The Khmer Rouge: Genocide in the Name of Utopia (2016)

https://openendedsocialstudies.org/2016/06/24/the-khmer-rouge-genocide-in-the-name-of-utopia/

by exolymph • 6 years ago

186 199 6 years ago

mc323• 6 years ago

I hope this gets thoughtful discussion.

The events are very tragic. I know people whose families were in danger of being sent to the camps —they escaped though laborious trudging through jungle at night, escape to Vietnam and then HK as boat people before moving on to better places.

How does idealism end up in such a dark ditch like this where your own neighbor thinks the horror is so bad they have to go in a clean things up, despite nominally being “on the same side”

enitihas2• 6 years ago

Almost any country which tries full on communism sadly ends up in a similar scenario. See USSR, Mao's China. In Mao's China, it was well apparent that the communal farms weren't working and even the people's daily wrote a story on it. The then high ranking party officials also opposed them. But Mao still got rid of them all and continued, causing several famines.

walrus0112• 6 years ago

The USSR at least pushed hard for science, engineering and technology education. Political party type and organization aside, the rapid growth of their electrical grid and large-scale engineering projects (hydroelectric dams, airports, nuclear power, hospitals etc) in the post-1945 era was quite rapid.

The Khmer Rouge and its strongly anti-intellectual stance was quite the opposite. You can't return an entire country to an agrarian subsistence agriculture system and literally kill off every educated person that can be found, and expect good results...

phenkdo2• 6 years ago

Because at some point they run out of people to blame, and turn on each other.

1123581321• 6 years ago

That is why critiquing and opposing bad ideas is important. Idealism and altruism do not inherently improve or redeem goals or philosophies.

femiagbabiaka6• 6 years ago

agreed, authoritarianism is something we should leave in the 20th century.

notahacker4• 6 years ago

I'd hesitate to say there was anything idealistic about the Khmer Rouge: you'll find more idealism in the actions of Stalin or Hitler. It wasn't even a sincere outbreak of angry hatred: the leadership were all members of the educated classes they condemned to hard labour and pogroms.

femiagbabiaka6• 6 years ago

So much of the tragedy of our times has been along those lines. Reading this book (amongst others) about the atrocities committed in service of the British idea of utopia in India evoked similar feelings: https://www.amazon.com/Inglorious-Empire-What-British-India/....

In comparison, the turn towards soft power in the 21st century on the macro (political) and micro (personal) levels is much appreciated, despite all of its ills.

growlist• 6 years ago

Any particular reason you chose that example?

blaser-waffle3• 6 years ago

Flog their book, push propaganda, or just someone projecting their feelings about a topic that is tangentially related to the main thread.

HN is targeted by agi-prop and marketing as much as any other social media site.

femiagbabiaka6• 6 years ago

because I read the book recently.. what an odd question. why post about khmer rouge or other atrocities at all?

rado• 6 years ago

Didn’t Kissinger’s atrocious bombing of Cambodia help pave way for the Khmer Rouge?

ZeroGravitas2• 6 years ago

More than that, the Khmer Rouge were actively supported by the US.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_United_States...

cousin_it• 6 years ago

And when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and stopped the genocide in two weeks, this happened:

Although Sihanouk distanced himself from the human rights abuses of the Khmer Rouge, he accused Vietnam of using aggression to violate Kampuchea's sovereignty. As such, he demanded all UN countries suspend aid to Vietnam and not recognize the Vietnamese-installed regime. Subsequently, seven non-aligned members of the UN Security Council submitted a draft resolution calling for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Kampuchea, which was endorsed by China, France, Norway, Portugal, the United States and the United Kingdom. However, the resolution was not approved due to opposition from the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian%E2%80%93Vietnamese...

drocer882• 6 years ago

Your link says "Allegations". What is proven? Not much. The article suggests the U.S. was not too keen on Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia and when they did actively support a group it was the non communist groups. China and Thailand actively supported the Khmer Rouge.

refurb12• 6 years ago

Your article says “allegations”, but you’re stating it as fact.

walrus0112• 6 years ago

Yes, and if you want an example of American political hypocrisy in things like international war crimes courts, I'm honestly astonished that people like Slobodan Milosevic were prosecuted, but Kissinger hasn't spent the past 30 years in a prison cell.

rumanator8• 6 years ago

I'm honestly astonished that people like Slobodan Milosevic were prosecuted, but Kissinger hasn't spent the past 30 years in a prison cell.

