History Fix

Ep. 72 Khmer Rouge: How a Violent Government Murdered 1/4 of Cambodia's Population

• Shea LaFountaine • Episode 72

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In 1975, the Khmer Rouge stormed into Cambodia's capital city of Phnom Penh victorious after 5 years of civil war. The people rejoiced. They thought the victors were there to liberate them, to restore peace and order after years of fighting. That couldn't have been farther from the truth. Over the next 4 years, the Khmer Rouge communist regime would force people into the countryside to work in rice fields night and day, where many died of starvation and disease. They killed the weak, the slow, the intellectuals, anyone who thought for themselves was a threat. In just 4 years, an estimated 2 million Cambodians were murdered by the Khmer Rouge. How could this happen? Join me to discover how the pieces came together, how this violent regime used fear and manipulation to control the masses, and how we can stop it from happening again. Knowledge is power.   

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“I was fifteen years old when the Khmer Rouge came to power in April 1975. I can still remember how overwhelmed with joy I was that the war had finally ended. It did not matter who won. I and many Cambodians wanted peace at any price. The civil war had tired us out, and we could not make much sense out of killing our own brothers and sisters for a cause that was not ours. We were ready to support our new government to rebuild our country. We wanted to bring back that slow-paced, simple life we grew up with and loved dearly. At the time we didn't realize how high the price was that we had to pay for the Khmer Rouge's peace.” These are the words of Teeda Butt Mam, a teenager living in Cambodia’s capital of Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge, a revolutionary communist government, took over the country in the mid 1970s. She reports being relieved, full of hope, that war was over and peace had arrived. But, did you know, the real nightmare was only just beginning? Let’s fix that. 


Hello, I’m Shea LaFountaine and you’re listening to History Fix where I discuss lesser known true stories from history you won’t be able to stop thinking about. This topic was recommended by my dear friends Jamie and Anna who visited the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge on a trip to Cambodia and are still quite shook by what they learned. I don’t think many Americans are super educated about this, I certainly wasn’t. I don’t think many Americans, or westerners in general, are very educated about non western history. And this is non western history. But, of course, it involves western interference, and not in good ways, which is probably part of the reason this story isn’t exactly shouted from the rooftops here. Also, this is not distant history. The horrors I’m about to tell you about happened relatively recently, like, many people alive then are still alive today, that probably includes some of you listening right now. But before I go any further, I need to make a quick disclaimer. This is a heavy one guys. Some of this is going to be hard to hear, hard to know. This is probably not the best episode to listen to with or around children. I know I have quite a few young listeners and I love you guys dearly but this may be an adults only History Fix episode. I’ll also try to give you a heads up if I’m about to disclose something particularly horrific, like skip ahead 30 seconds, that sort of thing. 


Before we get into it, you should know that I launched a fresh new Mini Fix this week on the Patreon called Poisoned or Not Poisoned? Where I examine alleged cases of historical poisonings. That is only for Patreon subscribers, click the link in the description to subscribe if you haven’t yet. It’s well worth it. Here’s a sneak peek chunk from like the middle of the episode. You can also listen to the first 5 minutes even without subscribing over on Patreon if you want more of a taster. 


[sample of Poisoned or not Poisoned]


Listen to more of that over on Patreon including the alleged poisonings of Socrates, Cleopatra, Mozart, Napoleon, and more. Now back to today’s story. 


Cambodia is a country in Southeast Asia that is bordered by Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. But, it used to be much larger than it is today. Cambodia used to be called the Khmer Empire and it used to include almost all of the land now belonging to those three neighboring countries. The Khmer Empire lasted from the year 802 until 1431. These are the people who built the famous temple Angkor Wat. But eventually pressure from the east and west as modern day Thailand and Vietnam attempted to expand into Khmer territory, caused it to shrink considerably to the size of Cambodia today. By 1863, the Khmer Empire was no more, and its remnants were disorganized and defenseless. This led to an easy takeover by the French who ruled Cambodia as a colony for 90 years. So this is the first instance of Western interference we see that will play a role in what happens next. 


