Melvin,+Julia

Julia Melvin Period 3 Historical Investigation November 9, 2010  ** A. ****Plan of the Investigation **  **To what extent did the Cambodian Genocide complete the goals of its leaders? **  The Cambodian genocide and the brutal Pol Pot regime killed millions of citizens and left a drastic impact on the country of Cambodia and its people. The purpose of this investigation is to determine to what extent the Cambodian Genocide was able to complete the goals of Cambodia's leaders at the time, like Pol Pot. This will be done by comparing research on the views of both the Khmer Rouge leaders and the Cambodian survivors in both the long and short run. (82) **B. Summary of Evidence **  **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Background: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">The Communist political party of Cambodia emerged in 1951 and was named the Khmer People’s Revolutionary Party. In just “three years it recruited over one thousand members, mainly from the two largest sectors of Cambodian life: the peasantry and the monkhood”. [i] Soon after, Pol Pot became the leading Communist organizer in Cambodia in 1953 and eventually rose to the position of secretary in 1963. [ii] Five years later, Pol Pot became the recognized leader of the Khmer Rouge insurgents. However, from 1967 to 1975 Cambodia was involved in the Vietnam War with Vietnam and the United States. American bombs killed over 100 thousand Cambodian peasants, which triggered a second wave of Khmer Rouge rural recruitment. [iii] After the war, in 1975, Khmer Rouge forces, with their new recruitment, were able to brutally restructure Cambodian society and overthrow the current government of Cambodia. Thousands of families were forcefully removed from their homes in Phnom Penh, the capital, where they were forced to march for days into the countryside. [iv] Meanwhile the insurgents, in the newly conquered Phnom Penh established the Democratic Kampuchea regime and named Pol Pot the Prime Minister. Soon after, all other towns in Cambodia, even those in the East, were taken over by Khmer forces. In all, over two million people were evacuated from the major cities of Cambodia. [v] Later, after the genocide had happened on December 25, 1978 “Vietnamese troops finally took over the capital of Cambodia and drove Pol Pot and his leaders to the Thai border”. [vi] **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Goals: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> Once the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975, their main goal was to transform Cambodian society, “requiring minorities to abandon aspects of their distinct culture and to become ‘Khmer’”. [vii] However, Cambodian citizens hated the Khmer Rouge leaders for making their lives miserable and Loung Ung, a survivor, stated how she wished that all of the soldiers would die. [viii] No leader before Pol Pot questioned the distribution of power among haves and have-nots in Cambodia. However, Pol Pot’s response to these imbalances was to kill the haves and empower the have-nots while divesting everyone of possessions. [ix] Pol Pot believed that “everything should be done on the basis of self-reliance, independence, and mastery”. [x] Pot “treasured the Cambodian race not individuals or hereditary enemies especially Vietnamese.” [xi] He also saw a need for war and secrecy as the basis of the revolution, which is why he kept himself and the regime underground. He even trusted only few of the more pragmatic, veteran Khmer Communists who had been trained by the Vietnamese, once he came to power. [xii] **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Impact of the Genocide: **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="line-height: 19pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 135.0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">During the genocide, there was intensified violence against ethnic minorities. Half of the nation’s ethnic Chinese perished, which was close to 250 thousand. Only seventy of the monks in all of Cambodia survived the genocide and 150 thousand Chams were deported while 100 thousand of those were murdered. Also, 10 thousand Vietnamese were captured and murdered. In all, 1.7 million Cambodians died and 500 thousand were killed deliberately. [xiii] “The regimes’ anti-urban, anti- “bourgeois” purges decimated Cambodia’s small elite and destroyed the fragile trust that existed among different segments of the population”. [xiv] The Khmer Rouge killed all intellectuals, old government officials and business owners. Books were burned, libraries were demolished, schools were closed, and a third of Cambodia’s 20,000 schoolteachers were killed or fled the country. [xv] For a decade after the genocide, Cambodian schools offered no history subjects, only classes in “Political Morality” and folk tales. [xvi] After the genocide, 19,471 mass graves were discovered by historians at 343 different sites throughout Cambodia. Also, many of the remains of men, women, and children exhibited evidence of extreme trauma. [xvii] “Almost twenty years after the end of the Khmer Rouge era (1975-1979), Cambodia’s society and people continue to suffer from the physical and psychological traumas of that period. In less than four years, over 1.5 million Cambodians died from malnutrition, overwork, misdiagnosed diseases, and executions”. [xviii] <span style="line-height: 19pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 135.0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">(1,025) <span style="line-height: 19pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt -27pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 135.0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="line-height: 19pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt -27pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 135.0pt;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">C. Evaluation of Sources **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="line-height: 19pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 135.0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="line-height: 19pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 135.0pt;">**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Ung, Loung. __First They Killed My Father__. