Khmer Rouge

The Khmer Rouge (/kəˌmɛər ˈruːʒ/;

Khmer Rouge
French: [kmɛʁ ʁuʒ]; Khmer: ខ្មែរក្រហម, Khmêr
Krâhâm [kʰmae krɑːhɑːm]; lit. 'Red Khmer') is ខ្មែរក្រហម
the name that was popularly given to members of Khmêr Krâhâm
the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and
by extension to the regime through which the
CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.
The name was coined in the 1960s by then Chief
of State Norodom Sihanouk to describe his
country's heterogeneous, communist-led
dissidents, with whom he allied after his 1970
overthrow.[7] The flag of Democratic Kampuchea, whose design
was used by Khmer guerrillas since the 1950s with
The Khmer Rouge army was slowly built up in
the building design varying.
the jungles of eastern Cambodia during the late
1960s, supported by the North Vietnamese army, Leader Pol Pot
the Viet Cong, the Pathet Lao, and the Chinese Dates of operation June 1951 – March 1999
Communist Party (CCP).[8][9][10][11] Although it
originally fought against Sihanouk, on the advice 1951–1968 (political party)
of the CCP, the Khmer Rouge changed its 1968–1975 (insurgency)
position and supported Sihanouk after he was
1975–1979 (government)
overthrown in a 1970 coup by Lon Nol who
established the pro-American Khmer 1979–1999 (insurgency)
Republic.[11][12] Despite a massive American Headquarters Phnom Penh, Cambodia
bombing campaign (Operation Freedom Deal)
against them, the Khmer Rouge won the Ideology Communism[1]: xix [2]
Cambodian Civil War when they captured the Autarky[1]: xix–xx
Cambodian capital and overthrew the Khmer
Khmer nationalism[1]: xx [2]
Republic in 1975. Following their victory, the
Khmer Rouge, who were led by Pol Pot, Nuon Political position Far-left[3][4]
Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, and Khieu Samphan, Allies Cambodian Civil War:
immediately set about forcibly evacuating the
China
country's major cities. In 1976, they renamed the
country Democratic Kampuchea. North Korea
North Vietnam
The Khmer Rouge regime was highly autocratic,
Viet Cong
totalitarian, and repressive. Many deaths resulted
from the regime's social engineering policies and Pathet Lao
the "Moha Lout Plaoh", an imitation of China's Romania
Great Leap Forward which had caused the Great
Cambodian–Vietnamese War:
Chinese Famine.[8][13][14] The Khmer Rouge's
attempts at agricultural reform through Khmer People's National
collectivisation similarly led to widespread Liberation Front
famine, while its insistence on absolute self- FUNCINPEC
sufficiency even in the supply of medicine led to
China
the death of many thousands from treatable North Korea
diseases such as malaria. The Khmer Rouge
United States (alleged)[5][6]
regime murdered hundreds of thousands of their
perceived political opponents, and its racist Thailand
emphasis on national purity resulted in the Singapore
genocide of Cambodian minorities. Summary Romania
executions and torture were carried out by its
cadres against perceived subversive elements, or Opponents Cambodian Civil War:
during genocidal purges of its own ranks between Kingdom of Cambodia
1975 and 1978.[15] Ultimately, the Cambodian (1968–1970)
genocide led to the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million
Khmer Republic (1970–
people, around 25% of Cambodia's population.
1975)
In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge were largely South Vietnam
supported and funded by the Chinese Communist
United States
Party, receiving approval from Mao Zedong; it is
estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid Thailand
which was provided to the Khmer Rouge came Cambodian–Vietnamese War:
from China.[a] The regime was removed from Vietnam
power in 1979 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia
People's Republic of
and quickly destroyed most of the Khmer
Rouge's forces. The Khmer Rouge then fled to Kampuchea
Thailand, whose government saw them as a Laos
buffer force against the Communist Vietnamese. Soviet Union
The Khmer Rouge continued to fight against the
Vietnamese and the government of the new Battles and wars Cambodian Civil War
People's Republic of Kampuchea until the end of Cambodian–Vietnamese War
the war in 1989. The Cambodian governments-
in-exile (including the Khmer Rouge) held onto
Cambodia's United Nations seat (with considerable international support) until 1993, when the monarchy
was restored and the name of the Cambodian state was changed to the Kingdom of Cambodia. A year later,
thousands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas surrendered themselves in a government amnesty.

In 1996, a new political party called the Democratic National Union Movement was formed by Ieng Sary,
who was granted amnesty for his role as the deputy leader of the Khmer Rouge.[20] The organisation was
largely dissolved by the mid-1990s and finally surrendered completely in 1999.[21] In 2014, two Khmer
Rouge leaders, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, were jailed for life by a United Nations-backed court
which found them guilty of crimes against humanity for their roles in the Khmer Rouge's genocidal
campaign.

Contents
Etymology
Ideology
Influence of Communist thought
Khmer nationalism
Autarky
Relationship to religion
Interpretations
Origins
Early history
Paris student group
Path to power and reign
KPRP Second Congress
Sihanouk and the GRUNK
Foreign involvement
Before 1975
1975–1993
Regime
Leadership
Life under the Khmer Rouge
Evacuation of the cities
Economic policies
Family relations
Education
Language reforms
Crimes against humanity
Number of deaths
Genocide
Internal power struggles and purges
Fall
War with Vietnam
Place in the United Nations
Ramifications of the Vietnamese victory
Legacy
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
Museums
Publications
Dialogues
Media coverage
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Other online sources
Genocide
Uncategorized

Etymology
The term Khmers rouges, French for red Khmers, was coined by King Norodom Sihanouk and later
adopted by English speakers (in the form of the corrupted version Khmer Rouge).[22]: 100 It was used to
refer to a succession of communist parties in Cambodia which evolved into the Communist Party of
Kampuchea and later the Party of Democratic Kampuchea. Its military was known successively as the
Kampuchean Revolutionary Army and the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea.[23]

Ideology

Influence of Communist thought

The movement's ideology was shaped by a power struggle during 1976 in which the so-called Party Centre
led by Pol Pot defeated other regional elements of its leadership. The Party Centre's ideology combined
elements of Communism with a strongly xenophobic form of Khmer nationalism. Partly because of its
secrecy and changes in how it presented itself, academic interpretations of its political position vary
widely,[18]: 25 ranging from interpreting it as the "purest" Marxist–Leninist movement to characterising it as
an anti-Marxist "peasant revolution".[18]: 26 The first interpretation has been criticized by historian Ben
Kiernan, who asserts that it comes from a "convenient anti-communist perspective".[18]: 26 Its leaders and
theorists, most of whom had been exposed to the heavily Stalinist outlook of the French Communist Party
during the 1950s,[24]: 249 developed a distinctive and eclectic "post-Leninist" ideology that drew on
elements of Stalinism, Maoism and the postcolonial theory of Frantz Fanon.[24]: 244 In the early 1970s, the
Khmer Rouge looked to the model of Enver Hoxha's Albania which they believed was the most advanced
communist state then in existence.[18]: 25

Many of the regime's characteristics—such as its focus on the rural peasantry rather than the urban
proletariat as the bulwark of revolution, its emphasis on Great Leap Forward-type initiatives, its desire to
abolish personal interest in human behaviour, its promotion of communal living and eating, and its focus on
perceived common sense over technical knowledge—appear to have been heavily influenced by Maoist
ideology;[24]: 244 however, the Khmer Rouge displayed these characteristics in a more extreme
form.[24]: 244 Additionally, non-Khmers, who comprised a significant part of the supposedly favored
segment of the peasantry, were singled out because of their race.[18]: 26 According to Ben Kiernan, this was
"neither a communist proletarian revolution that privileged the working class, nor a peasant revolution that
favored all farmers".[18]: 26

While the CPK described itself as the "number 1 Communist state" once it was in power,[18]: 25 some
communist regimes, such as Vietnam, saw it as a Maoist deviation from orthodox Marxism.[18]: 26
According to author Rebecca Gidley, the Khmer Rouge "almost immediately erred by implementing a
Maoist doctrine rather than following the Marxist–Leninist prescriptions."[25] The Maoist and Khmer
Rouge belief that human willpower could overcome material and historical conditions was strongly at odds
with mainstream Marxism, which emphasised historical materialism and the idea of history as inevitable
progression toward communism.[18]: 27 In 1981, following the Cambodian–Vietnamese War, in an attempt
to get foreign support, the Khmer Rouge officially renounced communism.[2][26]

Khmer nationalism

One of the regime's defining characteristics was its Khmer nationalism, which combined an idealisation of
the Angkor Empire (802–1431) and the Late Middle Period of Cambodia (1431–1863) with an existential
fear for the survival of the Cambodian state, which had historically been liquidated during periods of
Vietnamese and Siamese intervention.[27] The spillover of Vietnamese fighters from the Vietnamese–
American War further aggravated anti-Vietnamese sentiments: the Khmer Republic under Lon Nol,
overthrown by the Khmer Rouge, had promoted Mon-Khmer nationalism and was responsible for several
anti-Vietnamese pogroms during the 1970s.[28] Some historians such as Ben Kiernan have stated that the
importance the regime gave to race overshadowed its conceptions of class.[18]: 26

Once in power, the Khmer Rouge explicitly targeted the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Cham minority and
even their partially Khmer offspring.[29] The same attitude extended to the party's own ranks, as senior
CPK figures of non-Khmer ethnicity were removed from the leadership despite extensive revolutionary
experience and were often killed.[18]: 26

A Vietnamese official called the Khmer Rouge leaders "Hitlerite-fascists", while the General Secretary of
the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party, Pen Sovan, referred to the Khmer Rouge as a "draconian,
dictatorial and fascist regime".[25]

