The Cambodian Genocide

1. The Cambodian Genocide Stephanie Hernandez Josue Ortiz Blake Lenchenberg

2. The People Behind the Genocide • Khieu Samphan. The studious former National Assembly member, served as the political leader of the Khmer Rouge. His doctoral research in Paris served as the basis for Khmer Rouge ideology. He became commander in chief of the Khmer Rouge army and led its forces into Phnom Penh in 1975. Khieu eventually was assigned the role of prime minister and president of the Khmer Rouge regime, even though decisions were made collectively by the KR leadership. Essentially, Khieu's purpose was to put a diplomatic, public face on Khmer Rouge policy. • Ieng Sary. Known as "Brother Number Three," Ieng Sary also joined the communist movement in the late 1950s. As a leading member of the KR rebel forces, he became foreign minister in 1975 and was one of the key decision makers during the KR years. • Chhit Chhoeun (Ta Mok). Though he never studied in Paris he joined the communist movement early on as a rebel fighter. Despite his training as a Buddhist Monk, Chhit was a merciless warrior, and he eventually adopted the name "Grandpa Mok," - Ta Mok. After the Khmer Rouge victory, Ta Mok became one of the most powerful men behind Angka, leading purges against suspected KR cadres and coordinating massacres against Vietnamese civilians. His taste for brutality eventually caused many people to call him Ta Mok the Butcher. • Nuon Chea. Like Ta Mok, Nuon Chea did not receive his communist indoctrination in France; instead, he was exposed to it by the Thai Communist Party during World War II. As "Brother Number Two," Nuon dictated Khmer Rouge policy for over three years, developing the radical economical strategies that eliminated money and trade with the outside world. • Saloth Sar (Pol Pot). After flunking out of his electronics scholarhip in Paris, Saloth returned to Cambodia to help build the Communist Party of Kampuchea. As one of the leading masterminds behind the Khmer Rouge, Saloth Sar became best known under his pseudonym, Pol Pot. Pol Pot served as chairman of the party, for which he claimed the infamous title "Brother Number One" and the reputation as the all-out leader of the Khmer Rouge.

3. Political Leaders • Pol Pot is exposed here as one of those responsible for bringing communism to his country, and slaughtering millions of his fellow Cambodians in his misguided efforts to weed out supposed enemies of the state. • 1949-52: Saloth Sar, later known as Pol Pot, goes to Paris on government scholarship and becomes absorbed with communist ideology. • 1953: Pol Pot sets up communist party after Cambodia's independence from France. • 1960-63: Pol Pot becomes party's general-secretary. Flees to jungle to escape repression by Cambodia's ruler, Prince Norodom Sihanouk. • 1967-68: Khmer Rouge takes up arms in support of peasant against a government rice tax. Army suppresses insurrection. • 1970: Civil war begins after right-wing coup topples Sihanouk. • 1975: Khmer Rouge seizes power, begins doomed experiment in agrarian communism. Up to 2 million people die over four years from starvation, overwork and execution. • 1978:Vietnam invades Cambodia to stop Khmer Rouge border attacks. Phnom Penh falls to Vietnamese two weeks later. • April 15 (No Year Given) Pol Pot dies in his sleep, at 73, Khmer Rouge officials say.

4. Khieu Samphan In 1970 he became deputy prime minister and minister of defense in the Royal Government of National Union of Kampuchea (RGNUK), a government-in-exile which was formed by Prince Norodom Sihanouk in May, and commander-in-chief of the People's Army of National Liberation of Kampuchea. On April 14, 1976 at its first session, the People's Representative Assembly confirmed Khieu Samphan as President of the State Presidium (Head of State) of Democratic Kampuchea. It also selected a 15-member cabinet headed by Pol Pot as Prime Minister. By mid-1979 the Khmer Rouge's carnage emerged and the unspeakable atrocities became known to the world. Khieu Samphan and the Khmer Rouge became international pariahs. However because of cold war antagonistic between the east and west, in which Cambodia was unfortunately caught in the middle, many governments continued to support the murderous regime. The Khmer Rouge continued to represent Cambodia at the UN. And in December, in an attempt to improve its image, Khieu Samphan was appointed as Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea, replacing Pol Pot who was appointed as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.

