Content warning: this piece contains descriptions of acts of extreme violence and death. Please do not read this post if you are upset or offended by these topics.
This piece was written as part of a Crimes Against Humanity module during my university course. The word count for this essay was 2,500.
The term genocide was coined by Lempkin in 1944 and since, the United Nations (n.d) have worked hard to formulate a definition that is inclusive of all the complexities of the act of genocide. They established the 1948 Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide which provided an inclusive definition of genocide. The definition includes the acts committed with intention to destroy national, ethical or racial groups. They also provide a list of acts which this can include, for example, killing members of these groups, causing severe mental or bodily harm, influencing conditions to the point they cause harm or destruction, preventing births and forcibly displacing children. A relevant case study to example genocide would be the case study of Cambodia, which experienced a four-year era of terror after a civil war. The political background of this genocide example provides insight into the serious complexity of the crime of genocide, as well as the hardships in reconstructing and resettling society after the act of genocide. This essay will compare the definition of genocide alongside similar terms and recount the historical events leading up to Cambodia’s genocide, before exploring the act of genocide with theory. Finally, this essay will investigate the legacy that the genocide has left behind in Cambodia, with particular emphasis on reconciliation.
To begin this essay, it is important to define key terms associated with the crime of genocide in order to create a more comprehensive understanding of the case study to come. The International Criminal Court (1998) offers definitions for necessary terms, which will be used in this essay. Article 6 of the Rome Statute defines genocide in the same way as the United Nations did, as mentioned previously. However, other definitions include crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression, which are closely interlinked with the crime of genocide. Article 7 defines crimes against humanity as acts that are committed as part of a widespread attack against civilians. This includes murder, enslavement, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, persecution, disappearances, and any other inhuman acts against a population. This is different to genocide since genocide is a largescale extermination of particular groups within society, whereas crimes against humanity refer to a population in general. War crimes, as mentioned in Article 8, refer to breaches of the Geneva Conventions which has a particular focus on military against civilians, and similarly, Article 8 encompasses the Crime of Aggression, which again has specific focus on military involvement, but instead of civilians, Crimes of Aggression act against a state, particularly mentioning invasion and bombardment. These definitions, especially genocide and crimes against humanity are extremely important when referring to the case study of Cambodia, which will be explored below. With these definitions in mind, this essay will introduce the case study and explore historical context of the eventual genocide in Cambodia.
Firstly, France colonised Cambodia in 1887 (Chandler, 1986) until Prince Sihanouk aided the liberation of Cambodia from French rule, allowing its independence finally in 1953. Because of this, Sihanouk, and his government, became legitimate authority in Cambodia (Asku, 2003). Here, it is important to note that there are some argued links between post-colonialism and state fragility (Saeed, 2020). However, the events of colonialism left Cambodia in a state where income inequality was rampant (University of Minnesota, n.d), and there were high levels of corruption, where those in Phnom Penh enjoyed the luxuries of the city, while rural farmers lived in poverty. Another important event that occurred was the beginning of the civil war in Vietnam, another former French colony and Cambodia’s neighbour (Hinton, 2005). This conflict was argued to be proxy war, fought between the communist North of Vietnam, supported by the Soviet Union, and the capitalist South, backed by the United States, in the depths of the Cold War (Rotondi, n.d). The ideologies that the Soviet Union introduced to the area are what inspired the ideology of the new revolutionary faction in Cambodia – the Communist Party of Kampuchea, later known as the Khmer Rouge (Wietz, 2003). Meanwhile due to the high prevalence of corruption in Cambodia, Prince Sihanouk was overthrown in a military coup and sent to exile in Beijing, leaving the likes of Lon Nol in power. While in Beijing, Sihanouk was advised to support the Khmer Rouge faction against the government of Cambodia. Sihanouk had many loyal followers in Cambodia, who blindly followed his support for the revolutionary forces, and this led to the rebellion gaining traction (Kuhn, 2012). Before long, the Khmer Rouge began to use the method of Guerrilla Warfare against military, instructed by Lon Nol. Guerrilla Warfare is characterised as a poorly trained (Lee, 2019) and irregular type of warfare that is not under military control (Papagos, 1952). This saw the beginning of Cambodia’s own civil war in 1967.
During this war, the revolutionary forces gained the following of rural farmers, enticed by the promise of an egalitarian society. They also stormed villages in order to recruit young men who could act as Guerrilla fighters for the regime. During this time, there were also accounts of Lon Nol’s military being morally unable to kill fellow Khmer, making the military weaker, and the Khmer Rouge stronger (Summers, 1972).