Autarky

The Khmer Rouge's economic policy, which was largely based on

the plans of Khieu Samphan, focused on the achievement of
national self-reliance through an initial phase of agricultural
collectivism. This would then be used as a route to achieve rapid
social transformation and industrial and technological development
without assistance from foreign powers, a process which the party
characterised as a "Super Great Leap Forward".[30]

The party's General Secretary Pol Pot strongly influenced the

Khmer Rouge bullet holes left at
propagation of the policy of autarky. He was reportedly impressed
Angkor Wat temple
with the self-sufficient manner in which the mountain tribes of
Cambodia lived, which the party believed was a form of primitive
communism. Khmer Rouge theory developed the concept that the nation should take "agriculture as the
basic factor and use the fruits of agriculture to build industry".[24]: 110 In 1975, Khmer Rouge
representatives to China said that Pol Pot's belief was that the collectivisation of agriculture was capable of
"[creating] a complete communist society without wasting time on the intermediate steps".[31] Society was
accordingly classified into peasant "base people", who would be the bulwark of the transformation; and
urban "new people", who were to be reeducated or liquidated. The focus of the Khmer Rouge leadership
on the peasantry as the base of the revolution was according to Michael Vickery a product of their status as
"petty-bourgeois radicals who had been overcome by peasantist romanticism".[32]: 306 The opposition of
the peasantry and the urban population in Khmer Rouge ideology was heightened by the structure of the
Cambodian rural economy, where small farmers and peasants had historically suffered from indebtedness to
urban money-lenders rather than suffering from indebtedness to landlords.[32]: 284 The policy of evacuating
major towns, as well as providing a reserve of easily exploitable agricultural labour, was likely viewed
positively by the Khmer Rouge's peasant supporters as removing the source of their debts.[32]: 284

Relationship to religion

Democratic Kampuchea was an atheist state,[33] although its constitution stated that everyone had freedom
of religion, or not to hold a religion. However, it specified that what it termed "reactionary religion" would
not be permitted.[32]: 191 While in practice religious activity was not tolerated, the relationship of the CPK
to the majority Cambodian Theravada Buddhism was complex; several key figures in its history such as
Tou Samouth and Ta Mok were former monks, along with many lower level cadres, who often proved
some of the strictest disciplinarians.[32]: 191 While there was extreme harassment of Buddhist institutions,
there was a tendency for the CPK regime to internalise and reconfigure the symbolism and language of
Cambodian Buddhism so that many revolutionary slogans mimicked the formulae learned by young monks
during their training.[34]: 182 Some cadres who had previously been monks interpreted their change of
vocation as a simple movement from a lower to a higher religion, mirroring attitudes around the growth of
Cao Dai in the 1920s.[32]: 193

Buddhist laity seem not to have been singled out for persecution, although traditional belief in the tutelary
spirits, or neak ta, rapidly eroded as people were forcibly moved from their home areas.[34]: 176 The
position with Buddhist monks was more complicated: as with Islam, many religious leaders were killed
whereas many ordinary monks were sent to remote monasteries where they were subjected to hard physical
labour.[34]: 176 The same division between rural and urban populations was seen in the regime's treatment
of monks. For instance, those from urban monasteries were classified as "new monks" and sent to rural
areas to live alongside "base monks" of peasant background, who were classified as "proper and
revolutionary".[34]: 176 Monks were not ordered to defrock until as late as 1977 in Kratié Province, where
many monks found that they reverted to the status of lay peasantry as the agricultural work they were
allocated to involved regular breaches of monastic rules.[32]: 192 While there is evidence of widespread
vandalism of Buddhist monasteries, many more than were initially thought survived the Khmer Rouge
years in fair condition, as did most Khmer historical monuments, and it is possible that stories of their near-
total destruction were propaganda issued by the successor People's Republic of Kampuchea.[34]: 181
Nevertheless, it has been estimated that nearly 25,000 Buddhist monks were killed by the regime.[35]

The repression of Islam[36] (practised by the country's Cham minority) was extensive. Islamic religious
leaders were executed, although some Cham Muslims appear to have been told they could continue
devotions in private as long as it did not interfere with work quotas.[34]: 176 Mat Ly, a Cham who served as
the deputy minister of agriculture under the People's Republic of Kampuchea, stated that Khmer Rouge
troops had perpetrated a number of massacres in Cham villages in the Central and Eastern zones where the
residents had refused to give up Islamic customs.[32]: 347 While François Ponchaud stated that Christians
were invariably taken away and killed with the accusation of having links with the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency, at least some cadres appear to have regarded it as preferable to the "feudal" class-
based Buddhism.[37][32]: 193 Nevertheless, it remained deeply suspect to the regime thanks to its close links
to French colonialism; Phnom Penh cathedral was razed along with other places of worship.[32]: 193

Interpretations

In analysing the Khmer Rouge regime, scholars place it within historical context. The Khmer Rouge came
to power in 1975 through the Cambodian Civil War, where the United States had supported the opposing
regime of Lon Nol and heavily bombed Cambodia,[38]: 89–99 primarily targeting communist Vietnamese
troops who were allied to the Khmer Rouge, but it gave the Khmer Rouge's leadership a justification to
eliminate the pro-Vietnamese faction within the group.[38]: 97 The Cambodian genocide was stopped with
the Khmer Rouge's overthrow in 1979 by Communist Vietnam.[38]: 88 There have been allegations of
United States support for the Khmer Rouge following their overthrow and the United Nations General
Assembly voted to continue recognising Pol Pot's Democratic Kampuchea.[38]: 93 Communism in South
East Asia was deeply divided, as China supported the Khmer Rouge, while the Soviet Union and Vietnam
opposed it.[38]: 89

There are three interpretations of the Khmer Rouge: totalitarianism, revisionism, and postrevisionism.
Historian Ben Kiernan describes their rule as totalitarian but places it within the context of "xenophobic
European nationalism", from which came their agrarianism and the establishment of a Great Cambodia,
rather than communism or Marxism.[38]: 96 Pol Pot's biographers David P. Chandler and Philip Short place
more emphasis on their ideological heritage of communism;[38]: 96 it was not easy to apply Karl Marx and
Vladimir Lenin's ideas to Cambodia, and communism was chosen as a way to get rid of French colonialism
and transform the feudal society.[38]: 97 Another interpretation, as proposed by historian Michael Vickery, is
that of a bottom-up, left-wing peasant revolution with the Khmer Rouge as the revolutionaries.[38]: 97 The
Khmer Rouge was an intellectual group with a middle-class background and a romanticised sympathy for
rural poor people but with little to no awareness that their radical policies would lead to such
violence;[38]: 97 according to this view, the applicability of genocide is rejected and the violence was an
unintentional consequence that was beyond the Khmer Rouge's control.[38]: 97 For Vickery, communist
ideology does not explain the violence any more than those closer to the peasants', such as agrarianism,
populism, and nationalism.[38]: 97 Vickery wrote of communisms, as different communist factions were
opposed to each other and fought against each other, resulting in further escalation of violence.[38]: 98

A synthesis of both interpretations rejects the totalitarian theory in favor of a bottom-up perspective, which
emphasises that the peasants did not have revolutionary ambitions.[38]: 98 According to this perspective, the
Khmer Rouge was able to effectively manipulate the peasants to mobilise them towards collective goals
that they did not understand, or where the revolutionaries had no desire to create a new society, which
would require a certain level of support and understanding that the Khmer Rouge was not able to win over,
but were mainly motivated to tear down the old one and violence became an end in itself.[38]: 98

Origins

Early history

The history of the communist movement in Cambodia can be divided into six phases, namely the
emergence before World War II of the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP), whose members were almost
exclusively Vietnamese; the 10-year struggle for independence from the French, when a separate
Cambodian communist party, the Kampuchean (or Khmer) People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP), was
established under Vietnamese auspices; the period following the Second Party Congress of the KPRP in
1960, when Saloth Sar gained control of its apparatus; the revolutionary struggle from the initiation of the
Khmer Rouge insurgency in 1967–1968 to the fall of the Lon Nol government in April 1975; the
Democratic Kampuchea regime from April 1975 to January 1979; and the period following the Third Party
Congress of the KPRP in January 1979, when Hanoi effectively assumed control over Cambodia's
government and communist party.[39]

In 1930, Ho Chi Minh founded the Communist Party of Vietnam by unifying three smaller communist
movements that had emerged in northern, central and southern Vietnam during the late 1920s. The party
was renamed the Indochinese Communist Party, ostensibly so it could include revolutionaries from
Cambodia and Laos. Almost without exception, all of the earliest party members were Vietnamese. By the
end of World War II, a handful of Cambodians had joined its ranks, but their influence on the Indochinese
communist movement as well as their influence on developments within Cambodia was negligible.[40]

Viet Minh units occasionally made forays into Cambodian bases during their war against the French and in
conjunction with the leftist government that ruled Thailand until 1947. The Viet Minh encouraged the
formation of armed, left-wing Khmer Issarak bands. On 17 April 1950, the first nationwide congress of the
Khmer Issarak groups convened, and the United Issarak Front was established. Its leader was Son Ngoc
Minh, and a third of its leadership consisted of members of the ICP. According to the historian David P.
Chandler, the leftist Issarak groups aided by the Viet Minh occupied a sixth of Cambodia's territory by
1952, and on the eve of the Geneva Conference in 1954, they controlled as much as one half of the
country.[14]: 180–1 In 1951, the ICP was reorganized into three national units, namely the Vietnam Workers'
Party, the Lao Issara, and the Kampuchean or Khmer People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP). According to
a document issued after the reorganization, the Vietnam Workers' Party would continue to "supervise" the
smaller Laotian and Cambodian movements. Most KPRP leaders and rank-and-file seem to have been
either Khmer Krom or ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia.

