Killing Fields
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The Killing Fields (
Analysis of 20,000 mass grave sites by the DC-Cam Mapping Program and
The Cambodian journalist Dith Pran coined the term "killing fields" after his escape from the regime.[3]
The Khmer Rouge regime arrested and eventually executed almost everyone suspected of connections with the former government or with foreign governments, as well as professionals and intellectuals. Ethnic
Ben Kiernan estimates that about 1.7 million people were killed.[6] 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. After five years of researching some 20,000 grave sites, he concludes that "these mass graves contain the remains of 1,386,734 victims of execution".[7] A United Nations investigation reported 2–3 million dead, while UNICEF estimated 3 million had been killed.[8] Demographic analysis by Patrick Heuveline suggests that between 1.17 and 3.42 million Cambodians were killed,[9] while Marek Sliwinski suggests that 1.8 million is a conservative figure.[10] Even the Khmer Rouge acknowledged that 2 million had been killed—though they attributed those deaths to a subsequent Vietnamese invasion.[11] By late 1979, UN and Red Cross officials were warning that another 2.25 million Cambodians faced death by starvation due to "the near destruction of Cambodian society under the regime of ousted Prime Minister Pol Pot",[12][13] who were saved by international aid after the Vietnamese invasion.
Process
The judicial process of the
The executed were buried in mass graves. In order to save ammunition, the executions were often carried out using poison or improvised weapons such as sharpened bamboo sticks, hammers, machetes and axes. [14] Inside the Buddhist Memorial Stupa at Choeung Ek, there is evidence of bayonets, knives, wooden clubs, hoes for farming and curved scythes being used to kill victims, with images of skulls, damaged by these implements, as evidence. In some cases the children and infants of adult victims were killed by having their heads bashed against the trunks of
Prosecution for crimes against humanity
In 1997 the Cambodian government asked for the UN's assistance in setting up a
Legacy
The best known monument of the Killing Fields is at the village of
A survivor of the genocide, Dara Duong, founded The Killing Fields Museum in Seattle, US.[citation needed]
See also
- Alive in the Killing Fields – book
- Enemies of the People (film)
- First Indochina War
- First They Killed My Father – by Loung Ung
- Son Sen
- Ta Mok
- Vietnam War
- Crimes against humanity under communist regimes
- Mass killings under communist regimes
- Funan
References
- ^ "Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam)". www.d.dccam.org.
- ^ "Welcome | Genocide Studies Program". gsp.yale.edu.
- ^ "'Killing Fields' journalist dies". BBC News. 30 March 2008. Retrieved 25 May 2010.
- ^ Branigin, William (17 April 1998). "Architect of Genocide Was Unrepentant to the End". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 9 May 2013.
- ISBN 978-0-521-59730-2
- ^ "The CGP, 1994–2008". Cambodian Genocide Program, Yale University
- ^ Sharp, Bruce (1 April 2005). "Counting Hell: The Death Toll of the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia". Retrieved 5 July 2006.
- ^ William Shawcross, The Quality of Mercy: Cambodia, Holocaust, and Modern Conscience (Touchstone, 1985), pp. 115–116
- ^ Heuveline, Patrick (2001). "The Demographic Analysis of Mortality in Cambodia". In Forced Migration and Mortality, eds. Holly E. Reed and Charles B. Keely. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
- ^ Sliwinski, Marek (1995). Le génocide Khmer rouge: une analyse démographique. L'Harmattan.
- ^ Khieu Samphan, Interview, Time, 10 March 1980
- ^ The New York Times, 8 August 1979.
- Time Magazine. 5 November 1979. Archived from the originalon 13 September 2012.
- ^ ""FORENSICS — SKULLS"". Documentation Centre of Cambodia. Archived from the original on 28 February 2023. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
- ^ a b Doyle, Kevin (26 July 2007). "Putting the Khmer Rouge on Trial". Time. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007.
- ^ MacKinnon, Ian (7 March 2007). "Crisis talks to save Khmer Rouge trial". The Guardian.
- ^ "The Khmer Rouge Trial Task Force". Royal Cambodian Government. Archived from the original on 3 April 2005.
- ^ McKirdy, Euan (7 August 2014). "Top Khmer Rouge leaders found guilty of crimes against humanity, sentenced to life in prison". CNN. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
- The Los Angeles Times. 27 July 2010.
- ^ "Khmer Rouge executioner 'Comrade Duch' who oversaw notorious torture prison dies age 77". CNN. 2 September 2020.
External links
- Cambodia Killing Fields Memorial Archived 22 April 2022 at the Wayback Machine – An exhibit based in Seattle, US, dedicated to preserving the history of the Killing Fields.
- Cambodia Tribunal Monitor
- http://www.sounddawg.net/follow-the-moon/ streaming, high-fidelity audio documentary account of surviving--and escaping--the Killing Fields.
- Photographs from S-21 – Photographs from Tuol Sleng (S-21)
- ISBN 978-0-9555729-5-1.
- Dark memories of Cambodia's killing spree BBC News commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge's demise
- Setan and Randa Lee with Shelba Hammond: Miracles in the Forgotten Land and Beyond. ISBN 978-1-60957-774-2