CAMBODIA 1975 -1979
Since he is of no use anymore, there is no gain if he lives and no loss if he dies.
-Pol Pot
...
( sounds like the Fabian Socialists)
(It never changes, they’re all the same!!)
On April 17, 1975, ten of thousands of citizens celebrated in the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia .
The victorious Khmer Rouge troops were entering the capitol !!
The civil war was over.
Peace had come, at last!!
The celebration was short, very short !
“Hell on Earth” had arrived in Cambodia
Under the banner of Communism and Socialism !
You see,
The Khmer Rouge believed that all city people were Capitalists.
So, to implement their Socialist transformation, they told the people of Phnom Penh, (Cambodia’s capitol city), to GET OUT !!
The Khmer Rouge forced the whole population to evacuate the city on foot. Those who refused, were too sick, hospitalized or unable to walk, were shot, on the spot or left by the roadside to die.
Children were taken from their parents !
Phnom Penh, was completely emptied.
This would be “Year Zero”
The Socialists had taken over !
After visiting his idol , Mao Zedong in China, between 1964 and 1965 , Pol Pot ( leader of the Khmer Rouge)was more determined than ever to create the ideal Socialist society!
His main goal ?:
"To Build Socialism In The Fields."
The Khmer Rouge transformed Cambodia into a rural, classless society in which there were no rich people and no poor people. ( sound familiar?)
They abolished money, free markets, normal schooling, private property and religious practices. All Public schools, churches, universities, shops and government buildings were closed or turned into prisons, stables, “reeducation” camps and granaries.
There was also to be no public or private transportation! The citizens would no loner need it!
All people would now live and work in the countryside, together , as equals, for the new Cambodian state!
Pol Pot summed up the policy himself saying:
“We are building socialism.”
The Khmer Rouge banned family relationships.
Children were to be raised, as good Socialists, by the state, not by their parents.
Some were placed in separate forced labor camps , some in interrogation centers.
Out of contact with their parents.
Family influence was not good for the collective well being.
The family unit was dead.
All food was now to be grown on communal farms and, with the Khmer Rouge's distain of all (capitalist!) modern technology people were forced to farm by hand. This made it impossible for workers to reach the rice quotas imposed by the Socialists !
The people could only eat the tiny portions of “watery rice” that were allotted to them. Everyone got them same amount. (Socialism)
(Most of the rice was being sent to Khmer Rouge soldiers and political leaders.)
If anyone was caught supplementing their diet, with leafs, bugs or anything, they would be beaten, tortured, sent to prison or killed on the spot.
The daily ration was so low it would cause hundreds of thousands of people to starve to death.
Khmer Rouge cadres would also look for any excuse to kill “new people” (city people) as they arrived.
Minority groups and suspected capitalists were the intended targets but , as with all Communist / Socialists societies, this also included any “new” civilians that just happened to arrive.
Anyone who was suspected of being educated including doctors, teachers, engineers, lawyers, scientists and professional people, along with their extended families, were killed because they were considered enemies of the state.
If you spoke French, you would die.
If you were educated, you would die.
If you wore glasses, you would die.
If you practiced religion, you would die.
The tortures were inhumane and death was the normal result.
Here’s an eyewitness account:
“I was very frightened when I saw the Khmer Rouge saw off the neck of a civilian with the sharp edge of sugar palm leaves. They spent three days cutting his head off. They sawed a little one morning, and then in the evening, and finally the following day in the morning and night. They made the victim stand up while they were cutting in front of hundreds of people living in the Khmer Rouge area. Then they held him up when he could stand no longer.”
- Cambodian refugee
Former soldiers and civil servants were executed on the spot or sent to interrogation centers.
So, as hundreds of thousands of Cambodians slowly starved in the rice fields or were being worked to death, political prisoners and their families (including children) went to Hell on earth, inside the Khmer Rouge interrogation centers.
One such center, S-21, became the largest such “interrogation center” in the country. Tuol Svay Prey High School was taken over, in 1975, by Pol Pot's Khmer Rough and turned into a prison.
