Cambodian Genocide: Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge and the Killing Fields

It’s insane to think that mass murder didn’t stop at the end of World War II. Since the Holocaust, various genocides have taken place in different areas of the world. In this book, we’ll talk about something that has often been shoved under the rug, but was definitely a consequence of the Vietnam War, the bombings by the Americans, and a domino effect into an already fragile political country: The nation of Cambodia.

The Cambodian genocide was the methodical abuse and death of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who pushed Cambodia towards being an entirely self-dependent agrarian socialist state. Between 1975 and 1979, 1.5 to 2 million people were murdered, representing about a quarter of Cambodia's population in 1975. (c. 7.8 million).

When we look back on this, their ideology seems completely paradoxical, far-fetched, and illogical. Yet, through a considerately high number of propaganda resources and sheer force, the coup forced millions of people from the cities to farmlands, leaving them there to die or be shot because of supposed conspiracies against the regime. Let’s take a deep dive into the history of this ancient Southeast Asian area and learn from what happened.