Cambodian genocide

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Autogenocide
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Cambodian genocide
Part of the
Deaths1.5 to 2 million[1]
PerpetratorsKhmer Rouge
Motive

The Cambodian genocide[a] was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens[b] 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).[1][3][4][5]

forced labor, physical abuse, malnutrition, and disease were rampant.[18][19] In 1976, the Khmer Rouge renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea
.

The massacres ended when the Vietnamese military

mass graves. Abduction and indoctrination of children was widespread, and many were persuaded or forced to commit atrocities.[32] As of 2009, the Documentation Center of Cambodia has mapped 23,745 mass graves containing approximately 1.3 million suspected victims of execution. Direct execution is believed to account for up to 60% of the genocide's death toll,[33]
with other victims succumbing to starvation, exhaustion, or disease.

The genocide triggered

superior responsibility.[2] Both Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were sentenced to terms of life imprisonment.[37]

Historical background

Rise of the Khmer Rouge

Cambodian Civil War

In 1968, the Khmer Rouge officially launched a nation-wide insurgency across Cambodia. Even though the government of North Vietnam had not been informed of the Khmer Rouge's decision, its forces provided shelter and weapons to the Khmer Rouge after the insurgency began. North Vietnamese support for the Khmer Rouge's insurgency made it impossible for the Cambodian military to effectively counter it. For the next two years, the insurgency grew because Norodom Sihanouk did very little to stop it. As the insurgency grew in strength, the party openly declared itself to be the Communist Party of Kampuchea.[38]

Sihanouk was

Nixon administration announced its support for the new Khmer Republic.[39]

On 29 March 1970, North Vietnam launched an offensive against the Cambodian army. Documents which were uncovered from the Soviet Union's archives reveal that the invasion was launched at the Khmer Rouge's explicit request after negotiations were held with Nuon Chea.[40] A North Vietnamese force quickly overran large parts of eastern Cambodia, reaching within 15 miles (24 km) of Phnom Penh before being pushed back. By June, three months after Sihanouk's removal, they had swept government forces from the entire northeastern third of the country. After defeating those forces, the Vietnamese turned the newly won territories over to the local insurgents. The Khmer Rouge also established "liberated" areas in the southern and southwestern parts of the country, where they operated independently of the Vietnamese.[41]

After Sihanouk demonstrated 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 Khmer Rouge's new recruits were apolitical peasants who fought in support of the King, rather than for communism, of which they had little understanding.[42]

By 1975, with Lon Nol's government running out of ammunition due to its loss of U.S. support, it was clear that its collapse was imminent. On 17 April 1975, the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh and ended the civil war. Mortality estimates for the Cambodian Civil War vary widely. Sihanouk used a figure of 600,000 civil war deaths,[43] while Elizabeth Becker reported over a million civil war deaths, military and civilian included.[44] Other researchers were unable to corroborate such high estimates.[45] Marek Sliwinski notes that many estimates of the dead are open to question and may have been used for propaganda, suggesting that the true number lies between 240,000 and 310,000.[46] Judith Banister and E. Paige Johnson described 275,000 war deaths as "the highest mortality that we can justify".[47] Patrick Heuveline states that "Subsequent reevaluations of the demographic data situated the death toll for the [civil war] in the order of 300,000 or less".[1]

United States bombing campaign

From 1970 to 1973, a massive United States bombing campaign against the Khmer Rouge devastated rural Cambodia.[48][49] An earlier U.S. bombing campaign of Cambodia began on 18 March 1969 with Operation Breakfast, but U.S. bombing in Cambodia had commenced years before that.[45]

The number of Cambodian civilian and Khmer Rouge deaths caused by U.S. bombing is disputed and difficult to disentangle from the broader Cambodian Civil War.[46] Estimates range from 30,000 to 500,000.[50][51][52][53] Sliwinski estimates that approximately 17% of total civil war deaths can be attributed to U.S. bombing, noting that this is far behind the leading causes of death, as the U.S. bombing was concentrated in underpopulated border areas.[46] Ben Kiernan attributes 50,000 to 150,000 deaths to the U.S. bombing.[54]

The relationship between the United States' massive bombing of Cambodia and the growth of the Khmer Rouge in recruitment and popular support has been a matter of interest to historians. Some scholars, including Michael Ignatieff, Adam Jones[55] and Greg Grandin,[56] have cited the United States intervention and bombing campaign from 1965 to 1973 as a significant factor that led to increased support for the Khmer Rouge among the Cambodian peasantry.[57] 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."[58]

