learntoquestion ltq discussions

Questions to Consider:

1. What fundamental problems existed in the Khmer Rouge's ideology and plan and that caused the destruction of so many lives in Cambodia? Does this demonstrate something inherently wrong with communism or does it demonstrate the ineffective and callous interpretation and execution of the ideology by the Khmer Rouge leaders?

2. With armed struggle and war a reality of life for people all over the world both past and present, how does one draw the line as to which means are ethical and unethical for bringing about change? How much suffering is tolerable to bring about a “better society”? What should happen when it is clear that a struggle for change is making society worse, as it was in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge?

3. What could have been done, on the part of the international community, to ameliorate the harm done to the people of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge between 1975-79? When, if ever, should national sovereignty be overridden to stop the immense suffering of people? How could this have happened in Cambodia and by whom?

Word Count Requirement: 500-750 words

Sources to Reference:

Please refer to the ideas, either using a description, quote or paraphrasing, from at least two of the sources in your response and please respond in some way to at least two of the question sets. You can also refer to the film, First They Killed My Father, that we watched as a class.

Excerpt 1 from Chapter 6 of A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide (Power, 2002)

(Cambodia: The Unknowable Unknown and Wishful Thinking)

Excerpt 2 from Chapter 6 of A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide (Power, 2002)

(Cambodia: From Behind a Blindfold and Official US Intelligence, Unofficial Skepticism)

Excerpt 1 from Chapter 6 of A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide (Power, 2002)

(Cambodia: This Is Not 1942 and and Options Ignored; Futility, Perversity, Jeopardy)

“The Rise and Fall of Democratic Kampuchea” by Sok Udom Deth (2009)

Rubric to Review: LTQ Rubric

"To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss." The fundamental principles of the Khmer Rouge were built on their twisted interpretation of Communism, creating an ideology whose complete disregard for human life brought about utter destruction. Communism itself is not inherently evil; it is not written into its principles to require corrupt governments—in theory, that is. The issue that lies within the execution of Communism. We have seen it fail time and time again, falling into human rights abuses and destruction in the famines resulting from agricultural communes in the Mao era of China, the genocide and slaughter of ¼th of Cambodia’s population under the Khmer Rouge, and more. Cambodia’s communist party and its seizure of power stand out from the rest due to its perplexing secrecy. Beginning at year zero of the newly renamed Cambodia, called Kampuchea, the KR seized power from the Lon Nol government and promptly emptied cities full of people into the countryside using threats of force and death. Phnom Penh “came to be known as a ghost town,” during this time, as Cambodia’s population disappeared into agricultural communes in the jungle (Sok Udom Deh 1). This forcible removal is the first issue lying within their execution of communism: how can one have a classless society if it is an exclusive group of soldiers and revolutionaries in power controlling other people? Although the KR preached the communist beliefs in common ownership of everything, they manipulated people to give away hard-earned crops they farmed with Angkar, the “nameless and faceless organization on high which prided itself on never erring and having as many eyes as a pineapple” (Power 116). Angkar’s commands were only a disguise for the government’s wishes, where they redistributed food to soldiers and those in power, rather than the starving masses. The biggest fundamental issue with KR ideology was the “irrelevance of the individual” (Power 119). Targeting with the intent to destroy, the regime turned on Buddhist monks, ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese, Chams, Lon Nol officials, educated people, and more, executed in killing sites, leaving evidence that still remains of genocide. Not only turning on those seen as outsiders, the KR simply did not care about the people of Cambodia, as seen by the motto introducing this paragraph. It may have been called communism, but at its root, the KR regime more resembles a brutal totalitarianism, operating in secrecy and controlling its people. Overall, it is the ineffective and callous interpretation of communism made by the KR that caused the destruction of many lives in Cambodia.

