Androcide Analysis of existing mortality estimates show that men accounted for 81% of all violent deaths and 67% of all excess deaths in this period. The killing of about 50–70% of Cambodia's working-age men led to a shift in norms regarding the sexual division of labor and correlates with present-day indicators of women's economic advancements and increased representation in local-level elected office.
Classicide The Khmer Rouge regime frequently arrested and executed anyone whom it suspected of having connections with the former Cambodian government along with anyone whom it suspected of having connections with foreign governments, as well as professionals, intellectuals, the
Buddhist monkhood, and ethnic minorities. Even those people who were stereotypically thought of as having
intellectual qualities, such as wearing
glasses or speaking
multiple languages, were executed out of fear that they would rebel against the Khmer Rouge. The British sociologist
Martin Shaw described the Cambodian genocide as "the purest genocide of the
Cold War era". The attempt to purify Cambodian society along racial, social and political lines led to
purges of Cambodia's previous military and political leadership, along with business leaders, journalists, students, doctors, and lawyers. Due to the fact that the perpetrators and the victims of the mass murder were largely members of the same ethnic group, the term
autogenocide was coined to describe the unique character of the genocide. According to
Samuel Totten, 25% of the urban Khmer population or 500,000 people perished under the rule of the Khmer Rouge, along with 16% of the rural Khmer population or 825,000 people putting the killing at a scale comparable to the
genocide of the Roma (25% of the
Roma population of Europe, or 130,000 to 500,000 people) and the
genocide of Serbians (300,000 to 500,000 people) during the
Holocaust.
Ethnic victims contain thousands of photos taken by the Khmer Rouge of their victims Ethnic
Vietnamese, ethnic
Thai, ethnic
Chinese, ethnic
Cham,
Cambodian Christians, and other minorities were also targeted for persecution and genocide. The Khmer Rouge forcibly relocated minority groups and
banned their languages. By decree, the Khmer Rouge banned the existence of more than 20 minority groups, which constituted 15% of Cambodia's population. While Cambodians in general were victims of the Khmer Rouge regime, the persecution, torture, and
killings committed by the Khmer Rouge are considered an act of genocide according to the United Nations as ethnic and religious minorities were systematically targeted by Pol Pot and his regime. Scholars and historians have varying opinions on whether the persecution and killings which occurred during the rule of the Khmer Rouge should be considered genocide. These conflicting opinions exist because scholars who conducted research in Cambodia immediately after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 claimed that the victims could have been killed due to the circumstances which they were living under. For instance,
Michael Vickery opined that the killings were "largely the result of the spontaneous excesses of a vengeful, undisciplined peasant army." This point of view was also supported by
Alexander Hinton, who cited an account by a former Khmer Rouge cadre who claimed that the killings were acts of retribution for the atrocities which were perpetrated by Lon Nol's soldiers when they killed people who were known to be former
Viet Minh agents before Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge's rise to power. Vickery—erroneously, as has been proven by the research which was more recently conducted by
Ben Kiernan—argued that the number of Cham victims who were killed during the Khmer Rouge's rule of Cambodia was around 20,000 which would still be a substantial part of the Cham group and would thus constitute the crime of genocide by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The killings were a centralized and bureaucratic effort which was undertaken by the Khmer Rouge regime, according to documents which were recently published by the
Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) as a result of the discovery of Khmer Rouge internal security documents which instructed the killings across Cambodia. However there were also instances of "indiscipline and spontaneity in the mass killings." On top of that, Etcheson has also proven that as a result of the systematic and mass killings which were based on political affiliations, ethnicity, religion, and citizenship, a third of Cambodia's population perished, so the Khmer Rouge is effectively guilty of committing genocide. David Chandler has argued that, even though ethnic minorities fell victim to the Khmer Rouge regime, they were not specifically targeted by it because of their ethnic backgrounds, instead, they were targeted because they were considered enemies of the regime. Chandler also rejects the use of the terms "chauvinism" and "genocide" just to avoid drawing possible parallels to Hitler. This indicates that Chandler does not believe in the argument of charging the Khmer Rouge regime with the crime of genocide. Similarly, Michael Vickery holds a similar position to Chandler's, and does not classify the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime as genocide; Vickery regarded the Khmer Rouge a "chauvinist" regime, due to its anti-Vietnam and anti-religion policies. Stephen Heder also believed that the Khmer Rouge were not guilty of genocide, stating that the atrocities of the regime were not motivated by
racism. Ben Kiernan makes the argument that it was indeed a genocide and he disagrees with these three scholars, by bringing forth examples from the history of the Cham people in Cambodia, as did an international tribunal finding
Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan guilty of 92 and 87 counts of said crime respectively. Genocide scholar
Gregory Stanton concluded that the mass killings and starvation by the Khmer Rouge did constitute genocide, both as defined in the Genocide Convention and in the broader definition of Raphael Lemkin, which includes destruction of political, social, and economic groups. The crimes were genocide under the Genocide Convention because they included the intentional destruction of a significant part of two ethnic groups, the Vietnamese and the Cham.
