The Khmer Rouge A Tragic Event Of - amazonia.fiocruz.br

The Khmer Rouge A Tragic Event Of Video

In part 1, we explored how the Khmer Rouge came to be, the context of Cambodia and led right up to the official start of the civil war, with prince Norodom Sihanouk deposed and the military dictatorship of Lon Nol underway. Lon Nol was a shit leader. Almost immediately after taking power in March ofhe gave Vietnamese forces in the country 48 Route to leave before he would begin military actions against them… Despite the fact that the Cambodian army was in no position to wage such a civil war.

Meanwhile the country instantly came into uproar. The Vietnamese recognized that they no longer had a reason not to support the Khmer Rouge, as their ally in Sihanouk was no longer present.

Arms flooded in for them and the battles picked up in intensity. Lon Nol perhaps recognized that this was fast becoming a regular battle he could not win, so he instead opted to use atrocities to try and prevent a Vietnamese attack. Thousands of Vietnamese civilians in Cambodia were massacred, with one particularly notable incident on the 15 th of April seeing Vietnamese citizens slaughtered and dumped in the Mekong river to float down to south Vietnam.

On the 17 thhe appealed to help from the Americans to stop the rapid gains of an angered Vietnamese army.

Navigation menu

Americans The Khmer Rouge A Tragic Event Of to join the battle, at least to a certain degree, carrying out a few specialist operations Evetn bolstering the south Vietnamese forces. By July of that year, the Vietnamese had mostly been driven out, but their leadership was not captured… And worse, the aggression from so many different powers on Cambodian soil proved to be an immense propaganda boom for the Khmer Rouge as the civil war Rougf.

This movement was an umbrella of anti-Lon Nol forces who wished to liberate the country through the civil war. These primarily read article of Vietnamese-backed communists who saw an alliance of convenience. There was also the Khmer Rumdowho were by this point a separate identifying faction of the Issarak forces who were far more loyal to Sihanouk and Khmer royalism.

Thirdly… They had the Khmer Rouge. There was also briefly a Khmer Bleu, but that is a whole other story. It was, after all, unavoidable to recognize that the most well organized and equipped of movements at this time were the Khmer Rouge. They had been organizing insurgency for some time now and had been receiving Vietnamese military aid for even longer.

They hit the ground running while royalist forces scrambled to assert themselves. As Sihanouk himself had taken refuge in Beijing, he gave his blessings to one of his worst enemies to operate this anti-Lon Tragkc force with him. The chairperson was a Sihanouk loyalist, but as most ground-level power was consolidated in the Khmer Rouge, their influence began to wane.

What was that? Perhaps an alliance of convenience, but still a matter which confused people as to the true loyalties of the movement. While Sihanouk himself was outside of Cambodia, as was the chairperson of the FUNK who served as prime minister, the third in command was not. This was Khieu Samphan, high ranking member of the Khmer Rouge who effectively served as the operational highest command within the country. It was impossible to sideline their influence. He served as vice prime minister and as minister of national defense. They did not wish to be seen as a government in exile, so keeping as many figures within the nation was possible, although there were attempts to stem the overwhelming Khmer Rouge control. The Khmer Rouge themselves kept many cards close to their chest at this time.

This would mark a persistent trend of secrecy where those truly in charge, along with their true motivations, were kept very unclear. The Khmer Rouge had at one point been a rather fringe group, Evejt its support among oppressed minority groups and die-hard communists. Though even among those, many preferred to stay with the more independent Issarak groups. The Khmer Rouge were no longer the fringe movement, they were the movement of the people! They represented the leftists, the monarchists, pro and anti-Vietnam factions with more to boot!

As other organizations had far less capacity to supply weapons and training, most rebels joined the Khmer Rouge outright and they spread through the country to lead the civil war. Lon Nol, in his infinite wisdom, responded with further brutality.

And while Operation Menu killed a couple of thousand Cambodians, the devastation of its bigger brother dwarfed it. Anywhere between fifty thousand and a hundred and fifty thousand were killed in the bombings, which were largely indiscriminate and blanketed Khmer Rouge held territory. The total tonnage of bombs dropped was ,]