In your opinion what did Kissinger do that amounts to genocide of his own people, not to mention the string of assassinations of his domestic opponents?

ngold• 6 years ago

Apparently his only punishment was investing in theranos.

lostlogin2• 6 years ago

I’m sure there is some hyperbole in your comment - no part of it is even faintly surprising I don’t think. The idea of an American soldier being prosecuted by that court just seems so far fetched. The wiki is worth a read, and some of the US concerns certainly make you think, however the opposition overall is rather lame. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Intern...

bezmenov• 6 years ago

People usually refer to the bombing of Cambodia as if it had been unprovoked, secretive U.S. action. The fact is that we were bombing North Vietnamese troops that had invaded Cambodia, that were killing many Americans from these sanctuaries, and we were doing it with the acquiescence of the Cambodian government, which never once protested against it, and which, indeed, encouraged us to do it… Why is it moral for the North Vietnamese to have 50,000 to 100,000 troops in Cambodia, why should we let them kill Americans from that territory… and why in all these conditions is there a moral issue?

Henry Kissinger on the bombing of Cambodia in 1969

peisistratos3• 6 years ago

Kissinger's documented order was "anything that flies on anything that moves".

While the Nuremberg trials had a lot of evidence, they never had such direct documentary evidence of a call for genocide like that.

(or is that overblown? Perhaps only for the Cambodians fighting against the CIA backed coup of Lon Nol should shirts be torn in accusations of genocide).

rumanator8• 6 years ago

Kissinger's documented order was "anything that flies on anything that moves".

Wrong. That quote is a report from a direct order from Nixon.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...

pnw_hazor4• 6 years ago

American/Western leftists supported and celebrated the Khmer Rouge revolution. In 1975, President Ford tried to resist the de-funding of anti-Khmer Rouge pro-American regime but the Democratic controlled congress stripped every nickel of US support. Chris Dodd and many other prominent leftists celebrated the move and welcomed the new future for Cambodia.

jryle702• 6 years ago

That may strengthen their stand, but far from a key factor. Khmer Rouge was China's puppet and would not be able to come to power and carry out the genocide without China's support:

In April 1975, Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia, and in January, 1976, Democratic Kampuchea was established. During the Cambodian genocide, the CPC was the main international patron of the Khmer Rouge, supplying "more than 15,000 military advisers" and most of its external aid. It is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid to Khmer Rouge came from China, with 1975 alone seeing US$1 billion in interest-free economics and military aid and US$20 million gift, which was "the biggest aid ever given to any one country by China". In June 1975, Pol Pot and other officials of Khmer Rouge met with Mao Zedong in Beijing, receiving Mao's approval and advice; in addition, Mao also taught Pot his "Theory of Continuing Revolution under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat（无产阶级专政下继续革命理论）". High-ranking CPC officials such as Zhang Chunqiao later visited Cambodia to offer help [0]

Khmer Rouge was also North Vietnam's ally since they both fought against US-backed governments in South Vietnam and Cambodia. They only became enemies after winning their respective wars [1], caused by in no small part the deteriorating China-Vietnam relation.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot

3131s4• 6 years ago

It was a proxy war, a point which you've just made half of the case for.

The US bombing of Cambodia was without a doubt a defining factor in this event. It killed between 100,000 and 400,000 Cambodians, how could it not be? I have met people in Kampong Thom, right in the middle of the country, that talked about living in complete destitution for years due to the effects of the bombing, before Pol Pot's takeover. There is also quite a bit of shrapnel and unexploded ordinance laying around there still too.

There is just no doubt that this would not have happened if not for the Vietnam war. You can blame China as well of course, but don't forget that the US government began aiding the Khmer Rouge at a later point in time again too.

Try reading "My War with the CIA" by Norodom Sihanouk if you want a different perspective on all this.

grawprog• 6 years ago

My last boss is probably one of the few people I know I would consider an actual genuine hero. He singlehandedly rescued his family from the Khmer Rouge and smuggled them out of the country through China, then to Britain and finally Canada. He started a business from nothing here and is probably the best employer i've ever had. His nephew was the manager while I worked there and is one of the greatest people i've met and became a good friend. Him and the rest of my boss' family wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for him. He lost a lot of friends and family because of the genocides.

