VC Speech - Cambodian Genocide

Hello, This is Joel Witt live from Cambodia, continuing our discussion regarding the Cambodian Genocide. Within days of overthrowing the government, Pol Pot and his army known as the Khmer Rouge began a ruthless campaign to reconstruct Cambodia. This mission is known in Khmer as “Kampuchea”, and the goal of Khmer Rouge was to create a model of Maoist China, and to force the whole population to become laborers working on a series of farms throughout the country. All basic rights of the Cambodian people were stripped from them, and everyone living in the cities were forced from their homes and taken away to labor camps or even prisons like the one I am currently standing in. Those who refused to leave or did not leave fast enough were murdered. Schools, universities, and even hospitals were closed. Scientists, doctors, lawyers, engineers, and virtually all educated Cambodians were killed along with their families. Religious practice was forbidden, and many leading Buddhist monks in Cambodia were executed. The Khmer Rouge banned all music and radio, and they were known to shoot people for simply wearing glasses, laughing, or crying. Minority groups also became victims of the Khmer Rouge’s racism and hate. Those who had Chinese, Thai, or Vietnamese ancestry were killed as well as Christians and Muslims. Those who were able to avoid death were forced to work on farms for no pay, very little food, and for extremely long hours. Within a short amount of time the laborers fell ill from starvation and overwork, and eventually died due to lack of treatment. Despite all of these killings, the Khmer Rouge leaders such as Pol Pot were paranoid that they might lose their power, and therefore began to question, imprison, and execute their own Khmer Rouge members on the smallest suspicions of treason. The death toll of this period in Cambodian history is well over 2 million people. This has been Joel Witt reporting live from Cambodia. Back to you Sameet.