WARNING- SOME IMAGES AND VIDEOS IN THIS BLOG MAY CAUSE SOME DISTRESS TO SOME VIEWERS

When you hear the word genocide what are some words that come to your mind? Rwanda? The Holocaust? Darfur, Sudan? Evil? Why those words? Why not Somalia? East Timor? Cambodia?

The media shapes every aspect of our society- but when it comes to genocide is its interference more harmful that helpful?

Image of skulls of Cambodian genocide victims at the Cambodian Genocide Centre

Reflecting on the Cambodian genocide we can see that is has become the unspoken genocide...largely overshadowed by the Vietnam War with little to no media coverage. Meaning that millions of peoples suffering went unheard, have gone unheard- and for many this means that justice will never be found.

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.

WHY HAVEN'T I HEARD ABOUT THIS BEFORE?

The "Killing Tree"

You may have heard about the Cambodian genocide in passing but never known the true extent of what happened. The film "The Killing Fields", based on the book of the same title, gained some attention but not nearly enough. 

There are many reasons why the Cambodian genocide isn’t something that is widely known. Why it has become an unspoken genocide.

But who is to blame?

Is it us, the world, who choose to be ignorant of the suffering of others?

Was it the generation, who didn’t want to see anymore bad things after the Vietnam War? 

Was it our leaders, who chose not to care?

Or was it the media who thought the slaughter of a quarter of a nation’s population wasn’t worth their precious time?

When reading the newspaper how many of you skip straight to the sport section? The lifestyle section? Skipping over the world news section. We are bombarded by images of war and destruction all day from these far away countries...Afghanistan...Sudan...Libya. It is hard to feel empathy when you do not know anyone over there. When you probably couldn’t even find them on the globe before it was shown on the nightly news. In 1975, the Vietnam War had just ended. Australia for the first time had been shown a war on television, and they didn’t like it. The realities of war were realised and you know what, they weren’t pretty. So the last thing the public wanted was to see more death and destruction. So they ignored it because they could.

Generations of Cambodians gone and forgotten by the world. Our generation, the one born after the Vietnam War still have little to no idea about it. Yes, we know about Rwanda, Sudan even Armenia but we do not know that a quarter of a country’s population was wiped out in four years. But we do care. This is a change. Genocide and other atrocities against the human race is now something that is discussed openly and discussed passionately. No longer are we happy to have things swept under the rug by our politicians and the media- we want it all out in the open in the hope that change can be made, and if the mainstream media won’t give it to us than there are other ways for us to get it!

VIDEO- THINKING ABOUT THE CAMBODIAN GENOCIDE

A video that looks at what happened in the Cambodian genocide and how genocide is treated in our society.


WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS SOME IMAGES THAT MAY BE DISTRESSING TO SOME VIEWERS.

 Photo of the"Killing Tree" at Choeung Ek Killing Fields- where hundreds of babies and young children were killed by Khmer Rouge soldiers bashing their heads against the tree.

Tuol Sleng - One of the worst prisons during the Pol Pot regime now the site of the Genocide Centre

Photo of a cell in Tuol Sleng. The prisoners were chained to the floor and left for dead.

Photo of the rules displayed at the entrance of Tuol Sleng Prison.

HOW COULD THE MEDIA JUST IGNORE A COUNTRY IN NEED?

The media consider themselves to be the Fourth Estate, a force in society that helps create a balance; that is a link between the people and the power. While this sounds like the media always have the public's best interests at heart, sometimes this isn’t always the case.

The Cambodian genocide came straight after the Vietnam War- the first war to be strongly protested against. Half the public felt very strongly against South East Asia, and the other half felt strongly against war of any kind. It was easy for the media to state that keeping the genocide out of the media was in the public interest.

Television and photography were just starting to develop, and with it a new kind of reporting on war, that was much more confronting than what the public was used to. The Cambodian genocide produced some horrific images that would have certainly distressed audience members. Even now as a desensitised viewer of Generation Y, I found a lot of the images quite confronting. But does this mean that they shouldn't be shown? If it’s really so difficult to just look at these images, imagine being the ones in the picture! It is only with bringing issues and events of this nature to the forefront of public interest that we can make a difference in the world.

Political interests drive media coverage more than nearly anything else (we can’t forget profits). The Cambodian genocide was driven by two very different political influences. Firstly was our government who was unwilling to get involved in another war that wasn’t our own so soon after the Vietnam War had ended.

Secondly, Pol Pot was also very against internationals entering his country so it was difficult for Western journalists to even enter Cambodia, let alone report on it. This had a lot to do with the severe bombings that America led over Cambodia during the Vietnam War, but also because Pol Pot didn’t want international attention over his regime. The journalists and photographers that did enter Cambodia did so at their own risk, with many of them being tortured, imprisoned and murdered.

The media has a tough job reporting on atrocities like war and genocide. It is a topic a lot of people would like to just go away- ignorance is bliss. For millions of people, who suffer through the horror of genocide, sometimes the media telling their story is the only form of justice they will ever receive. It is important for the media to tell their story, to raise awareness of what is going on in the world so that we can learn from our mistakes and move forward as a global community.

The beautiful Angkor Wat

WHY REPORT ON RWANDA AND NOT CAMBODIA?

Skulls from the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek

When someone says genocide, the first country you probably associate this with is Rwanda. The events that transpired in the early 90’s are well known by most of the world and were extensively documented by the media.

But why was Rwanda chosen to be highlighted?

Was it worse than Cambodia?

More important?

To say if one genocide is worse than another is like asking if being shot dead is better than being stabbed to death. The extermination of one group of people is just as bad as the extermination of another group of people. But the media doesn’t see it this way.

The two genocides were in two very different media eras. The Cambodian genocide came just after the first televised war. War reporting was new and there was a lot of discomfort amongst audience members with the distressing images we associate with war. Westerner's weren't exactly welcome in Cambodia either, after the severe bombings that Cambodia suffered during the Vietnam War. Pol Pot also didn't want interference with his regime.

In Rwanda it was a completely different media era. It was the early 1990’s and the Internet was starting to take off. Television and movies had developed greatly, and slowly we were becoming desensitised to violent images. As Africa was on the other side of the world there was no issue to having war torn, horrible images broadcast on the nightly news. The UN also entered Rwanda and so were able to let journalists in to report on the events more safely than those who dared to enter Cambodia.

Although Rwanda is seen as one of the world’s worst genocides, the events that transpired in Cambodia over those four years were devastating. It is wrong to compare the two as they were decades apart. But Cambodians deserved the justice that the Rwandan people received. One year after the Rwandan genocide ended, trials began for those involved. It took thirty years for the Khmer Rouge to be brought to trial for their crimes.

While it seems that we learnt from the Cambodian genocide when we compare Cambodia and Rwanda, it is still not good enough. Only by demanding answers, demanding justice, can we help stop the murder, torture or harm to people based on nothing more than the colour of their skin, their beliefs or where they live.
No longer should there be an unspoken genocide!