Natsu• 6 years ago

Yeah, I didn't appreciate this until I read about the survivors, but it's freaky to imagine that one day you go from living relatively normally, to being marched out of Phenom Penh at gunpoint by teenagers, separated from your family, and forced to become rice farming slaves.

And they were slaves, one story is about a person who was starving, just like everyone else, who dared to catch a fish that swam between their legs to eat. They were shot for that.

They also practiced eating the rich in the literal sense. For whatever odd cultural reason, they enjoyed eating human livers from people who were executed.

When the civil war ended, the king asked the people to return their guns. The Khmer Rouge kept theirs and intercepted shipments thereof, easily taking over the disarmed areas.

totetsu• 6 years ago

I grew up in a town that received many Cambodian people displaced by this from Thai refugee camps. It's hard to imagine what my friends parents went through to keep their children alive. I have fond memories of their temple festivals and foods. I'm so grateful for societies that can include refugees and let people live a peaceful life.

zozbot234• 6 years ago

Article is from (2016)

dang3• 6 years ago

Thanks! Added.

ralfd• 6 years ago

Funny, did you find that from the „notice the skulls“ reference in a certain subreddit?

exolymph2• 6 years ago

Haha yes I did!

sfpoet• 6 years ago

I still get chills hearing about Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge. This article struck me in a different way: the farmers vs urbanites. I never saw it this way before.

topspin• 6 years ago

Russia exhibited the opposite phenomena. In part it was urbanites vs farmers. The "kulak" was the source of all evil and had to be brought to heel through collectivization.

The most effective technique the Soviets found to accomplish this was mass starvation.

lostlogin2• 6 years ago

I mostly agree - though the role of complete incompetence and mismanagement shouldn’t be overlooked.

mc323• 6 years ago

It doesn’t matter who. The mechanism is always divide and conquer with the help of “useful idiots” in their parlance who are usually very enthusiastic members who believe the dogma a little too much and thus get in the way of “progress” and get “ditched” so to speak.

3131s4• 6 years ago

These were not "useful idiots", and I don't think this oversimplification will help anyone understand what really happened in Cambodia. The mostly teenage-aged members of the Khmer Rouge had legitimate grievances of their own and Pol Pot capitalized on this, the extreme brutality of the US government, to oust the Lon Nol government on the basis of its alignment with the US.

refurb12• 6 years ago

The Khmer Rouge weren’t dumb. Pol Pot came from a wealthy family and was educated at the top French-Cambodian schools.

Similar to the North Vietnamese massacre of 3,000 civilians during the Battle of Hue, it’s the doctors, teachers, professors and other elite who have the power to oppose you. The rural folks have little power or money to resist.

WillPostForFood• 6 years ago

Pol Pot came from a wealthy family and was educated at the top French-Cambodian schools.

And actually went to Paris for schooling.

cpursley• 6 years ago

Maybe I'm not so paranoid after all about the hints of a sort of cultural revolution going on in the US.

chinhodado5• 6 years ago

A bit off topic, but I was curious about the 3000 number and went to read about the Hue massacre on Wikipedia. Then I switched to the Vietnamese version of the article and the event was portrayed in a completely different light. Both versions are well sourced and well cited, yet they offer two completely different versions of the events as well as the overall conclusions of who was responsible and what happened.

It's interesting to say the least to see how a supposedly neutral source like Wikipedia can be manipulated to drive different view points.

x87678r• 6 years ago

Chinese Cultural Revolution was similar country vs city as well.

chinhodado5• 6 years ago

As a Vietnamese, one of the sad thing about this whole ordeal was how Vietnam's involvement in this was viewed under a very negative light by the world.

The year was 1978. Vietnam had just came out of the country's great war 3 years earlier, and was extremely exhausted to put it lightly. The last thing it wanted was getting in another war. But it had no choice. The Khmer Rouge crossed the Cambodian - Vietnamese border, looted nearby villages and massacred the people. You can read up on the details, but be warned the atrocities will ruin your day.

