The Khmer Rouge

*Published on **2018-07-06** by **Kelley** | Categories: Uncategorized*

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(Human skull at S-21)

The movie set we were on  told the story of a regime popular in the history of Cambodia ([Traverse This Earth – Dropping Bombs](http://www.traversethisearth.com/2018/03/)). Under the leadership of a man named Pol Pot, “The Khmer Rouge killed nearly two million Cambodians from 1975 to 1979, spreading like a virus from the jungles until they controlled the entire country, only to systematically dismantle and destroy it in the name of a Communist agrarian ideal.” – TIME magazine.

[Info on the Khmer Rouge](http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1879785,00.html)

Two million people sounds like a lot. But its even worse when you think that is 25% OF THE ENITRE COUNTRY’S POPULATION. Let that sink in for a moment. America’s population as of 2017 was 325.7 million. Someone would have to kill 81,425,000 people. More than…Eighty. One. Million. People.

Imagine.

Essentially a coup in 1975 put this group in power and they proceeded to take over the country causing one of the biggest cleansings that caused the death of almost two million people. (Really the estimations state 1.5 to 3 million.)  At first the Khmer Rouge pretended to be peacemakers. Using the idea of “spiritual healing” they gained support and then made their move. City by city the Khmer Rouge would move in and displace the entire population. And it certainly wasn’t in a nice way. They would evacuate everyone, making them take what they could carry and leave the rest. This started in Phnom Phen, the capital of the country, in 1975. The entire population of the city was forced into camps in the countryside. There were 2.5 million people in that city alone. The citizens were told of fake threats of bombing from America and that their leaving would just be a few days.  A unique move due to the scale was referred to by Pol Pot as “the first step in progress deliberately designed to exterminate an entire class”. (Thanks Wiki.)

Families were separated, people suffered and died in horrible ways. Pol Pot believed that the population needed to be purified of people who were enemies of the state. Since Pol Pot wanted the entire country to be a socialist agrarian republic, he liked people who were farmers and didn’t like progressive people. That included teachers, professors, businessmen, anyone who lived in a city, anyone who wasn’t a farmer all the way down to people who wore glasses. Apparently they looked smart.  Pol Pot believed that all of these people were a threat to the way of life that he was trying to build for his country.  His idea was to turn the entire country back to “Year Zero”.  People who didn’t fit were systematically marched and worked to death.  Absence of medical care and malnutrition helped just as much.  Giving  a person only two bowls of rice a day led to many deaths.  Often, people were outright killed.  In order to save bullets, pickaxes were used.  And before that happened they were forced to dig their own graves.  Some were buried alive.  At Tuol Sleng prison, better known as S-71, 17,000 people were imprisoned and less than 20 survived.  The skull that serves as the featured image is one of the remains found once this war was over.

It wasn’t until 1979 that the Khmer Rouge’s reign came to a halt.  The Vietnamese Invasion of Cambodia terminated their power.  What I find more disheartening than all of this is that a tribunal to bring the people in power to justice didn’t happen until 2001.  Pol Pot’s sentence rang in at house arrest only.  That’s where he died.