In 1953 Cambodia regained its independence from France. Also, Vietnam and Laos, two of its rival neighbors became embroiled in internal conflicts and Civil Wars. So Cambodia was like “alright, it’s go time, we are rising from the ashes as all of these oppressors sort of self-destruct.” And King Norodom Sihanouk (see-uh-nook), who had campaigned for an end of French colonial rule, returned from exile now it was over to lead the country. Now the timing of this was not great, though, because of what was going on elsewhere in the world. This was not a great time to be a fledgling government, especially not in that location. Because at this time, in the 1950s, it’s the cold war. The world is torn between democracy in North America and most of Europe and communism headed by the Soviet Union and China. And this tear really opens up in Vietnam. Most countries just kind of picked a side “oh, we’re going democracy all the way,” “eh, we’re feeling communism.” In Vietnam, they were split. In 1954, Vietnam split into a pro-communist north and a pro-western democracy south. Now, Cambodia, which like just got its independence from France last year tried to remain neutral. They’re like “whatever, democracy, communism, you’re all lovely just please leave us alone and let us, you know, figure out how to be a country for sec.” But the US never leaves anybody alone, except for Europe from 1939 to 1941, unfortunately. But otherwise, you know, we like to meddle. So the US viewed Cambodia as a buffer against the spread of communism that was happening in North Vietnam. The US became obsessed with stopping the spread of communism in Southeast Asia even though it was, literally, as far away from us as possible. In 1954, President Eisenhower said at a press conference quote “You have a row of dominoes set up. You knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly,” end quote. And this domino theory prompted America to take action against communism over the next couple decades. 


So the US is trying to curry favor with Cambodia because they want it as a buffer zone and Sihanouk, the king slash prime minister guy (he was king and then he switched to prime minister), he leans into this at first, and he accepts military assistance from the US. But, the US just cannot stop meddling so they’re getting more and more involved in the conflicts that were happening in Vietnam and Laos. These were internal conflicts, civil wars, that we felt compelled to interfere with in order to stop this theoretical domino effect Eisenhower had warned of. But Sihanouk, over in Cambodia, he’s not liking this. He’s not liking how the US is butting into these issues his neighbors are having and so he starts to distance Cambodia from the west. But also, at the same time, communist North Vietnam had its own interests in Cambodia and they also offered aid to the Cambodian government. So the US and Vietnam are essentially both courting Cambodia and Sihanouk is being pulled in two different directions and also trying to remain neutral, which is never a good look for a leader. Some Cambodians start to lose faith in him and an underground resistance force starts abrewing in 1960. 


It’s just a small collection of politically dissatisfied dudes at first led by Saloth Sar who will later go by the name Pol Pot and Nuon Chea. These guys secretly form the Communist Party of Kampuchea which will later come to be called the Khmer Rouge or Red Khmer, obviously a throwback to the Khmer Empire when Cambodia was on top as the ruling force in the region. So, with the adoption of that name, it’s clear that they are trying to reinstate Cambodia as a world power like it once was. They wanted Cambodia to be self-reliant, free from the influences of other world powers, like the US, but also like Vietnam and Thailand which were its historical enemies, the ones who had destroyed the Khmer Empire in the 1400s. So they see Sihanouk sort of beign tossed around by these two opposing forces, the US and Vietnam, and they’re like enough. We gotta take matters into our own hands. We have to be our own country. Not a pawn in a game of chess. Which is, you know, I get it, I can get behind that sentiment. But their vision for how to become an independent, self-reliant country was ultimately flawed. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum quote “Inspired by the teachings of Mao Zedong, the Khmer Rouge came to espouse a radical agrarian ideology based on strict one-party rule, rejection of urban and Western ideas, and abolition of private property. Increasing food production through collective farming, they believed, would ensure economic security for Cambodia’s overwhelmingly poor village population,” end quote. So the classic communist idea of everyone is equal, everyone works, everyone eats. Except it almost never happens that way. And it won’t happen that way in Cambodia. We’ll get into it soon. Communism is great on paper and terrible in practice because humans can’t ever do communism right. It’s just not in our nature. 


