Thesis

I am studying the Cambodian war and how there is hardly any knowledge towards the Cambodian Khmer Rouge Genocide that took place in the ear-ly 1970s. I want to spread awareness in educating to what the war has caused to our modern society. There is only little education toward what people ac-tually do know about the war and I want to promote education in a way where they know the history be-fore and after. In addition to this I want to show peo-ple how Cambodia is still slowly picking from the aftermath of the genocide. Over the duration of two summers ago, I volunteered in Cambodia for the UN High Commissioner for Cambodian Refugees and they had asked me if to re-brand their organization. I was more than honored to be in such recognized organization and agreed to help them. They wanted me to re-brand the website, make an awareness video and whatever else I thought was necessary to promote awareness. This was my proposal.

THESIS BRIEF

A BRIEF HISTORYon the Khmer Rouge Genocide

Under Pol Pot’s leadership, and within days

of overthrowing the government, the Khmer

Rouge embarked on an organized mission:

they ruthlessly imposed an extremist program

to reconstruct Cambodia (now under its Khmer

name Kampuchea) on the communist model

of Mao’s China. The population must, they

believed, be made to work as laborers in one

huge federation of collective farms. Anyone in

opposition - and all intellectuals and educated

people were assumed to be - must be eliminat-

ed, together with all un-communist aspects of

traditional Cambodian society. So, at short no-

tice and under threat of death, the inhabitants

of towns and cities were forced to leave them.

The ill, disabled, old and very young were

driven out as well, regardless of their physical

condition: no-one was spared the exodus. Peo-

ple who refused to leave were killed; so were

those who didn’t leave fast enough, and those

who wouldn’t obey orders. All political and

civil rights were abolished. Children were tak-

en from their parents and placed in separate

forced labor camps.

The Khmer Rouge repeatedly interrogated their own members, imprisoning and executing them on the slightest suspicion of treachery or sabotage. Civilian deaths in this period, from executions, dis-ease, exhaustion and starvation, have been esti-mated at well over 2 million.

CAMBODIA

THE UNITED NATIONSfor the United Nations High Commissioner for Cambodian Refugees and The UN for Cambo-dian Awareness society.

UNHC is the UN’s global development and awareness network.

The UN for Cambodian Awareness Society (UNCAS) is a non-

profit incorporated charity organisation pioneered by Perth

dentist Dr Gary Hewett in 1995. What began as one man’s vision

for change has since long outgrown its humble origins. Aware-

ness Cambodia’s vision is now shared by over 40 staff oversee-

ing 80 once-orphaned Khmer children, now family members

of the inaugural Sunshine House. In Cambodia we support the

government and communities to further their own solutions to

the challenges of development of awareness. The overarching

aim of our work is supporting progress towards the awareness

of the Khmer Rouge Regime. All our activities are done in close

collaboration with the Government, other UN agencies and de-

velopment stakeholders. Partnerships with the United Kingdom,

Sweden, Australia, the European Union, Japan, and Canada are

vital for achieving results. To find out more, visit: who we are.

AND

COMMUNIST POSTERSposters promoting a classless society

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Biggest problem by percentage facing Cambodia today

PROBLEM IN CAMBODIAwhat Cambodia is dealing with today

Hu

ma

n tra

ffickin

g (P

rostitution

)

HIV

/ AID

S

Pla

nted

Lan

dm

ines

Un

wa

nted

child

ren Defrosta

tion

Ed

uca

tion

Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world. Most children don’t complete more then five years of education - if that - because their families need them to work on the farms. The priority is sur-vival, in a country with limited health care and eco-nomic resources. At the national level, the problems loom even larger. Thousands of landmines are still unexploded and thousands of people are maimed or killed each year - thirty years after they were planted. The country is being deforested, affecting the environment in all of Southeast Asia. Sex traf-ficking is a huge, largely unchecked problem, along with HIV/AIDS. As one human rights worker told me, if you have any interest in human rights problems, just come to Cambodia. They are all here.