5. Headlines U.N. Panel Says Cambodia's Ills Spring From Genocide by Pol Pot Published: February 6, 1981 A United Nations report said today that genocide committed by the Pol Pot regime was at the root of all of Cambodia's problems of the last five years. Abdelwahab Bouhdiba, a Tunisian diplomat appointed by the world body's Human Rights Commission, described events in Cambodia as ''without precedent in out century, except for the horror of Nazism.'' He said that millions of people were killed or maimed during the Pol Pot rule from 1975 to 1978 and children who survived would be psychologically scarred for the rest of their lives. --New York Times

6. Quotes • A translation provided by (http://www.yale.edu/cgp/polpotfiles.html) To Brother Pol with respect, All comrades who are based at the O Vay border have reported: 1. They met with us and warned us to withdraw from O Vay immediately. They claimed that it is their territory. But we did not withdraw. Since the meeting on 7 February, they announced that they will not meet with us anymore. They said that the agreement on 20 January has been unsuccessful. They will not recognize it anymore. 2. From 12 February to 15 February, yesterday, [they] came in to our temple(s) continuously. Our side tried to protect the line by fighting back. We did not allow them to cross into our land any further. Four of them got injured. One on our side was injured. We immediately advised our brothers: 1. O Vay has been our land since our ancestors' time. We must stand firm to protect our land. 2. [We] must constantly raise awareness of the spirit of the revolution, understand the enemy situation clearly, spread the forces in small units and use guerrillar-war tactics to attack the enemy everywhere. Do not let them advance as they want. Establish a good reputation by destroying them in every place, to the greatest extent possible, if they dare to cross into our land. 3. Besides the military plans, we are keeping to our negotiations as planned because we want to solve the problems through politics not through bloodshed. We had noticed that they are very stubborn and uncouth. Because of that, settlement through politics is not yet possible. But we have decided to pursue it further. We request more advice from Angkar. About the connection with Teu Kam, if there is a possibility, please Angkar, do advise. We'll try to do our own investigation. Best wishes for happiness + success. Ya 16 February 1976

7. Map of the Region

8. Foods • Bananas, Grapes, Apples, Pears, Berries, and Oranges. • Carrots, peppers, Tomatoes, Legumes, Peas. • Rice and Wheat • Salmon, Tuna, Catfish, and Rainbow Fish • Beef, Pork, chicken, and Sausage

9. Language • During the Genocide the language spoken by the Cambodian people was Khmer. Followed the Mr. Pol Pot himself and The Khmer Rouge, Angka Organization. • Khmer is the official language, which 95% of the people speak it, and the other languages spoken there is French and English

10. Photo journalists and Reporters "I don't remember much of what had happen but here are bits and pieces. (1976) I remember my father coming home one even and telling us that we needed to leave our home and flee toward Thailand. Then I had four brother, a baby brother, and two eldest sisters. We packed up as quickly as we could and headed toward Thai border. After running with my father for hours we heard gun fire, it was the khmer rouge. They were shooting as us and the other families that was fleeing. We all panic and I my mom grab me and the baby and started running. After a while we had lost my father, brothers and sisters. I remembered being really scared. I was probably 6 yrs old. Suddenly my mom was shaking my baby brother and she put him down on the grass and went to hide in the bushes because there was still gun fire. What I didn't know was my little brother was shot in the head when we were running. I don't remember how long we were hiding but we walked for a very long time." Mao Hiet

11. The Role of The UN • The role of the UN in the Cambodia genocide took place after the most critical phase of the genocide occurred. In the early 1980s, about 300,000 Cambodians were being driven to sought refuge in Thailand or near the border. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees coordinated a response to the problem. • The UN children’s Fund along with the International Committee for the Red Cross provided aid to displaced persons in Cambodia. • In 1979, when the UN General Assembly met in fall for its regular session, the UN refused to replace Pol Pot’s delegation with the new Kampuchean regime. This called for the immediate retreat f Vietnamese forces from Cambodian territory. • The previous decision was reiterated by the UN on July 13-17 1981 in New York. 79 governments attended the convention. This convention also called for the restoration of Kampuchea’s independence, and a commitment by all states not to interfere with Kampuchea’s internal affairs. This also required a cease-fire agreement by all those involved in the conflict. Withdrawal of foreign forces, and elections would be supervised by the UN. • A ten-member Ad Hoc Committee was established by the conference to keep monitoring the situation, explore negotiations among parties, and report to the General Assembly. A Declaration of the Conference on Kampuchea was approved by a vote of 110 to 25, with 19 abstentions. • During the 1980s, several reports were made by the Ad Hoc Committee to the UN General Assembly which praised the help to the refugees by Western powers. The UN also reiterated calls for the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Kampuchea. • After some efforts, an agreement between the parties was met in late 1987 and early 1988. All parties agreed to talk. The Khmer Rouge were still the recognized government.

