Democratic Kampuchea
| 1975 – 1982 | |||||||||||
Top: (1975 - 76)
Bottom: (1976 - 82) Emblem
(1975–82) | |||||||||||
| Anthem: បទនគររាជ Nôkôr Réach "Majestic Kingdom" (1975–1976) ដប់ប្រាំពីរមេសាមហាជោគជ័យ Dâb Prămpir Mésa Môha Choŭkchoăy "Victorious Seventeenth of April" (1976–1982) | |||||||||||
Location of Democratic Kampuchea | |||||||||||
| Capital | Phnom Penh | ||||||||||
| Official languages | Khmer | ||||||||||
| Religion | State atheism | ||||||||||
| Demonym(s) | Kampuchean • Cambodian | ||||||||||
| Government | Unitary one-party socialist republic under a totalitarian dictatorship (under a coalition government from 75 - 76)[1][2][3] | ||||||||||
| General Secretary | |||||||||||
• 1975 – 1979 | Pol Pot | ||||||||||
| Head of State | |||||||||||
• 1975 – 1976 | Norodom Sihanouk | ||||||||||
• 1976 – 1979 | Khieu Samphan | ||||||||||
| Prime Minister | |||||||||||
• 1975 – 1976 | Penn Nouth | ||||||||||
• 1976 | Khieu Samphan | ||||||||||
• 1976 – 1979 | Pol Pot | ||||||||||
| Legislature | Kampuchean People's Representative Assembly | ||||||||||
| Historical era | Cold War | ||||||||||
| 17 April 1975 | |||||||||||
• Proclamation | 15 January 1976 | ||||||||||
| 7 January 1979 | |||||||||||
• Establishment of the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea | 22 June 1982 | ||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||
| 181,035 km2 (69,898 sq mi) | |||||||||||
| Currency | None | ||||||||||
| Driving side | right | ||||||||||
| Calling code | 855 | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Today part of | Cambodia | ||||||||||
Democratic Kampuchea was the official name of Cambodia, or Kampuchea, from 1976 to January 1979. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge ruled the country. When Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1979 and took over the government, Democratic Kampuchea became the People's Republic of Kampuchea.
Cambodian genocide
As many as 3,000,000 Cambodians (1⁄3 of the Cambodian population) died in the Cambodian genocide (Khmer: ហាយនភាពខ្មែរ / ការប្រល័យពូជសាសន៍ខ្មែរ) committed by Democratic Kampuchea's Khmer Rouge regime.[4] This was around 25% of the population: one in every four people.[5]
Killing fields
The Khmer Rouge massacred at least hundreds of thousands of people in the "killing fields," and buried them in mass graves to destroy evidence that could be used for proving their genocide.[4][6] They also forced city populations into the countryside to work in labor camps, where many died from starvation, overwork, and disease.[6]
End
In January 1979, communist Vietnam invaded Cambodia. They wanted to oust Pol Pot from power as his army had crossed the Cambodian–Vietnamese border to massacred Vietnamese civilians.[7] They removed the Khmer Rouge from power and propped up another pro-Vietnamese communist dictatorship, which was not recognized by many UN members.[7] Hundreds of thousands of survivors fled to refugee camps in Thailand,[8]: 45 Many of whom immigrated to the United States afterwards.
Trials
In 2006, the United Nations and the Cambodian government established a special court called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). This court has tried some former Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes against humanity.[6]
Kaing Guek Eav – also known as Comrade Duch – was the first to be tried before the ECCC. Eav was the head of Security Prison 21 during the genocide. The court found him guilty of crimes against humanity and breaking the Geneva Conventions of 1949.[9] He was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment.[10]
In 2011, the ECCC convicted two top Khmer Rouge officials, Noun Chea and Khieu Samphan, for crimes against humanity, genocide, and breaking the Geneva Conventions.[10]
References
- ↑ Jackson, Karl D. (1989). Cambodia, 1975–1978: Rendezvous with Death. Princeton University Press. p. 219. ISBN 0-691-02541-X.
- ↑ "Khmer Rouge's Slaughter in Cambodia Is Ruled a Genocide". The New York Times. 15 November 2018. Archived from the original on 13 April 2019. Retrieved 13 April 2019.
- ↑ Kiernan, B. (2004) How Pol Pot came to Power. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. xix
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Khmer Rouge". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
- ↑
- Heuveline 2001, pp. 102–105: "As best as can now be estimated, over two million Cambodians died during the 1970s because of the political events of the decade, the vast majority of them during the mere four years of the 'Khmer Rouge' regime. This number of deaths is even more staggering when related to the size of the Cambodian population, then less than eight million. ... Subsequent reevaluations of the demographic data situated the death toll for the [civil war] in the order of 300,000 or less."
- Kiernan 2003b, pp. 586–587: "We may safely conclude, from known pre- and post-genocide population figures and from professional demographic calculations, that the 1975–79 death toll was between 1.671 and 1.871 million people, 21 to 24 percent of Cambodia's 1975 population."
- Sullivan, Meg (16 April 2015). "UCLA demographer produces best estimate yet of Cambodia's death toll under Pol Pot". UCLA. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
- Tyner, James A.; Molana, Hanieh Haji (1 March 2020). "Ideologies of Khmer Rouge Family Policy: Contextualizing Sexual and Gender-Based Violence during the Cambodian Genocide". Genocide Studies International. 13 (2): 168–189. doi:10.3138/gsi.13.2.03. ISSN 2291-1847. S2CID 216505042. Archived from the original on 9 April 2023. Retrieved 31 May 2022.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Khmer Rouge leader admits crimes
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Vietnam's forgotten Cambodian war". BBC News. 2014-09-14. Retrieved 2024-10-26.
- ↑ Caldwell, Malcolm. 1975. "Cambodia: Rationale for a Rural Policy." pp. 26–103 in Malcolm Caldwell’s South East Asia, edited by B. Hering and E. Utrecht. Townsville, Australia: Committee of South-East Asian Studies, James Cook University of North Queensland.
- ↑ Rashid, Norul Mohamed. "Judgment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) against Kaing Guek Eav alias Duch (2010)". United Nations and the Rule of Law. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 "The Extraordinary Chambers". Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. Retrieved 2024-10-24.