The History Of Pol Pot In Cambodia

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It was a devastating three years in Cambodia, a country in Southeast Asia. Khmer Rouge, the Communist Party of Kampuche, and their leader “Pol Pot”, was the leader of the biggest genocide Cambodia has seen. Torturing, hanging, and murdering 1.7 million (25% of Cambodia’s population) from 1975 to 1979 (The Killing Fields). Many were to ask, why would a person want to cause millions of deaths? The answer? To centralize and nationalize the peasant farming system over night (The Killing Fields of Cambodia). Pol Pot tried to purify the society and declared the year zero. Every city was forced to make their people evacuate on feet by gunpoint. An estimated 20,000 Cambodians died on the walk. This was just the beginning. The Cambodian Killing Fields should never be forgotten for the tragedies that occurred, so that no other country may repeat them. …show more content…

Pol Pot would demand everyone were to be executed. Journalists, lawyers, doctors, professionals, intellectuals, such as students and professors, and members of the upper class were not under special treatment either. Minorities were forced to speak Khmer or feared for their lives. Many factories, schools, and universities were shut down; the owners and employees massacred. Pol Pot saw elders and children as weak points. Elders were then killed. Showing emotion was forbidden. A person who showed any emotion were then killed. Wearing glasses was against Pol Pot’s instructions. If you wore glasses, you were then killed. Pol Pot also targeted religious groups and ethnic groups. Religious enthusiasts, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Cambodians with Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai ancestry, were all persecuted. Churches were then burned to the ground. Members on his side were also interrogated vigorously. Any slight suspicion of treachery, your life would be taken. “To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.” (-Kang Kek Iew) (Cambodian

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