CAMBODIA

·         The Khmer Rouge period (1975-79) saw the death of approximately 2 million Cambodians through the direct result of political executions, starvation and forced labour.

·         Khmer Rouge period ended with the invasion of Cambodia by former ally Vietnam in the Cambodian-Vietnamese War.

MAIN CAUSES:

·         VIETNAM. As war raged in Vietnam, Sihanouk sought desperately to preserve Cambodia’s neutrality. Alternately taking sides with China and then the USA, he was not successful in preventing the war from spilling over into Cambodia. In March 1970, Lon Nol carried out a coup and ousted Sihanouk from power. Sihanouk then fled to Beijing.

·         KHMER ROUGE. The Khmer Republic fell to the Khmer Rouge in 1975. Sihanouk became the head of state merely as a symbol, while true power was held by Pol Pot (a.k.a. Saloth Sar, who was leader of the Communist Party). The next year Sihanouk was forced out of office and into political retirement. Pol Pot focused on communist philosophies, focusing on agriculture rather than industry. Pol Pot admired Cambodian farmer’s way of life, one that didn’t utilize money, education, or the tenets of capitalism. He quickly set on applying these aspects of Cambodian farming life on the entire population. Determined to create this agrarian utopia, Pol Pot began to deport people from the cities. People were then forced to live in the country-side. Even hospitals were emptied of their patients. The supplies the Khmer Rouge supplied for these refugees was highly inadequate, leading to 2000-3000 deaths. Motive was political, based in a deep-rooted resentment of capitalism and the city.

·         POL POT. Treated as discrete policy objectives the eradication of those associated with the old regime, as well as the educated, the Vietnamese, the Muslim Cham, the Buddhist monks and other ‘bourgeoisie elements’. Having known only conflict for five years, the Cambodians considered the KR promise of peace an appealing alternative.

·         CIVIL WAR. After 5 years of civil war, the Khmer Rouge finally emerged triumphant. They had just defeated the US-backed Lon-Nol government. War legitimates such extreme violence that it can make aggrieved or opportunistic citizens feel licensed to target their neighbours. In Cambodia two wars preceded the genocide: the US war in Vietnam, and a civil war in Cambodia. These wars earned the Khmer Rouge converts to their cause, and they also helped obscure the savagery of the new Communist movement.

·         MEDIA. Although not starting the genocide, radio and mobile megaphones were crucial to the evacuation. They began blasting their demand that citizens leave the capital immediately.

IMPACT OF MILITARY CONFLICT

·        The Khmer Rouge operated under a cloak of mystery. People getting too close vanished, never to be heard from again. With the KR resolutely unknowable, their mystery received almost as much attention as the misery they inflicted upon Cambodians.

·        Khmer Rouge fought against the Lon-Nol government and the Americans, who took an excessive amount of time to stop bombing in Cambodia, even after troops were removed from Vietnam.

·        The Khmer Rouge made Sihanouk the face of their operation, yet he had no control over what they actually did. In 1974, Sihanouk sent a letter to US officials, documenting rumours of an imminent Khmer Rouge massacre of Lon Nol and his supporters as ‘absurd’. Whilst this encouraged the belief that these really were just rumours, it created instability for what was later to come.

INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT/ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL ACTORS:

·        USA. USA refused Cambodia protection. In a letter from Cambodia’s new leader to US ambassador Dean Matak said, ‘You have refused us your protection and we can do nothing about it...I have only committed this mistake of believing in you, the Americans’. By sealing the country after their victory, the Khmer Rouge delayed and initially muddied outside diagnosis of the depths of their savagery. Even when these facts did emerge, the American policy of nonengagement, noncondemnation, and noninterest went virtually unchallenged. US policy of silence was never seriously contested. When US troops withdrew from Vietnam in 1973, the bombing of Cambodia became harder to justify. Many Cambodians cooperated with the Khmer Rouge because they promised peace, and were the complete opposite of the American bombings. Prince Matak once warned US officials not to back unpopular Lon Nol, ‘If the US continues to support such a regime, you help the Communists’.

·        FRANCE. Some Cambodians thought that they would find some safety gathering outside the French embassy. The French responded by turning them away out onto the street. The Khmer Rouge told the French vice-consul that the 1300 people gathered in the compound would be deprived of food and water if the Cambodians among them did not leave.