The US began interference in 1973, under the approval of Lon Nol. They bombed many rural Guerrilla controlled areas, and also bombed innocent Cambodian citizens along the way. There is strong evidence to suggest that Lon Nol’s demise was inevitable after this (Kubota, 2011), as Cambodian citizens were outraged by the decision. Therefore, in 1975, the Khmer Rouge gained enough power to finally seize Phnom Penh, the capital city, which began their four-year reign of terror.
At the start of the reign, the Khmer Rouge began forcefully displacing city dwellers into the countryside, where they were made to work to increase rice yields for the state. Most deaths by this point were caused by malnutrition, starvation, disease or famine (Schabas, 2001). However, the regime, disguised by its communist ideology, soon showed genocidal intent. Stanton (2016) constructed a theory where there are ten definitive stages to genocide, and this essay will go on to discuss the most important stages in relevance to the case study.
The first stage that Stanton identifies is ‘classification’, which includes the process of polarising certain groups, or in other words, where the othering process begins. This process refers to the production of an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ view, often marginalising certain groups (Jensen, 2011). The Khmer Rouge begin this process by distinguishing their loyal followers, against those who are educated, follow religious groups (Wise, 2020). Some accounts of this process occurring argue that if they were from an educated class, or part of a religion, they would be treated worse at labour camps than the poor farmers that the Khmer Rouge glorified.
The next stage includes ‘symbolism’, which is where people in these groups get given names or symbols to identify them by. This was represented as the Khmer Rouge began using specific terminology to refer to those who lived in rural Cambodia, and their followers as ‘base people’, and refers to those who are educated, religious, city dwellers or former government officials as ‘new people’. Not only this, but those on the Eastern zone of Cambodia near the Vietnamese border were issued with blue and white checkered scarves, called a Kroma (Hay, 2013), before they were sent to forced labour camps. These scarves later distinguished them as people for the regime to kill first.
The next stage includes ‘discrimination’, which includes denying people of their rights. In general, most Cambodians were denied of certain rights, for example, books were burned, education was abolished, occupational and residential choice was abolished, religion was banned, and money disappeared (Hinton, 2005). As an example of this occurring, Cham Muslim women were forced to cut their hair short, something their religion did not allow, and all Cham people were forced to wear black pyjamas to be identified by the regime (Kiernan, 1990).
The next stage ‘dehumanisation’ allowed the Khmer Rouge to physically manifest their ideology. During this process, they labeled Buddhist monks (Schabas, 2001) and cities (Hay, 2013) as ‘parasites’, of their society. Many pregnant women were raped, tortured and eventually murdered to eliminate the possibility of impurity in their society (Brickell, 2008). Hay (2013) highlights an infamous quote: “Khmer heads, but Vietnamese bodies”, which allowed the Khmer Rouge members to entirely disassociate from the physical bodies of these people, dehumanising them, and allowing them to be killed.
The next step is “organisation”, which is where the plans to commit genocide are made and then executed. The Khmer Rouge kept detailed records of everyone under the regime, with photographs. They planned to kill former government officials first, followed by anyone they considered a traitor to the regime. The had planned to kill whole families (Hay, 2013).
The next stage, ‘persecution’ is exampled in Cambodia by the existence of the Tuol Sleng prison, which was an instrument of terror in Cambodia. Finally, the Khmer Rouge just needed to execute their intent to kill. Hinton describes one of the many methods used by the Khmer Rouge to kill civilians. He describes officers leading a prisoner into a ditch, before striking them on the back of the neck with an iron bar. 17,000 people were killed in Cheoung Ek killing fields alone, from a series of massacres and individual killings. No longer was genocide just an intention, but instead, a reality in Cambodia.
There is an important final stage of genocide, which directly correlates to the situation in Cambodia. This is the stage of “denial”. The theme of denial has been rife in the recent history of Cambodia, especially with those in close relation to Pol Pot, who organised and led the regime. For example, members who were closely involved in the activities in the Tuol Sleng prison and extermination centre. Prisoners here were subject to various forms of torture, forced confessions, and many of them were later murdered, with an estimation of 14,000 people (Boyle, 2015). To name some examples of famous denials of genocide, Nuon Chea, who was in direct command of the activities in the prison, denied any knowledge of the regimes genocidal policies. Similarly, Ieng Sary, who worked very closely alongside Pol Pot, insisted he was unaware of the killings (Fawthrop, 2005). Duch, a prison officer at the centre admitted to making decisions regarding forms of torture and watching executions in Choeung Ek, but was innocent, and the leadership above him should take full responsibility (Boyle, 2015). Denial is key when focusing on the legacy of genocide in Cambodia.
