WHAT IS THE CAMBODIAN GENOCIDE?

“Only faith and hope can save the Cambodian people from extinction” These are some of the first words to come out from the Cambodian genocide. Jean-Pierre Gallois was the first Western reporter that went into Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, and his first words perfectly capture the massacre of country and people that had occurred over the last four years.

It was a country destroyed by its own people. Its own people destroyed by its own people. A problem ignored by the world.

In 1975 the communist political party, the Khmer Rouge, was brought to power, led by the infamous Pol Pot. In the four years that they were in power it is estimated that between 1.7 and 2.3 million people were killed out of a population of around 7 million. Meaning that 25% of the population were killed over four years by their own people. Their leaders.

The Khmer Rouge was a group of radical French educated communists who believed that Cambodians should return to the “old way” of life. Their leader Pol Pot studied in France and became entrenched in communism. His tyrannical power led to the destruction of a country, that is still being rebuilt today.

Under the Khmer Rouge all of the nations people were moved from cities to the country side to work the land. The people were forced to work 12 hours a day with no rest and inadequate food. People frequently died from starvation or fatigue. There was no economy. No hospitals. No education. No factories. Executions, torture and rape were common place. Educated people were executed. Families were torn apart as they were against the State. Young children were brainwashed to hate their family, to trust no one but their government. If families tried to interact with each other then they were executed.

The Khmer Rouge wiped out entire villages, slaughtering them and burying them in mass graves in the fields that would later be named “The Killing Fields”. Countless other people were forced to work the land, with many dying from malnutrition or fatigue. The rest were transported to prisons never to be seen again.

Tuol Sleng was one of the worst known prisons during the Pol Pot regime. The old high school was converted into a building of horrors where people were tortured, maimed and murdered. It is now the site of the Cambodian Genocide Centre.

The Khmer Rouge era was brought to an end by the Vietnamese, who invaded Cambodia to stop the atrocities. The Vietnamese army toppled the Khmer Rouge in 1979 bringing an end to the genocide that would take decades to heal.

Cambodia's sacred monuments were destroyed in the battle between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese. The famous Angkor Wat bears many scars from this terrible time.