The Cambodian Genocide

The Cambodian Genocide was between the years 1975-79. Pol Pot, the leader of Khmer Rouge, wanted to copy and follow the Maoist idea. This idea meant everybody should be equal and everybody had to work in the agricultural area. That was the reason why the Khmer Rouge killed approximately more than two million Cambodian people. The Khmer Rouge did not accept the religious; they cancelled the money and killed lots of smart people: doctors, teachers, lawyers, and all highly educated people. They believed in the clear beginning so they separated the children from their parents because they thought the children were flexible enough for the new lifestyle. The Cambodian people suffered starvation: they had been healthy and strong, but finally they got diseases. The `killing fields` were the places where they had to work, and they were killed. The school building was the main office, there was the Khmer Rouge. The Cambodian people could not to choose partner, the system made it. The Cambodian people could not to listen to the radio. The survivor told her story about the life there at that time. She was two years old, and her father was a nurse, so he was killed. She and her mother stayed together. Her parents were very young, and they met in the high school. Her mother told her: don`t speak or give any answer! She was sick, but fortunately later she got better. After this terrible four years they went to the Thailand refugee camp. They were there for three years. After that she came to the U.S.A. After the Genocide the Khmer Rouge's links with China meant hostility between the Pol Pot government and Vietnam. In 1978 Vietnam invaded Kampuchea and overthrew the Khmer Rouge. The guerrillas were driven into the western jungles and beyond to Thailand. Vietnam set up a puppet government composed mainly of recent defectors from the Khmer Rouge. This new socialist government was comparatively benign, but found it hard to organize the necessary reconstruction programmed: Pol Pot's policies had ruined the economy, there wasn't much foreign aid; all the competent professionals, engineers, technicians and planners had been killed.