The Khmer Rouge, which started with only a few members in Phnom Penh and eventually fled to the countryside had very few victories at first and honestly seemed destined to fizzle out until the US continued to muddy the waters with their incessant meddling. In March of 1965, US marines landed in South Vietnam (the non communist part), and other US military units soon followed. So this was a major escalation of American involvement in what was happening in Vietnam. North Vietnam starts attacking American troops and the South Vietnam army. And so the US starts bombing North Vietnam. At this point, Sihanouk cuts off all diplomatic relations with the US, remember he was sort of bouncing around sort of being courted by both the US and North Vietnam. Now he’s like, nope to the US and instead he strengthened his relations with North Vietnam. Strengthened them to the point that, by 1967, the North Vietnamese army was operating from sanctuaries just inside Cambodia, so much for remaining neutral. In 1969, US President Richard Nixon secretly ordered the US Air Force to start bombing eastern Cambodia to try to disrupt Vietnamese supply lines. And yet, later that year, Sihanouk actually restored diplomatic ties with the US. This guy just cannot make up his mind and Cambodians are liking him less and less. In March of 1970, when Sihanouk was out of the country for a minute, he was overthrown by a pro-American general named Lon Nol. Feels pretty orchestrated doesn’t it? Like, how convenient for the US that they now have this pro-American ally leading Cambodia. To complicate things even more, when Sihanouk gets ousted, he turns to the Khmer Rouge, this underground resistance group that sprang up because they disliked him and the way he was running the country. He goes on the radio and he starts urging Cambodians to support the Khmer Rouge to try to take back control of Cambodia. 


Now that America is basically running Cambodia through this Lon Nol guy, the conflict really ramps up. North Vietnam moves deeper into Cambodia and starts seizing land for the Khmer Rouge who accept the help even though they are anti-Vietnam in general. In April of 1970, The US and South Vietnam start attacking North Vietnamese forces in Cambodia. And this is highly controversial back in the US. Americans are outraged over the Vietnam war expanding into Cambodia. Many already don’t think we should even be in Vietnam and now we’re fighting in Cambodia too. This is what prompted protests at Kent State University in Ohio that resulted in the killing of 4 and wounding of 9 unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard in May of 1970. Tensions were very high. And in response to the outrage at home, Nixon withdrew US ground troops from Cambodia but he continued to offer extensive military aid to Lon Nol’s government and army to the tune of 1.6 billion dollars and air strikes continued. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum quote “All told, American warplanes dropped more than 2.7 million tons of bombs on more than 113,000 sites in Cambodia, exacting a heavy toll among combatants and civilians alike. More than two million people fled their homes to escape the bombing, ground fighting, and Communist rule. Most ended up in the increasingly crowded Phnom Penh and various provincial cities that the Lon Nol government continued to control,” end quote. So I just need to point a few things out that were caused by or at least heavily influenced by US interference. Number one, North Vietnam ventured farther into Cambodia and started seizing land and giving it to the Khmer Rouge and, number two, US bombing of the Cambodian countryside drove people by the millions into cities controlled by Lon Nol. Both of these will contribute to the atrocities that are about to happen. 


