April 16, 1975 the people of Phnom Phenh were celebrating the Khmer New Year’s Festival and everyone in the city was playing gambling games all over town. In the book written by Brad Kiernan he has firsthand responses to the events of the day. “Another Khmer recalls that on the night of the sixteenth, ‘at around seven, the whole city exploded with small- arms fire.’”(Kiernan 31). The evacuation of the city started on April 17, 1975 to the surprise to many people who were on top. In Kiernan’s book a minister named Hu Nim tells him how secretive what he called “the Organization” was. “’The Organization’… had informed him of ‘the plan to evacuate people’ on April 19. That was two days after the evacuation started.” (Kiernan 33). After the evacuations of the Cambodian cities the new communist government called the Khmer Rouge started to abolish money, schools, law courts, and religious practices not encouraged by this new government. Everyone was forced to work in fields to grow fields.
These people who were evacuated were the ones who were forced to work in these fields. In Chandler David’s book Voices from S-21 Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison he discusses the background and what happened at this labor death camp so very few people know about. “… January 1979. By then as many a 1.5 million Cambodians were dead from malnutrition, overworked…” (David vii). Most of the people who worked at this camp died, and it was ran very similarly to the way the Nazis ran Auschwitz. If you didn’t die from either disease, malnourishment, or being over worked you were killed if you were thought to be useless and these people thought to be useless were shot on the spot. This labor camp was a secret to the world and only came to light after Vietnamese troops invaded in early 1979. According to firsthand accounts the conditions they found at this camp was absolutely horrifying. “Two Vietnamese came across the corpses of several recently murdered men. Some of the bodies were chained to iron beds. The prisoners’ throats had been cut. The blood on the floor was still wet” (David 3). According to an academic article written by Hurst Hannum called International Law and Cambodian Genocide: The Sounds of Silence he discusses the camp and its significance to the genocide. “‘Tuol Sleng’, was an extermination facility that was operating directly under the Democratic Kampuchea’s highest leadership. Only seven prisoners… were known to have survived” (Hannum 90).
In the academic article written by Hannum he talks about another way people during this genocide Hannum discusses another way killing took place during this conflict. The other form of killing was political killings in the article he states “three distinct categories of killings occurred… individual execution following imprisonment and interrogation” (Hannum 89). These executions only took place if you were arrested for being a political enemy. If this happened you were interrogated, but never received a trial due to the fact that law courts were illegal during this time period after the communist takeover. Therefore if you were arrested during this time and they considered you a threat you were going to be executed regardless if you were against the takeover of the new government. They also did this to people of varying religious groups, but it was mainly targeting anyone who was perceived as “westernized”.
This genocide took place over a little less than four years and it’s believed that at least 1.5 million were killed during the events of the genocide. The genocide ended in January of 1979 after Pol Pot’s troops tried to invade Vietnam. After this Vietnamese troop then invaded Cambodia to end up discovering what awful things had occurred in this country over the 4 years since the people of this country were invaded by the forces that took over their county. “By late afternoon the Vietnamese forces occupied the city…Phnom Penh was empty… After the Khmer Rouge emptied the city in 1975, Phnom Penh still remained the country’s capitol, but never regained its status as an urban center” (David 2). Due to how secretive everything was ran by the people who were higher up no one from the outside world truly knew what was happening and to the extent it was happening in. In his book David tried to convey the surprise of the Vietnamese soldiers were in when they discovered what happened in Cambodia especially the once thriving capital of the country.
These people who were evacuated were the ones who were forced to work in these fields. In Chandler David’s book Voices from S-21 Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison he discusses the background and what happened at this labor death camp so very few people know about. “… January 1979. By then as many a 1.5 million Cambodians were dead from malnutrition, overworked…” (David vii). Most of the people who worked at this camp died, and it was ran very similarly to the way the Nazis ran Auschwitz. If you didn’t die from either disease, malnourishment, or being over worked you were killed if you were thought to be useless and these people thought to be useless were shot on the spot. This labor camp was a secret to the world and only came to light after Vietnamese troops invaded in early 1979. According to firsthand accounts the conditions they found at this camp was absolutely horrifying. “Two Vietnamese came across the corpses of several recently murdered men. Some of the bodies were chained to iron beds. The prisoners’ throats had been cut. The blood on the floor was still wet” (David 3). According to an academic article written by Hurst Hannum called International Law and Cambodian Genocide: The Sounds of Silence he discusses the camp and its significance to the genocide. “‘Tuol Sleng’, was an extermination facility that was operating directly under the Democratic Kampuchea’s highest leadership. Only seven prisoners… were known to have survived” (Hannum 90).
In the academic article written by Hannum he talks about another way people during this genocide Hannum discusses another way killing took place during this conflict. The other form of killing was political killings in the article he states “three distinct categories of killings occurred… individual execution following imprisonment and interrogation” (Hannum 89). These executions only took place if you were arrested for being a political enemy. If this happened you were interrogated, but never received a trial due to the fact that law courts were illegal during this time period after the communist takeover. Therefore if you were arrested during this time and they considered you a threat you were going to be executed regardless if you were against the takeover of the new government. They also did this to people of varying religious groups, but it was mainly targeting anyone who was perceived as “westernized”.
This genocide took place over a little less than four years and it’s believed that at least 1.5 million were killed during the events of the genocide. The genocide ended in January of 1979 after Pol Pot’s troops tried to invade Vietnam. After this Vietnamese troop then invaded Cambodia to end up discovering what awful things had occurred in this country over the 4 years since the people of this country were invaded by the forces that took over their county. “By late afternoon the Vietnamese forces occupied the city…Phnom Penh was empty… After the Khmer Rouge emptied the city in 1975, Phnom Penh still remained the country’s capitol, but never regained its status as an urban center” (David 2). Due to how secretive everything was ran by the people who were higher up no one from the outside world truly knew what was happening and to the extent it was happening in. In his book David tried to convey the surprise of the Vietnamese soldiers were in when they discovered what happened in Cambodia especially the once thriving capital of the country.