Personal Reflection

When Pol Pot had brought this massacre to Cambodia I thought, what happened to Human rights why did these laws not work when created to make sure everyone has equal rights. When I read about Pol Pot I wounder, why make these laws if its just going to lead to fighting and violence. I don't think that The United Nations thought that their new improved laws would fail them like they did. In the future they will try and improve these laws.

This event relates to the Holocaust because like Hiter, Pol Pot thought that there were people inferior to him. He thought these people should all be killed, like Hitler and the jews. Pol Pot didn't just kill the people he tortured them first with cruel tactics. Hitler did these same things, gas, burning people, concentration camps. Pol Pot killed about one third of the country, about three million people. Hitler Killed twice that amount, six million jews.

My event totally denys Humanism. Pol Pot didn't care for anybody he thought wasnt perfect so he killed the ones he thought were imperfect. He was as insane as Hitler was during the Holocaust. He also had people go through horrible torturing. He made rules about being tortured. You couldn't cry if whipped or received electric shock. Couldnt show sympathy if they killed your family. These rules denied the thought of Humanism.

When I read about Pol Pot I felt that such leadership doesn't seem right. How people can let a crazy man like Pol Pot come into power just makes me sick. The people who followed him were as mad as him. How they tortured people is just inhumane, making rules so people can't cry or morn for the dead. whipping, electification, burning, and starvation. Pol Pot and his followers were as insane as Hitler or Stalin.

Yes, I do pity the victims of Pol Pot's onslaught. I didn't think the people of Cambodia expected for Pol Pot to take control of the country and kill millions because he thought they were impefect. The survivors of this horrible event will be scarred for life. After going through whippings, electrification, burning, and gas, I pity the souls that were lost in Cambodia.

REACTION ON POL POT & THE KILLING FIELDS OF CAMBODIA

When we got this subject to do as a project, I remember that I never heard of it before so I thought that Pol Pot and the killing fields of Cambodia was a minor crisis. However when I did more reasearch I realized how horrible and inhuman Pol Pot and his goverment was. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge killed 1/3 of the Cambodian population, that does not include the amount of people that were tortured. As I reasearch more facts, I began to ask questions such as " Why didn't countries neighboring Cambodia do anything to stop Pol Pot?" During my research I read that Pol Pot ran away when Vietman invaded Cambodia, he also died of natural causes, this man was regarded as another Hitler why would anyone let him live so long for him to die of natural causes?

I was also surprised when I read the S-21 a Cambodian interrogation camp used to be a high school. S-21 used to be a place for education and socializing, as Pol pot rose to power it became a place of torture and fear. In S- 21 the prison regulations were cruel, for example when getting whipped or electrification the prisoner was not allowed to cry; this is impossible and when the prisoner did cry they would get lashes with electrical wire. I can't believe that the goverment would treat their citizens like that, how could one man and his goverment hurt 1.5 million people?

The I couldn't believe most was that Pol Pot decided to destroy any institutions or organization, this included families, schools, religous groups, and other jobs and groups. Pol Pot also didnt show mercy to children, about 2000 children went to the interrogation camp S-21. This surprised me because even Hitler found a use for children by training them as soldiers, but the horrifying thing about Pol Pot is that he killed and tortured most of the children. I was disgusted by how Pol Pot used the idea of communism and twisted it to his own violent belief. In communism everything is equal, and because of this there is no individualism; it is like a idea of conformity. However in Cambodia when Pol Pot decided to "purify" the society, millions of citizens were killed for no reason, there was no equality; while citizens slept in prisons the Cambodian offficals slept in warm houses.

During this project thought " where is the U.N and why aren't they doing anything?" Pol Pot was stopped by vietman not the U.N. A crisis like this is why the U.N was created, if they did do their job, thousands of Cambodian people could have been saved. The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot probably broke all of the regulations in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example rules such as "everyone has a right to life, liberty, and security of person." or " No one shall he subjected to torture or to cruel' inhuman, or degrading treatment, or punishment." These and more rules were broken by Pol Pot. I thought that the U.N was reliable and that they would react when some thing like the crisis in Cambodia happens.

While I worked on this project I learned alot about how inhumanly a person could treat another. I also realized that this crisis is not that old it could happen again in any country. There are alot more horrifying things going around in the world, even in our time; even if we dont hear about it we shouldnt regard it as a minor crisis because it could cost millions of lives. In conclusion I felt terrified that a person could kill and manipulate people to a point when 1.5 million people die. I also feel pity for those who lost their lives in this crisis.

Involvement of the Khmer Rouge

The events that took place in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 were appauling at the very least. The Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia during April of 1975 and thousands of people suddenly lost all of their rights. Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, ordered his soldiers to displace all Cambodians into agricultural forced labor camps. The purpose of this was to create a new group of citizens to make a new farming based "perfect" society.

The power of the Khmer Rouge was really unchallenged from the time they took control of Cambodia, until around the mid-1990s. Many of the main leaders of this radical goverment were well educated; they attended universities and tech schools in Paris, France. This combination of authority and intellegence made the lives of suffering civilians more difficult. They were told that they were only being moved 2 or 3 kilometers away, and they would be back in 2 or 3 days, because of U.S. bombing raids. Little did the innocent people know, they were being brought to their graves.

The Khmer Rouge's radical plan to create a new perfect communist society used the limitation and violation of their population’s rights. They isolated the country from all foreign influence, closed schools factories and even hospitals. The government also violated human rights by outlawing all religions and stopping all currency and all forms of banking. The Khmer's Rouge justification for the violation of human rights was to create the Cambodian people into a "New People" through agricultural forced labor and the limitations of these rights.

