993. According to journalist
Elizabeth Becker Elizabeth Becker (born October 28, 1947) is an American journalist and author. She has written five books and is best known for her reporting and writing on Cambodia. Biography Elizabeth Becker graduated from the University of Washington w ...
, former U.S. National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński ( , ; March 28, 1928 – May 26, 2017), or Zbig, was a Polish-American diplomat and political scientist. He served as a counselor to President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1968 and was President Jimmy Carter' ...
said that in 1979, "I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him, but China could." Brzezinski has denied this, writing that the Chinese were aiding Pol Pot "without any help or encouragement from the United States." China, the U.S., and other Western countries opposed an expansion of Vietnamese and Soviet influence in Indochina, and refused to recognize the
People's Republic of Kampuchea The People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), UNGEGN: , ALA-LC: ; vi, Cộng hòa Nhân dân Campuchia was a partially recognised state in Southeast Asia supported by Vietnam which existed from 1979 to 1989. It was founded in Cambodia by the Ka ...
as the legitimate government of Cambodia, claiming that it was a puppet state propped up by Vietnamese forces. China funneled military aid to the Khmer Rouge, which in the 1980s proved to be the most capable insurgent force, while the U.S. publicly supported a non-Communist alternative to the PRK; in 1985, the
Reagan administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over ...
approved $5 million in aid to the republican KPNLF, led by former prime minister
Son Sann Son Sann ( km, សឺន សាន, ; 5 October 191119 December 2000) was a Cambodian politician and anti-communist resistance leader who served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Cambodia (1967–68) and later as President of the National As ...
, and the ANS, the armed wing of the pro-Sihanouk FUNCINPEC party. The KPNLF, while lacking in military strength compared to the Khmer Rouge, commanded a sizable civilian following (up to 250,000) amongst refugees near the Thai-Cambodian border that had fled the KR regime. Funcinpec had the benefit of traditional peasant Khmer loyalty to the crown and Sihanouk's widespread popularity in the countryside. In practice, the military strength of the non-KR groups within Cambodia was minimal, though their funding and civilian support was often greater than the KR. The Thatcher and
Reagan administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over ...
s both supported the non-KR insurgents covertly, with weapons, and military advisors in the form of Green Berets and
Special Air Service The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling and in 1950, it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-te ...
units, who taught sabotage techniques in camps just inside Thailand.


The end of the CGDK and Khmer Rouge

A UN-led
peacekeeping Peacekeeping comprises activities intended to create conditions that favour lasting peace. Research generally finds that peacekeeping reduces civilian and battlefield deaths, as well as reduces the risk of renewed warfare. Within the United ...
mission that took place from 1991 to 1995 sought to end violence in the country and establish a democratic system of government through new elections. The 1990s saw a marked decline in insurgent activity, though the Khmer Rouge later renewed their attacks against the government. As
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...
disengaged from direct involvement in
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand ...
, the government was able to begin to split the KR movement by making peace offers to lower level officials. The Khmer Rouge was the only member of the CGDK to continue fighting following the reconciliation process. The other two political organizations that made up the CGDK alliance ended armed resistance and became a part of the political process that began with elections in 1993. In 1997, Pol Pot ordered the execution of his right-hand man Son Sen for attempting peace negotiations with the Cambodian government. In 1998, Pol Pot himself died, and other key KR leaders
Khieu Samphan Khieu Samphan ( km, ខៀវ សំផន; born 28 July 1931) is a Cambodian former communist politician and economist who was the chairman of the state presidium of Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) from 1976 until 1979. As such, he served as ...
and
Ieng Sary Ieng Sary ( km, អៀង សារី; 24 October 1925 – 14 March 2013) was a Cambodian politician who was the co-founder and senior member of the Khmer Rouge. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea le ...
surrendered to the government of
Hun Sen Hun Sen (; km, ហ៊ុន សែន, ; born 5 August 1952) is a Cambodian politician and former military commander who has served as the prime minister of Cambodia since 1985. He is the longest-serving head of government of Cambodia, and ...
in exchange for immunity from prosecution, leaving
Ta Mok Ta Mok ( km, តាម៉ុក; born Chhit Choeun (); 1924 – 21 July 2006) also known as Nguon Kang, was a Cambodian military chief and soldier who was a senior figure in the Khmer Rouge and the leader of the national army of Democratic Kam ...
as the sole commander of the Khmer Rouge forces; he was detained in 1999 for "
crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
." The organization essentially ceased to exist.