Human trafficking (Prostitution)

Planted Landmines leftover from the war

Unwanted children

HIV / STD

Education

Defrostation

A magazine on current events

Colors magazine is a multilingual quarterly magazine developed in Italy by Fabrica, Benet-ton’s research center. There are three editions published: French/English, Italian/English, and Spanish/English. Each issue has a theme and covers the topic from an international perspec-tive. The magazine is known for its photoessays and features a sardonic point of view (similar to Benetton advertising). Tibor Kalman and Oliviero Toscani created the magazine in 1991, and it was produced at Kalman’s design studio, M&Co, in New York City until 1993, when the magazine op-erations moved to Rome, Italy. For the first three years, the magazine was published in five edi-tions: French/English, Spanish/English, Italian/English, German/English, and Japanese/English.

COLORS MAGAZINE

PRODUCT “RED”a non-profit organization involoving amnesty international

Product Red is a brand licensed to partner companies such as American Express, Apple Inc., Starbucks, Converse, Motorola, Gap, Em-porio Armani, Hallmark, Microsoft, and Dell. It is an initiative begun by U2 frontman Bono and Bobby Shriver of DATA to raise money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Bobby Shriver has been announced as the CEO of Product Red, and Bono is an ac-tive public spokesperson for the brand.Each partner company creates a product with the Product Red logo. In return for the opportunity to increase its own revenue through the Prod-uct Red products that it sells, a percentage of the profit is given to the Global Fund.

The magazine Revista Grande Reportagem is a Hard Journalism magazine, on the same line as the Times. The idea was to bring across the concept that the magazine offers profound journalism about top-ics of real importance to the world of today. This is how we thought of the concept Meet the World. We started to research relevant, global, and current facts and, thus, came up with the idea to put new mean-ings to the colours of the flags. We used real data taken from the websites of Amnesty International and the UNO. The campaign has been running in Portugal since January 2005. There are eight flags that portray very current topics like the division of opinions about the war in Iraq in the United States, the violence against women in Africa, the social in-equality in Brazil, the drug trafficking in Columbia, Aids and malaria in Angola, etc. With regards to the email presenting the campaign as being done by a Norwegian diplomat, this information is completely wrong. There is no Norwegian diplomat called Cha-rung Gollar, there was no presentation in the UNO, and the campaign is not called ‘The Power of the Stars’. This was all invented and is going round the world via email.

GRANDE REPORTAGENknowing the world you live.

People who died in the war

People who were injured

People who survived the war

KHMERROUGEATTACK

1977

The quality of life in these farm cooperative varied greatly from district to district; overall, though, very few Cambodians were spared from suffering, mis-ery, starvation or the threat of death. Conditions worsened in 1977 and 1978 as Angka increased demands on rice production. With the passage of time it became more and more difficult for malnour-ished Cambodians to farm efficiently. To make mat-ters worse, the Khmer Rouge’s distain of technology made it next to impossible for workers to reach their increased rice quotas when forced to farm by hand only. Even if a particular collective farm met its rice quota, this didn’t mean they would be rewarded with a proper diet. The bulk of the rice was earkmarked for Khmer Rouge soldiers and political cadre. New people could only eat the scraps that were given to them; if they were caught supplementing their diets with grass or even insects, they too would be sent to the killing fields.

Vietnamese forces invade in a lightning assault. The majority of the victims of Tuol Sleng were actually former Khmer Rouge cadres. With each pass-ing year Angka became more and more para-noid, blaming many of its loyal supporters for Cambodia’s woes. The Khmer Rouge leader-ship saw conspiring enemies around every corner: one particular document from the DK foreign ministry which described these “pests buried within” noted that 1% to 5% of all Cambodians were “traitors.” (see Ben Kiernan’s translation of The view of the contem-porary situation in Cam-bodia) To exterminate this perceived infesta-tion the Khmer Rouge rounded up hundreds of fellow communists each month, sending

1978

1979

000

000

The m

ethod

s of e

xtrac

ting c

onfes

sions

at Tu

ol Slen

g were

crue

l and

barb

aric.

