Khmer Rouges

Khmer Rouge (in Khmer: Khmaey Krahom ), whose official name was successively Communist party of Kampuchea and Parti democratic Kampuchea (other names: Communist party of Kampuchea, PCK, Khmer Communist party, National army of democratic Kampuchea, DPK), were the members of an organization Communiste which was with the capacity with the Kampuchea of 1975 with 1979.

The name of “Khmer Rouges” was allotted to them by the king Norodom Sihanouk in the Années 1950 and is usually used in French throughout the world. The revolutionists themselves did not use this term and preferred ““Khmer” kampuchéen”, who pointed out too the “old order”.

The red organization khmère was characterized by authoritative methods of an extreme brutality, - there so much so that one could see the shape of “car Génocide”. The Khmer Rouges sadly became famous for their exactions which at the origin of died from approximately 1,5 million people (more than one quarter of the population), died of hunger, of exhaustion or carried out. This assessment made of the mode of Pol Pot one of the largest murderers of the 20th century.

September 19th, 2007, Nuon Chea, one of the principal leaders of the mode of Pol Pot was stopped. Known under the title of " Brother number deux" , Nuon Chea (of her true name Long Bunruot) was the principal lieutenant of Pol Pot, leader of the mode of the Khmer Rouges deceased in 1998. Regarded as the ideologist of the old capacity, Nuon Chea would be behind the majority of the purgings which ensanglanté the Kampuchean Communist party.

Birth of the movement

The Kampuchean revolutionary leaders are for the majority resulting families from the Bourgeoisie. Many carried out their studies in French universities in the Années 1950. In a Parisian atmosphere cosmopolitan and favourable with the exchanges of ideas, they adopted the communist ideology.

Once returned with the Kampuchea, they tried to develop a movement of rise in the living conditions by starting a political work of education near their pupils. An autonomous Kampuchean Communist party compared to the Indochinese Communist party (founded in 1931) was formed in 1951. Under the Sangkum, the governmental participation of some intellectuals progressists remained provisional and symbolic system.

Noting that they missed financial means and human ones in the capital, and conscious in addition that the mode would repress their movement shortly, the chiefs of the Party took the maquis in 1962 in bases held by the National front for the release of Vietnam. They learned the bases there from the political management of the population and the police control which they were going to once apply to the capacity. Starting from the medium of the Years 1960, they took actions of Guérilla of low intensity along the border Vietnamese, mainly in order to support the Vietnamese Communists in their war against the the United States. In 1968, one year after the country revolt of Samlaut in the North-West, they launched out in the armed struggle. In 1968-1969, many intellectuals in goal with political persecutions joined them in the maquis.

Ideology

The ideology of the revolutionists wants to be without models but combines in fact a revised form of the Maoïsme (which they applied “with creativity” according to the expression of Pol Pot in front of the Chinese leaders) with egalitarian ideas drawn from the utopians and economic principles anticolonialists resulting from the European anti-impérialiste left that the executives of the party, in particular Pol Pot, Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan discovered during their stay in France in the Années 1950. To that a will is added to be used as model with other communist movements, far from the “Révisionnisme” of Vietnam and China (criticized for the maintenance of the property, the family unit, the Culte of the personality, the private trade, etc).

Leaders

The executive committee of the central committee of the Khmer Rouges (“Center of the Party”) while it was with the capacity was composed of:

Pol Pot (Saloth Sar), known as “Brother number 1”, the effective chief of the movement i.e. Prime Minister and Master of democratic Kampuchea, general secretary of the PCK since February 1963 (died suddenly in its residence supervised in 1998, and this, shortly after its judgment by his/her former comrades in arms at the time of a lawsuit with Anlong Veng (=bastion of the irreducible Khmer Rouges): officially died of myocardial infarction);
Nuon Chea, “Brother number 2” chair of the National Assembly Khmer Rouge (always in life);
Ieng Sary, “Brother number 3” Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister (brother-in-law of Pol Pot) (always in life);
Khieu Samphan, President of the Presidium of State, " the mouth of pol. Pot" (always in life);
Your Mok (Chhit Chhoeun), general known cruel unijambist under the name of " boucher" “Brother number 7” (death);
Its SEN, Minister for defense (carried out in 1997 with 11 members of its family and all crushed by trucks on order of Pol Pot);
Yun Yat (=femme of Its SEN and dead carried out with all its family);
Ke Pauk, “Brother number 13”, former secretary of the Northern zone (death);
Ieng Thirith, woman of Ieng Sary and sister of Khieu Ponnary (=la first woman of Pol Pot which finished its life with a psychiatric disease) (always in life).

The leadership of the Khmer Rouges changed little between the Années 1960 and the medium of the Années 1990.

Takeover

Clandestine movement and dying man who included/understood only about 2.000 men before 1970. It is only after 1970 that this movement becomes especially extensive grace to the extension of the Guerre of Vietnam to Kampuchea which gave prestigious supports to them (1 Norodom Sihanouk driven out capacity by a coup d'etat of Lon Nol/Sirik Matak, in exile with Beijing, launched a call to the Khmer people to take the maquis to fight the imperialism américain.2/North-Vietnamese soldier Nam, 3 China). The cruelty of the American bombardments out of carpet, the corruption and the impéritie of the government resulting from the coup d'etat of Lon Nol made it possible the party to establish bases and to recruit combatants who believed to fight for Samdech Euv (=dieu-roi alive which is SAR N.Sihanouk). It is primarily at this period that were tested many future principles of the revolution of April 1975 in the released zones: Autarky, taken in hand centralized of the economic exchanges, militarization of the force of work, etc the Khmer Rouges arrive at the doors of the capital.

Finally, the April 17th 1975, the rebels of the FUNK (national United front of Kampuchea chaired by SAR NR. Sihanouk and gathering all the forces of national release of which Khmer Rouges and the sihanoukistes=khmers romdoh) invest Phnom Penh, drive out the inhabitants of the cities under pretext of American bombardments and continue to gradually eliminate the opponents and the sihanoukists. They organize formal elections in which take part only of the members of the Party and the peasants, and found a new particularly hard and extreme dictatorship under the name of “democratic Kampuchea”. The Party, represented by an organization quasi-mystic - the Angkar (a Khmer term meaning “the Organization”) -, becomes the only very powerful reference and is directed mainly by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Sao Pheum, Your Mok, Ieng Sary, Its SEN and a handle of lieutenants.

Khmer Rouge mode

Catch in hand of the population

As of the first day of the victory of the FUNK (dominated primarily by the Khmer Rouges) the April 17th 1975, Phnom Penh was emptied and its population sent to the countryside in the Coopérative S to work and be supervised. Angkar orders the execution of all the intellectuals (doctors, pharmacists, engineers, professors…), of all the soldiers… of the old mode and défroquer monks. All the opponents, recalcitrant are killed summarily. The people are divided into two categories: the ancients (=la primarily country population basic which is subjected to Angkar before the victory of April 17th) and new people (=pour majority of the townsmen who should be rehabilitated and subjected to Angkar that after the victory). In 1976-1977, with forced and brutal collectivization, the joint food was definitively installation to ensure the equality of the rations - thing which was generally not respected. This type of organization was not repudiated during ultimate corrections of the year 1978. “Kampuchea”, new in all the connections, sought to rehabilitate the whole of the population to destroy the idea of private property. For this purpose, the Party-State had, according to Pol Pot, to involve itself in all the recesses of the company. Even on the level of the ministries, the meetings of criticism and self-criticism fustigating individualism were frequent, and the executives had to be rebuilt and to forge themselves in the direction of one tender to the revolutionary Organization (=Angkar).