Re-named Security Prison 21 or (S-21).
Of the over 20,000 people held at S- 21 only 7 survived, that’s right, only 7 !
Take a look at these prison rules below.
1. You must answer accordingly to my question. Don’t turn them away.
2. Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Don’t be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
7. Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
8. Don’t make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret or traitor.
9. If you don’t follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.
The methods of extracting confessions were cruel and barbaric. Prisoners were tortured with battery powered electric shocks, lashed, cut with knives and suffered thru all kinds of unspeakable torture
It was literally, “Hell on Earth.”
Detainees who died under torture were buried in mass graves in the prison grounds. The others were taken to the extermination camp at Choeung Ek 9, properly known today as “The Killing Field”, to be executed.
Approximately 17,000 innocent people, men ,women and children, there was no mercy, just death !
This was happening all over Cambodia!
Though most all prisoners died , killing them outright was discouraged, for it was much more important for the Khmer Rouge to get confessions of disloyalty on paper first. Some of these ,so called confessions, were ridiculous!
They kept very accurate records.
Thousands of these confession files, including 5,000 photographs, survive to this day.
The Khmer Rouge, in the name of Socialism/Communism, literally destroyed nearly all aspects of Cambodian society !
Thousands of mass graves, from the Khmer Rouge era, have been found all over Cambodia.
Various studies have estimated the death toll, between 1975 - 1979, at 2.2 million.
That’s 30% of the entire population !
This Socialism became known as
"The Killing Fields'.
S-21 has since been turned into the Toul Sleng 21 Genocide Museum and gives us just a small glimpse at the horrors that were committed there by the Pol Pot’s Khmer Rough.
The link below shows the Toul Sleng 21 Genocide Museum. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_GNsG0_jMM&feature=share
We, at Socialism Sucks, are dedicated to reminding people of the true evils of Socialism and Communism.
So many story’s:
Different times, different countries, same ideology.
“Know the History”
Since he is of no use anymore, there is no gain if he lives and no loss if he dies.
-Pol Pot
...
( sounds like the Fabian Socialists)
(It never changes, they’re all the same!!)
On April 17, 1975, ten of thousands of citizens celebrated in the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia .
The victorious Khmer Rouge troops were entering the capitol !!
The civil war was over.
Peace had come, at last!!
The celebration was short, very short !
“Hell on Earth” had arrived in Cambodia
Under the banner of Communism and Socialism !
You see,
The Khmer Rouge believed that all city people were Capitalists.
So, to implement their Socialist transformation, they told the people of Phnom Penh, (Cambodia’s capitol city), to GET OUT !!
The Khmer Rouge forced the whole population to evacuate the city on foot. Those who refused, were too sick, hospitalized or unable to walk, were shot, on the spot or left by the roadside to die.
Children were taken from their parents !
Phnom Penh, was completely emptied.
This would be “Year Zero”
The Socialists had taken over !
After visiting his idol , Mao Zedong in China, between 1964 and 1965 , Pol Pot ( leader of the Khmer Rouge)was more determined than ever to create the ideal Socialist society!
His main goal ?:
"To Build Socialism In The Fields."
The Khmer Rouge transformed Cambodia into a rural, classless society in which there were no rich people and no poor people. ( sound familiar?)
They abolished money, free markets, normal schooling, private property and religious practices. All Public schools, churches, universities, shops and government buildings were closed or turned into prisons, stables, “reeducation” camps and granaries.
There was also to be no public or private transportation! The citizens would no loner need it!
All people would now live and work in the countryside, together , as equals, for the new Cambodian state!
Pol Pot summed up the policy himself saying:
“We are building socialism.”
The Khmer Rouge banned family relationships.
Children were to be raised, as good Socialists, by the state, not by their parents.
Some were placed in separate forced labor camps , some in interrogation centers.
Out of contact with their parents.
Family influence was not good for the collective well being.