Under the circumstances which can be argued as an existential threat, Vietnam had no choice but to launch attack on the Khmer Rouge and swiftly got rid of them and liberated the Cambodian people, ending the genocide.

Yet the world's view on this has been incredibly negative. Even now, Vietnam is often seen as the invader, the aggressor in the conflict instead of the Cambodian people's liberator.

walrus0112• 6 years ago

I can tell you that from at least this Canadian's perspective, using military force to eliminate the Khmer Rouge was no less necessary than using military force to eliminate the Nazi control of Germany. I think you'll find that among people who have extensively studied asian and southeast asian history and military topics, it's almost universally agreed upon how evil their regime was.

The full weight of the evidence for how many people they killed, which only surfaced by the mid to late 1980s, only further reinforces this.

cryptonector2• 6 years ago

Mind you, the Vietnamese government went to war with the Khmer Rouge because the latter attacked Vietnam, not because the killing fields became unacceptable.

notahacker4• 6 years ago

Vietnam's removal of the Khmer Rouge was certainly necessary and ultimately spared a lot of people further suffering, but Vietnam's 'good guy' status in the conflict is somewhat dented by the fact that they'd provided the military support to help install the Khmer Rouge in the first place [see also a lot of other 'world policing' actions...] before the Khmer Rouge decided that Vietnam was an enemy due to a mix of ethnic and ideological hatred and being on different sides of the Sino Soviet split.

The Sino Soviet split was also a big deal for international and especially Western perceptions of Vietnamese involvement at the time: China at the time not only viewed Vietnam as an enemy but also the Khmer Rouge as an ally, and even pressured other anti-Vietnamese Cambodian exile factions to involve the defeated Khmer Rouge in their government in exile.

The regime the Vietnamese installed was less spectacularly genocidal but certainly very dubious, although it says a lot about the weirdness of Cambodian realpolitik that Hun Sen, the former Khmer Rouge cadre the Vietnamese installed as deputy PM, has held continuous office since then through years of decreasing Vietnamese influence and then a transition to notional multiparty democracy and capitalist oligarchy including coalitions with his former enemies. And that's even before we get into how many times the Cambodian king switched sides...

xuki• 6 years ago

You gotta see it from the other sides too. Vietnam had a strong standing army and took over a sovereign country, not that they had many choices, but that made the whole South East Asia uncomfortable. Who would be next? Thailand? Malaysia? Singapore? In fact, ASEAN was formed originally to fight communism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASEAN_Declaration

refurb12• 6 years ago

As I'm sure you know, there is a lot of history between the Vietnamese and Cambodians. I understood that Cambodians hold a lot of animosity when the Vietnamese took the Mekong delta from Cambodia in 1698. They ended up as 2nd class citizens and the Khmer Rouge figured it was a good time to take it back.

And one can't ignore North Vietnam's support of the Khmer Rouge early on.

On 29 March 1970, North Vietnam launched an offensive against the Cambodian army. Documents uncovered from the Soviet Union's archives reveal that the invasion was launched at the Khmer Rouge's explicit request after negotiations were held with Nuon Chea.[33] A North Vietnamese force quickly overran large parts of eastern Cambodia reaching within 15 miles (24 km) of Phnom Penh before being pushed back....After defeating those forces, the North Vietnamese turned the newly won territories over to the local insurgents.[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide

chinhodado5• 6 years ago

About North Vietnam's support of the Khmer Rouge early on, it's worth viewing things in historical context. During the Cambodian coup of 1970, Vietnamese ethnic was massacred:

Paranoia flourished and this set off a violent reaction against the nation's 400,000 ethnic Vietnamese.
Lon Nol hoped to use the Vietnamese as hostages against PAVN/Viet Cong activities, and the military set about rounding them up into detention camps. That was when the killing began. In towns and villages all over Cambodia, soldiers and civilians sought out their Vietnamese neighbors in order to murder them. On 15 April, the bodies of 800 Vietnamese floated down the Mekong River and into South Vietnam. [1]

