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ROPS Week 22- The 'Killing Fields' of Cambodia (The Aftermath…
ROPS Week 22- The 'Killing Fields' of Cambodia
The Rise of the Khmer Rouge
1966- Communist insurgents under Pol Pot begin armed rebellion
1970- General Lon Nol seizes power and exiles Sihanouk
1960- King Sihanouk abdicates to become Prime Minister
1972- end of Vietnam War as US Army quits
1955- Cambodia becomes independent
Pol Pot
Advanced education, but struggling- engineering college
1949-53- state scholarship to continue studies in Paris- encounters with French Communists
1925- born into middle class family- with links to court
1953- return to Cambodia
1955- joins CP
1962- leads Communist rebellion against Sihanouk
Staging Genocide
Division of people into ‘base people’= original- peasantry and ‘new people’= urban population
Angkar’s ‘stone-age communism’: agrarian work- no western technology or medicine, no personal belongings- transform Cambodia into pre-modern peasant state
‘Angkar’- Communist Party takes over full control
17 April 1975- Fall of Phnom Penh, evacuation of city
Huge death toll due to disease and starvation
The 'Killing Fields'
‘War against people’ by way of torture centres and mass executions- primary targets are former civil servants and army personnel, monks, ethnic minorities, peoples with ‘western’ education incl. anyone able to read or write, wearing spectacles or owning a book
1976- communal kitchens= food rationing
2nd round of purges against ‘traitors’ and ‘spies’ with Angkar and army
No reliable census for the 1960/70s, massive movements due to civil war
1st estimate- 700,000- based on population estimate of 7.1 million (70s)
Improved estimates put population at 7.9-8 million- death toll of 1.5 million
Village census and family records show overall toll of 25-40%
After deduction of c.200,000 refugees- overall death toll ranges between 1.8 and 2.5 million
The Aftermath
1989- withdrawal of Vietnamese from UN Peacekeeping Mission after KR lose seat in UN General Assembly
1993- elections won by former Khmer Rouge cadre Hun Sen
1979- trial of Pol Pot and Deputy Ieng Sary by People’s Revolutionary Court under Vietnamese, death sentence
1998- Pol Pot dies in Thailand-Cambodia border area
2003- Hun Sen government agrees to international tribunal, sits since 2007
2009- final pleadings
2012- Deuch sentenced to life imprisonment, other accused passed away or became unfit for trial
1979- Vietnamese troops conquer Phnom Penh- drive Khmer Rouge to border areas
1978- increasing border clashes with Vietnam as part of CW constellation (Vietnam-USSR, Cambodia-China and USA)
With 1.8-2.5 million deaths or 25-33% of the entire population, the Pol Pot regime counts among the worst genocidal regimes in the 20th century (if not in world history)
Measuring the death toll in Cambodia shows the difficulties of historical demography even in the 20th century
Khmer Rouge Tribunal is an interesting case for historians to approach issues of justice both in theory and in practice