Pol Pot

Pol Pot was the leader of the group Khemer Rouge. He was in charge of Cambodia for three years, eight months, and twenty-one days. He got suspicious of Vietnam's relationship with Cambodia. Lon Nol got in a civil war with the Khemer Rouge and lost. About 156,000 people died, half being civilians.

People think that his birthday was on May 19, 1928. He went to school in Paris to get a government scholarship. He was a poor student. He eventually got lost in his studies and got really involved in the Communist Party. He began his rivalry in November 1976, taking out cabinet ministers and other top party leaders. Pol Pot was hunted down at the end of all this and was sentenced to life in prison. When he was under house arrest he died of heart failure on the day April 15, 1998.

The Genocide

First of all, the ill, old, disabled, and very young were forced out. If they were to choose not to go they would be murdered. If they didn't leave fast enough or wouldn't obey orders they would also be killed. The political and civil rights were banned. The army was killed as well. The intellectual people were killed together with their extended families. Religion was prohibited, especially Buddhism and almost all temples were thoroughly destroyed. Music and radios were prohibited.

This was a very cruel genocide. People would get killed for knowing something that the others didn't, such as a foreign language. People would get shot for simply laughing or even crying. The people who escaped the murders had to work almost all day and became unpaid labours. They slept and ate in communes and were given little food. Many would get so tired from over work and starvation that there was no medicine to help, so the only other choice for them was death.
Also, people were to not have relationships what-so-ever or expressions of affection.

Khemer Rouge targeted Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai. They killed any Cambodian with the background of any of these ethnicities.

Horrors of the Genocide

The Khemer Rouge wanted to compose the purist most advanced form of communist. Therefore they didn't want anyone to get in the way of them doing so. They believed the human lives counted as little and didn't matter. The genocide lasted from 1975 to 1979. Some were put in rooms packed and one to two died every day in each room. Babies were ripped from their mother's arms and slaughtered. They couldn't sit without permission and could not whisper to one another. The males were whipped raw in the prisons and their fingernails would be ripped out. They had to constantly worship Pol Pot and paint pictures of him continuously. The tortures were very serious to these people and the people who survived are said to be extremely lucky.

Facts

What had happened was Pol Pot got in charge of Cambodia and killed about two million of Cambodia's population. That is about twenty-one percent of Cambodia's people. Half to one million died from starvation and disease. About half a million was slaughtered. Some interesting facts about the genocide is every human was in slave labor. Urban areas of Cambodia were evacuated from their homes and moved to ural areas. Pol Pot forced thousands into labor and they were denied food and medical supply. Mass killings of intellectuals and anyone in the professional field was slaughtered. This was one of the biggest genocides ever known. An interesting fact is Cambodia is home to the single largest religious structure and they were still forced to give up their religion during this genocide. Millions of lives were lost because people didn't have the power to stop it.

Importance

This is important to history for many reasons. It is the first time people have followed through with seperating the intellectuals from the non-intellectuals and killed the intellectuals. There has been a lot of genocides but this one is is unique in its own way. It is unique because they not only damaged people physically but brainwashed them mentally. It is also important because it is a time in history where a mass killing had taken place. This is major part in history for Cambodia.



I chose this topic because I wanted something original. I chose this topic because I was interested on what had happened in Rwanda and the Holocaust. I believe that they are similar in many ways. They killed a variety of people based on one thing. It is a sad topic that no one really knows about and I believe that people should read more on genocides and be greatful for what they have because it is a horrifying thing that truly happened.

Bibliography

"Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge, and Genocide in Cambodia Travel Story by Vagabonding.com." V A G A B O N D I N G One Man, One Year, One World. Web. 15 May 2010. http://vagabonding.com/travelogur/000060.html.

"GENOCIDE - CAMBODIA." Peace Pledge Union. Web. 15 May 2010. http://www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_cambodia1.html.

"Pol Pot Biography - Life, Family, Name, Death, School, Son, Information, Born, House, Time, Year." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Web. 15 May 2010. http://www.notablebiographies.com/Pe-Pu/Pol-Polt.html.


"How and Why Did the Communist Kill in Cambodian Genocide?"Yahoo.com. Web. 13 May 2010. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qud=20100316061022AAM5EFQ.html.

Amanpour, Christiane. "Survivor Recalls Horrors of Cambodia Genocide - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. Web. 15 May 2010. http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/04/07/amanpour.pol.pot/index.html.


"Cambodia Genocide - What Happened Then." Free Articles Directory Submit Articles - ArticlesBase.com. Web. 15 May 2010. http://www.articlebase.com/news-and-society-articles/Cambodia-genocide-whathappened-then-1949984.html