Pol Pot the Cambodian Communist
In 1970, Nol Lol set out on a mission to overthrow a 1168-year-old monarchy. “With the help of US troops Nol Lol was successful with the overtaking of Prince Norodom Sihanouks administration for power in Cambodia.” (Coulianos) Nol Lon faced opposition from the communist party headed by Pol Pot. The Communist party known as The Khmer Rouge went to war with Nol Lon and claimed victory in 1975. Pol Pot would gain power of Cambodia and would go on to be one of the most ruthless leaders in modern day. Pol Pot is said to be responsible for the death of almost, 25% of the Cambodian population in four short years before being overthrown by the Vietnamese in 1979. The world first came to notice Pol Pot’s disregard for
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Nuon Chea was known as “Brother number two” and chief of the security committee for the DK and said to be responsible for the almost 2 million murders. There was one instance where Nuon Chea became Prime Minister of the new government on September 27, but was quickly replaced by Pol Put sometime in October. (P.93) As ruthless as Pol Pot happened to be, he was a very fearful Man, he would sleep in a different location nightly afraid of betrayal from within the DK. Pot was not afraid of external retribution. He placed soldiers in the jungles to combat a few anti-communist groups that were hiding along the Cambodian and Thailand borders. Additionally, Pot had DK soldiers alongside the Cambodian-Vietnamese Borders because he despised the communist party …show more content…
In a letter to congressman Joe Moakley, John Doe refers to the killings as, “A massacre of the Cambodian at the hands of the Vietnamese troops.” (Letter) United States kept their distance due to the recent embarrassment with the Vietnam war. The United States Government remained neutral for the duration of the Khmer Rouge Regime, not wanting to interfere because of the recent war in Vietnam and the Vietnamese relations with Russia. Another motive for not intervening was that China, A US ally, was supporting the Khmer Rouge Regime and it was important to maintain a positive relationship between the two governments. However, in 1978 then President Jimmy Carter referred to the atrocities in Cambodia as “The worst violator of human rights in the world today.” (Frontline) This was the only instance of US acknowledgement towards the Khmer Rouge Regime. Conversely, China, a close US ally happened to be a big known supporter of Pol Pot’s regime. It is said the Pol Pot was trying to replicate Mao Zedong 's agrarian utopia, go back to Cambodia’s agricultural roots. A US nonprofit created in 1980 aimed at Saving Cambodia
Phuong Canh Ngo was convicted of ordering the killing of Australian MP victim John Newman. It was described as the first political assassination.
Between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot-the leader of the Khmer Rouge followed Maoist communism, which they thought they could create an agrarian utopia. Agrarian means that the society was based on agriculture. They wanted all members of society to be rural agricultural workers and killed intellectuals, who had been depraved by western capitalist ideas. A utopia means a perfect society. This idea went to extremes when The Khmer Rouge resumed that only pure people were qualified to build the revolution. They killed Cambodians without reasons by uncivilized actions such as: cutting heads, burying alive… There were about 1.7 million people killed by the Khmer Rouge.
Pol Pot had many ways of getting what he wanted. He used multiple forms of propaganda in his piece The Little Red Book. "I want you to know that everything I did, I did for my country." ("The State of Mind of State"). Pol Pot fooled Cambodians with the thought of him doing everything for the citizens, when in reality he was power hungry and took lives to show power.
Ung (2000) mentions that the Cambodian genocide is a product of a perfect agrarian vision that can be built by eliminating Western influence. More specifically, the Angkar perceives peasants and farmers as “model citizens” because many have not left the village and were not subjected to Western influence (Ung 2000:57). Moreover, the Khmer Rouge emphasized the ethnic cleansing of individuals from other races who were not considered “true Khmer” and represented a “source of evil, corruption, [and] poison” (Ung 2000:92). Lastly, the ideology centered on obtaining lost territory was based on a “time when Kampuchea was a large empire with territories” (Ung 2000:78). In essence, Ung successfully demonstrates that multiple causes encouraged the Cambodian
After WW2, in South East Asia there was a high risk of spread of communism. In America's opinion, South East Asia countries were like dominoes: if one of them turned communism, others would follow its example. This is why in 1954 President Eisenhower decided to support South Vietnam in order to stop the spread of communism. By 1963 there were 17000 US advisors in South Vietnam. At that time the president of Vietnam was Diem, disliked by the most of the population, especially Buddhists which were persecuted because of their religion (Diem was catholic). In protest, Buddhist monks marched the streets and set themselves on fire. The same year the coup against Diem was planned and it was supported by the US government.
"Pol Pot in Cambodia 1975-1979." The History Place : Genocide in the 20th Century: Pol Pot in Cambodia 1975-1979. The History Place, n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .
