Khmers Rouge - En Anglais

1. The Khmer Rouge is a communist group which took power in Cambodia in 1975. Their name « Khmer Rouge » was given to them, they called themselves Communist party of Kampuchea. Their leader was known as Pol Pot (ex member of the French Communist Party), he died in 1998, having never been put on trial.

Pol pot and his party had a policy of social engineering and they were anti-capitalist. The country lived on self-sufficiency even for medicine and food. They were many agricultural reforms. It was an agrarian-based Communist societty.

2. A lot of High Schools turned into prison camps, that was the case for the S-21 prison. Most of the « prisoners » were killed, they were intellectuals and educated people (even people who wore glasses were considered as intellectuals), suspected traitors, city dwellers (« economic saboteurs » => lack of agricultural ability)), minority people (Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai, Catholic, Christians, Muslims and bouddhusts) and a lot of religious were killed..

3. The children were separated from their parents and indoctrinated in communism, they thaught them torture methods with animals. Children were a dictatorial instrument of the party and they give them leadership in torture and executions.

4. The policy of the Communist party of Kampuchea led to genocide (UN Convention) : about 1/5 of the population died under the regime, through executions, torture, starvation and forced labour. A lot of mass graves have been found in Cambodia. There were a lot of diseases as malaria which they couldn’t cure because they didn’t want to have anything to do with the other capitalist countries.

5. There was no illusion, most of the time when the prisoners arrived, they were tortured and starved and once they’d finished with them they killed them to have more cells in the jail. About 17,000 people passed through Duch’s centre before they were taken to be executed.

6. In 1979, the Khmers Rouge fled, and the power was taken by the People’s republic of the Kampuchea later, in 1993, it became the Kingdom of Cambodia.

Today, the country have still not recovered from the Khmers rouge, and a lot of Cambodian are still waiting for justice.

In conclusion : we heard a lot about the shoah and other genocide, but there’s still a huge part of the world which is left behind and unknown.

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