The family unit was dead.
All food was now to be grown on communal farms and, with the Khmer Rouge's distain of all (capitalist!) modern technology people were forced to farm by hand. This made it impossible for workers to reach the rice quotas imposed by the Socialists !
The people could only eat the tiny portions of “watery rice” that were allotted to them. Everyone got them same amount. (Socialism)
(Most of the rice was being sent to Khmer Rouge soldiers and political leaders.)
If anyone was caught supplementing their diet, with leafs, bugs or anything, they would be beaten, tortured, sent to prison or killed on the spot.
The daily ration was so low it would cause hundreds of thousands of people to starve to death.
Khmer Rouge cadres would also look for any excuse to kill “new people” (city people) as they arrived.
Minority groups and suspected capitalists were the intended targets but , as with all Communist / Socialists societies, this also included any “new” civilians that just happened to arrive.
Anyone who was suspected of being educated including doctors, teachers, engineers, lawyers, scientists and professional people, along with their extended families, were killed because they were considered enemies of the state.
If you spoke French, you would die.
If you were educated, you would die.
If you wore glasses, you would die.
If you practiced religion, you would die.
The tortures were inhumane and death was the normal result.
Here’s an eyewitness account:
“I was very frightened when I saw the Khmer Rouge saw off the neck of a civilian with the sharp edge of sugar palm leaves. They spent three days cutting his head off. They sawed a little one morning, and then in the evening, and finally the following day in the morning and night. They made the victim stand up while they were cutting in front of hundreds of people living in the Khmer Rouge area. Then they held him up when he could stand no longer.”
- Cambodian refugee
Former soldiers and civil servants were executed on the spot or sent to interrogation centers.
So, as hundreds of thousands of Cambodians slowly starved in the rice fields or were being worked to death, political prisoners and their families (including children) went to Hell on earth, inside the Khmer Rouge interrogation centers.
One such center, S-21, became the largest such “interrogation center” in the country. Tuol Svay Prey High School was taken over, in 1975, by Pol Pot's Khmer Rough and turned into a prison.
Re-named Security Prison 21 or (S-21).
Of the over 20,000 people held at S- 21 only 7 survived, that’s right, only 7 !
Take a look at these prison rules below.
1. You must answer accordingly to my question. Don’t turn them away.
2. Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Don’t be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
7. Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
8. Don’t make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret or traitor.
9. If you don’t follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.
The methods of extracting confessions were cruel and barbaric. Prisoners were tortured with battery powered electric shocks, lashed, cut with knives and suffered thru all kinds of unspeakable torture
It was literally, “Hell on Earth.”
Detainees who died under torture were buried in mass graves in the prison grounds. The others were taken to the extermination camp at Choeung Ek 9, properly known today as “The Killing Field”, to be executed.
Approximately 17,000 innocent people, men ,women and children, there was no mercy, just death !
This was happening all over Cambodia!
Though most all prisoners died , killing them outright was discouraged, for it was much more important for the Khmer Rouge to get confessions of disloyalty on paper first. Some of these ,so called confessions, were ridiculous!
They kept very accurate records.
Thousands of these confession files, including 5,000 photographs, survive to this day.
The Khmer Rouge, in the name of Socialism/Communism, literally destroyed nearly all aspects of Cambodian society !
Thousands of mass graves, from the Khmer Rouge era, have been found all over Cambodia.
Various studies have estimated the death toll, between 1975 - 1979, at 2.2 million.
That’s 30% of the entire population !
This Socialism became known as
"The Killing Fields'.
S-21 has since been turned into the Toul Sleng 21 Genocide Museum and gives us just a small glimpse at the horrors that were committed there by the Pol Pot’s Khmer Rough.
The link below shows the Toul Sleng 21 Genocide Museum. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_GNsG0_jMM&feature=share
We, at Socialism Sucks, are dedicated to reminding people of the true evils of Socialism and Communism.
So many story’s:
Different times, different countries, same ideology.
“Know the History”
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