Can anyone please explain to me what the Cambodian Genocide was all about?

Question

I need a simple answer! Small paragraph answers only please. Extra question--I'm not sure if I'm asking this right but: How were scapegoats used in this genocide?

Answer 1

Basically any body who opposed the government were killed.

Answer 2

Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge wanted to create a centralized, ultra-nationalist, self-sufficient-at-all-costs agriculture society, without the corrupting influence of cities, towns, intellectuals, technology, money, trade or business. And without help from other countries, especially the Vietnamese, which he hated. A sort of over-the-top, primitive-communist execution of the Jeffersonian idea of "yeoman farmer", but with uneducated farmers only.

So from 1968-1971 on, they evacuated the cities and towns, and relocated everybody to the rice fields. Everybody who didn't look like a farmer, or was disabled, or part of a minority, was "re-educated", starved, tortured and/or killed.

"The Khmer Rouge leadership boasted over the state-controlled radio that only one or two million people were needed to build the new agrarian communist utopia. As for the others, as their proverb put it, "To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss." "

"Credible Western and Eastern sources put the death toll inflicted by the Khmer Rouge at 1.6 million."

The genocide was stopped by the Vietnames invasion of 1978.

For details, see "Pol Pot" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot

and : "Khmer Rouge" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge

Answer 3

the cambodian genocide was like all genocides, its about killing people... scapegoats were used so that those who were responsible would not face the penalties of their action, instead others would be punished

Answer 4

Cambodian Marxists created a society in which everything was strictly controlled by the state. It was the worst form of Communist society, in which people were not allowed to read, not allowed to watch TV or listen to radio, etc. Even people who wore glasses seemed suspicious to the Khmer Rouge thugs who were afraid that anyone who can read could be a threat to their regime. The Communist regime in Cambodia killed several million of its own population trying "to cleanse" the society of unreliable people.

Answer 5

http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/khmeryears/index.html