Priso

ners

were to

rtured

with

batte

ry

powere

d elec

tric s

hock

s, se

aring

hot m

etal p

rods,

knive

s and

othe

r terr

ifying

imple

ments.

For e

xample

, in th

e pris

on

cour

tyard

stood

a lar

ge w

oode

n fram

e onc

e use

d by s

tuden

ts for

gymna

stics

prac

tice.

The K

hmer

Rouge

conv

erted

it into

gallo

ws for

the ha

nging

tortu

re an

d exe

cutio

n of p

rison

ers. T

houg

h man

y pris

oners

died

from th

e con

stant

abus

e, kil

ling t

hem ou

trigh

t was

disc

ourag

ed, fo

r it w

as m

uch m

ore im

porta

nt for

the K

hmer

Rouge

to ge

t con

fes-

sions

on pa

per fi

rst. A

s par

t of it

s que

st to

wipe ou

t trai

tors,

the K

hmer

Rouge

lead

ership

soug

ht to

“inve

stiga

te

their p

erson

al bio

graph

ies cl

early

” in o

rder t

o get

at wha

t cau

sed t

he pr

isone

rs to

beco

me trai

tors a

s well

as to

find

out w

ho th

eir co

-cons

pirato

rs were

. Ove

r tim

e the

y were

tortu

red as

nece

ssar

y in o

rder t

o extr

act w

hatev

er co

nfes-

sion w

as ne

eded

.

1980

Cambo

dian a

rmy f

aces

two

enem

ies: th

e Nor

th Vie

tnam-

ese a

nd co

mmunist

Khm

er

Rouge

guerr

iillas

. Grad

ually,

the ar

my los

es te

rritor

y.

Cambodian army faces two enemies:

the North Vietnamese and communist

Khmer Rouge guerriillas. Gradually,

the army loses territory.

1981

Confessions were an arbitrary c

oncept - in tru

th, the va

st majority

of S-21 prisoners were probably innocent of

the charges against them, so therefore most prisoners’ admissions were lie

s borne out of excessive tortu

re.

Even loyal Khmer Rouge cadres would eventually a

dmit to spyin

g for the CIA or th

e KGB, secret loyalty

to the

Vietnamese, sexual crimes - w

hatever the interro

gators asked for they u

sually got. It

was only a matter of

time before the tortu

re would break even the strongest of prisoners. The dubious nature of th

e confessions

mattered little to the Khmer R

ouge leadership; like the Salem witch tria

ls of puritan Massachusetts, each

confession fanned the fires of conspiracy by o

ffering new names (and people) to target. B

ecause prisoners

would often name names in their fo

rced confessions, the confessions serve

d as a misguided, but self-fulfill-

ing prophecy to the Khmer R

ouge, allowing them to proove to themselves that th

ere was indeed a massive

web of traitors amongst th

em.

People were thrown

out of helicopters.

Alive

19651969197019731975ZERO

As the Khmer Rouge systematically destroyed nearly all aspects of Cambo-dian society, a new conflict simmered with its historical enemy, Vietnam. While both forces grudgingly sup-ported each other as they fought U.S.-backed Cambodia and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, ethnic animosi-ties prevented them from developing any lasting bonds with each other. Even as early as April 1975 - days after the fall of Phnom Penh - the Khmer Rouge ex-ploited the situation in South Vietnam

ZERO

In power, the Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included

isolating the country from foreign in-fluence, closing schools, hospitals and factories, abolishing banking, finance and currency, outlawing all religions, confiscating all private property and

relocating people from urban areas to collective farms where forced labor

was widespread.

MONEY

The Khmer Rouge is remem-bered mainly for the deaths of

an estimated 1.5 million people or 1/5 of the country’s total population (estimates range from 850,000 to 2.5 million) under its regime, through ex-

ecution, torture, starvation and forced labor.

CURRENT

DAY By December 1978, because of several years of border conflict

and the flood of refugees fleeing Cambodia, relations between

Cambodia and Vietnam collapsed. Pol Pot, fearing a Vietnamese attack, ordered a pre-emptive

invasion of Vietnam. His Cambo-dian forces crossed the border

and looted nearby villages. These Cambodian forces were repulsed

by the Vietnamese.