So North Vietnam gives the Khmer Rouge a little boost by giving them land. The Khmer Rouge gains more and more support and eventually starts taking land on their own, advancing towards Phnom Penh where Lon Nol’s government and all these refugees from the US bombing of the countryside are holed up. By April 12th, 1975, the Khmer Rouge has Phnom Penh surrounded and any remaining US forces high tail it out of there like “uhh, sorry for all the meddling, good luck, bye!” The Holocaust Memorial Museum articles says quote “Some historians contend that US military actions in Cambodia inadvertently strengthened the Khmer Rouge and facilitated their eventual victory. In this view, the bombing campaign drove Communist Vietnamese forces deeper into Cambodia and, by killing countless civilians, sowed widespread anger that helped the insurgents recruit supporters. Khmer Rouge fortunes were also helped by Vietnamese and Chinese aid, Sihanouk’s call to arms, and resentment of the widespread corruption that infected Lon Nol’s government and army. US leaders at the time contended they were supporting a legitimate Cambodian government against aggression by Communist Vietnamese forces. Washington hoped that helping Lon Nol would ultimately serve the Cold War goal of stemming Communism’s spread in Southeast Asia. In the end, a Communist movement that in 1970 had been small and largely powerless acquired strength and support sufficient to conquer the entire country,” end quote. So, you know, you decide for yourself if you think the US is responsible, a little bit for the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. 


What happens next is straight out of the worst possible horror story. Worse than any fictional story even the most demented author could dream up. The Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh victorious and, like Teeda said in her memoir I quoted in the opener for this episode, the people were excited, they were supportive, they just wanted peace and they thought the Khmer Rouge was there to deliver it to them. The Holocaust Memorial says quote “However, the conquerors began to reveal their true intent almost immediately. Within hours, they started implementing their radical plan to transform Cambodia into a rural society where all individuals would be harnessed in service of the state. By the afternoon of that very first day, soldiers using bullhorns began ordering the city’s two million residents into the countryside. Houses and schools were emptied at gunpoint, with shots fired if people did not move fast enough. Not even hospitals were spared, with patients forced into the streets. Families split apart as children lost sight of parents in the confusion of the exodus. Thousands of people died in the chaos along jammed roads leading from the capital. Friends and relatives were made to leave behind the bodies and trudge on, carrying what few possessions they could,” end quote. Teeda writes quote “Even after our warmest welcome, the first word from the Khmer Rouge was a lie wrapped around a deep anger and hatred of the kind of society they felt Cambodia was becoming. They told us that Americans were going to bomb the cities. They forced millions of residents of Phnom Penh and other cities out of their homes. They separated us from our friends and neighbors to keep us off balance, to prevent us from forming any alliance to stand up and win back our rights. They ripped off our homes and our possessions. They did this intentionally, without mercy,” end quote. Instead of restoring Sihanouk to power, because remember he had eventually turned to supporting the Khmer Rouge after he got ousted by US blacked Lon Nol - this guy literally could not choose a side, it’s crazy. But instead of putting him back in power, they put Pol Pot in control, one of the founding members of the Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk is exiled which, I don’t know, that seems fair. They could have done a lot worse to him. 


So what’s happening here, why they’re focusing on the cities, is because they’ve divided people into categories based on how trustworthy they are. People who have previously supported the Khmer Rouge are called “old citizens.” They are trustworthy. Those who lived in the cities that had just been under the control of Lon Nol, the US puppet, were viewed as pro-West and were not to be trusted. They were referred to as “new citizens.” Theoretically, they were able to move up to “deportee,” then “candidates” and finally “full rights citizens” through a process of re-education, although it didn’t actually happen that way in practice. So they force them out of the cities and back to the countryside. Teeda wrote in her memoir quote “The people on the Khmer Rouge death list were the group called the city people. They were the "new" people. These were any Cambodian men, women, girls, boys, and babies who did not live in their "liberated zones" before they won the war in 1975. Their crime was that they lived in the enemy's zone, helping and supporting the enemy. The city people were the enemy, and the list was long. Former soldiers, the police, the CIA, and the KGB. Their crime was fighting in the civil war. The merchants, the capitalists, and the businessmen. Their crime was exploiting the poor. The rich farmers and the landlords. Their crime was exploiting the peasants. The intellectuals, the doctors, the lawyers, the monks, the teachers, and the civil servants. These people thought, and their memories were tainted by the evil Westerners. Students were getting education to exploit the poor. Former celebrities, the poets. These people carried bad memories of the old, corrupted Cambodia. The list goes on and on. The rebellious, the kind-hearted, the brave, the clever, the individualists, the people who wore glasses, the literate, the popular, the complainers, the lazy, those with talent, those with trouble getting along with others, and those with soft hands. These people were corrupted and lived off the blood and sweat of the farmers and the poor. Very few of us escaped these categories. My family were not villagers. We were from Phnom Penh. I was afraid of who I was. I was an educated girl from a middle-class family. I could read, write, and think. I was proud of my family and my roots. I was scared that they would hear my thoughts and prayers, that they could see my dreams and feel my anger and disapproval of their regime,” end quote. 