As I sit here as a privileged American teenager, proclaiming idealistic expectations for how society should run and how governments must act in complex situations, it is hard to reconcile what is realistic and what is right. There is, however, much that could have been done on the part of the international community to ameliorate the harm done to the people of Cambodia EVEN IF they remained vehemently opposed to using military force to interfere with the Khmer Rouge’s sovereignty. Despite the obscurity in Cambodia of what was truly going on, the US government made no serious effort to discover it, and discounted reports (and later, refugee stories) of what was occurring. Most of the stories from 1975-79 were short and hidden in the back of news sections, typically “focused on the political ramification of Cambodia’s communist rule rather than on the suffering of Cambodia” (Power 111). Yes, a big-picture knowledge and coverage is important, but it can gloss over the fact that it is human lives being affected, and people being killed. The language used to discuss situations is crucial, and because the public, reeling from the trauma of Vietnam and kept from knowledge of Cambodia, only saw the banner of communism, and the horrors done to individuals were not acknowledged. Serious efforts to determine what the Khmer Rouge were doing could have helped expose genocide before it occurred to such great extent, and lead to a powerful response to alleviate immense suffering. The Genocide Convention states how we may “call upon competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide,” but this action was never taken (Article VIII). When “the overriding impression...was that the Cambodian people had disappeared,” this should have been a red flag, but “by waiting for the full story to emerge, however, politicians, journalists, and citizens were guaranteeing they would not get emotionally or politically involved until it was too late (Power 106-109). Even “soft” responses from the United States, ones that did not require sending troops in, were absent, the government not even denouncing the massacres. America’s “toleration of unspeakable atrocities, often committed in clear view” comes from the decision that we are somehow powerless, but never, in any situation, should it be concluded that nothing at all can be done (Power 503).

“All I knew was that as far as the eye could see, every single village in Cambodia was on fire.” (Power, 95). This was the moment that Kenneth Quinn, a US foreign service officer, pinpoints as when he realized something larger than a political struggle for power was going on. This instance spurred him to dedicate the following years of his life to interviewing Cambodian refugees who fled to Vietnam and send his briefings to the US government only to be shut down with a “Yeah, but….” (Power 97). Much of the international community sought to lump geographic neighbors, such as Vietnam and Cambodia, together and claim that they were united under communism. This is a tremendous oversight and contributed to the false narrative about who the Khmer Rouge were and what they were doing. The Khmer Rouge’s catastrophic reign of terror in Cambodia was not solely a reflection of flaws within communism but rather a result of its extreme interpretation and ruthless execution by its leaders. As rica.junction states, “communism itself is not inherently evil; it is not written into its principles to require corrupt governments—in theory, that is.” Communism has never been implemented according to the values it preaches and the ‘leaders’ who try and implement it usually tend to not be the voluntary state of self-governance that the people want, but the ideology of “irrelevance of the individual,” had never been preached before (Power 119). The interpretation and execution of communism by the Khmer Rouge was more than callous and ineffective, it was based on an almost unprecedented level of brutality and coercion. The premise that the Khmer Rouge could, in a period of three weeks, order “everybody, young and old, sick or not…to leave the city immediately to engage in agricultural activities” (Sok Udom Deh). The Khmer Rouge was able to empty all of Cambodia’s major towns and put monks to work in the fields, having stomped out the official religion of Cambodia, Buddhism. Armed struggle is unfortunately a reality of life for people all over the world but when an endeavor for societal change does not preserve the dignity and well-being of individuals and uses indiscriminate violence there is no question about it being unethical, it simply is. It is wrong to sit back and claim that the end justifies the means when “KR cadres use plastic bags to suffocate Buddhist monks” or when someone has “seen their loved ones murdered by teenage warriors who mechanically delivered the blow of a hoe to the back of a neck” (Power, 115). Whenever there is a doubt about if atrocities are being committed it is the duty of the international community to investigate. There is no time for wishful thinking or “hoping for the best” or reading a huge report on what is going on from someone on the ground and saying that “it was just another piece of paper (Power, 97). When it is clear that a struggle for change is making a society worse, governments from around the world have a moral obligation to listen to what people on the ground are saying and figure out how to best intervene, in a way that causes the least amount of bloodshed. National sovereignty should never serve as a shield for genocide. In cases of genocide and crimes against humanity, the international community has a responsibility to protect vulnerable populations, even if it requires overriding national sovereignty.

The Cambodian Genocide took place from 1975 to 1979, so geopolitical interests and the Cold War dynamics likely hindered effective action because powers were ‘too busy elsewhere’ or scared of the repercussions of intervening. The US was previously backing General Lon Nol and bombing Cambodia, so the US government likely tried to justify their lack of care for human life and humanitarian response with the fact that if they responded it would be unilateral, could face international backlash, and could go poorly like Vietnam did. Fear is valid, but not at the cost of overlooking critical differences, the Vietcong and the Khmer Rouge “had begun to feud. Quinn sent detailed accounts of the KR’s purge of Vietnamese civilians from Cambodia and their disruption of Vietnamese supply lines,” which the US government decided to overlook because it was at “complete odds with the prevailing view in Washington” (Power, 97). In hindsight and in a privileged position it is possible to see how individual nations could have presented the intelligence they recovered and come together under the United Nations to decide on the best course of action, whether or not it would include military interference. According to Samantha Power, “the challenge for the United Nations is to demonstrate that it is up to the challenge of the 21st century. Its founding promise is to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war; its challenge is to save succeeding generations from the scourge of genocide.” The United Nations may be flawed, but it is still the “most important forum for global problem-solving that we have” (Power).