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="line-height: 19pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 135.0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="line-height: 19pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 135.0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">In this novel, Loung Ung, now a National Spokesperson for the program of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation tells of her experiences as a five year old girl in Cambodia’s brutal Pol Pot regime. The purpose of this source is to tell of her experiences where until the age of five Ung lived in Phnom Penh, where she was one of seven children of a high-ranking government official. In April 1975, when Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge army stormed into Phnom Penh, Ung and her family were forced to flee their homes, and search for refuge, hiding their identity and former life. The value of this source is that it reveals to the rest of the world a true account of a child’s actual experience during the war and is similar to the stories of millions of others who weren’t fortunate enough to make it through the regime. Another value of this source is that Ung is able to tell of the long term effects that the genocide had on her life. However a limitation of this source is that Ung, was five at the time of the actual regime and thus, her memory and later life may have altered her descriptions of her experiences. <span style="line-height: 19pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 135.0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Kiernan, Ben. //The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79//. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Print. ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">In this novel, Ben Kiernan, the director of the Genocide Studies Program and an International and Area Studies professor at Yale University, writes a detailed account of the Pol Pot Regime and its drastic effect on Cambodia as a whole. The purpose of this novel is that Kiernan looks into the violent origins, the social context, and the leaders of the regime to analyze why a group of Cambodians would impose genocide on their own country. The value of this book is that it uses over five hundred interviews of Cambodian refugees, survivors, defectors, and many primary sources to evaluate the significance of the Cambodian genocide. Kiernan also provides an extremely detailed summary of what happened in Cambodia during the genocide from 1975-1979. However, a limitation of this source is that it heavily focuses on only the time period of the regime. In the last chapter, it only mentions events that happened up to 1983, and thus does not provide information on the long-term effects of the Pol Pot regime. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">(375) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">D. Analysis  ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> The Cambodian genocide left a lasting effect on the citizens of Cambodia and the country itself. Although the Khmer Rouge leaders were successful in killing and ruining the lives of millions of people, not all of their goals were reached. The extent to which the leaders of the Cambodian genocide completed their goals can be examined from two different perspectives in two time periods. In determining this question, the views of the victims of the genocide and the Khmer Rouge members must be analyzed in both the long and short term. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> In the short term, the leaders of the Khmer Rouge were thought to have been successful in their objectives. In the eyes of the leaders, like Pol Pot, they had transformed Cambodian society for the time being. People were forced out of their homes into work camps, where entire cities were left abandoned. The Khmer Rouge was also successful in killing millions of people and cleansing society of the haves while empowering the have-nots, forcing everyone to become “Khmer” [xix]. However, although Pol Pot may have thought he was successful in controlling the people of Cambodia, the beliefs of any person cannot be controlled. In the novel, // First They Killed My Father //, Ung discusses how although she was living under Khmer rule; she loathed anything that had to do with the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. [xx] Like any major dictator in history, Pol Pot wanted everyone to live under his complete control, but this feat is impossible because there is always going to be people who retaliate against rule, no matter how forceful it is. In strong willed people, like many Cambodian genocide survivors, following the control of Pol Pot’s regime was only an act of survival and in no means meant that Cambodians had given in to the ways of Pol Pot. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> Although, the Khmer Rouge leaders may have thought they were successful in transforming Cambodian society and empowering the poor, in reality, they were only able to obtain rule of Cambodia for a span of two years. In the long run, the objectives of Pol Pot were a failure. In the novel by Ben Kiernan, it fails to mention the long run effects of the genocide, even though it was published in 1996. Although this is a limitation of this source, it demonstrates how the Khmer Rouge only lasted a couple of years and did not complete its goals of transforming Cambodian society for good. Additionally, Loung Ung mentions how her life was changed because of the genocide; however, she is still the same person and was able to move on from her horrible experiences. [xxi] Many lives were changed and affected as result of the Khmer Rouge, but the Khmer Rouge did not complete the goals of its leaders in the long run. Cambodia’s economy plummeted during the Khmer Rouge and was extremely low in the years to follow, but in recent years, it has begun to recover. Therefore, Pol Pot and his leaders were unable to transform society and make all Cambodian’s citizens “Khmer”, since their regime was shortly defeated. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">(585) ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">E. Conclusion ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Although millions of people suffered during the Cambodian genocide, the goals of the Khmer Rouge leaders were not successfully completed. Cambodia is still recovering from the impact that the genocide left on the land and the citizens of Cambodia, however, Cambodia // is // still recovering and slowly regaining its strength. In the short run, Pol Pot may have thought he was becoming successful because he was cleansing society of the intellectuals and making everyone ‘Khmer’. But in the end, the Khmer Rouge only lasted two years and the survivors and citizens of Cambodia have moved forward from that horrible time in their country’s history. