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Cambodian genocide, systematic murder of up to three million people in Cambodia from 1976 to 1978 that was carried out by the Khmer Rouge government under Pol Pot. Immediately after World War II, the Americans and the French fought wars against communism in Korea and Vietnam, respectively.
The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot. It resulted in the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly 25% of Cambodia's population in 1975 (c. 7.8 million).
- 17 April 1975 – 7 January 1979 (3 years, 8 months and 20 days)
- Democratic Kampuchea
- 1.5 to 2 million
- Khmer Rouge
- Pol Pot
- Kampuchea
- Cambodian Genocide
- The End of Pol Pot
- Sources
Although Pol Potand the Khmer Rouge didn’t come to power until the mid-1970s, the roots of their takeover can be traced to the 1960s, when a communist insurgency first became active in Cambodia, which was then ruled by a monarch. Throughout the 1960s, the Khmer Rouge operated as the armed wing of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, the name the party...
As a leader of the Khmer Rouge during its days as an insurgent movement, Pol Pot came to admire the tribes in Cambodia’s rural northeast. These tribes were self-sufficient and lived on the goods they produced through subsistence farming. The tribes, he felt, were like communes in that they worked together, shared in the spoils of their labor and we...
Workers on the farm collectives established by Pol Pot soon began suffering from the effects of overwork and lack of food. Hundreds of thousands died from disease, starvation or damage to their bodies sustained during back-breaking work or abuse from the ruthless Khmer Rouge guards overseeing the camps. Pol Pot’s regime also executed thousands of p...
The Vietnamese Army invaded Cambodia in 1979 and removed Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge from power, after a series of violent battles on the border between the two countries. Pol Pot had sought to extend his influence into the newly unified Vietnam, but his forces were quickly rebuffed. After the invasion, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge fighters quickly ...
Cambodia’s brutal Khmer Rouge regime. BBC News. The Cambodian Genocide. United to End Genocide. Cambodian Genocide. World Without Genocide. The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot’s Regime. Mount Holyoke College. Cambodia: The World Factbook. CIA.
Nov 16, 2018 · 16 November 2018. Getty Images. In the four years that the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia, it was responsible for one of the worst mass killings of the 20th Century. The brutal regime, in power from...
Martin Shaw described the Cambodian genocide as "the purest genocide of the Cold War era". Ben Kiernan estimates that about 1.7 million people were killed. Researcher Craig Etcheson of the Documentation Center of Cambodia suggests that the death toll was between 2 and 2.5 million, with a "most likely" figure of 2.2 million.
Apr 23, 2024 · The Khmer Rouge’s rule over the next four years was marked by some of the worst excesses of any Marxist government in the 20th century, during which an estimated 1.5 million (and possibly up to 2 million) Cambodians died and many of the country’s professional and technical class were exterminated.
May 24, 2018 · The genocide resulted in the death of between an estimated 1.5 and 3 million people between 1975 and 1979. The regime intended to turn Cambodia into a socialist republic with agriculture as the core economic activity. After successfully overthrowing the government, the Khmer Rouge changed the country’s name from Cambodia to Democratic Kampuchea.
