Jake Weist

10/25/17

TKAP Cambodian Genocide (P121-146)

Intro

1975-1979, Approximately 2 million people killed. One of the most devastating genocides in the
worlds history considering the percentage of the countrys population that was killed. Infamous
killing fields

Angkor and Precolonial Cambodia

Cambodians inhabited the mainland of Southeast Asia. Cambodia underwent a golden age from
the 9th-15th centuries, the period of the Khmer Empire.
1600s-1800s was Cambodias dark ages.
Cambodians carried out anti-Vietnamize massacres which served as precedent for the
Cambodian genocide of the 1970s.

Cambodia and Indochina under French Colonialism

Cambodia was under control by Vietnam and Thailand well into the mid-19th century, either
direct or indirect.
Cambodia remained a monarch but was mainly run by French naval officers.
1880s France decided to tighten its control on Cambodia and begin exploiting the
country/colony for resources. This prompted a lengthy rebellion in the late 1880s, which
succeeded only in inducing the French to cultivate a broader layer of local advisers who would
be loyal to the French, not the Cambodian king.
WWII the Vietnamese drove the French out and established a communist rule, which was
supported by the US.
South Vietnams loss in the war heavily influenced Cambodias fate.

Emergence of the Communist Party of Cambodia

1951 Peoples Revolutionary Party of Kampuchea. Led by Khmer Buddhist monks and
Vietnamese communists.
1966 the party changed its name to The Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) or the Khmer
Rouge (Red Khmers).

Brother Number 1: Pol Pot

Saloth Sar (the future Pol Pot) was born in 1925 to a prosperous farming family of Khmer
descent that had connections to Cambodias royal family. His friends described him as a calm,
nice young man. (Ironic because of what he did later in his life).
Was in France studying in the 1940s-1950s. This is where he began his political
thoughts/career. He began buying into the communist point of view.
A death in the communist party allowed Sar to have an easier ascent into power.
One of Sars goals was to move the party away from its Vietnamese origins and influence.
Cambodian Politics in the 1950s and 1960s

Cambodia gained its independence in 1953-1954 under the leadership of Norodom Sihanouk.
The Democrats, a liberal reformist movement, gained ground and support in the 1950s.
Even farther to the left was the Pracheachon, which was essentially a front for the communist
party.
While Sihanouk was on vacation, his army commander, Lon Nol, carried out a peaceful coup
dtat in March of 1970.

War in Vietnam and Civil War in Cambodia

The war in Vietnam destabilized Cambodia and contributed greatly to the rise of Khmer Rouge.
The US bombed Cambodia to help disrupt North Vietnamese supply routes.
Khmer Rouge won people over by unifying the country against the US, against war.
Civil War (1970-1975). Khmer Rouge had help from Vietnamese arms and training.
The Cambodian Government was unable to beat the Khmer Rouge, but it was able to kill its own
Vietnamese population. Through massacres, refugee flight, and expulsions, they reduced the
number of Vietnamese from 450,000 to 140,000.

Marxism, Stalinism, and Maoism

KR really represented a brand of socialism that was indebted to Stalin and Mao it would have
been unrecognizable to Karl Marx.

Remaking Cambodian Society

New country was named Democratic Kampuchea (DK) after taking power in 1975.
KR Government drove 2 million people out of their homes very soon because of their ideological
beliefs of idealization and agrarian life, and its anti-urban animus (*like the Nazis*).
Created a new class peasants, or base people that worked 12-16-hour days of forced labor.
The KR regimes expansionist goals led to warfare with several neighboring countries. They
never really worked out for the KR.

Targeting of Minority Groups

The Chams were a predominantly Muslim people who inhabit various parts of Indochina were
one of the group targeted for ethnic and religious reasons.
The KR also attacked Buddhist monks. They killed approximately 57,000 of 60,000 survived the
initial killings, and they were virtually all wiped out at the end of the genocide.
The KR then turned on its own people, killing about 100,000-250,000 in December of 1978.
They evacuated about one third of the regions population and many of which died from
starvation.
Torture Center Tuol Sleng (S-21) was a place much like Hitlers concentration camps, but it had
the infamous killing fields. The killing fields is what the Cambodian Genocide is known for.
There were 14,000 prisoners in S-21 between 1975-1979 and fewer than a dozen are believed to
have survived.
The KR lost power when they tried to invade Vietnam in 1979, and they KR disappeared has a
party in 1998. Since 1979, a pro Vietnamese government has remained in power.
How many were killed?

1.7-2.2 million people. Half a million during the years of 1970-1975 alone.