According to Democratic Kampuchea's perspective of party history, the Viet Minh's failure to negotiate a
political role for the KPRP at the 1954 Geneva Conference represented a betrayal of the Cambodian
movement, which still controlled large areas of the countryside and which commanded at least 5,000 armed
men. Following the conference, about 1,000 members of the KPRP, including Son Ngoc Minh, made a
Long March into North Vietnam, where they remained in exile.[40] In late 1954, those who stayed in
Cambodia founded a legal political party, the Pracheachon Party, which participated in the 1955 and the
1958 National Assembly elections. In the September 1955 election, it won about 4% of the vote but did not
secure a seat in the legislature.[41] Members of the Pracheachon were subject to harassment and arrests
because the party remained outside Sihanouk's political organization, Sangkum. Government attacks
prevented it from participating in the 1962 election and drove it underground. Sihanouk habitually labelled
local leftists the Khmer Rouge, a term that later came to signify the party and the state headed by Pol Pot,
Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan and their associates.[39]

During the mid-1950s, KPRP factions, the "urban committee" (headed by Tou Samouth) and the "rural
committee" (headed by Sieu Heng), emerged. In very general terms, these groups espoused divergent
revolutionary lines. The prevalent "urban" line endorsed by North Vietnam recognized that Sihanouk by
virtue of his success in winning independence from the French was a genuine national leader whose
neutralism and deep distrust of the United States made him a valuable asset in Hanoi's struggle to "liberate"
South Vietnam.[42] Advocates of this line hoped that the prince could be persuaded to distance himself
from the right-wing and to adopt leftist policies. The other line, supported for the most part by rural cadres
who were familiar with the harsh realities of the countryside, advocated an immediate struggle to overthrow
the "feudalist" Sihanouk.[43]

Paris student group

During the 1950s, Khmer students in Paris organized their own communist movement which had little, if
any, connection to the hard-pressed party in their homeland. From their ranks came the men and women
who returned home and took command of the party apparatus during the 1960s, led an effective insurgency
against Lon Nol from 1968 until 1975 and established the regime of Democratic Kampuchea.[44] Pol Pot,
who rose to the leadership of the communist movement in the 1960s, attended a technical high school in the
capital and then went to Paris in 1949 to study radio electronics (other sources say he attended a school for
fax machines and also studied civil engineering). Described by one source as a "determined, rather
plodding organizer", Pol Pot failed to obtain a degree, but according to Jesuit priest Father François
Ponchaud he acquired a taste for the classics of French literature as well as an interest in the writings of
Karl Marx.[45]

Another member of the Paris student group was Ieng Sary, a Chinese-Khmer from South Vietnam. He
attended the elite Lycée Sisowath in Phnom Penh before beginning courses in commerce and politics at the
Paris Institute of Political Science (more widely known as Sciences Po) in France. Khieu Samphan
specialized in economics and politics during his time in Paris.[46] Hou Yuon studied economics and law;
Son Sen studied education and literature; and Hu Nim studied law.[47] Two members of the group, Khieu
Samphan and Hou Yuon, earned doctorates from the University of Paris while Hu Nim obtained his degree
from the University of Phnom Penh in 1965. Most came from landowner or civil servant families. Pol Pot
and Hou Yuon may have been related to the royal family as an older sister of Pol Pot had been a concubine
at the court of King Monivong. Pol Pot and Ieng Sary married Khieu Ponnary and Khieu Thirith, also
known as Ieng Thirith, purportedly relatives of Khieu Samphan. These two well-educated women also
played a central role in the regime of Democratic Kampuchea.[48]
At some time between 1949 and 1951, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary joined the French Communist Party. In 1951,
the two men went to East Berlin to participate in a youth festival. This experience is considered to have
been a turning point in their ideological development. Meeting with Khmers who were fighting with the
Viet Minh (but subsequently judged them to be too subservient to the Vietnamese), they became convinced
that only a tightly disciplined party organization and a readiness for armed struggle could achieve
revolution. They transformed the Khmer Students Association (KSA), to which most of the 200 or so
Khmer students in Paris belonged, into an organization for nationalist and leftist ideas.[49]

Inside the KSA and its successor organizations, there was a secret organization known as the Cercle
Marxiste (Marxist circle). The organization was composed of cells of three to six members with most
members knowing nothing about the overall structure of the organization. In 1952, Pol Pot, Hou Yuon,
Ieng Sary and other leftists gained notoriety by sending an open letter to Sihanouk calling him the
"strangler of infant democracy". A year later, the French authorities closed down the KSA, but Hou Yuon
and Khieu Samphan helped to establish in 1956 a new group, the Khmer Students Union. Inside, the group
was still run by the Cercle Marxiste.[49]

The doctoral dissertations which were written by Hou Yuon and Khieu Samphan express basic themes that
would later become the cornerstones of the policy that was adopted by Democratic Kampuchea. The
central role of the peasants in national development was espoused by Hou Yuon in his 1955 thesis, The
Cambodian Peasants and Their Prospects for Modernization, which challenged the conventional view that
urbanization and industrialization are necessary precursors of development.[22]: 63 The major argument in
Khieu Samphan's 1959 thesis, Cambodia's Economy and Industrial Development, was that the country had
to become self-reliant and end its economic dependency on the developed world. In its general contours,
Samphan's work reflected the influence of a branch of the dependency theory school which blamed lack of
development in the Third World on the economic domination of the industrialized nations.[22]: 63

Path to power and reign

KPRP Second Congress

After returning to Cambodia in 1953, Pol Pot threw himself into party work. At first, he went to join with
forces allied to the Viet Minh operating in the rural areas of Kampong Cham Province. After the end of the
war, he moved to Phnom Penh under Tou Samouth's "urban committee", where he became an important
point of contact between above-ground parties of the left and the underground secret communist
movement.[50]

His comrades Ieng Sary and Hou Yuon became teachers at a new private high school, the Lycée
Kambuboth, which Hou Yuon helped to establish. Khieu Samphan returned from Paris in 1959, taught as a
member of the law faculty of the University of Phnom Penh, and started a left-wing French-language
publication, L'Observateur. The paper soon acquired a reputation in Phnom Penh's small academic circle.
The following year, the government closed the paper, and Sihanouk's police publicly humiliated Samphan
by beating, undressing and photographing him in public; as Shawcross notes, "not the sort of humiliation
that men forgive or forget".[51]: 92–100, 106–112 Yet the experience did not prevent Samphan from
advocating cooperation with Sihanouk in order to promote a united front against United States activities in
South Vietnam. Khieu Samphan, Hou Yuon and Hu Nim were forced to "work through the system" by
joining the Sangkum and by accepting posts in the prince's government.[40]

In late September 1960, twenty-one leaders of the KPRP held a secret congress in a vacant room of the
Phnom Penh railroad station. This pivotal event remains shrouded in mystery because its outcome has
become an object of contention and considerable historical rewriting between pro-Vietnamese and anti-
Vietnamese Khmer communist factions.[40] The question of cooperation with, or resistance to, Sihanouk
was thoroughly discussed. Tou Samouth, who advocated a policy of cooperation, was elected general
secretary of the KPRP that was renamed the Workers' Party of Kampuchea (WPK). His ally Nuon Chea,
also known as Long Reth, became deputy general secretary, but Pol Pot and Ieng Sary were named to the
Political Bureau to occupy the third and the fifth highest positions in the renamed party's hierarchy. The
name change is significant. By calling itself a workers' party, the Cambodian movement claimed equal
status with the Vietnam Workers' Party. The pro-Vietnamese regime of the People's Republic of
Kampuchea implied in the 1980s that the September 1960 meeting was nothing more than the second
congress of the KPRP.[40]

On 20 July 1962, Tou Samouth was murdered by the Cambodian government. At the WPK's second
congress in February 1963, Pol Pot was chosen to succeed Tou Samouth as the party's general secretary.
Samouth's allies Nuon Chea and Keo Meas were removed from the Central Committee and replaced by
Son Sen and Vorn Vet. From then on, Pol Pot and loyal comrades from his Paris student days controlled the
party centre, edging out older veterans whom they considered excessively pro-Vietnamese.[1]: 241 In July
1963, Pol Pot and most of the central committee left Phnom Penh to establish an insurgent base in
Ratanakiri Province in the northeast. Pol Pot had shortly before been put on a list of 34 leftists who were
summoned by Sihanouk to join the government and sign statements saying Sihanouk was the only possible
leader for the country. Pol Pot and Chou Chet were the only people on the list who escaped. All the others
agreed to cooperate with the government and were afterward under 24-hour watch by the police.[49]

Sihanouk and the GRUNK

The region where Pol Pot and the others moved to was inhabited by tribal minorities, the Khmer Loeu,
whose rough treatment (including resettlement and forced assimilation) at the hands of the central
government made them willing recruits for a guerrilla struggle. In 1965, Pol Pot made a visit of several
months to North Vietnam and China.[49] From the 1950s on, Pol Pot had made frequent visits to the
People's Republic of China, receiving political and military training—especially on the theory of
dictatorship of the proletariat—from the personnel of the CCP.[8][10][52] From November 1965 to February
1966, Pol Pot received training from high-ranking CCP officials such as Chen Boda and Zhang Chunqiao,
on topics such as the communist revolution in China, class conflicts, and Communist International.[53] Pol
Pot was particularly impressed by the lecture on political purge by Kang Sheng.[8][53] This experience had
enhanced his prestige when he returned to the WPK's "liberated areas". Despite friendly relations between
Sihanouk and the Chinese, the latter kept Pol Pot's visit a secret from Sihanouk.

