5CambodiaWhy

=WHY?=

 Lieutenant Lon Nol took over and formed new government. Prince Sihanouk and supporters joined a communist organization called Khmer Rouge. Starting a civil war, Khmer Rouge attacked Lon Nol’s army in 1970. They overthrew Lon Nol’s government and took over! Pol Pot was the leader of the Khmer Rouge and led his new government to get rid of class distinctions that existed. He wanted Cambodia to be a communist utopia. He wanted the country without cities, private property or money. Khmer Rouge would destroy one society and make a new one.

Pol Pot wanted a self-sufficient country, capable of feeding and defending itself. Then wanted to gain more land and power. Banks, telephone, and postal services were destroyed. Media censored, religion forbidden. Everyone had to wear the same black pants and shirts. Medicine and hospitals were banned. Even educational systems was dismantled and books were burned.

 1.7 million people died as a result of execution, starvation, disease, exposure to the elements, and overwork. Lon Nol government soldiers, civil servants, Buddhsit monks, ethnic and religious minorities, elderly citizens, intellectuals, and groups of people thought to have contact with Vietnamese such as Eastern Khmers, were all hunted down. People had to leave town and work in camps in rural area where they worked in the hot sun and not enough food. Families disappeared from villages to work in the camps.





Cambodia: Millions Forced From Their Cities Confronting Genocide: Never Again? [|theunexplainedmysteries.com/ pol-pot.html] [|genocideincambodiaproject.blogspot.com/]
 * SOURCES:**

To Home