Under the circumstances, the North Vietnamese allied with the Khmer Rouge and the ousted Sihanouk to take back the government from Lon Nol. In the beginning there was no sign of a genocidal regime, and the Khmer Rouges were just "comrades" supported by the Cambodian prince trying to take back his government. It was not until later that ethnic and ideological hatred turned the Khmer Rouge against their Vietnamese allies.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_Civil_War

dr_dshiv5• 6 years ago

Marx on the need for a dictatorship of the proletariat, 1850:

"When the Democrats propose measures which are not revolutionary, but merely reformist, the workers must press them to the point of turning such measures into direct attacks on private property; thus, for example, if the small middle class propose to purchase the railways and factories the workers must demand that such railways and factories, being the property of the reactionaries, shall be simply confiscated by the State, without compensation. If the Democrats propose a proportional tax, the workers must demand a progressive tax; if the Democrats themselves declare for a moderate progressive tax, the workers must insist on a tax so steeply graduated as to cause the collapse of large fortunes; if the Democrats demand the regulation of the State debt, the workers must demand State bankruptcy.

Thus the demands of the workers must everywhere be directed against the concessions and measures of the Democrats.... to concentrate as much power as possible in the hands of the State. They need not be misled by democratic platitudes about the freedom of the Communes, self-determination, etc. Their battle-cry must be ‘the revolution in permanence.’”

EarthIsHome2• 6 years ago

The phrase "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" used to trip me up. It is the will of the people: a true democracy.

As much as we call what we have a "democracy", we don't live in one; it's an illusion. What we have is a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie that ignores the masses.

dr_dshiv5• 6 years ago

While Marx surely thought his program was in the best interests of the proletariat, the dictatorship was a dictatorship not a democracy:

"The most effective lever for the achievement of this object is the conquest of political power. With its aid the proletariat can consciously carry out the transformation of a Capitalist into a Communist society. To this transformation, there also corresponds a political transition period, the state of which can be nothing else than a revolutionary Dictatorship of the Proletariat." — Marx, Letter to the German Social Democracy, 1875

The Khmer Rouge was that "political transition period" Marx spoke of.

mhh__• 6 years ago

"Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"

refurb12• 6 years ago

The will of some people. Of course the people that oppose you are against “the will of the people” and over the course of the “revolutionary struggle” it would be a shame if those people dissappeared.

rumanator8• 6 years ago

What we have is a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie that ignores the masses.

Sounds like you've lost yourself in your wordplay. Where you draw the line between your "masses" and your "bourgeoise"?

geodel• 6 years ago

Well that was then. This time we got it right.

ZeroGravitas2• 6 years ago

Does this skip over any bits or did it really go from "royal hanger on learns colonialism is bad in Paris" to "let's teach the kids how to torture people" really quickly in reality?

walrus0112• 6 years ago

It significant skips over pretty much the entire biography of Pol Pot and his early life, which can be found on the wikipedia page and linked citations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot

1MachineElf2• 6 years ago

A family member who was there provided me these points:

As the civil war ended, the armed population was told by the king to give their weapons back to the government. The Khmer Rouge kept their arms and 1) easily overtook disarmed areas, and 2) intercepted the shipments of arms which were collected.

cryptonector2• 6 years ago

[deleted]

dang3• 6 years ago

Please don't post generic ideological boilerplate to HN. An internet forum is incapable of treating this material in any way other than predictable, tedious flamewar.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

sitkack• 6 years ago

Did you train your screed with a mix of William Buckley and GPT2?

1MachineElf2• 6 years ago

My fianceé's mother was one of those children who was seperated from her parents in Cambodia during this time. What became of them is unknown, but it could have been any of the gruesome fates covered by this exposé. I learned a portion of the story from what she could share through tears, and thanks to this article I now understand more.

Thanks for sharing. One day I will need to go there and see some of these sites for myself.

walrus0112• 6 years ago

For anyone who hasn't seen it, I recommend watching The Killing Fields. Obviously it's from a very British/American perspective. Since I doubt that the film production companies that made it are earning much, if any revenue from it these days, I don't feel bad about linking to a torrent of it:

https://rarbg.to/torrent/cbm3x4z

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields_(film)

anonAndOn2• 6 years ago

Highly recommended. Haing Ngor won the Best Supporting Academy Award for his portrayal which also may have offended Pol Pot/the Khmer rouge enough to get him killed. [0]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haing_S._Ngor

hutzlibu2• 6 years ago

"Defense attorneys suggested the murder was a politically motivated killing carried out by sympathizers of the Khmer Rouge, but offered no evidence to support this theory.[13] Kang Kek Iew, a former Khmer Rouge official on trial in Cambodia, claimed in November 2009 that Ngor was murdered on Pol Pot's orders, but U.S. investigators did not find him credible."

