On January 7, , they captured Phnom Penh and forced Pol Pot to flee back into the jungle, where he resumed guerrilla operations. Throughout the s, the Khmer Rouge received arms from China and political support from the United States, which opposed the decade-long Vietnamese occupation.
In a Khmer Rouge splinter group captured Pol Pot and placed him under house arrest. He died in his sleep on April 15, , at age 72 due to heart failure. A United Nations-backed tribunal has convicted only a handful of Khmer Rouge leaders of crimes against humanity. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The Khmer Rouge was a brutal regime that ruled Cambodia, under the leadership of Marxist dictator Pol Pot, from to Nikita Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, serving as premier from to Though he largely pursued a policy of peaceful coexistence with the West, the Cuban Missile Crisis began after he positioned nuclear weapons 90 miles from During the late s and early s, the prospect of communist subversion at home and abroad seemed frighteningly real to many people in the United States.
For many Americans, the most enduring Born in Germany in , Henry Kissinger escaped the Nazi regime to become a powerful and controversial U. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. As national security advisor House of Representatives, during its probe of alleged communist influence in the Cuban leader Fidel Castro established the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere after leading an overthrow of the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in He ruled over Cuba for nearly five decades, until handing off power to his younger brother The domino theory was a Cold War policy that suggested a communist government in one nation would quickly lead to communist takeovers in neighboring states, each falling like a perfectly aligned row of dominos.
In Southeast Asia, the U. Along with Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, Mao is considered one of the most significant communist figures of the However, the relationship between the two nations was a tense one.
The insurgents were driven by Marxist ideology and their army was led by a man called Pol Pot, who had earlier lived in France and became a member of the communist party there. When the Khmer Rouge took power in known in the country as Year Zero , millions were immediately sent to work in labor camps in the countryside, on the idea that this was a step toward the creation of an agrarian utopia.
Mass killings primarily targeted the middle class and intellectuals — such as doctors, lawyers, journalists, artists and students — as well as ethnic Vietnamese and Cham Muslims. Private property, money, religion and traditional culture were abolished, and the country became known as Democratic Kampuchea.
But even then, the Khmer Rouge was seen by many in the West as a powerful challenge to Vietnamese influence in Cambodia, and maintained support and military assistance from the U. From , the Khmer Rouge held onto its seat in the U.
General Assembly, and was recognized as the only legitimate representative of Cambodia. When Pol Pot died in , he was only just about to face the possibility of trial before the world. Cambodia historian David Chandler says that, as time wears on, Cambodians are steadily overcoming the trauma. Cambodia is a young country, with nearly half its population under the age of Most Cambodians have no direct experience of the conflict. That idea extends to attitudes toward the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge.
Contact us at letters time. 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 Pol Pot was a bright student and spent time studying in France, where he became involved with communist groups in the early s.
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