In the 1968 election Nixon made Vietnam a campaign issue promising to win the war, but he also planned to expand the war by bombing neutral Cambodia to cut off the North supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh trail. He wanted to show North Vietnam that the United States was willing to purse “peace with honor”. Nixon went public with the bombings and sent troops into Cambodia, NVA invaded
The Biography Editors state that the Watergate burglary occurred June 17, 1972 where five men were apprehended for breaking into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters. The five men were Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, Frank Sturgis, and James W. McCord Jr. The Watergate scandal revolved around multiple crimes that were committed. The crimes that have been stated in articles such as, the Washington Post, dealt with political espionage, obstructing the investigation, breaking and entering which led to wiretapping phones. Also, there was campaign fraud during President Nixon’s reelection. The five men who were arrested were all associated and working on behalf of the president’s reelection campaign. As stated by The
Tupac Shakur Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in the East Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City. His birth name was Lesane Parish Crooks, June 16, 1971. Both of his parents were members of the Black Panther Party. Tupac Shakur was a vocal participant during the East Coast and West Coast hip hop rivalry. He went to high schools in California and Maryland.
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The Crips, as we learned in module 3 are one of the most notorious black or predominately African American gang founded in Southern Los Angeles, California in 1969. This gang was co-found by 16-year-old Raymond Washington and Stanley Tookie Williams III. Even before the Crips however, there was a gang known as the Hoover Groovers. The Hoover Groovers would later form an alliance with the Crips and change their name to Hoover Crips.
“In July 1965, Lyndon Johnson chose to Americanize the war in Vietnam.” Although Johnson chose to enter America into the war, there were events previous that caused America to enter and take over the war. The South Vietnamese were losing the war against Communism – giving Johnson all the more reason to enter the war, and allowing strong American forces to help stop communism. There were other contributing factors leading up to the entrance of the war; America helped assist the French in the war, Johnson’s politics, the Tonkin Gulf Incident, and the 1954 Geneva Conference. President Johnson stated, “For 10 years three American Presidents-President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, and your present President--and the American people have been actively concerned with threats to the peace and security of the peoples of southeast Asia from the Communist government of North Viet-Nam.”
Cambodia would become a battle ground for American troops fighting in Vietnam for four years; the war would kill up to 750,000 Cambodians through U.S. efforts to destroy suspected North Vietnamese supply lines. This devastation would take its toll on the Cambodian peoples’ morale and would later help to contribute to the conflicts that caused the Cambodian genocide. In the 1970’s the Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement would form. The leader of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, was educated in France and believed in Maoist Communism. These communist ideas would become important foundations for the ideas of the genocide, and which groups would be persecuted.
The Communist Party of Kampuchea, also known as the Khmer Rouge, took control of Cambodia on April 17, 1975, which lasted until January 1979. For their three-year, eight-month, and twenty-one day rule of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge committed some of the most heinous crimes in current history. The main leader who orchestrated these crimes was a man named Pol Pot. In 1962, Pol Pot had become the coordinator of the Cambodian Communist Party. The Prince of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk, did not approve of the Party and forced Pol Pot to flee to exile in the jungle. There, Pol formed a fortified resistance movement, which became known as the Khmer Rouge, and pursued a guerrilla war against Sihanouk’s government. As Pol Pot began to accumulate power, he ruthlessly imposed an extremist system to restructure Cambodia. Populations of Cambodia's inner-city districts were vacated from their homes and forced to walk into rural areas to work. All intellectuals and educated people were eradicated and together with all un-communist aspects of traditional Cambodian society. The remaining citizens were made to work as laborers in various concentration camps made up of collective farms. On these farms, people would harvest the crops to feed their camps. For every man, woman, and child it was mandatory to labor in the fields for twelve to fifteen hours each day. An estimated two million people, or twenty-one percent of Cambodia's population, lost their lives and many of these victims were brutally executed. Countless more of them died of malnourishment, fatigue, and disease. Ethnic groups such as the Vietnamese, Chinese, and Cham Muslims were attacked, along with twenty other smaller groups. Fifty percent of the estimated 425,000 Chinese living in Cambod...
Settled in the end of the fifth century, two groups established themselves in what is now present day Cambodia. The Champa controlled the central and southern part of Vietnam and the Funan is the southernmost part Vietnam and present-day Cambodia. Influences from both China and India were obvious as dance and music spread throughout the area. Ruling on its own till 1864 when the French absorbed it into French Indochina Along with Laos and Vietnam. For nearly a century, the French exploited Cambodia commercially, and demanded power over politics, economics, and social life. It was not until a leader Norodom Sihanouk proclaimed Cambodia's independence in 1949 which was later granted in 1953. Cambodia fell into chaos during the 1970’s as General Lon Nol and his connections to the Khmer Rouge brought Cambodia into a genocidal age. For a decade Cambodia was surrounded by despair and carnage until the reign of the Khmer Rouge ended in 1979. Slowly rebuilding of the nation began as outside countries and organization such as the United Nation helped to get Cambodia back on its feet. Plans were made for general elections by 1993 which lead to the constitutional monarchy that the country has today. With its cyclical and oppressive history, Cambodia future is optimistic with the economy growing rapidly due to industries such as tourism, textiles, oil and the traditional farming. Slowly the nation reaches to find its place among the other powerhouses in Southeast Asia and around the world.