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 also accelerated the collapse of rural society and increased social polarization.[59][60] Craig Etcheson agrees that U.S. intervention increased recruitment for the Khmer Rouge but disputes that it was a primary cause of the Khmer Rouge victory.[61] According to William Shawcross, the United States bombing and ground incursion plunged Cambodia into the chaos that Sihanouk had worked for years to avoid.[62]

International supporters of the Khmer Rouge

China

Mao era
Pol Pot in 1978

Since the 1950s,

communist revolution in China, class conflicts, Communist International, etc.[63] Pol Pot also met with other officials, including Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen.[64] He was particularly impressed by Kang Sheng's lecture on how to conduct a political purge.[6][63]

Mao Zedong, Peng Zhen, Norodom Sihanouk and Liu Shaoqi (1965)

In 1970, Lon Nol overthrew Sihanouk, who fled to Beijing, where Pol Pot was also visiting. On the advice of the CCP, the Khmer Rouge changed its position, and in order to support Sihanouk, it established the National United Front of Kampuchea. In 1970 alone, the Chinese reportedly gave the United Front 400 tons of military aid.[65] In April 1974, Sihanouk and Khmer Rouge leaders Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan met with Mao in Beijing; Mao supported many of the policies proposed by the Khmer Rouge, but he did not want the Khmer Rouge to marginalize Sihanouk after they won the civil war and established a new Cambodia.[64][66]

In June 1975, Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge officials met with Mao Zedong in Beijing, where Mao lectured Pol Pot on his "Theory of Continuing Revolution under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (无产阶级专政下继续革命理论)", recommending two articles which were written by Yao Wenyuan and sending Pol Pot over 30 books which were authored by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and Joseph Stalin as gifts.[8][10][64][63] During this meeting, Mao said to Pol Pot:[8][10][67]

We agree with you! Much of your experience is better than ours. China is not qualified to criticize you. We committed errors of the political routes for ten times in fifty years—some are national, some are local…Thus I say China has no qualification to criticize you but to applaud you. You are basically correct…During the transition from the democratic revolution to adopting a socialist path, there exist two possibilities: one is socialism, the other is capitalism. Our situation now is like this. Fifty years from now, or one hundred years from now, the struggle between two lines will exist. Even ten thousand years from now, the struggle between two lines will still exist. When Communism is realized, the struggle between two lines will still be there. Otherwise, you are not a Marxist. This is unity existing among opposites. If one mentions only one side of the two, this is metaphysics. I believe in what Marx and Lenin have said, the that path [of advance] would be tortuous ... Our state now is, as Lenin said, a capitalist state without capitalists. This state protects capitalist rights, and the wages are not equal. Under the slogan of equality, a system of inequality has been introduced. There will exist a struggle between two lines, the struggle between the advanced and the backward, even when Communism is realized. Today we cannot explain it completely.

Pol Pot replied: "The issue of lines of struggle raised by Chairman Mao is an important strategic issue. We will follow your words in the future. I have read and learned various works of Chairman Mao since I was young, especially the theory on people's war. Your works have guided our entire party."[64] On the other hand, during another meeting in August 1975, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai warned Sihanouk as well as Khmer Rouge leaders including Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary of the danger of radical movement towards communism, citing the mistakes in China's own Great Leap Forward.[68][69][70] Zhou urged them not to repeat the mistakes that had caused havoc.[68][70] Sihanouk later recalled that Khieu Samphan and Ieng Thirith responded only with "an incredulous and superior smile".[70]

During the genocide, China was the largest military and economic supporter of the Khmer Rouge, supplying "more than 15,000 military advisers" and most of its external aid.

US$1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid, "the biggest aid ever given to any one country by China".[11][12][13] A series of internal crises in 1976 prevented Beijing from exerting substantial influence over Khmer Rouge policies.[69]

Transition period

After Mao's death in September 1976, China underwent a two-year transitionary period that ended with the appointment of Deng Xiaoping as its new

Vice Premier of China and the leader of Dazhai, visited Cambodia in December 1977, commending the achievement of its movement towards communism.[74]

In 1978, Son Sen, a Khmer Rouge leader and the Minister of National Defense of Democratic Kampuchea, visited China and obtained its approval for military aid.[75] In the same year, high-ranking CCP officials such as Wang Dongxing and Deng Yingchao visited Cambodia to offer support.[75][76]

Deng era