Cambodia becomes a protectorate of France. French colonial rule lats for 90 days.

1869 Sihanouk is d

eposed in

a co

up while

abroad. T

he

prime m

inister, G

eneral Lon Nol, a

ssumes p

ower. H

e

proclaim

s the Khmer R

epublic and se

nds the arm

y to

fight th

e North Viet

namese in

Cambodia. Sihanouk -

in exile

in China - f

orms a

guerril

la mov

ement.

Sihanouk is d

eposed in

a co

up while

abroad. T

he

prime m

inister, G

eneral Lon Nol, a

ssumes p

ower. H

e

proclaim

s the Khmer R

epublic and se

nds the arm

y to

fight th

e North Viet

namese in

Cambodia. Sihanouk -

in exile

in China - f

orms a

guerril

la mov

ement.

1955

Sihanouk is deposed in a coup while abroad. The prime minister, General Lon Nol, assumes power. He proclaims the Khmer Republic and sends the army to fight the North Vietnamese in Cambodia. Sihanouk - in exile in China - forms a guerrilla movement.

1965

1969

1970

The term “Khmer Rouge,” French for “R

ed Khmer”, was

coined by Cambodian head of state Norodom Siha-

nouk and was later adopted by English speakers. It

was used to refer to a succession of Communist

parties in Cambodia which evolved into the

Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and

later the Party o

f Democratic Kampuche-

and the National Army of Democratic

The deportations were one of the markers of th

e beginning of

the Khmer Rouge rule. They demanded that and then forced

the people to leave the cities and live in the countrys

ide.

Phnom Penh—populated by 2.5 million people—was soon

nearly empty. T

he roads out of the city w

ere clogged

with evacuees. Similar evacuations occurred

throughout the nation.

Following their leader Pol Pot, th

e Khmer Rouge

imposed an extreme form of social engineering on

Cambodian society — a radical form of agrarian

communism where the whole population had

to work in collective farms or fo

rced labor

projects. In terms of the number of people

killed as a proportion of th

e population

(est. 17.5 million people 1975) one of

THENAMESOFGENOCIDE

Khieu Samphan

According to Samphan, under the Khmer Rouge “there was no policy of starving people. Nor was there any direction set out for carrying out mass killings”, and “there was always close consideration of the people’s well-being.” He acknowledged the use of coercion to produce food due to shortages. Samphan also strong-ly criticized the current government in the book, blam-ing it for corruption and social ills.

Known as “Brother Number Three,” Ieng Sary also joined the communist movement in the late 1950s. As a leading member of the KR rebel forces, he be-came foreign minister in 1975 and was one of the key decisionmakers during the KR years.

Though Chhit never studied in Paris he joined the com-munist movement early on as a rebel fighter. Despite his training as a Buddhist Monk, Chhit was a merciless warrior, and he eventually adopted the name “Grand-pa Mok,” - Ta Mok. His taste for brutality eventually caused many people to call him Ta Mok the Butcher.

After flunking out of his electronics scholarhip in Paris, Saloth returned to Cambodia to help build the Communist Party of Kampuchea. As one of the lead-ing masterminds behind the Khmer Rouge, Saloth Sar became best known under his pseudonym, Pol Pot. Pol Pot served as chairman of the party, for which he claimed the infamous title “Brother Number One” and the reputation as the all-out leader of the Khmer Rouge.

Ieng SaryIeng Sary

Chhit Chhoeun

Pol Pot

REGULATION

1

2

3

4

5

6

CAMP

These incredibly harsh conditions limited one’s options for survival. Most Cambodians submit-ted to each and every Khmer Rouge demand and hoped for the best.

One of the main goals behind resettling urban residents into the countryside was to build a new Cambodia focused on agricultural success: “to build socialism in the fields,” as it was once suggested (Chandler, History of Cambodia, 214).