More likely just murder and theft, it seems.

dr_dshiv5• 6 years ago

As described in PBS’s Frontline documentary series, “Instead of becoming pariahs, the Khmer Rouge continued to play a significant role in Cambodian politics for the next two decades.The Khmer Rouge would likely not have survived without the support of its old patron China and a surprising new ally: the United States. Norodom Sihanouk, now in exile after briefly serving as head of state under the Khmer Rouge, formed a loose coalition with the guerillas to expel the Vietnamese from Cambodia. The United States gave the Sihanouk-Khmer Rouge coalition millions of dollars in aid while enforcing an economic embargo against the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian government. The Carter administration helped the Khmer Rouge keep its seat at the United Nations, tacitly implying that they were still the country’s legitimate rulers."

leephillips2• 6 years ago

This was aided by Noam Chomsky, who used his considerable influence to cast doubt on the idea that the genocide had happened at all.

Cyph0n• 6 years ago

We’re going to need a reference for this one.

dr_dshiv5• 6 years ago

References and nuance here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide_denial

boomboomsubban11• 6 years ago

Ignoring how you are misconstruing his views on the genocide, when has Chomsky had considerable influence on US foreign policy?

sadfev• 6 years ago

Yup, Chomsky conveniently denies this Genocide.

alentist• 6 years ago

This is not an isolated incident, unfortunately. He also praised Mao’s policies shortly after they caused the worst famine in human history.

https://newcriterion.com/issues/2003/5/the-hypocrisy-of-noam...

teruakohatu• 6 years ago

For me this comment has no up vote or down vote button, and I have not already up/down voted it (there is no unvote/undown button) . Is this the result of moderator action?

vangelis• 6 years ago

What policies did he make again?

aaron6952• 6 years ago

During the shutdown of Cambodia when direct information was not known Chomsky correctly pointed out refugees lie.

Which is the problem of just learning factoids and just stating them. In this case he was horrifically incorrect with his conclusion.

Perhaps due to his left wing bias, that's the part that's hard to know, but I guess what we really are asking.

phenkdo2• 6 years ago

This is a great "follow-up" documentary about the reporter investigating his family's deaths and talking to Pol Pot's deputy "brother number 2" icymi

https://enemiesofthepeoplemovie.com/

refurb12• 6 years ago

Holy god that trailer is chilling.

peisistratos3• 6 years ago

The US tends to play word games to where they never armed the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the 1970s and 1980s.

In the same manner its easy to play word games to where after years of screaming headlines about genocide (which I guess does not include the US carpet bombing of Cambodia), as soon as the Khmer Rouge, whatever that is supposed to be, gets pushed out of power in 1979, the US begins aiding the KR in a myriad of ways, including in 1985 when it began somewhat openly, somewhat clandestinely, arming the Khmer Rouge. ( This marks the start of the heavy armament https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/10/world/u-s-may-help-2-rebe... - note all the denials that any of the arms are going to the KR - later reports showed they indeed were).

It's kind of amusing to watch Americans in hysterics claiming a group is committing genocide, then arming that group for victory in their civil war, then going back to tearing their shirts about this genocide they claim happened. If it happened, then the good old USA armed the KR after all the period it supposedly happened.

drocer882• 6 years ago

Do you have any evidence that the U.S. directly supported the Taliban or al-Qaeda?

walrus0112• 6 years ago

They didn't, he's oversimplifying it greatly. The US armed the Mujahadeen throughout the 1980s (through the Pakistani ISI and Pakistani state), leaving behind a vast amount of unused weaponry in Afghanistan. This was during the period prior to the soviet ground forces' withdrawal from Afghanistan and prior to the ending of the Najibullah government, and the killing of Najibullah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Najibullah

It definitely is a fact that during the 1980s the US pursued a policy of "the enemy of my enemy...", in which the hardcore fundamentalist/sharia law politics and religious ideology of some of the mujahadeen they supported (Bin Laden included), were seen as secondary or tertiary to the primary mission of killing soviet soldiers, and bringing about the end of the soviet-backed government.

