Khmer People in the Field During Pol Pot Regime (April 17, 1975 - January 7, 1979)
Everyone around the world used to hear about Pol Pot Regime or Khmer Rouge Regime of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. In fact, the formal name of this regime was Kampuchea Brochea Thebatei. Main leader of this group was Pol Pot (Birth name: Salot Sar). The force of Khmer Rouge occurring after the establishment of Khmer Republic in early 1970. At the start, there was only small group of this army force, but it became bigger and bigger with support from Vietnam (Yiek Kong or Viet Kong Troops) and the fame of King NORODOM Shihanouk. However, later Pol Pot seemed to split from Vietnamese support since their mother and father (China and Soviet) getting into conflicts. Since then, Khmer Rouge strongly succeeded the Khmer Republic since 1973 in which more and more territory of Cambodia was controlled. At the end of 1974, Khmer Rouge surrounded the all main municipalities of Khmer Republic, especially Phnom Penh. They cut all the ways of transporting food and weapons for Khmer Republic off in both water and land way. Khmer Republic survived only through the transport of food and weapons on the air way. On April 17, 1975, Khmer Rouge troops completely controlled Phnom Penh. They forced people in the city to leave for three days to another areas in rural areas. People confused to leave was killed immediately. Phnom Penh became "Ghost City". According to Raoul Jennar, in May 1975 Khmer Rouge set 8 principles to rule the regime (posted in khmer.rfi.fr):
- Push people out of all cities in Cambodia. People were divided into two main groups: old people (people living in rural areas before April 17, 1975) and new people or 17 Mesa people (people living in cities before April 17, 1975).
- Eliminate market system.
- Stop using money.
- All monks must be changed to simple citizens to work in the field.
- Kill all civil servants of Khmer Republic.
- Create community (សហករណ៍) throughout Cambodia.
- Force out all Vietnamese in Cambodia.
- Increase the number of soldiers along Cambodia-Vietnam borders.
Then Khmer Rouge spread his soldier to all areas (Northwest Region, South Region, Southwest Region, Central Region, Kratie or 505 Region, West Region, North Region, Northeast Region, and East Region) and targeted all main leaders of Khmer Republic to death. For example, LONG Boreth, Prime Minister of Khmer Republic, was killed with his family immediately in Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. People started to be aware of current situation that they would get no chance to return to their home. New people were divided again base on their age. Young children were kept with old people in the village and did small duties like feeding the cow and so on. Adult was put to work in group (កងចល័ត) moving from a place to another place depend on the need of force to build the dam or cut the wood or work in the field. Medium age people were put to work in the field. Most of them got only porridge with less rice (only a few can of rice in the large pot of porridge for hundred of people). All of them were force to work from dawn to dusk. Most of Khmer Rouge officials were very rude and cruel to new people. Sometimes, they said bad words to new people, blamed old regime, and admired only their regime to be the best under Khmer Rouge Group (អង្គការភ្នែកម្នាស់). More and more citizens died of starvation and diseases, but the death of killing also increased from time to time, especially Khmer Krom people who were targeted to death since Khmer Rouge thought they used to live in Vietnam, but in fact they were still Khmer. Most famous people were killed gradually like SIN Samut (1975), PEN Rorn (1976), HUY Meas (1977), ROS Sereysothea (1978?)..... Most of educated people like teachers, students, civil servants,..... were also killed gradually, especially in 1977 and 1978. Not only people in the country were facing the death, more and more foreign scholarship Cambodian students were cheated to return and most of them were cruelly killed. Besides that, more and more officials of Khmer Rouge were also accused of wrong conduct violating the Khmer Rouge Principles and were put to prison and cruelly killed as the officials of Khmer Republic and other people accused of foreign spy like SEATO or something else in Sar 21 Tuol Sleng Genocide center in Phnom Penh.
Foreign relation of Khmer Rouge was seen in two ways. First, Khmer Rouge tried to promote their regime as a formal seat in the United Nations and had good ties with foreign country, especially in Europe by hiding all information of current situation within the country, especially killing field. However, Khmer people overseas tried their best to spread information on killing field in Cambodia since the mid 1975, but the world ignored since the main world superpower ignored. Second, Khmer Rouge had conflicts with Vietnam on Kampuchea Krom Territory and Koh Tral Island since it was belonged to Cambodia before 1949. Khmer Rouge fought many times on Koh Tral and along border of Cambodia-Vietnam. One day, Khmer Rouge fought into middle area of Kampuchea Krom, but were surrounded unconsciously by Vietnamese Troops and put to death all. The conflict became bigger and bigger since 1977. In 1978, Vietnam used their army force fighting into Cambodia, but was warned by the United Nations (UN) since there was only Vietnamese troops in that force. Later, at the end of 1978, Vietnamese troops came with some Khmer troops who gradually escaped to Vietnam during Pol Pot Regime. From December 2, 1978 until January 7, 1979, large Vietnamese troops with some Khmer troops fought Khmer Rouge army and got successful quickly. On January 7, 1979, Phnom Penh was controlled by Vietnam. Other provinces in the west were released a few day later, except Pailin and Otdarmeanchey. "Too much nationalism causes nation to death!" "Political ideology is the danger for people who do not know it clearly!"
By: POK Panhavuth
Region of Khmer Rouge Regime
Horror of Cambodia's Genocide
Horror of Cambodia's Genocide
