Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge is another name for the Communist Party of Kampuchea. This group was lead by Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia on April 17, 1975. Cambodia was renamed The Democratic Kampuchea. The Khmer Rouge believed that Cambodia's citizens had been corrupted by other cultures. They wanted Cambodia to be a farming country with no differential classes, no separation in pay, and the whole country to worship one religion. For these reasons, the government started to hunt after anyone with a higher education, or anyone who worshiped a different religion. Buildings that promoted these "forbidden" things were turned into places that the new government could use, such as stables, prisons, re-education camps, and granaries. No citizen had rights anymore. You couldn't go out of your home, or hold a discussion with more than two people. You were also forbidden to show any affection, towards your family or anyone else. Citizens were expected to go through what was called re-education. If they refused this process, then they slaughtered in the fields that they worked in, or sent to prison camps. The most infamous prison camp was named S-21. This particular prison held around 14,000 prisoners. When the camp was liberated, there were only 12 survivors. Over the four years that the Khmer Rouge was in power, they killed more than 1.7 million people. These people were killed by means of torture, execution, exhaustion, and starvation. The Khmer Rouge fell when in Vietnamese invaded in January of 1979, and imposed their government on Cambodia.
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