Some of the former Muj, predominantly the very fundamentalist Pashtun factions, later became the Taliban which seized Kandahar in 1994, and then Kabul in 1996. At that point the US had not been supporting them for at least 4 years. After the Taliban became an actual "thing" the US shifted its support to the northern alliance/northern warlords such as Dostum and Massoud.

refurb12• 6 years ago

You’re playing word games too. The US never armed the Taliban. Yes, the US armed anti-Soviet fighters in the 80’s and many of those fighter ended up joining the Taliban years later, but to say “the US armed the Taliban” is being dishonest.

dang3• 6 years ago

Please don't take HN further into political, ideological, and nationalistic flamewar. It's tedious and evokes worse from others.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

aaron6952• 6 years ago

I think by far the best documentary on Cambodia is -

The Cambodian Space Project: Not Easy Rock'n'Roll (2015) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4678238/

It ties the past to the present and it doesn't bring the whole country to that one incident but also acknowledges it has affected so much.

Freeboots• 6 years ago

In a similar vein, Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll

sleepyhead• 6 years ago

Oh didn’t know there was a documentary, will check it out. I saw them do a musical in Kampot which was very interesting. RIP Srey Thy, too early.

Jenz2• 6 years ago

The Khmer Rouge believed that parents were tainted with capitalism, so they separated children from their parents, indoctrinated them in communism, and taught them torture methods with animals. Children were a “dictatorial instrument of the party” and were given leadership in torture and executions.

This sounds like it’s taken straight out of Orwells 1984.

notahacker4• 6 years ago

Wait until you read about the forced confession extraction in S-21 / Tuol Sleng...

Jenz2• 6 years ago

I came back here in a hurry, having just read that part... where did they get this from? Why on earth would they be interested in forcing ‘confessions’ out of people, just to execute them later?

Maybe my initial comment should be that this is taken out from [a book] that both Orwell, and the Khmer Rouge has read; which book would this be?

at_a_remove2• 6 years ago

It's enlightening to contemplate the impact of such a thing, all the way out to the song "Holiday in Cambodia." Imagine seeing a tree with a plaque on it stating that this was the place where they used to smash infants' heads against the trunk. They were always just one murder away from achieving perfection, and in light of such a goal, what is a single life?

I was recently remarking to someone on their Year Zero, their willful destruction of all that had gone before. Certainly we have seen it with ISIS and Mao encouraged it for that revolution, but this was much more thorough. Pagodas were turned into warehouses and statues were of course destroyed. It certainly seem to be a common thread in communist revolutions: all that has gone before must be destroyed.

Now I am going to see if I cannot find Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia.

kikokikokiko2• 6 years ago

History is a series of bad remakes that should never have been made. The US seem to be going on a very good direction, toppling Washington and Jefferson's statues lately.

ipnon2• 6 years ago

I take the Spike Lee approach, if people are going to violently vent their anger its better they destroy some object than end someones life. We can always make another statue.

pnw_hazor4• 6 years ago

"In Washington, then-Representative Christopher Dodd of Connecticut averred: ``The greatest gift our country can give to the Cambodian people is peace, not guns. And the best way to accomplish that goal is by ending military aid now.''"

"In the news columns of The New York Times, the celebrated Sydney Schanberg wrote of Cambodians that ``it is difficult to imagine how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone.'' He dismissed predictions of mass executions in the wake of a Khmer Rouge victory: ``It would be tendentious to forecast such abnormal behavior as national policy under a Communist government once the war is over.'' On April 13, 1975, Schanberg's dispatch from Phnom Penh was headlined, ``Indochina without Americans: for most, a better life.''"

http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/...

longtimegoogler• 6 years ago

The irony is that many will say the same about the US invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam Hussain.

Often there are no easy answers. Did Dodd know the full extent of the Khmer Rouge's crimes?

snicker7• 6 years ago

My grandfather was a victim (he was educated and a well-to-do farmer). They beheaded him in front of the village. My mother and her family were forced to watch and clap.

3131s4• 6 years ago

That's tragic.

