The Stomach-Churning Events Of The Killing Fields Of Cambodia

Sadly, not many people outside Southeast Asia remember the tragedy of the “Killing Fields” of Cambodia, but in the late 1970s and 1980s, when the evil nature of the regime in that country from 1975-79 was publicized in Europe and the United States, the absolutely horrific acts of the Khmer Rouge (“kah-mair ruuj”) regime became front page news, an Oscar-winning movie and a quite popular punk rock anthem, “Holiday in Cambodia,” by the Dead Kennedy's in 1980.

In 1996, an Oscar-winning actor was killed in an attempted robbery outside his Los Angeles home. A tragic thing to happen to anyone, but making this senseless act even more tragic was the fact that the victim was Dr. Haing S. Ngor. Ngor had come to the United States and made a successful life for himself as an actor, portraying another victim and survivor of the regime, Dith Pran, and winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in the movie “The Killing Fields.”

Dr. Ngor had been an obstetrician in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, when the communist Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975. “Khmer Rouge” means “Red Khmer.” Rouge is French for “red”, the color of communism, and the French had ruled Cambodia for ninety years until 1953. “Khmer” is the Cambodian word for the dominant ethnic group in the country.

The Khmer Rouge were on the extreme left of the political spectrum. The very extreme left – by the time they took power in Cambodia, Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong's China was coming out of a radical period itself – the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”, and Mao himself would be dead within a year, beginning a shift in Chinese politics. You can find out more about this strange and amazing time in “A Day in History's” “The Most Bizarre Events in Chinese History” on our channel, but suffice it to say that the ideology of the Khmer Rouge made Mao look like a man living in the past.

Though the Khmer Rouge looked to Mao and China for both guidance and financial support, the leaders of the movement, most notably it's #1 and #2 men, Pol Pot and Nuon Chea, known also as “Brother #1” and “Brother #2”, saw North Korea and Albania, the two most isolated and repressive communist regimes on Earth, as their role models. All three nations believed in “autarky” - complete self-sufficiency, though the smallest of the three, Albania, was the only one to come close to its goal.

During the time of French control of the country, many Cambodians rebelled. Some carried out a small-scale and largely unsuccessful guerrilla war. Many people supported the Cambodian royal family, even though they were a puppet of the French military government. However, the heir to the throne, Prince Norodom Sihanouk (1922-2012), known within Cambodia by his traditional title of “Samdech Euv,” or “King Father,” became head of state in 1960 and again when crowned king in 1993, eventually led the country to independence in post-WWII talks with France.

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Scriptwriter: Matthew Gaskill

Video Editor & Motion Graphics: Kanishka Mudaliyar

Voice-over Artist: Lain Heringman

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