An issue that has featured prominently throughout world history is the ideology behind certain regimes, specifically the communist ideology and how it influenced groups such as the soviet union and the Khmer Rouge. It is a fact that many communist countries, such a soviet russia, were not actually following the communist ideology; this is because these governments still had class differences, and wealth disparities between the average person and the government officials that would not exist in a true form of communism. The real question is if this misinterpretation of communist ideology is inherent to the ideology itself, or if the tendency towards authoritarianism by communist leaders is the fault of the country. This is especially interesting when it comes to the Khmer Rouge, because while it proclaimed to be a communist country like many others at the time, it led to the death of many of the citizens. This is based in the assumption by many communist governments that because communism says that everyone must be equal, then everyone must be poor, as seen in the movie First They Killed My Father where everyone is forced to do grueling work and is given little to nothing to eat, therefore leading to the horrible conditions that the Cambodian people suffered under. That along with the authoritative structure of the government, is what was the primary cause of the atrocities that were allowed to be committed under the communist regime of the Khmer Rouge. Any government, if they do not listen to the voices of the people, will inevitably lead to some sort of injustice or atrocities. The book 1984 was banned both in the US and in China, one for being pro-communist and one for being against, because in reality the book is anti-authoritarian, showing how it is not the ideology that causes governments around the world to do horrible things to their citizens, but the simple fact that the leaders are putting themselves first. While it is true that communism has never been executed successfully in all of human history, this does not necessarily mean that there is something inherently wrong with the ideology, but that it is more vulnerable to dangerous misinterpretation.

The idea of nation sovereignty is an issue that has frequently impeded the prosecution of various international crimes, such as the genocide of the Armenian people in Turkey, where no justice has been served because it is too geopolitically important for anyone to risk interference. The idea of sovereignty is also especially interesting when you compare it to the idea of personal freedom in relation to the commiting of a crime. When a person commits a crime, they are temporarily imprisoned until it can be proved, and after that they are put on trial for the crime to be proven. It could be of benefit to the international community to think of sovereignty in the same way, where it is never breached unless a crime, such as genocide or crimes against humanity, is suspected, and in that case sovereignty can be breached for a certain amount of time until the crime is either proved or not. The issue is, another layer of complications is added when you consider the fact that many of the countries who have a prominent role in the prosecution of such crimes are countries such as England, the United States, and other European power, who committed many acts of colonialism and imperialism against many other countries, and therefore breached their sovereignty in the past. This gives credence to the concerns of such countries about their sovereignty being breached by the same countries again. In Cambodia, it is true that the intervention of Vietnam stopped the majority of the atrocities, but their goal was primarily the ability to have control over Cambodia, as said in Samantha Power’s book A Problem from Hell. Ultimately, is is a necessity for sovereignty to be breaches in the pursuit of justice and prevention of international crimes, but regulations must be put in place to make sure that the breach goes no farther than that, and that in the case that no international crimes were taking place, there would be a punishment for the country who breached sovereignty for no reason.

Because of the mutual trust and equality necessary in order to execute communism in a beneficial manner, it is likely only possible at a smaller scale. The Khmer Rouge’s ideology and interpretation of communism lacked the foundation needed for a thriving communist democracy, as the extreme paranoia among officials and the speed with which such drastic changes were made resulted in an authoritarian and violent government. The Khmer Rouge also misinterpreted communism in a way that made it oppressive, limiting personal freedoms and making everyone suffer rather than adequately addressing the issues from the previous administration. As Samantha Power described in A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide with her focus on Charles Twining, “[he and others at the border] learned that in the new Cambodia freedom had become undesirable, dissent intolerable, and joy invisible. All facets of life had been mandated by Angkar, which made the rules.”

Specific examples of the Khmer Rough’s inadequate and unacceptable execution of communism include the way in which it pushed communism onto its people, forcing them to leave their homes and give up their personal belongings in a matter of days, while also failing to respect personal connections and relationships between people in hopes of encouraging everyone to view each other as equals and as family within the country. This specific practice not only failed horribly, something that is not in the least bit surprising considering it is human nature to build familial and friendly bonds, but it was also extremely painful for people as they were separated from their loved ones. As Power detailed, “They were forcing everybody to leave their [ancestral] homes and build new collectivized living communities. They were setting fires to everything the people owned so they would have nothing to go back to. They were separating children from parents, defrocking monks, killing those who disobeyed and creating an irrevocable living arrangement.” These are not actions that should define communism, but they are an example of what communism often becomes when it is employed at as large a scale as an entire country, and rather than becoming the fair and democratic society it aims to be, it controls and oppresses people into submission. However, it is important to note that capitalism, when used to such an extreme, also often has similar results of suffering and oppression, suggesting that the problem is not necessarily either of the two ideologies, but the trend of authoritarianism and the way in which these ideologies are practiced.