12. The Role of The UN • The three parties that would compete for the future elections were the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front (KPNLF) led by Son Sann, the National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC) led by Norodom Sihanouk, and the Party of Democratic Kampuchea (PDK) led by Khieu Samphan. • The first talks were informal and were held with Vietnam, Laos, and six members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations at Jakarta, Indonesia in July 1988. The withdrawal of Vietnam forces and the assurances that genocidal actions were no longer going to be taken agreed to be essential to an eventual agreement. • In 1989, during the International Conference on Cambodia in Paris, it was decided that the UN was going to mediate the meetings among the parties, in advance to Internationally supervised elections. • In 1990, a five members Security Council decided that a a Supreme National Council (SNC) would establish transitional authority. Refugees were repatriated, forces were demobilized and reconstituted as a national army, civil administration was rebuilt, and mine clearance was undertaken. • The SNC, composed of a coalition of the Cambodian parties, delegated to the UNTAC all the powers needed to ready the country for free and fair elections. The UNTAC would then relinquish control to the new elected government. • On October 16, the Security Council authorized the deployment of UNAMIC to help with the eventual establishment of a new government and to provide security. • Finally, in 1993, elections took place and they led to the establishment of the new government. FUNCINPEC led by Norodom Sihanouk’s son Norodom Ranariddh won the elections. • UNTAC forces withdrew from Cambodia on Semtember 24 1993.

13. Members of The UN

14. Evidence and Documentation the killing fields - mass graves exhumed in 1980 at Choeung Ek --Ranachith (Ronnie) Yimsut

15. Summary of Cambodian Genocide On April 17, 1975, thousands of Phnom Penh residents celebrated in the streets as victorious Khmer Rouge troops entered the capitol. This celebration, however, was not because the people of Phnom Penh were supporters of the Khmer Rouge; instead, they were in great relief that the five-year civil war had now come to an end. For the first several hours it didn't matter which side you were on Cambodia was finally at peace. The hope quickly turned to fear as residents noticed that the Khmer Rouge troops weren't celebrating. After years of brutal civil war and American bombings, the Khmer Rouge marched the boulevards of Phnom Penh with strong stares carved into their faces. The troops began to order people to abandon their homes and leave Phnom Penh. By mid-afternoon hundreds of thousands of people were on the move. "The Americans are going to bomb the city!" was the answer given to residents if they asked why they had to leave Phnom Penh. No exceptions were made all residents, young and old, had to evacuate as quickly as possible. Khmer Rouge knew that there were no American plans to attack the city. It was a perfect plan to get people into the countryside, away from the urban confines of the city. The Khmer Rouge believed that cities were living and breathing tools of capitalism in their own right. In order to create the ideal communist society, all people would have to live and work in the countryside as peasants. Peasants, in fact, were the Khmer Rouge communist ideal, Peasants were seen as simple, uneducated, hard-working. Their way of life had not changed for centuries, yet they always managed to survive. The city of Phnom Penh and other Cambodian cities were seen as new people (or "April 17 people"). New people were the root of all capitalist evil in the eyes of the Khmer Rouge. It didn't matter if you were a teacher, a tailor, a civil servant or a monk: these people were the embodiment of capitalism and the enemy of communism. The Khmer Rouge felt that new people had made an active choice to live in the cities and declare their allegiance to capitalism. All city people became enemies of the new communist state, a status that would cost hundreds of thousands of them their lives. Evacuation of the cities was the first of many steps taken by the Khmer Rouge. As new people were forced out of the urban centers they soon learned of the new rules that were being imposed by Angka ("The Organization"), the secretive team of Khmer Rouge leaders who dictated the lives of every Cambodian citizen. Among these new rules, religion, money and private ownership were all banned; communications with the outside world were eliminated; family relationships demolished. All previous rights and responsibilities were thrown out the window. As was often said by the Khmer Rouge, 2000 years of Cambodian history had now come to an end; April 17 was the beginning of Year Zero for the new Cambodia: Democratic Kampuchea (DK).

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