Khmer Rouge

This article is about the regime in general. For the political party of the Khmer Rouge regime, see Communist Party of Kampuchea. For nation of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge Regime, see Democratic Kampuchea.

Khmer Rouge
ខ្មែរក្រហម
LeaderPol Pot
Dates of operationJune 1951 (June 1951) – March 1999 (March 1999)
HeadquartersPhnom Penh, Cambodia
Ideology
Marxism-Leninism
Maoism
Political positionFar-left[3][4]
Allies
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Battles and wars
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The Khmer Rouge[a] is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the Democratic Kampuchea through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by Norodom Sihanouk to describe his country's heterogeneous, communist-led dissidents, with whom he allied after the 1970 Cambodian coup d'état.[16]

The Kampuchea Revolutionary Army was slowly built up in the forests of eastern Cambodia during the late 1960s, supported by the People's Army of Vietnam, the Viet Cong, the Pathet Lao, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).[17][18][19][20] Although it originally fought against Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge changed its position and supported Sihanouk following the CCP's advice after he was overthrown in a 1970 coup d'état by Lon Nol who established the pro-American Khmer Republic.[20][21] Despite a massive American bombing campaign (Operation Freedom Deal) against them, the Khmer Rouge won the Cambodian Civil War when they captured the Cambodian capital and overthrew the Khmer Republic in 1975. Following their victory, the Khmer Rouge, who were led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, and Khieu Samphan, immediately set about forcibly evacuating the country's major cities. In 1976, they renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea.

The Khmer Rouge regime was highly autocratic, totalitarian, and repressive. Many deaths resulted from the regime's social engineering policies and the "Moha Lout Plaoh", an imitation of China's Great Leap Forward which had caused the Great Chinese Famine.[17][22][23] The Khmer Rouge's attempts at agricultural reform through collectivization similarly led to widespread famine, while its insistence on absolute self-sufficiency, including the supply of medicine, led to the death of many thousands from treatable diseases such as malaria.[24]

The Khmer Rouge regime murdered hundreds of thousands of their perceived political opponents, and its racist emphasis on national purity resulted in the genocide of Cambodian minorities. Summary executions and torture were carried out by its cadres against perceived subversive elements, or during genocidal purges of its own ranks between 1975 and 1978.[25] Ultimately, the Cambodian genocide which took place under the Khmer Rouge regime led to the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people, around 25% of Cambodia's population.

In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge was largely supported and funded by the Chinese Communist Party, receiving approval from Mao Zedong; it is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid which was provided to the Khmer Rouge came from China.[b] The regime was removed from power in 1979 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and quickly destroyed most of its forces. The Khmer Rouge then fled to Thailand, whose government saw them as a buffer force against the Communist Party of Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge continued to fight against the Vietnamese and the government of the new People's Republic of Kampuchea until the end of the war in 1989. The Cambodian governments-in-exile (including the Khmer Rouge) held onto Cambodia's United Nations seat (with considerable international support) until 1993, when the monarchy was restored and the name of the Cambodian state was changed to the Kingdom of Cambodia. A year later, thousands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas surrendered themselves in a government amnesty.[29]

In 1996, a new political party called the Democratic National Union Movement was formed by Ieng Sary, who was granted amnesty for his role as the deputy leader of the Khmer Rouge.[30] The organisation was largely dissolved by the mid-1990s and finally surrendered completely in 1999.[31] In 2014, two Khmer Rouge leaders, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, were jailed for life by a United Nations-backed court which found them guilty of crimes against humanity for their roles in the Khmer Rouge's genocidal campaign.