In September 1966, the WPK changed its name to the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK).[54] The
change in the name of the party was a closely guarded secret. Lower ranking members of the party and
even the Vietnamese were not told of it and neither was the membership until many years later. The party
leadership endorsed armed struggle against the government, then led by Sihanouk. In 1968, the Khmer
Rouge was officially formed, and its forces launched a national insurgency across Cambodia. Though
North Vietnam had not been informed of the decision, its forces provided shelter and weapons to the
Khmer Rouge after the insurgency started. Vietnamese support for the insurgency made it impossible for
the Cambodian military to effectively counter it. For the next two years, the insurgency grew as Sihanouk
did very little to stop it. As the insurgency grew stronger, the party finally openly declared itself to be the
Communist Party of Kampuchea.[49]

The political appeal of the Khmer Rouge was increased as a result of the situation created by the removal of
Sihanouk as head of state in 1970. Premier Lon Nol deposed Sihanouk with the support of the National
Assembly. Sihanouk, who was in exile in Beijing, made an alliance with the Khmer Rouge on the advice
of CCP, and became the nominal head of a Khmer Rouge–dominated government-in-exile (known by its
French acronym GRUNK) backed by China. In 1970 alone, the Chinese reportedly gave 400 tons of
military aid to the United Front.[55] Although thoroughly aware of the weakness of Lon Nol's forces and
loath to commit American military force to the new conflict in any form other than air power, the Nixon
administration supported the newly proclaimed Khmer Republic.[51]: 181–2, 194 [56]

On 29 March 1970, the North Vietnamese launched an offensive against the Cambodian army. Documents
uncovered from the Soviet Union archives revealed that the invasion was launched at the explicit request of
the Khmer Rouge following negotiations with Nuon Chea.[57] A force of North Vietnamese quickly
overran large parts of eastern Cambodia reaching to within 15 miles (24 km) of Phnom Penh before being
pushed back. By June, three months after the removal of Sihanouk, they had swept government forces from
the entire northeastern third of the country. After defeating those forces, the North Vietnamese turned the
newly won territories over to the local insurgents. The Khmer Rouge also established "liberated" areas in
the south and the southwestern parts of the country, where they operated independently of the North
Vietnamese.[58]

After Sihanouk showed his support for the Khmer Rouge by visiting them in the field, their ranks swelled
from 6,000 to 50,000 fighters. Many of the new recruits for the Khmer Rouge were apolitical peasants who
fought in support of the king, not for communism, of which they had little understanding.[59] Sihanouk's
popular support in rural Cambodia allowed the Khmer Rouge to extend its power and influence to the point
that by 1973 it exercised de facto control over the majority of Cambodian territory, although only a minority
of its population. By 1975, with the Lon Nol government running out of ammunition, it was clear that it
was only a matter of time before the government would collapse. On 17 April 1975, there was the Fall of
Phnom Penh, as the Khmer Rouge captured the capital.

During the civil war, unparalleled atrocities were executed on both sides.[38]: 90 While the civil war was
brutal, its estimated death toll has been revised downwards over time.[60]

Foreign involvement

Before 1975

The relationship between the massive carpet bombing of Cambodia

by the United States and the growth of the Khmer Rouge, in terms
of recruitment and popular support, has been a matter of interest to
historians. Some scholars, including Michael Ignatieff, Adam
Jones[61] and Greg Grandin,[62] have cited the United States
intervention and bombing campaign (spanning 1965–1973) as a
significant factor which led to increased support for the Khmer
Rouge among the Cambodian peasantry.[63] An aerial view of bomb craters in
Cambodia
According to Ben Kiernan, the Khmer Rouge "would not have
won power without U.S. economic and military destabilization of
Cambodia. ... It used the bombing's devastation and massacre of civilians as recruitment propaganda and as
an excuse for its brutal, radical policies and its purge of moderate communists and Sihanoukists."[18]: 16–19
Pol Pot biographer David P. Chandler writes that the bombing "had the effect the Americans wanted – it
broke the Communist encirclement of Phnom Penh", but it also accelerated the collapse of rural society and
increased social polarization.[8]: 96–8 [64] Peter Rodman and Michael Lind claim that the United States
intervention saved the Lon Nol regime from collapse in 1970 and 1973.[65][66] Craig Etcheson
acknowledged that U.S. intervention increased recruitment for the Khmer Rouge but disputed that it was a
primary cause of the Khmer Rouge victory.[67] William Shawcross writes that the United States bombing
and ground incursion plunged Cambodia into the chaos that Sihanouk had worked for years to
avoid.[51]: 92–100, 106–112

By 1973, Vietnamese support of the Khmer Rouge had largely disappeared.[2] On the other hand, the CCP
largely "armed and trained" the Khmer Rouge, including Pol Pot, both during the Cambodian Civil War
and the years afterward.[68] In 1970 alone, the Chinese reportedly gave 400 tons of military aid to the
National United Front of Kampuchea formed by Sihanouk and the Khmer Rouge.[55]

1975–1993

In April 1975, Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia, and in January 1976, Democratic Kampuchea
was established. During the Cambodian genocide, the CCP was the main international patron of the Khmer
Rouge, supplying "more than 15,000 military advisers" and most of its external aid.[69] It is estimated that
at least 90% of the foreign aid to Khmer Rouge came from China, with 1975 alone seeing US$1 billion in
interest-free economics and military aid and US$20 million gift, which was "the biggest aid ever given to
any one country by China".[16][18][19] In June 1975, Pol Pot and other officials of Khmer Rouge met with
Mao Zedong in Beijing, receiving Mao's approval and advice; in addition, Mao also taught Pot his "Theory
of Continuing Revolution under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat" ( 无产阶级专政下继续革命理
论 ).[8][12][52][53] High-ranking CCP officials such as Zhang Chunqiao later visited Cambodia to offer
help.[8][10][12][70]

Democratic Kampuchea was overthrown by the Vietnamese army in January 1979, and the Khmer Rouge
fled to Thailand. However, to counter the power of the Soviet Union and Vietnam, a group of countries
including China, the United States, Thailand as well as some Western countries supported the Khmer
Rouge-dominated Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea to continue holding Cambodia's seat
in the United Nations, which was held until 1993, after the Cold War had ended.[71] In 2009, China
defended its past ties with previous Cambodian governments, including that of Democratic Kampuchea or
Khmer Rouge, which at the time had a legal seat at the United Nations and foreign relations with more than
70 countries.[72]

Regime

Leadership

The governing structure of Democratic Kampuchea was split between the state presidium headed by Khieu
Samphan, the cabinet headed by Pol Pot (who was also Democratic Kampuchea's prime minister) and the
party's own Politburo and Central Committee. All were complicated by a number of political factions
which existed in 1975. The leadership of the Party Centre, the faction which was headed by Pol Pot,
remained largely unchanged from the early 1960s to the mid-1990s. Its leaders were mostly from middle-
class families and had been educated at French universities.[73] The second significant faction was made up
of men who had been active in the pre-1960 party and had stronger links to Vietnam as a result;
government documents show that there were several major shifts in power between factions during the
period in which the regime was in control.

In 1975–1976, there were several powerful zonal Khmer Rouge leaders who maintained their own armies
and had different party backgrounds than the members of the Pol Pot clique, particularly So Phim and
Nhim Ros, both of whom were vice presidents of the state presidium and members of the Politburo and
Central Committee respectively.[32]: 158 A possible military coup attempt was made in May 1976, and its
leader was a senior Eastern Zone cadre named Chan Chakrey, who had been appointed deputy secretary of
the army's General Staff. A reorganisation which occurred in September 1976, during which Pol Pot was
demoted in the state presidium and was later presented as an attempted pro-Vietnamese coup by the Party
Center.[32]: 158 Over the next two years, So Phim, Nhim Ros, Vorn Vet and many other figures who had
been associated with the pre-1960 party were arrested and executed.[32]: 158 Phim's execution was
followed by that of the majority of the cadres and much of the population of the Eastern Zone that he had
controlled.[32]: 159 The Party Centre, lacking much in the way of their own military resources,
accomplished their seizure of power by forming an alliance with Southwestern Zone leader Ta Mok and
Pok, head of the North Zone's troops. Both men were of a purely peasant background and were therefore
natural allies of the strongly peasant ideology of the Pol Pot faction.[32]: 159

The Standing Committee of the Khmer Rouge's Central Committee during its period of power consisted of
the following:

Pol Pot (Saloth Sar), "Brother number 1", General Secretary from 1963 until his death in
1998 and effectively the leader of the movement.
Nuon Chea (Long Bunruot), "Brother number 2", Prime Minister. High status made him Pol
Pot's "right hand man".
Ieng Sary (Pol Pot's brother-in-law), "Brother number 3", Deputy Prime Minister.
Khieu Samphan, "Brother number 4", President of Democratic Kampuchea.
Ta Mok (Chhit Chhoeun), "Brother number 5", Southwest Regional Secretary.
Son Sen, "Brother number 89", Defence Minister, superior of Kang Kek Iew and executed on
Pol Pot's orders for treason.
Yun Yat, wife of Son Sen, former Information Minister, executed with Son Sen.
Ke Pauk, "Brother number 13", former secretary of the Northern zone.
Ieng Thirith, sister-in-law of Pol Pot and wife of Ieng Sary, former Social Affairs Minister.[74]

