Cambodian Genocide

East Asia

Khmer Rouge Radical Communist government of Cambodia from 1975-1979 which committed genocide of its people

Pol Pot- leader of Khmer Rouge http://www.biography.com/people/pol-pot-9443888

The National Bank of Cambodia in Phnom Penh was demolished with explosives in 1975 by the new Khmer Rouge government as a symbol of their rejection of capitalism.   Photograph by Ben Kiernan, 1980

"People from the Eastern Zone would be known by their scarf "People from the Eastern Zone would be known by their scarf. If you were wearing a blue scarf they would kill you."

Provincial Killing Fields

Tuol Sleng Prison

Comrade Duch “Duch oversaw a precise department of death. His guards dutifully photographed the prisoners upon arrival and photgraphed them at or near death, whether their throats were slit, their bodies otherwise mutilated, or so thin from torture and near starvation that they were beyond recognition. The photographs were part of the files to prove the enemies of the state had been killed. Duch even set aside specific days for killing various types of prisoners: one day the wives of "enemies"; another day the children; a different day, factory workers." --Elizabeth Becker, When the War Was Over

Photograph ©2000 Stuart Isett/Corbis Sygma Duch, head of the Tuol Sleng prison complex, was a former schoolteacher named Kang Kech Eav

Sources NYTimes.com Yale University Cambodian Genocide Project http://www.yale.edu/cgp/index.html