Recovery and trials

Since 1990 Cambodia has gradually recovered, demographically and economically, from the Khmer Rouge regime, although the psychological scars affect many Cambodian families and émigré communities. The current government teaches little about Khmer Rouge atrocities in schools. Cambodia has a very young population and by 2005 three-quarters of Cambodians were too young to remember the Khmer Rouge years. The younger generations would only know the Khmer Rouge through word-of-mouth from parents and elders. In 1997, Cambodia established a Khmer Rouge Trial Task Force to create a legal and judicial structure to try the remaining leaders for war crimes and other crimes against humanity, but progress was slow, mainly because the Cambodian government of ex-Khmer Rouge Cadre
Hun Sen Hun Sen (; km, ហ៊ុន សែន, ; born 5 August 1952) is a Cambodian politician and former military commander who has served as the prime minister of Cambodia since 1985. He is the longest-serving head of government of Cambodia, and ...
, despite its origins in the Vietnamese-backed regime of the 1980s, was reluctant to bring the Khmer Rouge leaders to trial. Funding shortfalls plagued the operation, and the government said that due to the poor economy and other financial commitments, it could only afford limited funding for the tribunal. Several countries, including India and Japan, came forward with extra funds, but by January 2006, the full balance of funding was not yet in place. Nonetheless, the task force began its work and took possession of two buildings on the grounds of the
Royal Cambodian Armed Forces The Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF; km, កងយោធពលខេមរភូមិន្ទ ) is Cambodia's national military force. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief is King Norodom Sihamoni. Since 2018, General Vong Pisen has been ...
(RCAF) High Command headquarters in Kandal province just on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. In March 2006 the
Secretary General of the United Nations The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or SG) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. The role of the secretary-ge ...
,
Kofi Annan Kofi Atta Annan (; 8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founde ...
, nominated seven judges for a trial of the Khmer Rouge leaders. In May 2006, Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana announced that Cambodia's highest judicial body approved 30 Cambodian and U.N. judges to preside over the genocide tribunal for some surviving Khmer Rouge leaders. The chief Khmer Rouge torturer
Kang Kek Iew Kang Kek Iew, also spelled Kaing Guek Eav ( km, កាំង ហ្គេកអ៊ាវ, ; 17 November 1942 – 2 September 2020), ''nom de guerre'' Comrade Duch ( km, មិត្តឌុច, ) or Hang Pin, was a Cambodian convicted war ...
– known as Duch and ex-commandant of the notorious S-21 prison – went on trial for crimes against humanity on 17 February 2009. It was the first case involving a senior Pol Pot cadre, three decades after the end of a regime blamed for 1.7 million deaths in Cambodia.


Dispute of "genocide" label

While the events in Cambodia are widely considered to be a genocide or democide and referred to as such, Steven Rosefielde argues that the deaths in Cambodia fail to meet the definition of genocide in the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), or the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition. It was ...
. Rosefielde states that there is "no evidence Pol Pot sought to exterminate the Khmer people, or even the Cham and religious minorities." Instead, he defines Khmer Rouge killings as "''dystopicide''": "The no-prisoners-taken pursuit of badly implemented, poorly conceived communist utopia-building."


Legacy

The violent legacy of the KR regime and its aftermath continue to haunt Cambodia today. In recent years, increasing attention has been paid by the world to the atrocities of the KR, especially in light of the Cambodia Tribunal. In Cambodia, the
Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum ( km, សារមន្ទីរឧក្រិដ្ឋកម្មប្រល័យពូជសាសន៍ទួលស្លែង) or simply Tuol Sleng ( km, ទួលស្លែង, link=no, ; lit. "Hill of ...
and the
Choeung Ek Choeung Ek ( km, ជើងឯក, ) is the site of a former orchard and mass grave of victims of the Khmer Rouge – killed between 1975 and 1979 – in Dangkao Section, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, about south of the Phnom Penh city centre. It is t ...
Killing Fields are two major sites open to the public which are preserved from the KR years and serve as sites of memory of the Cambodian genocide. The Tuol Sleng was a high school building that was transformed into an interrogation and torture centre called S-21 during the KR regime; today the site still contains many of the torture and prison cells which were created during the KR years. Choeng Ek was a mass grave site outside Phnom Penh where prisoners were taken to be killed; today the site is a memorial for those who died there. However, beyond these two public sites, there has not been much activity promoted by the Cambodian government to remember the genocide that occurred. This, in part, is due to numerous KR cadres remaining in political power in the wake of the collapse of the KR regime. The continued influence of KR cadres in Cambodia's politics has led to a neglect of the teaching of KR history to Cambodian children. The lack of a strong mandate to teach KR history despite international pressure has led to a proliferation of literary and visual production to memorialise the genocide and create sites through which the past can be remembered by future generations.


