This entry explores the brutal Khmer Rouge regime. I apologize for giving more time and attention to this unfortunate period, but I feel that in order to understand the struggles of the present day Cambodian people (at least, as I see it pretrip), it is necessary to delve into this subject in some depth. I also apologize for spending so little time on the years from 1978 to present, but these years are, again, best understood by understanding the circumnstances that led to them, i.e. the Khmer Rouge.
Battles between the Khmer Rouge and the US-sponsored Khmer Republic (established by Lon Nol) plagued the country from 1970 until 1975. Because of overwhelming opposition to its involvement in Cambodia, the US withdrew its troops and support of Lon Nol in 1973. Without US support, the Lon Nol government easily fell to the Khmer Rouge, who renamed Cambodia, Democratic Kampuchea, though it was hardly democratic.
And here is where the history of Cambodia takes its dark turn. Within hours of the fall of Phnom Pen, Khmer Rouge soldiers went throughout the city, door to door, and forced all inhabitants to march to the countryside. There, they were forced to labor in the rice fields for brutally long hours and under horrible circumstances. No exceptions were made for the sick, the elderly or the young, and individuals in these groups perished by the hundreds of thousands.
The idea behind the mass exodus was to create a communistic, egalitarian, agrarian society in which the wealth of the country would come from the production of food, and on the backs of the people. Education was seen as a threat to the society, and many individuals claiming to have an education or discovered to have one, were executed without pause. This highlights an important tenant of the Khmer Rouge regime; its complete disregard for human life. All citizens were expendable, and in order for the purification of the country to be achieved, many would need to be killed to purge the society of Western thought and connection to other cultures.
Buddhism was outlawed, and God was proclaimed dead. The nuclear family unit was torn apart, with a new emphasis placed on the importance of the society over family. Children were encouraged to report any infraction they perceived their parents to be committing, and were rewarded for doing so. Many children were taken from their parents at a young age and desensitized to torture and killing in militaristic boarding schools. They were trained to do the bidding of the party, and brutally punish those who disobeyed.
Prisoners were shipped to prison camps, the most notorious being S21, where thousands were tortured to the point of admitting wrongs they didn't committ, writing down what they confessed to doing, and then were killed as enemies of the state. But the killing were by no means limited to the enemies of the Khmer Rouge. Indeed, the paranoia of the Khmer Rouge leadership led to many executions within its own party.
It is shocking to me that such a system, eerily similar in its construct and design to Orwell's 1984, could exist without instant revolt and overthrow on the part of the oppressed. But the Khmer Rouge made the execution of those most likely to lead a revolt, i.e. intellectuals and former government officials, their first and foremost priority. Additionally, once the cities had been emptied, and the people placed in what amounted to concentration camps, controlling them became much easier.
One might ask, however, who the enforcers of such a cruel regime were. And the answer, unsurprisingly, is that the enforcers were the original Khmer Rouge soldiers; young, rural, uneducated, impoverished farmers. Those who had been ruled for so long, and who had had their rights stomped on since the beginning of time. These angry, young men vented their spleens on whomever they wished, and were encouraged to do so. In this way, the Khmer Rouge rule was a true reign of terror, bordering on anarchy, but with the exception that a central authority did exist, and did wield power absolutely. In the documentary, S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, several of the guards from that facility were interviewed about their experiences. At one point, the interviewer asks them how they could have done the things they did. The answer: "I was afraid that if I didn’t obey orders that I would be killed." When asked if they felt responsible for what had happened, they answered: "No. We were just following orders. The leaders were the ones responsible." Sadly, there is still much denial on the part of the perpetrators that anything needs to be reconciled. Meanwhile, the victims cry out for some sort of truth and reconciliation, similar to that achieved in South Africa post-apartheid. The problem now is that the Cambodian Peoples Party, a communist party with many of its members being former Khmer Rouge officers, controlls congress. Unsurprisingly, pushing to have inquiries and trials into the Khmer Rouge reign is not at the top of their agenda.
...continued on to next entry.
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