The Khmer Rouge called the country Democratic Kampuchea. They burned books, they destroyed works of art, destroyed temples, all individuality was forbidden. Men and women alike wore shapeless black clothing that became the national uniform. They tried to do away with the traditional family. Children were intentionally separated from their parents and put into traveling labor brigades. People were discouraged from showing any emotion - affection, humor, pity - you literally could not smile, could not laugh. They destroyed the banks. They abolished the national currency, and they confiscated private property, and instead they began this 4 year plan where they are going to grow a ton of rice. This is their plan. They’re just gonna grow more rice than they’ve ever grown before, literally the plan is to grow 3 tons of rice per hectare each year which is an absurd amount. This is Pol Pot’s master plan. Rice. He admired these self-sufficient tribes living in Cambodia’s northeast. He admired how they lived together communally and worked the land. And so this became his vision for all of Cambodia. He wanted to create a self-sufficient, classless, agricultural utopia. And it’s these “new citizens,” the untrustworthy ones from the cities that are being forced to do this backbreaking labor and many of them die. According to a History.com article quote “Workers on the farm collectives established by Pol Pot soon began suffering from the effects of overwork and lack of food. Hundreds of thousands died from disease, starvation or damage to their bodies sustained during back-breaking work or abuse from the ruthless Khmer Rouge guards overseeing the camps,” end quote. 


But it wasn’t just starvation and overwork killing Cambodians. The Khmer Rouge was also just straight up murdering anyone that was viewed as an enemy to what they were trying to achieve. They set up almost 200 prisons around the country where they interrogated, tortured, and murdered people they viewed as potential enemies. One of the most famous in Phnom Penh known as S-21 was a former school. Around 17,000 Cambodians passed through S-21 and only 12 people are known to have survived. One of their slogans was quote “it is better to arrest ten people by mistake than to let one guilty person go free.” They targeted intellectuals, doctors, lawyers, teachers. Well educated people were seen as potential leaders of a counter revolutionary movement. People with glasses or who could speak a second language were singled out. As if wearing glasses is any indication of your intelligence. And they started killing these people by the hundreds of thousands. Skip ahead 30 seconds here if you don’t want to hear some truly dark stuff. They referred to this killing as quote “smashing” people. And that’s what they did, they just smashed them on the back of the head to kill them. Clubbed them to death. Schools were transformed into prisons and the playgrounds were used as killing fields where they murdered people and tossed them into mass graves. Babies were smashed against trees while their mother’s watched. The trees are still there. This is nineteen seventy freaking five, let me remind you. This is not some barbaric distant past. This was recent history. 