In literature

Like
the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europ ...
, the Cambodian genocide has spawned a host of literary publications in the wake of the KR regime's fall. Most significant to the history of the KR are the numerous survivor
memoirs A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...
published in English as a way to remember the past. The first wave of KR memoirs began appearing in the late 1970s and 1980s. Soon after the first wave of survivors escaped or were rescued from Cambodia, survivor accounts in English and French began to be published. Written to generate more awareness about the KR regime, these adult memoirs take into account the political climate in Cambodia before the regime and tend to call for justice to be served to the perpetrators of the regime. Being the first survivor accounts to reach global audiences, memoirs such as Haing Ngor's ''A Cambodian Odyssey'' (published 1987), Pin Yathay's (''Murderous Utopia'') (1979), Laurence Picq's (''Beyond the Horizon'') (1984) and Francois Ponchaud's (''Cambodia Year Zero'') (1977) were instrumental in bringing to the world the story of life under the KR regime. The second wave of memoirs, published in the 21st century, is distinctly different from the first wave. Memoirs from the second wave include Chanrithy Him's ''When Broken Glass Floats'' (published 2000),
Loung Ung Loung Ung ( km, អ៊ឹង លួង; born 19 November 1970) is a Cambodian American human-rights activist, lecturer and national spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World, between 1997 and 2003. She has served in the same capaci ...
's ''
First They Killed My Father ''First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers'' is a 2000 non-fiction book written by Loung Ung, a Cambodian-American author and childhood survivor of Democratic Kampuchea. It is her personal account of her experiences during t ...
'' (2000), Oni Vitandham's ''On the Wings of a White Horse'' (2005) and Kilong Ung's ''Golden Leaf'' (2009). Published in large part by Cambodian survivors who were children during the period, these memoirs trace their journey from a war-torn Cambodia to their new lives in other parts of the world. To a larger extent than memoirs from the first wave, these memoirs reconstruct the significance of their authors' experiences before they left Cambodia. Having grown up away from Cambodia, these individuals use their memoirs predominantly as a platform to come to terms with their lost childhood years, reconnect with their cultural roots which they cannot forget despite residing outside of Cambodia and tell this story for their children. Noticeably, many of the authors of second wave memoirs draw out extended family trees in the beginning of their accounts in an attempt to document their family history. Additionally, some authors also note that despite them remembering events vividly, their memories were augmented by their relatives recounting those events to them as they grew up. Most significantly, the publication of the second wave of memoirs coincides with the Cambodia Tribunal and could be a response to the increased international attention paid to the atrocities of the KR.


In media

As in literature, there has been a proliferation of films on the Cambodian genocide. Most of the films are produced in documentary style, frequently with the aim to reveal what really happened during the KR years and to memorialise those who lived through the genocide. Film director
Rithy Panh Rithy Panh ( km, ប៉ាន់ រិទ្ធី; born April 18, 1964) is a Cambodian documentary film director and screenwriter. The French-schooled director's films focus on the aftermath of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. ...
is a survivor of the KR's killing fields and is the most prolific producer of documentaries on the KR years. He has produced '' Cambodia: Between War and Peace'' and ''
The Land of the Wandering Souls ''The Land of the Wandering Souls'', or ''La terre des âmes errantes'', is a 2000 French- Cambodian documentary film directed by Rithy Panh. Synopsis The film follows a Cambodian family as they work to dig a trench across Cambodia to lay the cou ...
'' among other
documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...
s. In '' S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine'', two survivors of S-21 confront their former captors. In 2013, Panh released another documentary about the KR years titled ''
The Missing Picture ''The Missing Picture'' (french: L'Image manquante) is a 2013 Cambodian-French documentary film directed by Rithy Panh about the Khmer Rouge. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival where it won the to ...
''. The film uses clay figures and archival footage to re-create the atrocities of the KR regime. Beyond Panh, many other individuals (both Cambodians and non-Cambodians) have made films about the KR years. '' Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia'' is a British documentary directed by David Munro in 1979 which managed to raise 45 million pounds for Cambodians.


