Cambodia (1975-1979)
From April 17, 1975 to January 7, 1979, the Khmer Rouge enacted policies that killed nearly two million of Cambodia’s eight million people. These mass atrocities have roots in the country’s colonial and postcolonial history.
In 1864, Cambodia became part of French Indochina. During the late 19th century colonial period, French authorities framed their rule as a civilizing mission. This ideology shaped daily life for Cambodian women and children, as officials exploited their labor, customs, and bodies to justify and reinforce colonial control. France also imposed heavy taxes on the Cambodian population, driving widespread poverty while education was reserved for elites and those who served colonial interests. In 1953, Cambodia gained its independence and established a constitutional monarchy.
As a condition of the 1954 Geneva Accords to restore peace in the region following the dismantling of French Indochina, Cambodia officially maintained neutrality during the Vietnam War. However, the government was unable, or disinclined, to prevent Vietnamese communists from using Cambodian territory as a sanctuary and a supply route. In 1970, Prime Minister and Defense Minister Lon Nol, seeking a more pro-Western anticommunist stance, overthrew the monarchy.
As the Vietnam War spilled into Cambodia, the bombings by the United States (US) killed tens of thousands of Cambodians, while communist Vietnamese forces expanded their influence. The Communist Party of Kampuchea, also known as the Khmer Rouge, grew under the leadership of Pol Pot, the party’s General Secretary. In April 1975, Pol Pot’s forces overthrew the Lon Nol government, renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea (DK), and established the Khmer Rouge regime.
The Khmer Rouge embraced an ideology that combined Maoist communism, agrarianism, and Khmer (Cambodian) nationalism with a distrust of urbanites, religion, and foreigners. To implement their ideology, they began by emptying the cities. Millions of urban residents, derisively labeled “new people,” were forced into rural labor alongside peasants who had supported the Khmer Rouge during the civil war, known as “base people.”
Families were ruthlessly separated in the process. The Khmer Rouge also pushed the population to drastically expand rice production, primarily for export. These unrealistic policies, combined with meager rations for farmers and neglect of local consumption, led to mass hunger that killed approximately one million people.
The regime deployed constant surveillance to seek out and eliminate perceived enemies. These included religious figures such as Buddhist monks, as well as ethnic minorities such as the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Muslim Cham, and potential political rivals, even within the Khmer Rouge itself. Torture centers and killing fields proliferated throughout the country.
The bloodshed ended in early 1979 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and toppled the Khmer Rouge. As many as two million people, roughly one-quarter of the population, been killed during the genocide. After a power struggle within the Khmer Rouge in 1997, former followers arrested Pol Pot and sentenced him to life under house arrest. He died in his sleep a year later.
In 2003 under an agreement between the Royal Government of Cambodia and the United Nations (UN), the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) were established to prosecute those responsible for the atrocities. When the ECCC dissolved in 2022, it had only convicted three individuals, including Pol Pot’s right-hand man, Nuon Chea. Two others died during their respective trials.
Whether the violence meets the definition of genocide under the UN Genocide Convention remains debated as many of the victims were persecuted for social and political reasons. The ECCC concluded, however, in its judgments against Khmer Rouge officials Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, that the regime’s targeting of ethnic Vietnamese and the Cham Muslim population did, in fact, constitute genocide.