Here’s Teeda’s account from her memoir, quote “Then the genocide began. First, it was the men. They took my father. They told my family that my father needed to be reeducated. Brainwashed. But my father's fate is unknown to this day. We can only imagine what happened to him. This is true for almost all Cambodian widows and orphans. We live in fear of finding out what atrocities were committed against our fathers, husbands, brothers. What could they have done that deserved a tortured death? Later the Khmer Rouge killed the wives and children of the executed men in order to avoid revenge. They encouraged children to find fault with their own parents and spy on them. They openly showed their intention to destroy the family structure that once held love, faith, comfort, happiness, and companionship. They took young children from their homes to live in a commune so that they could indoctrinate them. Parents lost their children. Families were separated. We were not allowed to cry or show any grief when they took away our loved ones. A man would be killed if he lost an ox he was assigned to tend. A woman would be killed if she was too tired to work. Human life wasn't even worth a bullet. They clubbed the back of our necks and pushed us down to smother us and let us die in a deep hole with hundreds of other bodies. They told us we were VOID. We were less than a grain of rice in a large pile. The Khmer Rouge said that the Communist revolution could be successful with only two people. Our lives had no significance to their great Communist nation, and they told us, "To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss." They accomplished all of this by promoting and encouraging the "old" people, who were the villagers, the farmers, and the uneducated. They were the most violent and ignorant people, and the Khmer Rouge taught them to lead, manage, control, and destroy. These people took orders without question. The Khmer Rouge built animosity and jealousy into them so the killings could be justified. They ordered us to attend meetings every night where we took turns finding fault with each other, intimidating those around us. We survived by becoming like them. We stole, we cheated, we lied, we hated ourselves and each other, and we trusted no one,” end quote. 


This is all very intentional. They are giving the uneducated people power, the most “violent and ignorant people.” And they are killing the educated people, the intellectuals, anyone who might think for themselves, who might question what the government is doing. And they are pitting the people against each other, making them hate each other, making them hate themselves. No one can band together and rise up to resist a corrupt government when the thinkers have been killed off and everyone else hates each other. Teeda goes on quote “I wanted to commit suicide but I couldn't. If I did, I would be labeled "the enemy" because I dared to show my unhappiness with their regime. My death would be followed by my family's death because they were the family of the enemy. My greatest fear was not my death, but how much suffering I had to go through before they killed me. They kept moving us around, from the fields into the woods. They purposely did this to disorient us so they could have complete control. They did it to get rid of the "useless people." Those who were too old or too weak to work. Those who did not produce their quota. We were cold because we had so few clothes and blankets. We had no shoes. We were sick and had little or no medical care. They told us that we "volunteered" to work fifteen hours or more a day in the rain or in the moonlight with no holidays. We were timid and lost. We had to be silent. We not only lost our identities, but we lost our pride, our senses, our religion, our loved ones, our souls, ourselves,” end quote. 


This new Cambodia was supposed to be a classless society, where everyone was equal. But of course it never works that way. Like I said earlier, true communism goes against human nature. Teeda says quote “The Khmer Rouge said they were creating a utopian nation where everyone would be equal. They restarted our nation by resettling everyone and changing everything back to zero. The whole nation was equally poor. But while the entire population was dying of starvation, disease, and hopelessness, the Khmer Rouge was creating a new upper class. Their soldiers and the Communist party members were able to choose any woman or man they wanted to marry. In addition to boundless food, they were crazed with gold, jewelry, perfume, imported watches, Western medicine, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, silk, and other imported goods,” end quote. 


But that level of greed and corruption is not sustainable and soon distrust and suspicion were brewing within the Khmer Rouge itself, elite turning on elite. And this was spurred along by failure to achieve these lofty rice goals they had set for themselves. Failure to perform your duty for the country was viewed as treason. But it was, honestly the whole plan was hopelessly flawed. They were forcing people to work in these fields night and day with very little food and water, no medical attention, shoddy equipment, and then they’re upset when they can’t produce unattainable amounts of rice. And so Khmer Rouge guys in charge of these labor camps and rice production start being rounded up and killed and their whole families would be killed. And others who haven’t been rounded up yet start fleeing the country. And so the Khmer Rouge itself is disintegrating because of its own mismanagement and corruption. 


But how they actually end up shooting themselves in the foot is by attempting to invade Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam to regain that old territory they once held as the Khmer Empire way back when during the glory days. But Vietnam is not having it and they invade Cambodia in December of 1978, sending in tanks and ground troops and the Khmer Rouge basically just scatters and the Vietnamese march right into a mostly deserted Phnom Penh and just put a stop to the whole thing. Enough.