When moving onto legacy, it is important to acknowledge the different fields of legacy. Legacy of something so complex as genocide encompasses social, political, psychological and physical spheres in many ways, and some of these ways overlap, for example physical surroundings can have social and psychosocial impacts. For example, the ever-present remanence of civil war in Cambodia. There are bullet holes in buildings, bomb craters litter fields, people are still in possession of AK-47s and handguns, and many roads are still unpaved, a reminder of Cambodia’s struggle to rebuild and develop it's infrastructure. Most harrowing of all, however, are the high numbers of unexploded ordinance and landmines (Hinton, 2005), which are continually adding to the death toll and causing many serious injuries to Cambodians still (Nathanson, 1998). There are other structural reminders which have political influence, such as memorials. Famously, the Choeung Ek Memorial and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, where photos of victims are pinned to the walls. These do offer education to visitors and young Cambodians on the genocide; however, memorialisation is highly politically driven. Sirik (2020) argues that memorials are political tools to build a ‘collective narrative’ of what the current governments goals are. For example, under Hun Sen’s government, who served as a post-genocide Prime Minister, there was evidence to suggest he wanted his government viewed as ‘saviours’ for all of Cambodia. Memorialisation has the tendency to oversimplify experiences and potentially make even more of a distinction between victim and perpetrator.
Another distinguishable legacy is a social legacy. Due to the excess of deaths in Cambodia, a huge restructuring of society was necessary to successfully reconcile Cambodia. Evidence that genocide had occurs include a huge rise in female headed households, due to males losing their lives at a much higher rate during the civil war and genocide. Not only this, but organised religion needed to be entirely re-established. Religion is a vital institution in societies, giving people an opportunity to unite, and a community much bigger than themselves. However, only around 1,000 Buddhist monks survived the genocide, as the regime targeted them harshly. The government did help to rebuild Buddhist monuments to encourage the re-establishment of organised religion (Ciorciari and Ramji-Nogales, 2012).
Psychologically, there is a high prevalence of PTSD in Cambodia (28.4%), alongside lasting mental health issues where people perceive the world as a threatening place to live. Frustration can cause people to act in violence, particularly in the form of domestic violence (Brockers, et al., 2011). Not only this, but the transfer of blame and denial allows space of generational trauma, meaning there is a chance of cycles of violence. Reconciliation is the process whereby relationships between victims and perpetrators are improved by opening dialogues and healing trauma, and with the high levels of mental health and societal issues in Cambodia, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission would be an asset to the healing of Cambodia. However, the government never formally officiated one, instead NGOs like Youth for Peace responded, to open dialogues and allow victims and perpetrators to offer their peace (Brockers, et al., 2011). In terms of justice, in 1979, the government held a national tribunal to trial Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, called the People’s Revolutionary Tribunal. This, however, was short and insufficent, especially for such a large-scale crime. The voices of ordinary victims fell underheard, which led to vengeful violent outbursts.
By the terms of the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, the genocide in Cambodia is considered ‘auto-genocide’, where genocide is committed against one's own race (Kiernan, 1990). In 1997, the government asked for help from the UN to create a special court to try serious crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge - the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia. They asked for the court to be held in Cambodia so that victims can see justice at work (Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia, n.d). It aimed to include victims in trials, which tended to prove successful (Herman, 2010).
To conclude, this essay has explored the complexities of the crime of genocide, using the example of Cambodia to explore just how genocide happens, with specific reference to Stanton’s theory to explore this delicate topic in an organised manner. The legacy left behind has been discussed, where there are multiple dynamics in which the legacy of civil war and genocide are experienced in Cambodia, and the experience of legacy is vital to the reconciliation of Cambodia. This essay has also emphasised the importance of legacy across all spheres, from macro (infrastructural) to micro (personal experience) level. Overall, it can be concluded that in the case study of Cambodia, legacy is extremely important to the processes that the government needed to follow in order to create a peaceful environment in fragile Cambodia, and there are still many challenges to overcome.
References
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