The Cambodian Genocide: A Tragedy Hidden from the World

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Genocide is the mass slaughter of a certain type of people because of who they are. The Cambodian Genocide was the mass slaughtering of people who were foreign, educated people, not Khmer (the native race in Cambodia), as well as other people the Khmer Rouge considered to be enemies. It was one of the most horrific events in modern history, and it was discovered years after it began. It took place over a four-year period, from 1975-1979, and left a profound impact on not only Cambodia, but also the world.
Pol Pot, the leader of the Cambodian Genocide, sought to impose his view of a perfect communist society throughout Cambodia, with everyone completely equal in economic status, class, and job. Pol Pot believed that the only way to create this society was to force everyone in the country to be rural peasants. To do this, he considered everyone who was not a rural peasant working in the fields to be an enemy to him and to the well-being of the country. The Khmer Rouge, the organization headed by Pol Pot, killed or kicked out all of the foreigners and many other types of people the Khmer Rouge believed were their enemies. Millions of people were put in labor camps and were forced to work for hours upon hours with insufficient food and water, and little healthcare.
The Cambodian Genocide started because the Khmer Rouge wanted to create a pure Communist society in Cambodia. In order to do this, they decided to deconstruct the entire country back to its peasant beginnings and eliminate anyone who was above the status of a peasant or was not Cambodian. The Khmer Rouge’s dream of perfect communism ultimately failed, however, because it was impossible for a society to succeed with only one profession. Even rural peasants needed doctors an...

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... working in poor conditions with no medicine, and there were no doctors to help with the sickness. Without trained professionals, a country will fall into ruin, like Cambodia did. What happened in Cambodia clearly shows that it is impossible to impose a utopian view on millions of people in a country today. For a country to flourish, it needs people in many different types of roles, including doctors to cure illness, teachers to educate the next generation of citizens, merchants to buy and sell the products created by other citizens, and many more professions. A country today cannot survive if it just has 100% peasants, seeking to survive on their crop production. The Cambodian Genocide also shows the dangers of any government trying to impose racial purity, which has been shown only to lead to many deaths and inhumane acts of cruelty, without any resulting benefit.

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