Life under the Khmer Rouge

The Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from all foreign
influences, closing schools, hospitals and some factories, abolishing banking, finance and currency, and
collectivising agriculture. Khmer Rouge theorists, who developed the ideas of Hou Yuon and Khieu
Samphan, believed that an initial period of self-imposed economic isolation and national self-sufficiency
would stimulate the rebirth of the crafts as well as the rebirth of the country's latent industrial
capability.[24]: 47

Evacuation of the cities

In Phnom Penh and other cities, the Khmer Rouge told residents that they would be moved only about
"two or three kilometers" away from the city and would return in "two or three days". Some witnesses said
they were told that the evacuation was because of the "threat of American bombing" and they were also
told that they did not have to lock their houses since the Khmer Rouge would "take care of everything"
until they returned. If people refused to evacuate, they would immediately be killed and their homes would
be burned to the ground. The evacuees were sent on long marches to the countryside, which killed
thousands of children, elderly people and sick people.[1]: 251–310 These were not the first evacuations of
civilian populations by the Khmer Rouge because similar evacuations of populations without possessions
had been occurring on a smaller scale since the early 1970s.[1]: 251–310
On arrival at the villages to which they had been assigned, evacuees were required to write brief
autobiographical essays. The essay's content, particularly with regard to the subject's activity during the
Khmer Republic regime, was used to determine their fate.[75] Military officers and those occupying elite
professional roles were usually sent for reeducation, which in practice meant immediate execution or
confinement in a labour camp.[75] Those with specialist technical skills often found themselves sent back to
cities to restart production in factories which had been interrupted by the takeover.[75] The remaining
displaced urban population ("new people"), as part of the regime's drive to increase food production, were
placed into agricultural communes alongside the peasant "base people" or "old people". The latter's
holdings were collectivised. Cambodians were expected to produce three tons of rice per hectare, whereas
before the Khmer Rouge era the average was one ton per hectare.

The lack of agricultural knowledge on the part of the former city dwellers made famine inevitable. The
rural peasantry were often unsympathetic, or they were too frightened to assist them. Such acts as picking
wild fruit or berries were seen as "private enterprise" and punished with death. Labourers were forced to
work long shifts without adequate rest or food, resulting in many deaths through exhaustion, illness and
starvation. Workers were executed for attempting to escape from the communes, for breaching minor rules,
or after being denounced by colleagues. If caught, offenders were taken off to a distant forest or field after
sunset and killed.[76] Unwilling to import Western medicines, the regime turned to traditional medicine
instead and placed medical care in the hands of cadres who were only given rudimentary training. The
famine, forced labour and lack of access to appropriate services led to a high number of deaths.[1]: 251–310

Economic policies

Khmer Rouge economic policies took a similarly extreme course. Officially, trade was restricted to
bartering between communes, a policy which the regime developed in order to enforce self-reliance.[24]: 62
Banks were raided, and all currency and records were destroyed by fire, thus eliminating any claim to
funds.[77] After 1976, the regime reinstated discussion of export in the period after the disastrous effects of
its planning began to become apparent.[24]: 58 Commercial fishing was banned in 1976.[78]

Family relations

The regulations made by the Angkar (អង្គការ, The Organisation,

which was the ruling body) also had effects on the traditional
Cambodian family unit. The regime was primarily interested in
increasing the young population and one of the strictest regulations
prohibited sex outside marriage which was punishable by
execution.[32]: 186–7 The Khmer Rouge followed a morality based
on an idealised conception of the attitudes of prewar rural
Cambodia.[32]: 186 Marriage required permission from the
authorities, and the Khmer Rouge were strict, giving permission to
Rooms of the Tuol Sleng Genocide
marry only to people of the same class and level of education. Such
Museum contain thousands of
rules were applied even more strictly to party cadres.[32]: 186 While
photos taken by the Khmer Rouge of
some refugees spoke of families being deliberately broken up, this
their victims
appears to have referred mainly to the traditional Cambodian
extended family unit, which the regime actively sought to destroy
in favour of small nuclear units of parents and children.[32]: 188

The regime promoted arranged marriages, particularly between party cadres. While some academics such
as Michael Vickery have noted that arranged marriages were also a feature of rural Cambodia prior to 1975,
those conducted by the Khmer Rouge regime often involved people unfamiliar to each other.[79] As well as
reflecting the Khmer Rouge obsession with production and reproduction, such marriages were designed to
increase people's dependency on the regime by undermining existing family and other loyalties.[79]

Education

It is often concluded that the Khmer Rouge regime promoted functional illiteracy. This statement is not
completely incorrect, but it is quite inaccurate. The Khmer Rouge wanted to "eliminate all traces of
Cambodia's imperialist past", and its previous culture was one of them. The Khmer Rouge did not want the
Cambodian people to be completely ignorant, and primary education was provided to them. Nevertheless,
the Khmer Rouge's policies dramatically reduced the Cambodian population's cultural inflow as well as its
knowledge and creativity. The Khmer Rouge's goal was to gain full control of all of the information that the
Cambodian people received, and spread revolutionary culture among the masses.[80]

Education came to a "virtual standstill" in Democratic Kampuchea.[32]: 185 Irrespective of central policies,
most local cadres considered higher education useless and as a result, they were suspicious of those who
had received it.[32]: 185 The regime abolished all literary schooling above primary grades, ostensibly
focusing on basic literacy instead.[32]: 183 In practice, primary schools were not set up in many areas
because of the extreme disruptions which had been caused by the regime's takeover, and most ordinary
people, especially "new people", felt that their children were taught nothing worthwhile in those schools
which still existed. The exception was the Eastern Zone, which until 1976 was run by cadres who were
closely connected with Vietnam rather than the Party Centre, where a more organised system seems to have
existed under which children were given extra rations, taught by teachers who were drawn from the "base
people" and given a limited number of official textbooks.[32]: 184

Beyond primary education, technical courses were taught in factories to students who were drawn from the
favoured "base people".[32]: 184 There was a general reluctance to increase people's education in
Democratic Kampuchea, and in some districts, cadres were known to kill people who boasted about their
educational accomplishments, and it was considered bad form for people to allude to any special technical
training.[32]: 185 Based on a speech which Pol Pot made in 1978, it appears that he may have ultimately
envisaged that illiterate students with approved poor peasant backgrounds could become trained engineers
within ten years by doing a lot of targeted studying along with a lot of practical work.[32]: 185

Language reforms

The Khmer language has a complex system of usages to define speakers' rank and social status. During the
rule of the Khmer Rouge, these usages were abolished. People were encouraged to call each other "friend"
(មិត្ត; mitt) and to avoid traditional signs of deference such as bowing or folding the hands in salutation,
known as sampeah. Language was also transformed in other ways. The Khmer Rouge invented new terms.
In keeping with the regime's theories on Khmer identity, the majority of new words were coined with
reference to Pali or Sanskrit terms,[81] while Chinese and Vietnamese-language borrowings were
discouraged. People were told to "forge" (លត់ដំ; lot dam) a new revolutionary character, that they were the
"instruments" (ឧបករណ៍ ; opokar) of the ruling body known as Angkar (អង្គការ, The Organisation) and that
nostalgia for pre-revolutionary times (ឈឺសតិអារម្មណ៍ ; chheu satek arom, or "memory sickness") could
result in execution.

Crimes against humanity

Acting through the Santebal, the Khmer Rouge arrested, tortured and eventually executed anyone who was
suspected of belonging to several categories of supposed enemies:[49]
 People with connections to former Cambodian
governments, either those of the Khmer Republic or the
Sangkum, to the Khmer Republic military, or to foreign
governments.
Professionals and intellectuals, including almost
everyone with an education and people who understood
a foreign language. Many artists, including musicians,
writers, and filmmakers were executed including Ros
Serey Sothea, Pan Ron and Sinn Sisamouth.
Ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Thai and Skulls of Khmer Rouge victims
other minorities in the Eastern Highlands, Cambodian
Christians (most of whom were Catholic), Muslims and
senior Buddhist monks. The Roman Catholic cathedral
of Phnom Penh was razed. The Khmer Rouge forced
Muslims to eat pork, which they regard as forbidden
(ḥarām). Many of those who refused were killed.
Christian clergy and Muslim imams were executed.
"Economic saboteurs" as many former urban dwellers
were deemed guilty of sabotage because of their lack of
agricultural ability.
Party cadres who had fallen under political suspicion:
the regime tortured and executed thousands of party Remains of victims of the Khmer
members during its purges.[24]: 3 Rouge in the Kampong Trach Cave,
Kiry Seila Hills, Rung Tik (Water
The Santebal established over 150 prisons for political opponents; Cave), or Rung Khmao (Dead Cave)
Tuol Sleng is a former high school that was turned into the Santebal
headquarters and interrogation center for the highest value political
prisoners. Tuol Sleng was operated by the Santebal commander Khang Khek Ieu, more commonly known
as Comrade Duch, together with his subordinates Mam Nai and Tang Sin Hean.[24]: 3 [82] According to
Ben Kiernan, "all but seven of the twenty thousand Tuol Sleng prisoners" were executed.[18]: 464 The
buildings of Tuol Sleng have been preserved as they were left when the Khmer Rouge were driven out in
1979. Several of the rooms are now lined with thousands of black-and-white photographs of prisoners that
were taken by the Khmer Rouge.[83]: 74

On 7 August 2014, when sentencing two former Khmer Rouge leaders to life imprisonment, Cambodian
judge Nil Nonn said there were evidences of "a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian
population of Cambodia". He said the leaders, Nuon Chea, the regime's chief ideologue and former deputy
to late leader Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan, the former head of state, together in a "joint criminal enterprise"
were involved in murder, extermination, political persecution and other inhumane acts related to the mass
eviction of city-dwellers, and executions of enemy soldiers.[84] In November 2018, the trial convicted
Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan of crimes against humanity and genocide against the Vietnamese, while
Nuon Chea was also found guilty of genocide relating to the Chams.[85]

