The Killing Fields

:See The Killing Fields for the 1984 movie on this subject.

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The Killing Fields were a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge communist regime which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Estimates of the number of dead range from 1 million to as high as 3.3 million, out of a population of nearly 8 million people.

Related Topics:
Cambodia - Khmer Rouge - Communist - 1975 - 1979

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The Khmer Rouge judicial process, for minor or political crimes, began with a warning from the Angkar, the government of Cambodia under the regime. More than two warnings resulted in being sent for "re-education", which meant near-certain death. People were often encouraged to confess to Angkar their "pre-revolutionary lifestyles and crimes" (which usually included some kind of free-market activity, or having had contact with some foreign source, such as a U.S. missionary, or international relief or government agency, or contact with any foreigner or with the outside world at all), being told that Angkar would forgive them and "wipe the slate clean." This meant being taken away to places such as Tuol Sleng or Choeung Ek for torture, and/or execution.

Related Topics:
Angkar - Tuol Sleng - Choeung Ek - Torture - Execution

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The executed were buried in mass graves. In order to save ammunition, the convicted were often executed using only sharpened bamboo sticks. The soldiers who committed the executions were mostly young men or women from peasant families.

Related Topics:
Mass graves - Bamboo

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The Khmer Rouge regime arrested and eventually executed nearly anyone suspected of connections with the former government or with foreign governments, as well as professionals and intellectuals. Ethnic Vietnamese, Cambodian Christians and Muslims, and the Buddhist monkhood were also targets of persecution.

Related Topics:
Vietnam - Cambodia - Christian - Muslim - Buddhist monk

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The best-known of these sites is Choeung Ek. Today, Choeung Ek is the site of a Buddhist memorial to the terror, and Tuol Sleng has a museum commemorating the genocide.

Related Topics:
Choeung Ek - Buddhist

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