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Cambodia, Pol Pot and the Killing Fields

Cambodia, Pol Pot and the Killing Fields. Khmer Rouge  political group in Cambodia who supported communism and their leader, Pol Pot. Rejected capitalism, intellects, money, private property, and religion. 1975-1979.

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Cambodia, Pol Pot and the Killing Fields

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  1. Cambodia, Pol Pot and the Killing Fields

  2. Khmer Rouge  political group in Cambodia who supported communism and their leader, Pol Pot. • Rejected capitalism, intellects, money, private property, and religion.

  3. 1975-1979 • The Killing Fields In four years, 1.7-2.5 million people were executed, starved, tortured or worked to death. (out of 8 million) • U.S. involvement  U.S. secretly bombed Cambodia and supported Pol Pot's regime, because it was anti-Vietnamese. • United States used “carpet bombing” against Cambodia which increased Khmer Rouge recruitment. • Systematic bombing to completely destroy an area.

  4. On March 18, 1969, American B-52s began carpet-bombing eastern Cambodia. "Operation Breakfast" was the first course in a four-year bombing campaign that drew Cambodia headlong into the Vietnam War. The Nixon Administration kept the bombings secret from Congress for several months, insisting they were directed against legitimate Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge targets. However, the raids exacted an enormous cost from the Cambodian people: the US dropped 540,000 tons of bombs , killing anywhere from 150,000 to 500,000 civilians.

  5. “The United States gave the Khmer Rouge coalition millions of dollars in aid while enforcing an economic embargo against the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian government. The Carter administration helped the Khmer Rouge keep its seat at the United Nations, tacitly implying that they were still the country's legitimate rulers. The U.S. government's refusal to recognize the new Cambodian government and its unwillingness to distance itself from the Khmer Rouge was motivated by several factors, primarily animosity toward its former foe, Vietnam, and Vietnam's Soviet backers. Additionally, the United States did not want to sour its improving relations with the Khmer Rouge's longtime patron, China. What started as a diplomatic decision to manipulate the Sino-Soviet split and isolate and punish Vietnam became a moral blunder that ensured the survival of the genocidal Khmer Rouge.

  6. Vietnam defeated the Khmer Rouge in 1979. • Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot went into hiding in the jungle where the U.S. continued to support them. • Pol Pot died in Cambodia in 1998 of a heart attack. • Khmer Rouge leaders have yet to be put on international trial for genocide.

  7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cthWBHXNSJk • Aki Ra • http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/cambodia/ • 25 min. PBS. Pol Pot’s Shadow

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