More from Teeda’s memoir quote “In January 1979 I was called to join a district meeting. The district leader told us that it was time to get rid of "all the wheat that grows among the rice plants." The city people were the wheat. The city people were to be eliminated. My life was saved because the Vietnamese invasion came just two weeks later. When the Vietnamese invasion happened, I cried. I was crying with joy that my life was saved. I was crying with sorrow that my country was once again invaded by our century-old enemy. I stood on Cambodian soil feeling that I no longer belonged to it. I wanted freedom. I decided to escape to the free world.

I traveled with my family from the heart of the country to the border of Thailand. It was devastating to witness the destruction of my homeland that had occurred in only four years. Buddhist temples were turned into prisons. Statues of Buddha and artwork were vandalized. Schools were turned into Khmer Rouge headquarters where people were interrogated, tortured, killed, and buried. School yards were turned into killing fields. Old marketplaces were empty. Books were burned. Factories were left to rust. Plantations were without tending and bore no fruit. This destruction was tolerable compared to the human conditions. Each highway was filled with refugees. We were refugees of our own country. With our skinny bodies, bloated stomachs, and hollow eyes, we carried our few possessions and looked for our separated family members. We asked who lived and didn't want to mention who died. We gathered to share our horrifying stories. [and skip 20 seconds here if you want to be spared] Stories about people being pushed into deep wells and ponds and suffocating to death. People were baked alive in a local tile oven. One woman was forced to cook her husband's liver, which was cut out while he was still alive. Women were raped before execution. One old man said, "It takes a river of ink to write our stories,” end quote. 

So, what was the rest of the world doing? Why did no one try to stop this? Why did the US decide to stop meddling now of all times when their meddling may have actually helped people? Well, after the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975, they basically sealed the country off from the outside world. There were some American journalists in Phnom Penh during the takeover and they were able to report on some of the early atrocities though. US officials publicly denounced what was happening in Cambodia. But most people believed the reports were being exaggerated by the US government. The Holocaust Memorial article says quote “People who had long distrusted US motives in Southeast Asia often dismissed these statements as lies or exaggeration, the propaganda of a government that had warned of a bloodbath,” end quote. Because the US was anti-communist right? And now they’re coming out with all these horrible things that the communist government was doing and it does seem like propaganda, to prove their point. “See, we told you communism was bad, here’s the proof.” But unfortunately it wasn't exaggerated. Unfortunately it was very true and probably even worse than they knew.  

But the US did nothing to help. They had already overdone it in Southeast Asia, the public was over it, they continued with their plans to withdraw from the region. It wasn’t until the Vietnamese overthrew the Khmer Rouge and people, like Teeda, were able to flee as refuges to neighboring countries that the horror stories really became known through the survivors finally being able to tell the world what had happened to them. But peace was still a long way off. Fighting continued in Cambodia between the Vietnamese controlled government and the remnants of the Khmer Rouge which attempted to regroup. This went on for over a decade until a peace agreement was finally reached in 1991 which reinstated Cambodia’s constitutional monarchy. And, your not gonna believe this but, Sihanouk returns as king of Cambodia, after all this time, after all this back and forth. After supporting the US, then North Vietnam, then the Khmer Rouge, and being exiled and being exiled again. This dude is back on the throne. Wild. And, you know what, it doesn’t go well. The remnants of the remnants of the Khmer Rouge start waging war on the new which I guess is actually the old government. These guys just will not let it go. Not until 1999 when Pol Pot, the infamous leader of the Khmer Rouge dies and the rest of them finally surrender. 


