The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, seized control of Cambodia in 1975 and sought to transform the country into an agrarian utopia. Over the next four years, around 25% of Cambodia's population died from starvation, overwork, or executions as the Khmer Rouge forcibly removed people from cities and purged perceived enemies. The regime's radical policies were inspired by Maoism and sought to eliminate capitalism, religion, and foreign influences from Cambodian society. By 1978, Vietnam invaded and deposed the Khmer Rouge regime due to its brutal policies and border attacks.

1. Cambodia
Day Zero

3. 25 percent of the country's
population dies from starvation,
overwork and executions.

6. Cambodia: You Must Know
• 1962, Pol Pot becomes head of the
Cambodian Communist Party.
• Forced to flee into the jungle to escape the
wrath of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, leader of
Cambodia.
• Pol Pot forms an armed resistance that is
known as the Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodians)
and wages a guerrilla war against Sihanouk.

8. • 1970, Prince Sihanouk is ousted, by a U.S.-
backed right-wing military coup.
• A bitter Sihanouk retaliates by joining Pol Pot,
his former enemy, in opposing Cambodia's
new military government.
• U.S. invades Cambodia to expel Northern
Vietnamese from their border encampments,
but instead drives them deeper into Cambodia
where they ally themselves with the Khmer
Rouge.

10. • 1969 until 1973, the U.S. intermittently bombs
North Vietnamese sanctuaries in eastern
Cambodia, up to 150,000 Cambodian
peasants die.
• Peasants flee countryside by the hundreds of
thousands and settle in Cambodia's capital
city, Phnom Penh.

12. • These events resulted in economic and
military destabilization in Cambodia.
• 1975, the U.S. withdraws its troops from
Vietnam.
• Taking advantage of the opportunity, Pol Pot's
Khmer Rouge army, consisting of teenage
peasant guerrillas, marches into Phnom Penh
on April 17 seizes control of Cambodia.

14. • Begins a radical experiment to create an
agrarian utopia inspired in part by Mao
Zedong‘.
• Change to Democratic Republic of
Kampuchea.
• "This is Year Zero," and that society was about
to be "purified." Capitalism, Western culture,
city life, religion, and all foreign influences
were to be extinguished.

16. 180g of Cooked Rice
= 6oz or 2/5 lbs
300 – 350 Calories
Every 48 Hours

17. • Millions of Cambodians accustomed to city life
are forced into slave labor in Pol Pot's "killing
fields" where they soon began dying from
overwork, malnutrition and disease, on a diet
of one tin of rice (180 grams) every two days.
• Workdays in the fields began around 4 a.m.
and lasted until 10 p.m.

19. • Throughout Cambodia, deadly purges were
conducted to eliminate remnants of the "old
society" - the educated, the wealthy, Buddhist
monks, police, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and
former officials.
• Ex-soldiers were killed along with their wives
and children.
• Anyone suspected of disloyalty to Pol Pot

21. • Ethnic groups : Vietnamese, Chinese, and
Cham Muslims were targets. 50% of Chinese
living in Cambodia in 1975 perished.
• Khmer Rouge also forced Muslims to eat pork
and shot those who refused.
• On December 25, 1978, Vietnam launched a
full-scale invasion of Cambodia seeking to end
Khmer Rouge border attacks. On January 7,
1979, Phnom Penh fell and Pol Pot was
deposed.

22. Lock it up!!!
•Lock
•It
•Up

23. Children of Genocide:
• Exit questions
• Multigenerational problems…
• Education gap. Kids who teach parents?

24. What factors helped cause genocide in
Cambodia?
• (previous governments were corrupt and
didn’t treat people well, hatred toward the
rich, racism toward Vietnamese, chaos due to
bombing, destabilizing the government by
overthrowing Prince Sihanouk, charismatic
leader with a strong vision, socialist and
Maoist ideology)

25. Why were the Khmer Rouge so angry?
• (Anger due to economic injustices and foreign
intervention, from the French and US and
historically from the Thai and Vietnamese;
fear of loss of sovereignty; numbing due to
exposure to violence in civil war; anger from
exposure to domestic violence in childhood)