  1. ^ a b c Kiernan, Ben (2004). How Pol Pot Came to Power: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Communism in Cambodia, 1930–1975. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300102628.
  2. ^ a b Cook, Susan; Rowley, Kelvin (2017). Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda: New Perspectives (PDF). Routledge. ISBN 9781351517775. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 August 2022. Retrieved 13 May 2018.
  3. ^ Martin, Gus (2008). Essentials of Terrorism: Concepts and Controversies. SAGE Publications, Inc. p. 80. ISBN 978-1412953139.
  4. ^ Hartman, Tom (1985). A World Atlas of Military History, 1945–1984. Hippocrene Books. p. 81. ISBN 0870520008.
  5. ^ a b Richardson, Michael (29 September 2000). "Singaporean Tells of Khmer Rouge Aid". International Herald Tribune. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  6. ^ Shafir, Michael (20 December 1985). Michael Shafir, Pinter, 1985, Romania: Politics, Economics and Society : Political Stagnation and Simulated Change, p. 187. Pinter. ISBN 9780861874385. Archived from the original on 14 August 2023. Retrieved 22 August 2023.
  7. ^ Frost, Gerald (23 September 1991). Gerald Frost, Praeger, 1991, Europe in Turmoil: The Struggle for Pluralism, p. 306. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9780275941291. Archived from the original on 14 August 2023. Retrieved 22 August 2023.
  8. ^ "How Thatcher gave Pol Pot a hand". New Statesman. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  9. ^ "Butcher of Cambodia set to expose Thatcher's role". The Guardian. 9 January 2000. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  10. ^ Becker, Elizabeth (17 April 1998). "Death of Pol Pot: The Diplomacy; Pol Pot's End Won't Stop U.S. Pursuit of His Circle". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  11. ^ Parkinson, Charles; Cuddy, Alice; Pye, Daniel (29 May 2015). "The Pol Pot dilemma". The Phnom Penh Post. Archived from the original on 21 February 2022. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  12. ^ "Outside Interference in Vietnamese Affairs Condemned" (PDF). www.cambodiatokampuchea.wordpress.com. 20 July 1978.
  13. ^ Weiss, Thomas G.; Evans, Gareth J.; Hubert, Don; Sahnoun, Mohamed (2001). The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. International Development Research Centre (Canada). p. 58. ISBN 978-0-88936-963-4. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  14. ^ "When Moscow helped topple the Khmer Rouge". rbth.com. 19 March 2016. Archived from the original on 28 November 2022.
  15. ^ "Diplomats Recall Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge". The Cambodia Daily. 5 April 2003. Archived from the original on 29 March 2019. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  16. ^ "Khmer Rouge". Encyclopedia.com. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 17 January 2021.
  17. ^ a b c Chandler, David P. (2018). Brother Number One: A Political Biography Of Pol Pot. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-98161-6.
  18. ^ a b Strangio, Sebastian. "China's Aid Emboldens Cambodia". Yale Global Online. Archived from the original on 17 December 2020. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  19. ^ "The Chinese Communist Party's Relationship with the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s: An Ideological Victory and a Strategic Failure". Wilson Center. 13 December 2018. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
  20. ^ a b Hood, Steven J. (1990). "Beijing's Cambodia Gamble and the Prospects for Peace in Indochina: The Khmer Rouge or Sihanouk?". Asian Survey. 30 (10): 977–991. doi:10.2307/2644784. ISSN 0004-4687. JSTOR 2644784.
  21. ^ a b "China-Cambodia Relations". Radio Free Asia. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
  22. ^ McLellan, Janet (1 April 1999). "5". Many Petals of the Lotus: Five Asian Buddhist Communities in Toronto (1st ed.). University of Toronto Press. p. 137. ISBN 978-0-8020-8225-1.
  23. ^ Chandler, David (2007). A History of Cambodia. Routledge. ISBN 978-1578566969.
  24. ^ Guillou, Anne Yvonne (9 October 2008). "Medicine in Cambodia during the Pol Pot Regime (1975-1979): Foreign and Cambodian Influences". HAL Open Science. Retrieved 8 December 2023.
  25. ^ Ratner, Steven R.; Abrams, Jason S. (2001). Accountability for Human Rights Atrocities in International Law: Beyond the Nuremberg Legacy (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 272. ISBN 978-0-19-829871-7.
  26. ^ Levin, Dan (30 March 2015). "China Is Urged to Confront Its Own History". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 20 May 2022. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
  27. ^ Kiernan, Ben (2008). The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia Under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–79. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300142990.
  28. ^ Laura, Southgate (8 May 2019). ASEAN Resistance to Sovereignty Violation: Interests, Balancing and the Role of the Vanguard State. Policy Press. ISBN 978-1-5292-0221-2.
  29. ^ "Cambodia profile – Timeline". BBC News. 7 April 2011. Archived from the original on 28 November 2018. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
  30. ^ "Cambodia profile". BBC News. 17 January 2012. Archived from the original on 15 November 2011. Retrieved 30 July 2019.
  31. ^ "No Redemption – The Failing Khmer Rouge Trial By Allan Yang". Harvard International Review. 2008. Archived from the original on 25 April 2019. Retrieved 18 April 2014.


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