Number of deaths

According to a 2001 academic source, the most widely accepted estimates of excess deaths under the
Khmer Rouge range from 1.5 million to 2 million, although figures as low as 1 million and as high as
3 million have been cited; conventionally accepted estimates of executions range from 500,000 to 1 million,
"a third to one half of excess mortality during the period".[86]: 105 A 2013 academic source (citing research
from 2009) indicates that execution may have accounted for as much as 60% of the total, with 23,745 mass
graves containing approximately 1.3 million suspected victims of execution.[87]
Historian Ben Kiernan estimates that 1.671 million to 1.871 million Cambodians died as a result of Khmer
Rouge policy, or between 21% and 24% of Cambodia's 1975 population.[88] A study by French
demographer Marek Sliwinski calculated nearly 2 million unnatural deaths under the Khmer Rouge out of a
1975 Cambodian population of 7.8 million; 33.5% of Cambodian men died under the Khmer Rouge
compared to 15.7% of Cambodian women.[89] Researcher Craig Etcheson of the Documentation Center of
Cambodia (DC-Cam) suggests that the death toll was between 2 million and 2.5 million, with a "most
likely" figure of 2.2 million. After five years of researching mass grave sites, he estimated that they
contained 1.38 million suspected victims of execution.[90] Although considerably higher than earlier and
more widely accepted estimates of Khmer Rouge executions, Etcheson argues that these numbers are
plausible, given the nature of the mass grave and DC-Cam's methods, which are more likely to produce an
under-count of bodies rather than an over-estimate.[71] Demographer Patrick Heuveline estimated that
between 1.17 million and 3.42 million Cambodians died unnatural deaths between 1970 and 1979, with
between 150,000 and 300,000 of those deaths occurring during the civil war. Heuveline's central estimate is
2.52 million excess deaths, of which 1.4 million were the direct result of violence.[71][86]: 102–4

Despite being based on a house-to-house survey of Cambodians, the estimate of 3.3 million deaths
promulgated by the Khmer Rouge's successor regime, the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), is
generally considered to be an exaggeration; among other methodological errors, the PRK authorities added
the estimated number of victims that had been found in the partially-exhumed mass graves to the raw
survey results, meaning that some victims would have been double-counted.[71] An additional 300,000
Cambodians starved to death between 1979 and 1980, largely as a result of the after-effects of Khmer
Rouge policy.[86]: 124

Genocide

While the period from 1975 to 1979 is commonly associated with the phrase "the Cambodian genocide",
scholars debate whether the legal definition of the crime can be applied generally.[14]: 260 While two former
leaders were convicted of genocide, this was for treatment of ethnic and religious minorities, the
Vietnamese and Cham. The death toll of these two groups, approximately 100,000 people, is roughly 5%
of the generally accepted total of two million. The treatment of these groups can be seen to fall under the
legal definition of genocide, as they were targeted on the basis of their religion or ethnicity. The vast
majority of deaths were of the Khmer ethnic group, which was not a target of the Khmer Rouge. The
deaths occurring as a result of targeting these Khmer, whether it was the "new people" or enemies of the
regime, was based on political distinctions rather than ethnic or religious. In an interview conducted in
2018, historian David P. Chandler states that crimes against humanity was the term that best fit the atrocities
of the regime and that some attempts to characterise the majority of the killings as genocide was flawed and
at times politicised.[91]

Internal power struggles and purges

Hou Yuon was one of the first senior leaders to be purged. The Khmer Rouge originally reported that he
had been killed in the final battles for Phnom Penh, but he was apparently executed in late 1975 or early
1976.[22]: 202 In late 1975, numerous Cambodian intellectuals, professionals and students returned from
overseas to support the revolution. These returnees were treated with suspicion and made to undergo
reeducation, while some were sent straight to Tuol Sleng.[22]: 272 In 1976, the center announced the start of
the socialist revolution and ordered the elimination of class enemies. This resulted in the expulsion and
execution of numerous people within the party and army who were deemed to be of the wrong
class.[22]: 265 In mid-1976, Ieng Thirith, minister of social affairs, inspected the northwestern zone. On her
return to Phnom Penh she reported that the zone's cadres were deliberately disobeying orders from the
center, blaming enemy agents who were trying to undermine the revolution.[22]: 236 During 1976, troops
formerly from the eastern zone demanded the right to marry without the party's approval. They were
arrested and under interrogation implicated their commander who then implicated eastern zone cadres who
were arrested and executed.[22]: 264

In September 1976, Keo Meas, who had been tasked with writing a history of the party, was arrested as a
result of disputes over the foundation date of the party and its reliance on Vietnamese support. Under
torture at Tuol Sleng he confessed that the date chosen was part of a plot to undermine the party's
legitimacy and was then executed.[22]: 268–9 In late 1976, with the Kampuchean economy
underperforming, Pol Pot ordered a purge of the ministry of commerce, and Khoy Thoun and his
subordinates who he had brought from the northern zone were arrested, tortured, and at Tuol Sleng before
being executed.[22]: 221 Khoy Thoun confessed to having been recruited by the CIA in 1958.[22]: 282 The
center also ordered troops from the eastern and central zones to purge the northern zone killing or arresting
numerous cadres.[22]: 264–5

At the end of 1976, following disappointing rice harvests in the northwestern zone, the party center ordered
a purge of the zone. Troops from the western and southwestern zones were ordered into the northwestern
zone. Over the next year, troops killed at least 40 senior cadre and numerous lower ranking
leaders.[22]: 238–40 The chaos caused by this purge allowed many peasants to escape the zone and seek
refuge in Thailand.[22]: 308 In 1977, the center began purging the returnees, sending 148 to Tuol Sleng and
continuing a purge of the ministry of foreign affairs where many returnees and intellectuals were suspected
of spying for foreign powers.[22]: 274–5 In January, the center ordered eastern and southeastern zone troops
to conduct cross-border raids into Vietnam. In March 1977, the center ordered So Phim, the eastern zone
commander, to send his troops to the border; however with class warfare purges underway in the eastern
zone, many units staged a mutiny and fled into Vietnam. Among the troops defecting in this period was
Hun Sen.[22]: 304–5 On 10 April 1977 Hu Nim and his wife were arrested. After three months of
interrogation at Tuol Sleng, he confessed to working with the CIA to undermine the revolution following
which he and his wife were executed.[22]: 275–6 In July 1977, Pol Pot and Duch sent So Phim a list of
"traitors" in the eastern zone, many of whom were So Phim's trusted subordinates. So Phim disputed the list
and refused to execute those listed, for the center this implicated So Phim as a traitor.[22]: 306 In October
1977, in order to secure the Thai border while focusing on confrontation with Vietnam, Nhim Ros, the
northwestern zone leader, was blamed for clashes on the Thai border, acting on behalf of both the
Vietnamese and the CIA.[22]: 305

In December 1977, the Vietnamese launched a punitive attack into eastern Cambodia, quickly routing the
eastern zone troops including Heng Samrin's Division 4 and further convincing Pol Pot of So Phim's
treachery. Son Sen was sent to the eastern zone with center zone troops to aid the defense. In January 1978,
following the Vietnamese withdrawal, a purge of the eastern zone began. In March, So Phim called a secret
meeting of his closest subordinates advising them that those who had been purged were not traitors and
warning them to be wary. During the next month more than 400 eastern zone cadres were sent to Tuol
Sleng while two eastern zone division commanders were replaced. During May eastern zone military
leaders were called to meetings where they were arrested or killed. So Phim was called to a meeting by Son
Sen but refused to attend, instead sending four messengers who failed to return. On 25 May, Son Sen sent
two brigades of troops to attack the eastern zone and capture So Phim. Unable to believe he was being
purged, So Phim went into hiding and attempted to contact Pol Pot by radio. A meeting was arranged, but
instead of Pol Pot a group of center soldiers arrived, and So Phim committed suicide; the soldiers then
killed his family.[22]: 311–2

Many of the surviving eastern zone leaders fled into the jungle where they hid from and fought center zone
troops. In October 1978, Chea Sim led a group of 300 people across the border into Vietnam, and the
Vietnamese then launched a raid into the eastern zone that allowed Heng Samrin and his group of 2,000 to
3,000 soldiers and followers to seek refuge in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the center decided that the entire
eastern zone was full of traitors and embarked on a large scale purge of the area, with over 10,000 killed by
July 1978, while thousands were evacuated to other zones to prevent them from defecting to the
Vietnamese. The center also stepped up purges nationwide, killing cadres and their families, "old people"
and eastern zone evacuees who were regarded as having dubious loyalty.[22]: 312–4

In September 1978, a purge of the ministry of industry was begun, and in November Pol Pot ordered the
arrest of Vorn Vet, the deputy premier for the economy, followed by his supporters. Vorn Vet had
previously served as the secretary of the zone around Phnom Penh, had established the Santebal and been
Duch's immediate superior. Under torture, Vorn Vet admitted to being an agent of the CIA and the
Vietnamese. Unable to reach the borders, ministry of industry personnel who could escape the purge went
into hiding in Phnom Penh[22]: 324–5

Fall

War with Vietnam

Fearing a Vietnamese attack, Pol Pot ordered a pre-emptive

invasion of Vietnam on 18 April 1978. His Cambodian forces
crossed the border and looted nearby villages, mostly in the border
town of Ba Chúc. Of the 3,157 civilians who had lived in Ba
Chúc,[92] only two survived the massacre. These Cambodian
forces were repelled by the Vietnamese.[93]