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">(103) ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">F. List of Sources ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Total word count: 2,090 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Chandler, David P. "The Burden of Cambodia's Past." //Cambodia// //and the// <span style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">International Community: The Quest for Peace, Development, and Democracy //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">1994: //Columbia// //International Affairs Online//. Web. 24 Aug. 2010. <span style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"><http://ciaonet.org>. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Duong, Liai. //Racial Discrimination in the Cambodian Genocide//.: Genocide <span style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Studies Program, MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">University, 2006. Print. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Etcheson, Craig. "Khmer Rouge Prisons and Mass Graves." //Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity//. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 613-615. //Gale Virtual Reference Library//. Web. 6 Sept. 2010. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Kiernan, Ben. "Coming to Terms with the Past Cambodia." //History Today// Sept. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">2004: 16-19. Print. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Kiernan, Ben. "Khmer Rouge." //Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity//. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 608-613. //Gale Virtual Reference Library//. Web. 6 Sept. 2010. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Kiernan, Ben. "Pol Pot." //Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity//. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 819-820. //Gale Virtual Reference Library//. Web. 6 Sept. 2010. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Kiernan, Ben. //The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge,1975-79//. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Print. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Ung, Loung. __First They Killed My Father__. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">

** Endnotes  ** <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[i]   <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Kiernan, Ben. //The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79//. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Print. (Page 13) [ii] ibid. page 13<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> [iii] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Kiernan, Ben. "Khmer Rouge." //Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity//. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 608-613. //Gale Virtual Reference Library//. Web. 6 Sept. 2010. [iv] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Ung, Loung. __First They Killed My Father__. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. Pages 38-57 [v] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Kiernan, Ben. //The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79//. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Print. (Pages 35-45) [vi] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Kiernan, Ben. "Khmer Rouge." //Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity//. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 608-613. //Gale Virtual Reference Library//. Web. 6 Sept. 2010. [vii] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Duong, Liai. //Racial Discrimination in the Cambodian Genocide//.: Genocide <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Studies Program, MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">University, 2006. Print. (page 4-5) <span style="line-height: 19pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 135.0pt;"> [viii] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Ung, Loung. __First They Killed My Father__. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. Page 192. [ix] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Kiernan, Ben. "Pol Pot." //Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity//. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 819-820. //Gale Virtual Reference Library//. Web. 6 Sept. 2010. <span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in -0.5in 0pt 0.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: -0.5in;"> [x] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Kiernan, Ben. //The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79//. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Print. Page 11-12 [xi] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Kiernan, Ben. "Pol Pot." //Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity//. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 819-820. //Gale Virtual Reference Library//. Web. 6 Sept. 2010. [xii] Ibid. [xiii] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Kiernan, Ben. "Khmer Rouge." //Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity//. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 608-613. //Gale Virtual Reference Library//. Web. 6 Sept. 2010. [xiv] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Chandler, David P. "The Burden of Cambodia's Past." //Cambodia// //and the// <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">International Community: The Quest for Peace, Development, and Democracy //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">1994: //Columbia// //International Affairs Online//. Web. 24 Aug. 2010. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"><http://ciaonet.org>. [xv] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Kiernan, Ben. "Coming to Terms with the Past Cambodia." //History Today// Sept. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">2004: 16-19. Print. [xvi] Ibid. [xvii] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Etcheson, Craig. "Khmer Rouge Prisons and Mass Graves." //Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity//. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 613-615. //Gale Virtual Reference Library//. Web. 6 Sept. 2010. [xviii] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Kiernan, Ben. "Coming to Terms with the Past Cambodia." //History Today// Sept. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">2004: 16-19. Print. [xix] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Kiernan, Ben. "Pol Pot." //Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity//. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 819-820. //Gale Virtual Reference Library//. Web. 6 Sept. 2010. [xx] Loung Ung, author of the novel, // First They Killed My Father //, survived the genocide, but half of her family was brutally killed because of Pol Pot and his regime. [xxi] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Ung, Loung. __First They Killed My Father__. New York: HarperCollins, 2000