What was khmer rouge in cambodia

Workers on the farm collectives established by Pol Pot soon began suffering from the effects of overwork and lack of food. Hundreds of thousands died from disease, starvation or damage to their bodies sustained during back-breaking work or abuse from the ruthless Khmer Rouge guards overseeing the camps. Those seen as intellectuals, or potential leaders of a revolutionary movement, were also executed.

Legend has it, some were executed for merely appearing to be intellectuals, by wearing glasses or being able to speak a foreign language. During what became known as the Cambodian Genocide , an estimated 1. The Vietnamese Army invaded Cambodia in and removed Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge from power, after a series of violent battles on the border between the two countries. Pol Pot had sought to extend his influence into the newly unified Vietnam, but his forces were quickly rebuffed.

After the invasion, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge fighters quickly retreated to remote areas of the country. However, they remained active as an insurgency, albeit with declining influence. Vietnam retained control in the country, with a military presence, for much of the s, over the objections of the United States. Over the decades since the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia has gradually reestablished ties with the world community, although the country still faces problems, including widespread poverty and illiteracy.

Prince Norodom returned to govern Cambodia in , although he now rules under a constitutional monarchy. Pol Pot himself lived in the rural northeast of the country until , when he was tried by the Khmer Rouge for his crimes against the state. The trial was seen as being mostly for show, however, and the former dictator died while under house arrest in jungle home.

The stories of the suffering of the Cambodian people at the hands of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge have garnered worldwide attention in the years since their rise and fall, including through a fictional account of the atrocities in the movie The Killing Fields. BBC News. The Cambodian Genocide.

United to End Genocide. Cambodian Genocide. World Without Genocide. The communists received support from the neighboring Vietcong. The Cambodian monarchy promoted a strong sense of nationalism and loyalty to the government, but was also seen as corrupt and ineffectual.

This corruption would breed several underground groups with the shared goal of overthrowing the government. Early on, right-wing and leftist groups, including leaders of what would become the Khmer Rouge, were allies. Income inequality was rampant. Cambodians living in the urban areas enjoyed relative wealth and comfort while the majority of Cambodians toiled on farms in the rural communities.

This obvious division of class made Cambodia especially susceptible to revolution. Ultimately, the Khmer Rouge would take power in , installing Pol Pot as the leader of the country. Once the Khmer Rouge took power, they instituted a radical reorganization of Cambodian society. This meant the forced removal of city dwellers into the countryside, where they would be forced to work as farmers, digging canals and tending to crops.

Families were also split up. The Khmer Rouge created labor brigades, assigning groups depending on age and gender. This policy resulted in hundreds of thousands of Cambodians starving to death. Religious and ethnic minorities faced particular persecution.

Christian and Buddhist groups were targeted for repression but it was the Cham Muslim group that was most affected by the genocide. Because the Khmer Rouge placed a heavy emphasis on the rural peasant population, anyone considered an intellectual was targeted for special treatment.

This meant teachers, lawyers, doctors, and clergy were the targets of the regime. There is difficulty establishing a definitive number of victims of the Cambodian Genocide. The Cambodians kept methodical records of prisoners and executions. In addition, estimating the total number of people who starved is difficult. Estimates range from 1. He was born Saloth Sar to farmers in rural Cambodia in While the Khmer Rouge was in power, they set up policies that disregarded human life and produced repression and massacres on a massive scale.

They turned the country into a huge detention center, which later became a graveyard for nearly two million people, including their own members and even some senior leaders. Fueled by the first Indochina War in the s, and during the next 20 years, the movement took roots and began to grow.

In March , Marshal Lon Nol, a Cambodian politician who had previously served as prime minister, and his pro-American associates staged a successful coup to depose Prince Sihanouk as head of state.

At this time, the Khmer Rouge had gained members and was positioned to become a major player in the civil war due to its alliance with Sihanouk. By the end of , the Vietnamese withdrew from Cambodia and turned the major responsibilities for the war over to the CPK. From January to August , the Khmer Republic government, with assistance from the US, dropped about half a million tons of bombs on Cambodia, which may have killed as many as , people.

By early , about 85 percent of Cambodian territory was in the hands of the Khmer Rouge, and the Lon Nol army was almost unable to go on the offensive. However, with US assistance, it was able to continue fighting the Khmer Rouge for two more years.

April 17, ended five years of foreign interventions, bombardment, and civil war in Cambodia. On this date, Phnom Penh, a major city in Cambodia, fell to the communist forces. A few days after they took power in , the Khmer Rouge forced perhaps two million people in Phnom Penh and other cities into the countryside to undertake agricultural work. Thousands of people died during the evacuations.

The Khmer Rouge also began to implement their radical Maoist and Marxist-Leninist transformation program at this time. They wanted to transform Cambodia into a rural, classless society in which there were no rich people, no poor people, and no exploitation. To accomplish this, they abolished money, free markets, normal schooling, private property, foreign clothing styles, religious practices, and traditional Khmer culture. Public schools, pagodas, mosques, churches, universities, shops and government buildings were shut or turned into prisons, stables, reeducation camps and granaries.