After several years of border conflict and the flood of refugees

fleeing Kampuchea, relations between Kampuchea and Vietnam
Photo images of the Ba Chúc
collapsed by December 1978. On 25 December 1978, the
massacre at a Vietnamese museum,
Vietnamese armed forces along with the Kampuchean United Front
as the massacre was one of the
for National Salvation, an organization founded by Heng Samrin events that prompted the 1978
that included many dissatisfied former Khmer Rouge members,[32] Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea
invaded Cambodia and captured Phnom Penh on 7 January 1979.
Despite a traditional Cambodian fear of Vietnamese domination,
defecting Khmer Rouge activists assisted the Vietnamese and with Vietnam's approval became the core of
the new People's Republic of Kampuchea. The new government was quickly dismissed by the Khmer
Rouge and China as a "puppet government".[93]

At the same time, the Khmer Rouge retreated west and it continued to control certain areas near the Thai
border for the next decade.[94] These included Phnom Malai, the mountainous areas near Pailin in the
Cardamom Mountains and Anlong Veng in the Dângrêk Mountains.[2] These Khmer Rouge bases were
not self-sufficient and were funded by diamond and timber smuggling, military assistance from China
channeled by means of the Thai military, and food smuggled from markets across the border in
Thailand.[95]

Place in the United Nations

Despite its deposal, the Khmer Rouge retained its United Nations seat, which was occupied by Thiounn
Prasith, an old compatriot of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary from their student days in Paris and one of the 21
attendees at the 1960 KPRP Second Congress. The seat was retained under the name Democratic
Kampuchea until 1982 and then under the name Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea.
Western governments voted in favor of the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea retaining
Cambodia's seat in the organization over the newly installed Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of
Kampuchea, even though it included the Khmer Rouge. In 1988, Margaret Thatcher stated: "So, you'll find
that the more reasonable ones of the Khmer Rouge will have to play some part in the future government,
but only a minority part. I share your utter horror that these terrible things went on in Kampuchea".[96] On
the contrary, Sweden changed its vote in the United Nations and withdrew its support for the Khmer Rouge
after many Swedish citizens wrote letters to their elected representatives demanding a policy change
towards Pol Pot's regime.[97]

The international proxy war between the US and the Soviet Union goes back to the civil war. The
Kingdom of Cambodia was supported by the United States, the Khmer Republic (that eventually took over
after the removal of Prince Sihanouk) and South Vietnam. The other side, the National United Front of
Kampuchea, was supported by the Khmer Rouge, North-Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union.[98]
Cambodia became an instrument for the superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. The
measures that the US employed for Cambodia were seen as preventive acts to stop the communists. These
preventive acts included deployment of military troops and other institutions like the UNTAC.[99]

Ramifications of the Vietnamese victory

Vietnam's victory was supported by the Soviet Union and had

significant ramifications for the region. The People's Republic of
China launched a punitive invasion of northern Vietnam but then
retreated, with both sides claiming victory. China, the United States
and the ASEAN countries sponsored the creation and the military
operations of a Cambodian government in exile, known as the
Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, which included
the Khmer Rouge, the republican Khmer People's National
Liberation Front and the royalist Funcinpec Party.[2]: 201–21

Eastern and central Cambodia were firmly under the control of Khmer Rouge's activities in 1989–
Vietnam and its Cambodian allies by 1980, while the western part 1990
of the country continued to be a battlefield throughout the 1980s,
and millions of land mines were sown across the countryside. The
Khmer Rouge, still led by Pol Pot, was the strongest of the three rebel groups in the Coalition Government,
which received extensive military aid from China, Britain and the United States and intelligence from the
Thai military. Great Britain and the United States in particular gave aid to the two non-Khmer Rouge
members of the coalition.[100]

In an attempt to broaden its support base, the Khmer Rouge formed the Patriotic and Democratic Front of
the Great National Union of Kampuchea in 1979. In 1981, the Khmer Rouge went so far as to officially
renounce communism[2] and somewhat moved their ideological emphasis to nationalism and anti-
Vietnamese rhetoric instead. Some analysts argue that this change meant little in practice because according
to historian Kelvin Rowley the "CPK propaganda had always relied on nationalist rather than revolutionary
appeals".[2]

Pol Pot relinquished the Khmer Rouge leadership to Khieu Samphan in 1985; however, he continued to be
the driving force behind the Khmer Rouge insurgency, giving speeches to his followers. Journalist Nate
Thayer, who spent some time with the Khmer Rouge during that period, commented that despite the
international community's near-universal condemnation of the Khmer Rouge's brutal rule a considerable
number of Cambodians in Khmer Rouge-controlled areas seemed genuinely to support Pol Pot.[101] While
Vietnam proposed to withdraw from Cambodia in return for a political settlement that would exclude the
Khmer Rouge from power, the rebel coalition government as well as ASEAN, China and the United
States, insisted that such a condition was unacceptable.[2] Nevertheless, Vietnam declared in 1985 that it
would complete the withdrawal of its forces from Cambodia by 1990 and it did so in 1989, having allowed
the Cambodian People's Party government that it had installed there to consolidate its rule and gain
sufficient military strength.[97]

After a decade of inconclusive conflict, the pro-Vietnamese

Cambodian government and the rebel coalition signed a treaty in
1991 calling for elections and disarmament. However, the Khmer
Rouge resumed fighting in 1992, boycotted the election and in the
following year rejected its results. It began fighting the Cambodian
coalition government which included the former Vietnamese-
backed communists (headed by Hun Sen) as well as the Khmer
Rouge's former non-communist and monarchist allies (notably
Prince Rannaridh).
Photos of the victims of the Khmer
Ieng Sary led a mass defection from the Khmer Rouge in 1996, Rouge
with half of its remaining soldiers (about 4,000) switching to the
government side and Ieng Sary becoming leader of Pailin
Province.[22]: 515 A conflict between the two main participants in the ruling coalition caused in 1997 Prince
Rannaridh to seek support from some of the Khmer Rouge leaders while refusing to have any dealings with
Pol Pot.[97][101] This resulted in bloody factional fighting among the Khmer Rouge leaders, ultimately
leading to Pol Pot's trial and imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot died in April 1998.[8]: 186 Khieu
Samphan surrendered in December 1998.[102] On 29 December 1998, leaders of the Khmer Rouge
apologised for the 1970s genocide.[103] By 1999, most members had surrendered or been captured. In
December 1999, Ta Mok and the remaining leaders surrendered, and the Khmer Rouge effectively ceased
to exist.

Legacy
Cambodia has been described as the black sheep of South East Asia where extremism is condoned in a
country characterized by very weak economic growth and extensive poverty.[38]: 99 Cambodia has
gradually recovered demographically and economically from the Khmer Rouge regime, although the
psychological scars affect many Cambodian families and émigré communities. It is noteworthy that
Cambodia has a very young population, and by 2003 three-quarters of Cambodians were too young to
remember the Khmer Rouge era. Nonetheless, their generation is affected by the traumas of the past.[104]
Members of this younger generation may know of the Khmer Rouge only through word of mouth from
parents and elders. In part, this is because the government does not require that educators teach children
about Khmer Rouge atrocities in the schools;[105] however, Cambodia's Education Ministry started to teach
Khmer Rouge history in high schools beginning in 2009.[106][107]

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) was established as a Cambodian court
with international participation and assistance to bring to trial senior leaders and those most responsible for
crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge regime.[108] As of 2020, there are 3 open cases.[108] ECCC's
efforts for outreach toward both national and international audience include public trial hearings, study
tours, video screenings, school lectures and video archives on the web site.[109]

After claiming to feel great remorse for his part in Khmer Rouge atrocities, Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch),
head of a torture centre from which 16,000 men, women and children were sent to their deaths, surprised
the court in his trial on 27 November 2009 with a plea for his freedom. His Cambodian lawyer Kar Savuth
stunned the tribunal further by issuing the trial's first call for an
acquittal of his client even after his French lawyer denied seeking
such a verdict.[110] On 26 July 2010, he was convicted and
sentenced to thirty years imprisonment. Theary Seng responded:
"We hoped this tribunal would strike hard at impunity, but if you
can kill 14,000 people and serve only 19 years – 11 hours per life
taken – what is that? It's a joke", voicing concerns about political
interference.[111] In February 2012, Duch's sentence was increased
to life imprisonment following appeals by both the prosecution and
Kang Kek Iew before the Cambodian
defence. In dismissing the defence's appeal, Judge Kong Srim
Genocide Tribunal on 20 July 2009
stated that "Duch's crimes were "undoubtedly among the worst in
recorded human history" and deserved "the highest penalty
available".[112]

Public trial hearings in Phnom Penh are open to the people of Cambodia over the age of 18 including
foreigners.[113] In order to assist people's will to participate in the public hearings, the court provides free
bus transportation for groups of Cambodians who want to visit the court.[113] Since the commencement of
Case 001 trial in 2009 through the end of 2011, 53,287 people participated in the public hearings.[108]
ECCC also has hosted Study Tour Program to help villagers in rural areas understand the history of the
Khmer Rouge regime. The court provides free transport for them to come to visit the court and meet with
court officials to learn about its work, in addition to visits to the genocide museum and the killing
fields.[114] ECCC also has visited villages to provide video screenings and school lectures to promote their
understanding of the trial proceedings.[108] Furthermore, trials and transcripts are partially available with
English translation on the ECCC's website.[115]

Museums

The Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide is a former high school

building, which was transformed into a torture, interrogation and
execution center between 1976 and 1979.[116] The Khmer Rouge
called the center S-21.[116] Of the estimated 15,000 to 30,000
prisoners,[117] only seven prisoners survived.[116] The Khmer
Rouge photographed the vast majority of the inmates and left a
photographic archive, which enables visitors to see almost 6,000 S-
21 portraits on the walls.[116] Visitors can also learn how the Skulls displayed in the memorial
inmates were tortured from the equipment and facilities exhibited in tower
the buildings. In addition, one of the seven survivors shares his
story with visitors at the museum.