It resulted from them a police control from the behaviors and thoughts particularly inquisitorial, as well as constant calls to revolutionary vigilance with respect to the “bad elements” and of the enemies, at the same time as of the calls not to be too on the left (even if most important were not to be too on the right).

Descent into Hell

The economic situation degrading itself year by year, the search for scapegoats and the cheatings multiple returned particularly the situation distressing and intolerable. The executions were currency. The will to multiply the outputs with the hectare by three and the conviction that the first step towards industrialization was the rice export led Pol Pot to starve the Kampuchean population to achieve these goals.

Pol Pot was not inclined to call in question the ideological line (joint food, regional autarky, output of three tons paddy per hectare, absence of rows in the army, education of the joint children, prolonged rehabilitation of the patriotic intellectuals, etc), also in 1977 which it worried about certain situations. It deferred the responsibility for the failures of the system on the Party and started fatal purgings within this one, largely supplied with its paranoia. These are the purgings which also filled the disaster center of interrogation and execution S-21, built in the old college of Tuol Sleng.

Fall

In January 1979, the Vietnam invades Kampuchea to put a term at the mode. The border incidents had multiplied because of paranoia of the Khmer Rouge leaders, which had awaked a competition pluriséculaire between Kampuchea and Vietnam. Undoubtedly the socialist République of Vietnam it had perceived opportunity, by the means of defections of frameworks and its own incursions in Kampuchean territory, which constituted the state of délitement advanced country, devastated by the famine, the fear and the shortages. The invasion begins in December 1978 and Phnom Penh (phantom city, because emptied its population since 1975) very quickly falls the January 7th 1979. In spite of the fear of the domination Vietnamese which is traditionally anchored in the spirit Kampuchean, the army Vietnamese is helped by many defections of Khmer Rouges and is accommodated with relief by the population. The central capacity must be folded up along the border inhabitant of Thailand (semi-officially protected by elements from the army inhabitant of Thailand). In 1985, Khieu Samphân succeeds officially Pol Pot as a Khmer Rouge leader.

The the United States and other Western governments, as well as China, continue to recognize democratic Kampuchea like government of Kampuchea to mark their disapproval of the occupation Vietnamese, supported by the USSR. China then launches a punitive invasion to the north of the Vietnam who will fail completely. The United States supports resistance Khmer Rouge via allied inhabitants of Thailand. Whereas as of 1980 the Vietnameses control is and centers it of Kampuchea, the engagements continue in the west during the every years 1980 and of the million mines are disseminated. At the end one decade of engagements, all the Kampuchean political factions sign a treaty in 1991 founding elections and disarmament. However the Khmer Rouges take again the weapons in 1992 and reject the result of the elections the following year. Defections in mass take place in 1996 and half of the combatants remaining (approximately 4 000) leaves the movement. Internal struggles lead to the lawsuit and the imprisonment of Pol Pot by the Khmer Rouges themselves in 1997. Pol Pot dies in April 1998 and Khieu Samphan goes in December of the same year.

The December 29th 1998, the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders present their excuses for deaths of the Années 1970. In 1999, the majority of the members went or were captured. The capture of Your Mok in March 1999 marks the final point of the history of the Khmer Rouges. It is held in this moment even discussions some not very surging concerning the judgment of the alive Khmer Rouges and who went or captured. Dissensions on their judgment, between those which want a reform of the extraordinary rooms and the international community. The Kampuchean ones are afraid that these dissensions, and that this lawsuit, in front of being the means of turning the page, do not condemn them to be spectators of their own history, and their future…

If the dissensions persist, it could be even that it is the last chance of Kampuchean to consider the leaders Khmer Rouge. To note that the current one directing of Kampuchea, Hun Sen, is itself an former executive Khmer Rouge subordinate having flees towards Vietnam in 1977 to escape the internal purgings.

International justice

Several Khmer Rouges are continued by international justice:

Kang Kek Ieu, alias “Douch”, former director of the Khmer Rouge center of torture S-21
Khieu Samphan, former President of the Presidium of State.

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