Vietnamese The Khmer Rouge officially blamed minority groups, particularly the Cham and the Vietnamese, for the country's ills. The regime initially ordered the expulsion of ethnic Vietnamese from Cambodia but then conducted large scale massacres of large numbers of Vietnamese civilians who were being deported out of Cambodia. The regime then prevented the remaining 20,000 ethnic Vietnamese from fleeing, and much of this group was also executed. The Khmer Rouge also used the media to support their goals of genocide. Radio Phnom Penh called on Cambodians to "exterminate the 50 million Vietnamese." Additionally, the Khmer Rouge conducted many cross-border raids into Vietnam, where they slaughtered an estimated 30,000 Vietnamese civilians. Most notably, during the
Ba Chúc massacre in April 1978, the Khmer Rouge military crossed the border and entered the village, slaughtering 3,157 Vietnamese civilians. This caused an urgent response from the Vietnamese government, precipitating the
Cambodian–Vietnamese War in which the Khmer Rouge was ultimately defeated.
Chinese The state of the Chinese Cambodians during the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime was alleged to be "the worst disaster ever to befall any ethnic Chinese community in Southeast Asia." Cambodians of Chinese descent were massacred by the Khmer Rouge under the justification that they "used to exploit the Cambodian people". At the beginning of the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1975, there were 425,000 ethnic Chinese in Cambodia. By the end of 1979, there were just 200,000, most of them were stuck in Thai refugee camps and the rest of them were stuck in Cambodia. 170,000 Chinese fled from Cambodia and moved to Vietnam, and others were repatriated. The Chinese were predominantly city-dwellers, making them vulnerable to the Khmer Rouge's revolutionary ruralism and its evacuation of city residents to farms. The government of the People's Republic of China did not protest against the killings of ethnic Chinese in Cambodia, despite its awareness of the atrocities and its simultaneous condemnation of the Vietnamese government's mistreatment of ethnic Chinese who lived in Vietnam.
Cham Muslims According to Ben Kiernan, the "fiercest extermination campaign was directed against the ethnic
Chams, Cambodia's Muslim minority."