But even during pre-Khmer Rouge, peacetime Cambodia, the average national yield was only one metric ton of rice per hectare. To meet these new demands on rice production the Khmer Rouge en-forced strict policies where workers labored in the

Those new people who survived but were not well enough to work often vanished: they would be forced to dig their own graves before Khmer Rouge soldiers would bludgeon them on the back of the head with a shovel or hoe.

If you wore glasses, you would die. If you practiced Buddhism, you would die. Families with connec-tions to previous Cambodian governments were especially susceptible to ill treatment.

These incredibly harsh conditions limited one’s options for survival. Most Cambodians submit-ted to each and every Khmer Rouge demand and hoped for the best. Those Cambodians who knew they could be labeled as an enemy.

1975Lon Nol is overthrown as the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot occupy Phnom Penh. Sihanouk briefly becomes head of state, the country is re-

named Kampuchea.

All urban dwellers are forcibly evac-uated to the countryside to become agricultural workers. Money be-comes worthless, basic freedoms are curtailed and religion is banned. The Khmer Rouge coin the phrase

“Year Zero”.

Hundreds of thousands of the edu-cated middle-classes are tortured and executed in special centres. Others starve, or die from disease or exhaustion. The total death toll during the next three years is esti-mated to be at least 1.7 million.

1976The country is re-named Democratic Kam-puchea. Sihanouk resigns, Khieu Samphan becomes head of state, Pol Pot is prime minister.

MAILERA mailer to sent out to

spread awareness

A mailer to sent out to spread awareness for ben-

efits and people intrested in knowing more about the war. This would be sent out

to people who purchased the books and free for

people who have watched the awareness video. Any-

one related to the United Nations who wants to know

more about can also have this sent out to them.

MAILERA mailer to sent out to

spread awareness

1 2

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

21201918171615

3 4 5 6 7Back of card reveal pol pots portrait, representing

that he was the one behind the war.

POSSIBLE LOGOSLogos that reflect the regime

Hands represant strength and healing and underis the tip of the angkor wat temple

CAMBODIANOUTREACH PROGRAM


®


®



CAMPAIGN FLAGFlag to promite organization

Colors represent the original colors of the Khmer Rouge Flag

C.O.P WEBSITEa user friendly website for people

to learn about the war

TAKE ACTION

Pol Pot’s Regime, learn about the warSEARCH

PURCHASE FLAG

SPREAD

LEARN

NEWSROOM

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PAST

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PRESENT FUTURE

SUBSCRIBECambodia changed forever on April 17 1975. As the Khmer Rouge took control of the country under the leadership of Pol Pot, stringent rules of conduct were imposed on the lives of its people. Cambodia was renamed Democratic Kampuchea and a four-year purge began in which the Khmer Rouge regime tried to eliminate all signs of the educated classes. The goal was to create an agrarian society. The result was the genocidal killing of 20 per cent of the Cambodian population. Through the use of torture and execution centres, such as Tuol Sleng and the infamous killing fields of Choeng Ek, the Khmer Rouge devastated an already poverty-stricken nation. The regime ended on January 1979 with the invasion of forces from Vietnam. Bringing the Khmer Rouge leadership to trial remains a goal of the United Nations. Under-Secretary-General Kieran Prendergast of the UN Department of Political Affairs, but a court has been established through the efforts of “the Japanese, the French, the Americans and others … and we are going to try and make it work”.

Pol Pot imposed a version of agrarian collectivization and forced labor projects, toward a goal of “restarting civilization” in a “Year Zero”.CHILD TRAFFICKING

Cambodian Outreach

Cambodian Outreach

MOTION VIDEOa short motion graphics video to

promote the war

PAST & PRESENT BOOKLET

interior of past and present booklet

COVER

#

CONT

ENTS

2013 271812 1510753

EXECUTION

SIEM RIEP

COMM

UNISM

CHILD

PROSTITUTION

THE MEN OF

KHMER ROUGE

NEVER ENDING

WAR

MILITANT

UNIFORM

POL POTS

IDEOLOGY

FUTURE OF

CAMBODIA





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Thesis