The Choeung Ek Killing Fields are located about 15 kilometers outside of Phnom Penh.[118] Most of the
prisoners who were held captive at S-21 were taken to the fields to be executed and deposited in one of the
approximately 129 mass graves.[118] It is estimated that the graves contain the remains of over 20,000
victims.[118] After the discovery of the site in 1979, the Vietnamese transformed the site into a memorial
and stored skulls and bones in an open-walled wooden memorial pavilion.[118] Eventually, these remains
were showcased in the memorial's centerpiece stupa, or Buddhist shrine.[118]

Publications
The Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), an independent research institute, published A History
of Democratic Kampuchea 1975–1979,[83] the nation's first textbook on the history of the Khmer
Rouge.[119] The 74-page textbook was approved by the government as a supplementary text in 2007.[120]
The textbook is aiming at standardising and improving the information students receive about the Khmer
Rouge years because the government-issued social studies textbook devotes eight or nine pages to the
period.[120] The publication was a part of their genocide education project that includes leading the design
of a national genocide studies curriculum with the Ministry of Education, training thousands of teachers and
1,700 high schools on how to teach about genocide and working with universities across Cambodia.[119]

Youth for Peace,[121] a Cambodian non-governmental organization (NGO) that offers education in peace,
leadership, conflict resolution and reconciliation to Cambodian's youth, published a book titled Behind the
Darkness:Taking Responsibility or Acting Under Orders? in 2011. The book is unique in that instead of
focusing on the victims as most books do, it collects the stories of former Khmer Rouge, giving insights
into the functioning of the regime and approaching the question of how such a regime could take
place.[122]

Dialogues

While the tribunal contributes to the memorialization process at national level, some civil society groups
promote memorialization at community level. The International Center for Conciliation (ICfC)[123] began
working in Cambodia in 2004 as a branch of the ICfC in Boston. ICfC launched the Justice and History
Outreach project in 2007 and has worked in villages in rural Cambodia with the goal of creating mutual
understanding and empathy between victims and former members of the Khmer Rouge.[124] Following the
dialogues, villagers identify their own ways of memorialization such as collecting stories to be transmitted
to the younger generations or building a memorial.[125] Through the process, some villagers are beginning
to accept the possibility of an alternative viewpoint to the traditional notions of evil associated with anyone
who worked for the Khmer Rouge regime.[124]

Media coverage

Radio National Kampuchea[126] as well as private radio stations broadcast programmes on the Khmer
Rouge and trials.[127] ECCC has its own weekly radio program on RNK which provides an opportunity
for the public to interact with court officials and deepen their understanding of Cases.[128]

Youth for Peace,[121] a Cambodian NGO that offers education in peace, leadership, conflict resolution and
reconciliation to Cambodian's youth, has broadcast the weekly radio program You Also Have a Chance
since 2009.[129] Aiming at preventing the passing on of hatred and violence to future generations, the
program allows former Khmer Rouge to talk anonymously about their past experience.[129]

See also
Alive in the Killing Fields
Cambodian genocide denial
Cambodia Tribunal
Choeung Ek
Classicide
Cold War
Command responsibility
 Crimes against humanity under communist regimes
Dap Prampi Mesa Chokchey
Enemies of the People, a documentary film depicting co-director Thet Sambath's quest to
find truth and closure in the Killing Fields of Cambodia
Genocides in history
Killing Fields
Mass killings under communist regimes
The Missing Picture, a documentary film illustrating the cruelty inflicted upon Cambodians
when Pol Pot came to power through news footage and clay figurines
Operation Menu
S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine

Notes
a. See:[8][9][12][16][17][18][19]

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Chinese were parasites on our nation. They cheated the government. They made money out
of Cambodian farmers. ... Now the High Revolutionary Committee wants to separate
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Korea, so there were no direct historical continuities with Buddhism into the Democratic
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Further reading
Affonço, Denise. To the End of Hell: One Woman's Struggle to Survive Cambodia's Khmer
Rouge. London: Reportage Press, 2007.
Bizot, Francois. The Gate. New York: Knopf, 2003.
Bultmann, Daniel. "Irrigating a Socialist Utopia: Disciplinary Space and Population Control
under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–1979 (http://www2.hu-berlin.de/transcience/Vol3_Issue1_20
12_40_52.pdf)," Transcience, vol. 3, no. 1 (2012), pp. 40–52.
Chanda, Nayan, Brother Enemy: The War After the War. San Diego: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1986.
Criddle, JoAn D. To Destroy You Is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family. New
York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987. ISBN 978-0-9632205-1-6.
Him, Chanrithy. When Broken Glass Floats: Growing up under the Khmer Rouge, A Memoir.
New York: W.W. Norton, 2000.
Ngor, Haing. A Cambodian Odyssey. New York: Macmillan, 1987.
Nhem, Boraden. Khmer Rouge: Ideology, Militarism, and the Revolution that Consumed a
Generation Praeger, 2013. ISBN 978-0-313-39337-2.
Pran, Dith (Comp.). Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors. New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997.
Panh, Rithy with Bataille, Christopher. The Elimination: a Survivor of the Khmer Rouge
Confronts his Past. Clerkenwell, 2013. A dispassionate interview and analysis of "Duch",
who was head of security for the Khmer regime. Written by a surviving victim.
Swain, Jon. River of Time. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. ISBN 0-425-16805-0.
Ung, Loung. First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. New York:
HarperCollins, 2000. ISBN 0-06-093138-8.
Olivier Weber, Les Impunis, Un voyage dans la banalité du mal (Robert Laffont, 2013).
Piergiorgio Pescali, S-21 Nella prigione di Pol Pot La Ponga Edizioni, Milan, 2015.
ISBN 978-8897823308.

External links
The Khmer Rouge Trial Task Force (https://web.archive.org/web/20050403182720/http://ww
w.cambodia.gov.kh/krt/english/)
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) (http://www.eccc.gov.kh/)
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia (http://cambodia.ohchr.
org/)
Nuon Chea's 570-page closing brief; his version of Khmer Rouge history. (https://www.eccc.
gov.kh/sites/default/files/documents/courtdoc/%5Bdate-in-tz%5D/E457_6_3_EN.pdf)
Cambodia Tribunal Monitor (http://www.cambodiatribunal.org/)
Other online sources
Cambodia Tribunal Monitor (http://www.cambodiatribunal.org/), a consortium of academic,
philanthropic and non-profit organizations which provides free access to videos of the
proceedings, relevant news and statements as well as an overview of each case
Cambodian Genocide Program (CGP) at Yale University (http://www.yale.edu/cgp/) offers a
comprehensive set of resources on the Khmer Rouge and the tribunal including news
updates, photographs, databases, literature, maps, overview of US involvement in the
Cambodian war and genocide and links to other organizations
Cambodian Genocide Project by Genocide Watch (https://web.archive.org/web/2015111810
2714/http://www.genocidewatch.org/cambodiaproject.html) updates the development of the
tribunal on the website
Best Movies About Cambodia (https://web.archive.org/web/20160403055102/http://www.kh
merbird.com/best-of/cambodian-movies.html) that you can watch online via Amazon Instant
Video

Genocide
Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian Genocide (https://web.archive.org/web/2012102801522
3/http://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/552628) from the Dean Peter Krogh
Foreign Affairs Digital Archives (https://web.archive.org/web/20160115205405/https://reposit
ory.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/552494)
Yale University: Cambodian Genocide Program (http://www.yale.edu/cgp/)
Digital Archive of Cambodian Holocaust Survivors (http://www.cybercambodia.com/dachs/)
PBS Frontline/World: Pol Pot's Shadow (https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/cambodi
a/index.html)
Survivor of the killing fields describes her experience (https://web.archive.org/web/20110727
195102/http://www.docsonline.tv/Archives/description.php?doc=185) from the Deacon of
Death
Cambodia Tales: Khmer Rouge torture and killing paintings (https://web.archive.org/web/200
70621175821/http://www.btinternet.com/~andy.brouwer/vannnath.htm)
Khmer Rouge Tribunal Updates (https://web.archive.org/web/20070618100356/http://www.g
enocidewatch.org/news/CAMBODIA.htm) from Genocide Watch
Genocide of Cham Muslims (http://www.cambodiangenocide.org/hopes_fears_genocide_b
p.htm)
Prosecuting starvation at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (http://work
s.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=solomon_bashi) Archived (https://
web.archive.org/web/20141118230711/http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article
=1000&context=solomon_bashi) 18 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine
A Search For Justice by the Women Forced to Marry Strangers (https://www.independent.co.
uk/news/world/asia/a-search-for-justice-by-the-women-forced-to-marry-strangers-2303228.ht
ml)
State Violence in Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979) and Retribution (1979–2004) (http://
www.paulbogdanor.com/left/cambodia/locard.pdf)

Uncategorized
Documentation Center of Cambodia (http://www.dccam.org/). Retrieved 6 February 2005.
Chigas, George (2000). "Building a Case Against the Khmer Rouge: Evidence from the Tuol
Sleng and Santebal Archives" (https://web.archive.org/web/20070928055637/http://www.asi
 aquarterly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=61&Itemid=5). Harvard Asia
Quarterly. 4 (1): 44–49. Archived from the original (http://www.asiaquarterly.com/index.php?o
ption=com_content&task=view&id=61&Itemid=5) on 28 September 2007. Retrieved
10 February 2006.

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