Islam was seen as an "alien" and "foreign" culture that did not belong in the new Communist system. Initially, the Khmer Rouge aimed for the "
forced assimilation" of Chams through population dispersal. Pol Pot then began using intimidation efforts against the Chams that included the assassination of village elders, but he ultimately ordered the full-scale mass killing of the Cham people. American professor
Samuel Totten and Australian professor
Paul R. Bartrop estimate that these efforts would have completely wiped out the Cham population were it not for the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. In a Khmer Rouge official meeting took place in Sector 41,
Kampong Cham province in 1977, a plan was proclaimed up to "smash enemies of the revolution", stating that "the enemies of the revolution are many, but our biggest enemy are Cham. So the Plan calls for the destruction of all the Cham people before 1980." More telegrams were sent from Pol Pot to local governments between 1978 and 1979 than usual and hastily ordered that the total eradication of the Cham must be achieved before 1980. The Cham began to rise in prominence when they joined the communists as early as the 1950s, with a Cham elder, Sos Man joining the
Indochina Communist Party and rising through the ranks to become a major in the Party's forces. He then returned home to the Eastern Zone in 1970 and joined the
Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and he co-established the Eastern Zone Islamic Movement with his son, Mat Ly. Together, they became the mouthpiece of the Khmer Rouge and they encouraged the Cham people to participate in the revolution. Sos Man's Islamic Movement was also tolerated by the Khmer Rouge's leadership between 1970 and 1975. The Chams were gradually forced to abandon their faith and their distinct practices, a campaign which was launched in the Southwest as early as 1972. Ten Cham villages were taken over by the Khmer Rouge in 1972–1973, where new Cham leaders were installed, and they forced the villagers to work in the fields which were located away from their hometowns. A witness who was interviewed by Kiernan asserts that at that time, they were well-treated by the Khmer Rouge, and in 1974, they were allowed to return to their homes. Moreover, the Cham were classified as "depositee base people", making them vulnerable to persecution. Despite their plight, the Cham and the locals live side by side in many areas, speaking the Khmer language, and even inter-marrying with the majority Khmers as well as with the minority Chinese and Vietnamese. The diverse ethnic and cultural practices of Cambodians began to deteriorate during the rise of the Khmer Rouge in 1972, when the Cham were prohibited from practising their faith and culture: Cham women were required to keep their hair short like the Khmers; Cham men were not allowed to wear the
sarong; farmers were forced to wear rudimentary dark or black clothing; religious activities like the recitation of the
mandatory daily prayers were forbidden. Vickery notes that the Cambodian Cham were discriminated against by the Khmer before the beginning of the war "in some localities", partly because the Cham were stereotyped as being practitioners of black magic. In other localities, the Cham were well-assimilated within the host communities, speaking the Khmer language and marrying Khmers, Vietnamese, and Chinese. Between 1972 and 1974, the Khmer Rouge intensified the enforcement of the restrictions which they imposed on the Cham because they believed that the Cham were a threat to their communist agenda due to the existence of their unique language, their culture, their beliefs, and their independent communal system. Additionally, the Cham were renamed "Islamic Khmers" in an attempt to disassociate them from their ancestral heritage and ethnicity and force them to assimilate into the larger and Khmer-dominated Democratic Kampuchea. The Khmer Rouge believed that the Cham would jeopardize their attempts to establish close-knit communities where everyone could be easily monitored. As a result, the regime decided to disperse the Cham by deporting them from their respective localities and forcing them to work as peasants across Cambodia, hence forcing them to directly contribute to the creation and maintenance of the new Cambodian economy. This move was undertaken in an attempt to ensure that the Cham would not congregate in an attempt to form their own community again, which would have undermined the regime's plan to establish centralized economic cooperatives. Slowly, those Cham who defied the restrictions which the Khmer Rouge imposed on them were arrested by the regime. Hence, in October 1973, Cham Muslims in the Eastern Zone demonstrated their displeasure with the Khmer Rouge's restrictions by beating their drums—they traditionally beat their drums in order to inform locals that it is time to recite the daily prayers—at local