My mother-in-law lost her parents and six siblings all on the same day... she was the oldest and the only one to have moved out of the family home already. She had also recently had a baby and lost the child, because she herself was starving from the forced labor and could not produce breast milk.

gus_massa• 6 years ago

There is an interesting video about this in the "Rare Earth" channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUCiADFjQG0 (He has a more videos about Cambodia.)

botwriter• 6 years ago

Before Covid I was living out in Phnom Penh. I adore Cambodia and its people who are some of the friendliest people I've ever met in the world!

The Khmer Rouge were a mixture of Marxism and Khmer nationalism. Black lives matter is a mixture of Marxism and Black nationalism...

It's very apt to have this article here. I'll always challenge Marxism because I've seem the results and what it does to people. My landlord was a child solider his mother a lovely elderly women who's only English was "hello" with a very toothless grin. But if children walked past she would go silent because when the Khmer rouge were in power if children heard you say anything which could be construed as wrong you'd be murdered.

The Khmer don't talk of post traumatic stress they call it 'broken courage'.

I've met so many people who's parents did amazing things. My ex girlfriends grandfather fled to Thailand as he was a teacher and considered educated. Her father worked the field during the Khmer rouge period afterwards who got an education where he could and put himself through medical school and became a doctor. He's one of the most incredible people I've ever met. My ex keeps a picture of him in her purse on the back in written my hero my father.

You do walk around and see old people and the thought does wonder in your mind are you a victim of genocide or a war criminal. The Khmer have forgiven though and should be an inspiration to us all.

Black lives matter terrifies me because I look back in history and I've seen what racial Marxism does!

kls2• 6 years ago

They will argue that true communism has not been given it's fair shake, the US intervention prevented it, and that this time they will get it right. They could not package traditional communism in a palatable manner so the Marxist went back to the drawing board and packaged it with social issues. Anytime the government get's involved in social issues it becomes a mess, personal liberties get infringed on and it turns out bad.

mr_overalls• 6 years ago

I attended a university-based martial arts class in the late 1990s. A somewhat-elderly Asian lady (probably mid-50's) began attending classes and progressing through the ranks. She was kind of. . . well, a goofball. Transgressive sort of humor. Made jokes about people's girlfriends. Laughed through demos.

The only time I saw her utterly serious is when the instructor showed off some knife-defense techniques he learned at a seminar. She got a weird look on her face at the overly-styled techniques we were being show and very clearly said, "We did it like this in Cambodia." She grabbed the rubber knife from the sensei, seemingly teleported behind his back, clamped a hand over his mouth, and drew the knife across his throat. "So they no hear any noise," she explained. As a bunch of 20-something kids, we looked on in horror. She seemed to remember herself and looked embarrassed. Left early from class and never came back.

mdxchhcxdm2• 6 years ago

My parents survived this awful tragedy. They shared stories of how they dealt with the intense hunger, exhaustion, and living in a state of perpetual terror. More often, they'd speak of the family that were taken from them-- uncles, aunts, and grandparents that I'll never meet. My grandpa was a musician that composed much of the popular Khmer music of the 60s influenced by American rock. Nothing has been more devastating than not knowing the whereabouts of loved ones. One of the most brutal legacies of the Khmer Rouge is the separation and destruction of families and communities.

Through a DNA testing site, we recently matched with an unknown relative, leading to a joyful reunion between my mom and an aunt who cared for her before the war.

DNA analysis has helped identify the unknown remains of Pearl Harbor service members[1], bringing closure for families. I'm certain this technology could do the same for many Cambodian families.

[1] https://www.dpaa.mil/News-Stories/Recent-News-Stories/Articl...

hackerbabz• 6 years ago

Sinn Sisamouth?

mdxchhcxdm2• 6 years ago

No, but he did compose songs for Sinn Sisamouth, who often brought sweets for my mom whenever he visited their home in Phnom Penh.

exolymph2• 6 years ago

Thank you for sharing your story.

todaysAI• 6 years ago

I'm sorry I read about S-21 years ago because it stays with me to this day due to one thing: the lack of mercy.

It somehow compels me to go see it even though I have resisted the idea. I know I will one day.

The Khmer Rouge: Genocide in the Name of Utopia (2016)

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