Facts about the Cambodian Genocide:
- The Genocide lasted from 1975 to 1979
- At the time Cambodia was under the political power of Pol Pot. He led the Khmer Rouge
- The Khmer Rouge was the Communist party in Cambodian during the genocide
- Pol Pot wanted an economically independent, Communist, utopian society. In order to achieve this he exterminated anyone who was against a Communist society
- During the Genocide 1.7 million people were killed
- Anyone who was well educated, wealthy, Christian, or Cham Muslim, or of a different minority was exterminated
- All civil rights were abolished. Children were put into labor camps. Schools, factories and hospitals were all shut down.
- Anyone in a professional work field, such as teachers, lawyers, and doctors were all murdered. Anyone in their extended family was also killed.
- All religion was banned
- People who were Vietnamese, Ethnic Chinese, Thai, and Cambodians with Chinese, Vietnamese , or Thai ancestry were exterminated.
- People died from starvation, execution, disease and exhaustion
- Anyone was who wasn't killed became unpaid laborers. They worked long hours and were given very little amounts of food.
- People that survived the genocide were scared for life, and lived in fear of another genocide.
- The United States had just fought in the Vietnamese war, and because of limited resources, they lacked assistance in the Cambodian Genocide.
- Because Cambodia had fallen under Communism, any aid from western or democratic states was unlikely.
- After the Khmer Rouge had agreed to no longer support communism, the United States sent military and financial support.
- In 1997 the Khmer Rouge arrested Pol Pot and in 1998 he died of natural causes.