The Cambodian Genocide Located in Southeast Asia between Thailand and Vietnam Is the size of half of California Was granted independence from France in 1953

General Lon Nol was the leader of the government when civil war broke out and the government was overthrown The communist group responsible were the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot Pol Pot

Once the Khmer Rouge took over they wanted a hard working society Millions of people were forced to evacuate major cities and forced into labor camps and reeducation centers During marches to relocate, thousands of people died

Pol Pot singled out certain religions and wanted to “purify” their culture by hard work and refusing any foreign language, medicine, or people One of the mottos of the Khmer Rouge was, “To spare you is no profit, To destroy you is no loss” Pol was killing his own people who could not work, anyone with any intelligence, and any foreigners

Perpetrators The Khmer Rouge trained kids to kill and torture people The kids were separated from their parents and taught to torture and kill

S-21 Pol Pot developed interrogation centers for any random person. People were tortured and killed for suspicion of any thing to having money or having a connection with another government. S-21 use to be a high school before it claimed the lives of 17,000 people. Today S-21 is a memorial for those who died there.

Cambodians died of starvation, torture, and were being overworked. Some use to have to work for 12 hours and eat 180 grams of rice for two days Anyone with an education or any western influences were killed. Even if they had medicine

Y Death toll could never be determined but an estimated 1.7 to 2 million died( 20% of the Cambodia population, which was the worst percentage of genocides)

The Vietnamese overthrew the Khmer Rouge and put in a puppet government while the Khmer Rouge fought the government throughout the 1980s Cambodia’s economy was destroyed and didn’t have an official new government until 1993 Most of the leaders of the Khmer Rouge who spoke publically blamed everything on Pol Pot, said that they didn’t know what was going on, or blamed it on people who were dead

Pol Pot escaped to Thailand and was never arrested until 1998 but then he had a heart attack shortly afterwards. He was one of the many who never paid for what happened in Cambodia.