mosques. This act of communal defiance prompted the blanket arrest of many Cham Muslim leaders and religious teachers. In February 1974, the Cham who lived in Region 31, which was located in the Western Zone, protested against the Khmer Rouge's policy which required fishermen to register their daily catch with the local cooperative and sell it to the cooperative at a low price. At the same time, the locals were also forced to buy those fish from the cooperative at a higher price. This policy prompted the locals to confront the cooperative to express their discontent, the locals were shot at, "killing and wounding more than 100", as one account put it. By December 1974, a rebellion by the Cham in Region 21 of the Eastern Zone had broken out against the Khmer Rouge after community leaders were arrested. The rebellion was forcefully repressed by the regime and no records of casualties were documented. As much as there are records of these restrictions, resistance, and repressions, there are also accounts by members of the Cham community which deny the oppression which it was subjected to by the regime between 1970 and early 1975. While restrictions on certain activities like trade and travel were imposed during that period, they were understood to be the by-products of the ongoing civil war. Moreover, some Cham had also joined the revolution as soldiers and members of the Khmer Rouge. According to some local accounts, people had confidence in the Khmer Rouge when they first came to the village communities which assisted the locals by providing food and provisions to them, and there were no bans on local cultures or religions; even if restrictions were imposed, the consequences of them were not harsh. Many regarded the Khmer Rouge as heroes because they believed that the Khmer Rouge supported the peasantry during its war against the United States backed government. Because the Cham communities could be found across Cambodia, various Cham communities might have experienced the effects of the Khmer Rouge's pre-1975 rule differently; some communities experienced the repressions and restrictions but other communities did not. When Pol Pot consolidated his power by the end of 1975, the persecution became more severe, and it indiscriminately affected all of the Cham people. This could well be one of the simpler reasons as to why the Cambodian government and the
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) have not prosecuted any Khmer Rouge members who perpetrated atrocities during the pre-1975 period, the period before Pol Pot consolidated his power. As a result, the accounts of those Cham who experienced the repressions prior to 1975 were not considered parts of the genocide, mainly because according to the Article 1 of the Law on the Establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers, jurisdiction ratione temporis is limited to the period from 17 April 1975 to 6 January 1979. In 1975, upon the victory of the Khmer Rouge over the Khmer Republic's forces, two brothers of Cham descent who had joined the Khmer Rouge as soldiers returned home to Region 21 within the
Kampong Cham Province, where the largest Cham Muslim community could be found. The brothers told their father about the adventures which they had experienced as participants in the revolution, adventures which included the killing of Khmers and the consumption of pork, in the hope that they would be able to convince their father to join the communist cause. The father, who remained silent, was clearly not impressed by the accounts which were given by his sons. Instead, he grabbed a cleaver, killed his sons, and told his fellow villagers that he killed the enemy. When the villagers pointed out that he murdered his own sons, he recounted the stories which his sons had previously told to him, citing the Khmer Rouge's hatred for Islam and the Cham people. This event prompted the villagers to make a unanimous agreement, that night, they would kill all Khmer Rouge soldiers who were stationed in the area. The next morning, more Khmer Rouge soldiers descended upon the area with heavy weapons, and they surrounded the village, killing every single villager in it. Similarly, in June or July 1975, the Khmer Rouge authorities in Region 21 of the Eastern Zone tried to confiscate all copies of the
Qur'an from the people, and at the same time, they tried to impose a mandatory short haircut on Cham women. The authorities encountered a mass demonstration which was staged by members of the local Cham community who were shot at by the regime's soldiers. The Cham forcefully retaliated with swords and blades, killing a few soldiers, only to be retaliated against by the regime's military reinforcements, which annihilated the villagers and their property. In another account which was given by Cham refugees in Malaysia, thirteen leading figures within the Cham Muslim community were killed by the regime in June 1975. The supposed reason for the killings was because some of them were "leading prayers instead of attending a CPK meeting", while the others were purportedly "petitioning for the permission on marriage ceremonies." The events went from bad to worse in mid-1976 due to the rebellion, when the ethnic minorities were only allowed to pledge allegiance to the Khmer nationality and religion: there were to be no other identities besides