Once the Khmer Rouge came to power in April of 1975, the rights of many minorities in the country were drastically reduced and violated human rights. The Khmer Rouge gained power once they had taken the Cambodian capitol, Phnom Penh. The leader of this group was Pol Pot, and once in power he used his power to create a radical communist state that's main objective was to make the people "new". The government leadership was totally directing this event, the government was the Khmer Rouge and they implemented these conditions on their population.

The Khmer Rouge, the government, setup the conditions for the minorities such as intellectuals, ethnic Chinese, ethinic Vietnamese and many other minorites located in Cambodia. Pol Pot and his followers did not setup laws like the Nuremberg Laws set up in Germnay during the Holocaust. Nobody who was killed in the Killing Fields of Cambodia did anything against the laws set up at the time. In fact, Pol Pot killed thousands of innocent civilians because of his plan to create a classless, "perfect" communist society.

Pol Pot, a massive communist supporter, believed that by forcing the Cambodian people to work in agricultural camps it would create them into a "New People". Pol Pots goal was to create Cambodia into a perfect communist state. The Khmer Rouge attempted to create a classless society by seizing all private property and then forcing them into agricultural labor camps. These people were killed at the agricultural labor camps from various reasons ranging from work exhaustion, starvation and even execution.

Of course, the people who were tortured and killed did not commit any offense or break any law to deseve the punishment they were subjected to. Pol Pot created insane reasons why his own people did not fit his category of perfection. Some of these reasons included a person was educated; someone had a connection to the former establishment government, and even someone who was not sufficiently contributing to the economy. The Khmer Rouge, like the Nazi party, believed these people stood in the way of their path to a perfect race. As a result, millions of innocents died for no reason.

As time went on, and Vietnam won the Vietnam War against the United States, America started to give military support to the Cambodians. Pol Pot gave his Khmer Rouge leadership to Khieu Samphan in 1985, but continuted to be a driving force in the communist’s party. From then on, the killings and torture really started to cease. In 1991, other Cambodian politicans called for a disarment, but the Khmer Rouge would not stop fighting. In 1998, Pol Pot died of a heart attack, and that was pretty much it for the Khmer Rouge. Khieu Samphan surrendured, most of the leaders of the government were captured, and the Killing Fields of Cambodia became history.

Now, the history of the horrors that occurred in Cambodia are not taught to the childern living there. In 2005, 75% of the childern were too young to remember the years of the Khmer Rouge, and those who do know have only heard of it through parents and grandparents. Trials for the remaning Khmer Rouge leaders have yet to start, and they expect to take place sometime in mid-2007. The trials will be conducted by the Khmer Rouge Trial Task Force, a group established in 1997 to leagally oversee the fair trials givin to the fallen leaders.

These horrible events happened between April 1975 and January 1979. The Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh in 1975 and immidiately began killing those that they thought were unfit fot the new society. When the Vietnamese army invaded and captured Phnom Penh in January 1979, the killings stopped, but some members Khmer Rouge stayed in charge as leaders of a Cambodian puppet government. A long lasting civil war and numerous rebelions resulted in the Khmer Rouge's ruling in Cambodia. Millions of people died in and after the killings and many people will never be the same.

pol pot cartoon

This picture shows how people starved and they would eat anything. Also the world is unaware that a modern massacre was going on.

PARAGRAPH B

The people involved in the Cambodian killing fields are the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, and the Cambodian ciltizens. Khmer Rouge stands for "Red Republic", and it was the ruling goverment of the Cambodian nation. Most people remember the Khmer Rouge as a goverment that killed 1.5 million people. They forced people to join their army, and killed millons by starvation, and torture. The leader of this goverment was Pol Pot, who is regarded as one of the worst mass- murders he is considered to be the Cambodian Hitler. The victims of the mass murder was the Cambodian society. The estimate is that 1/3 of the Cambodian citizens were killed, and the reason for this is that their prime minister thought that they were all traitors. Pol Pot wanted to break up familes, schools, and other daily functions. Pol Pot also enacted a policy of relocating people to the countryside to "purify" the Cambodian society. This required 1-2 millon people to be put in mass gaves, because Pol Pot saw then as "enemies". As you see millons of poeple died in this event, because of one leader and his goverment.

Why these people were tortured and killed

The people in Cambodia were tortured and killed by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot forced all city dwellers into labor camps in the countryside. In total, about 2 million people were killed. The Khmer Rouge banned all institutions including stores, banks, schools, hospitals, religions, and family. Everyone was forced to work between 12-14 hours a day. They made children worked in mobile groups or as soldiers. People were fed once a day. This meal consisted of one bowl of watery soup and a few grains of rice. The Khmer Rouge tortured and killed people because they didnt like them, they didnt work hard enough, they werent educatued, or they showed sympathy when their families were killed. This tactic of dictation was based mainly on fear and intimidation.

Connor, Sam, Dave, Austin

Pol pot- when it occured

It all started on April 17th, 1975 when Khmer Rouge, a communist guerrilla group led by Pol Pot, took power in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. They forced everybody into the countryside and to labor camps. A large amount of the Cambodian population died about 30% either by starvation or torture. These mass killing lasted for three years until 1979. In 1979, Pol Pot hid to the woods after an invasion by nearby Vietnam which led to the collapse of the Khmer Rouge government. Pol Pot was never brought to justice and died to natural causes while hiding, in 1998.

This picture shows the violent actions to the people from cambodia. You can tell that he has been starved because you can see his bones clearly and looks like he has no energy, in addition you can also tell he has been tortured because of his scars.