But like, surrender and just go on to live their lives? For a while, yeah. There had been calls for justice, to investigate and try these guys for war crimes, crimes against humanity, way back in 1987. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel called for world leaders to quote “explore the tragedy in all of its aspects… We have learned from history that tragic truth is better than no truth,” end quote. But there was no official investigation at that time. Just survivor accounts pouring out of refuge camps. It wasn’t until US President Clinton signed the Cambodian Genocide Justice Act in 1994 that some of these Khmer Rouge guys were to finally be tried for their crimes. But it took the United Nations and Cambodia almost a decade just to come to an agreement on how to actually go about it. By this time, Pol Pot, the leader, was already dead as were a bunch of other Khmer Rouge higher ups. And, I guess this stuff just takes forever because the first case didn’t actually go to trial until 2009. Kaing Guek Eav who was called Duch was the commander of that notorious murder prison I told you about S-21. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity and breaches of the Geneva Convention of 1949 and was sentenced to 35 years in prison, which seems kind of light considering he murdered like 17,000 people. But, I mean I guess he was old by now so that was basically a life sentence. In 2010, Khieu Samphan, former head of state of Democratic Kampuchea and Nuon Chea, former co-founder and deputy secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea were tried and years later in 2018 were finally convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes including extermination, enslavement, torture, rape, and political, racial, and religious persecution and were sentenced to life in prison. But, you know, they’re already super old at this point. Nuon Chea died in 2019, just a year after sentencing. So he basically got away with it. Now, they’re running into disputes over jurisdiction and the other cases they want to try are just kind of stalled out while everyone disagrees about how they should proceed. It’s like trying Jefferson Davis all over again. 

It’s difficult to estimate just how many people died in that four year period. A University of Minnisota article says quote “There is difficulty establishing a definitive number of victims of the Cambodian Genocide. The Cambodians kept methodical records of prisoners and executions. However, because Cambodia’s enemy, Vietnam, invaded and released the records, there is speculation they could have been exaggerated. In addition, estimating the total number of people who starved is difficult. Estimates range from 1.5 to 3 million people having died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, with the consensus being approximately 2 million,” end quote. 2 million people in 4 years. That’s roughly a quarter of Cambodia’s population at the time. This is a cautionary tale for the ages. A tale of how liberators, those you believe are standing up for what’s right, for freedom, for liberty might actually be the real oppressors. Those who use fear and misinformation to manipulate and control people. Teeda writes quote “The Khmer Rouge were very clever and brutal. Their tactics were effective because most of us refused to believe their malicious intentions. Their goal was to liberate us. They risked their own lives and gave up their families for "justice" and "equality." How could these worms have come out of our own skin?” end quote.  

The Khmer Rouge is not unique to Cambodia. Other Khmer Rouges have risen to power throughout history and future Khmer Rouges could rise to power again someday if we let them. Be wary of book burnings. Be wary when people start banning art. Be wary of attacks on education. It is very difficult to control an educated society. This is why the Khmer Rouge killed the educated. It’s why they put the ignorant in charge because, like Teeda said quote “these people took orders without question.” We do not take orders without question folks. We think for ourselves, we stay educated, and we stick together. We don’t let the government, any government, turn us against each other. That is how we prevent another Khmer Rouge. 

Teeda concludes her memoir quote “In April 1979, the Buddhist New Year, exactly four years after the Khmer Rouge came to power, I joined a group of corpselike bodies dancing freely to the sound of clapping and songs of folk music that defined who we were. We danced under the moonlight around the bonfire. We were celebrating the miracles that saved our lives. At that moment, I felt that my spirit and my soul had returned to my weak body. Once again, I was human.”

Thank you all so very much for listening to History Fix, I hope you found this story interesting and maybe you even learned something new. Be sure to follow my instagram @historyfixpodcast to see some images that go along with this episode and to stay on top of new episodes as they drop. I’d also really appreciate it if you’d rate and follow History Fix on whatever app you’re using to listen, and help me spread the word by telling a few friends about it. Also, join the Patreon for exclusive bonus content like this week’s Poisoned or Not Poisoned mini fix plus all regular weekly episodes early and ad free. That’ll make it much easier to get your next fix.  


Information used in this episode was sourced from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, worldhistory.org, history.com, the University of Minnesota, the memoir of Teeda Butt Mam in Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields Memoirs of Survivors, and the Holocaust Museum of Houston. As always, links to these sources can be found in the show notes.