the Khmer identity. Consequently, the Cham language was not spoken, communal eating in which everyone eats the same food became mandatory, forcing Cham Muslims to violate their religious beliefs by raising pigs and consuming pork. One reason for the occurrence of such rebellions which has been offered by locals is the fact that some of the Cham who were involved in the Khmer Rouge as soldiers were anticipating the acquisition of positions of power once Pol Pot consolidated his power. In 1975, these soldiers were dismissed from the Khmer Rouge's forces, deprived of their Islamic practices and robbed of their ethnic identity. The patterns were consistent throughout the killings of the Cham people: first, the communal structures were dismantled as a result of the murder of Cham Muslim leaders, including
muftis,
imams, and other learned men of influence. Second, the Cham's Islamic and ethnic identities were both dismantled when the practices that distinguished the Cham from the Khmers were restricted. Third, the Cham were dispersed from their communities, they were either forced to perform labour in the fields or they were accused of plotting to incite acts of resistance or rebellions against the Khmer Rouge and arrested. During the Khmer Rouge's rule of Cambodia, all religions, including
Buddhism,
Christianity, and Islam, were banned and adherents of them were persecuted. According to Cham sources, 132 mosques were destroyed during the Khmer Rouge's rule, many other mosques were desecrated, and Muslims were not allowed to practice their faith. Muslims were forced to eat pork and they were murdered when they refused to eat it. Whole Cham villages were exterminated. Chams were not permitted to speak their language. Cham children were separated from their parents and raised as Khmers. Orders which were given by the Khmer Rouge government in 1979 stated: "The Cham nation no longer exists on Kampuchean soil belonging to the Khmer. Accordingly, Cham nationality, language, customs and religious beliefs must be immediately abolished. Those who fail to obey this order will suffer all the consequences for their acts of opposition to
Angkar." After the end of the Khmer Rouge's rule, all religions were restored. Vickery believes that about 185,000 Cham lived in Cambodia in the mid-1980s and he also believes that the number of mosques was about the same then as it was before 1975. In early 1988, there were six mosques in the Phnom Penh area and a "good number" of mosques also existed in the provinces, but Muslim dignitaries were thinly stretched; only 20 of the previous 113 most prominent Cham clergy in Cambodia survived the rule of the Khmer Rouge period. According to Ben Kiernan, the racialization of the Cham during the colonial and post-colonial eras could be the main reason behind the Khmer Rouge's hatred of the Cham people. Misinformation and racial stereotypes were used to disconnect the Cham from their ancestral homelands, including the Cham extinction theory that was proposed by colonial scholars, according to that theory, the "real" Cham were extinct. Kiernan writes: "In the twentieth century, Chams have suffered from two myths: the glory of their "empire" has been exaggerated, and so has their present plight. A romanticized view of Cham doom helped deprive them of rights in 1975–79. They were called "Malays" by the French, and after Cambodia's independence, received a new, equally inaccurate label: "Islamic Khmers." Again their ethnic origin was denied, in the perverse sense, Chams became victims of History." Scholars also compare the denial of the Khmer Rouge's racist motivation for its genocide against the Cham to the
denial of the Holocaust, both forms of
genocide denial are analogous narrational canards that seek to use victims' religions to justify the actions of genocide perpetrators but they ignore wider race and ethnic hatreds and discriminatory backgrounds.
Religious groups Under the leadership of Pol Pot, who was an ardent
Marxist atheist, the Khmer Rouge enforced a policy of
state atheism. According to Catherine Wessinger, "Democratic Kampuchea was officially an atheist state, and the persecution of religion by the Khmer Rouge was only matched in severity by the persecution of religion in the
communist states of
Albania (see
Religion in communist Albania) and
North Korea (see
Freedom of religion in North Korea)." All religions were banned, and the repression of adherents of Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism was extensive. It is estimated that up to 50,000 Buddhist monks were massacred by the Khmer Rouge.
Internal purges In 1978, in order to purge the Eastern Military Zone of those he perceived to have been contaminated by the Vietnamese, Pol Pot ordered military units from the Southwest Zone to move into eastern Kampuchea and eliminate the "hidden traitors". Unable to withstand an attack from the Kampuchea Government,
So Phim committed suicide while his deputy
Heng Samrin defected to Vietnam. The series of massacres in the Eastern Zone were the most serious of all of the massacres which took place during the Pol Pot regime's genocide. ==Use of children==