See also

* Cambodia portal * Communism portal *
Agrarian socialism Agrarian socialism is a political ideology that promotes “the equal distribution of landed resources among collectivized peasant villages” This socialist system places agriculture at the center of the economy instead of the industrialization ...
*
First Indochina War The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between France and Việt Minh (Democratic Republic of Vi ...
*
French Indochina French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...
*
History of Cambodia The history of Cambodia, a country in mainland Southeast Asia, can be traced back to Indian civilization. Detailed records of a political structure on the territory of what is now Cambodia first appear in Chinese annals in reference to Funan, a ...
*
List of socialist states Several past and present states have declared themselves socialist states or in the process of building socialism. The majority of self-declared socialist countries have been Marxist–Leninist or inspired by it, following the model of the Sovi ...
*
People's Republic of Kampuchea The People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), UNGEGN: , ALA-LC: ; vi, Cộng hòa Nhân dân Campuchia was a partially recognised state in Southeast Asia supported by Vietnam which existed from 1979 to 1989. It was founded in Cambodia by the Ka ...
(Vietnamese occupation, 1979–1989) *
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
(Second Indochina War) *
Cambodian genocide denial Cambodian genocide denial was the belief expressed by many Western academics that claims of atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge government (1975–1979) in Cambodia were much exaggerated. Many scholars of Cambodia and intellectuals opposed ...
*
Killing Fields The Killing Fields ( km, វាលពិឃាត, ) are a number of sites in Cambodia where collectively more than one million people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime (the Communist Party of Kampuchea) during its rule of t ...
* Mass killings under communist regimes Works: * ''First They Killed My Father'' (film) * ''The Killing Fields'' (film)


References


Sources

* * *


Further reading

* Seng Ty: The Years of Zero: Coming of Age Under the Khmer Rouge * Ben Kiernan: ''The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–79'' Yale University Press; 2nd ed. * Jackson, Karl D. Cambodia: 1975–1978 Rendezvous with Death. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989 * Ponchaud, François. Cambodia: Year Zero. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978 * Michael Vickery: ''Cambodia 1975–1982'' University of Washington Press; June 2000 * From Sideshow to Genocide: Stories from the Cambodian Holocaust – virtual history of the Khmer Rouge plus a collection of survivor stories. * ''First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers'' (HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2000) * Denise Affonço: ''To The End Of Hell: One Woman's Struggle to Survive Cambodia's Khmer Rouge.'' (With Introduction by
Jon Swain Jon (John) Anketell Brewer Swain (born 1948) is a British journalist and writer. Swain's book ''River of Time: A Memoir of Vietnam '' chronicles his experiences from 1970 to 1975 during the war in Indochina, including the fall of Cambodia. Ea ...
); * Ho, M. (1991). The Clay Marble. Farrar Straus Giroux. * Daniel Bultmann: Irrigating a Socialist Utopia: Disciplinary Space and Population Control under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–1979, Transcience, Volume 3, Issue 1 (2012), pp. 40–52 * Piergiorgio Pescali: "S-21 Nella prigione di Pol Pot". La Ponga Edizioni, Milan, 2015. * Beang, Pivoine, and Wynne Cougill. ''Vanished Stories from Cambodia's New People Under Democratic Kampuchea''. Phnom Penh: Documentation Center of Cambodia, 2006. . * Chandler, David P. "A History of Cambodia." Boulder: Westview Press, 1992. * Dy, Khamboly. ''A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979)''. Phnom Penh, Cambodia: Documentation Center of Cambodia, 2007. . * Etcheson, Craig. ''The Rise and Demise of Democratic Kampuchea''. Westview special studies on South and Southeast Asia. Boulder, Colo: Westview, 1984. . * Hinton, Alexander Laban. "Why did they Kill? : Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide." Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. {{Coord, 12, 15, N, 105, 36, E, type:country_source:kolossus-ptwiki, display=title 1975 establishments in Cambodia 1979 disestablishments in Cambodia Kampuchea, Democratic Communism in Cambodia Kampuchea, Democratic Former countries in Cambodian history Kampuchea, Democratic Khmer Rouge Republicanism in Cambodia Totalitarian states States and territories established in 1975 States and territories disestablished in 1982