With that, the path to progress is often a difficult one. Life before the Khmer Rouge was difficult in Cambodia as well, but that undoubtedly does not warrant or justify the horror that the Khmer Rouge regime brought in. Thus, it is essential that in making progress, the needs and desires of the people are prioritized; an authoritarian revolution will never successfully promote good change. Suffering in society will never be erased, but administrators and officials must be as responsive and aware of that suffering as possible, something that the KR did not prioritize, either ignoring or even causing that very suffering. When it becomes clear that a struggle for change is making society worse, just as with the Khmer Rouge revolution, as much information should get out about it as possible so that people are well-informed and can act appropriately. As explained by Power, many journalists were desperate to get as much information out as possible: “‘We have to publish what we can find out.’”

However, conditions in a certain country do not justify the takeover of another country. If it is necessary to intervene, as it most definitely seemed to be in the case of Cambodia, then another country that has the resources to help must do so on a moral ground, but this does not mean the country can take over the government and disregard the will of people, colonizing the country in some way. In my personal experience, this is something that countries such as Haiti have had to wrestle with, as conditions have become so bad for the people living there that there seems to be no way out without the intervention of a more powerful country, but the fear of being colonized and controlled is still present and should be respected. Thus, it is once again imperative that power be given to the voices of the people, not just those at the top, particularly those at the top who are not even from that country.

In the Khmer Rouge’s ideology, there was no allowance for forgiveness nor was there a stable transition period. Once someone was accused, they were guilty and once the Khmer Rouge said leave, you left. If the Khmer Rouge had allowed their citizens to transition from an individualistic society rather than throw nearly everyone into collectives, maybe the peace could have been better kept. The main issue with the Khmer Rouge’s ideology was the lack of evidence needed for someone to be permanently condemned in their eyes. This relates to a larger problem with communism as the US had similar problems during both Red Scares. In the US’s two Red Scares, people were accused of being communists often incorrectly and with no basis. This nearly permanently scarred society and while in the US the accusations were from a fear of communism, and in the Khmer Rouge’s reign they were to “help” communism, the thought behind it is the same: “if I say their name, I will be safe.” This may sound like a belief system that is applicable to most tense situations, but it is largely unparalleled. On the other hand, Vietnam was communist at the time and is still a communist nation, and they helped liberate the Cambodian people from the Khmer Rouge, and are doing well as a nation today. Communism is not inherently bad, but it is also not the end all be all that the Khmer Rouge suggested.

The international community, while somewhat unaware of the atrocities, in part because of the mystery in who led the Khmer Rouge, knew something disastrous was occurring. Politics always plays a role in decisions, and while the hesitancy of the US can be understood in the context of the Vietnam war, the two conflicts, should the US have gotten involved, would have had vastly different motives. National sovereignty should be recognized, but when the government is harming its own or other people, sovereignty should no longer apply. There are also examples throughout history, including the Vietnam war, where the US has largely ignored sovereignty. This reveals how sovereignty is really about excuses rather than genuine respect for a country’s right to govern. If the US truly believed in respecting sovereignty, the Roosevelt Corollary would have never existed. On its surface it looks like President Theodore Roosevelt wanted the nations of South America to remain independent, but in reality the corollary was twisted to put US friendly administrations in power. In Cambodia, the US saw a repeat of Vietnam, a war against a communist country in Southeast Asia that would cause more public outcry. This again is an excuse. If the US presented the facts about the atrocities as they received them, the public would likely support stopping the horrors.

“Pol Pot had envisioned a totally new, classless, and self-independent society, in which the peasants were regarded as the backbone of the society,” it says in “The Rise and Fall of Democratic Kampuchea” by Sok Udom Deth. This ideology alone, like that of most communist revolutions, doesn’t sound all that bad. However, when implemented, the Khmer Rouge used this ideology to commit a genocide killing 1.7 million people. In addition to the ideals for the revolution, the genocidal aspect was made possible by how the KR went about achieving this society. They persecuted people they thought would be opposed to their view of communism, forcing them into communes where they were starved, beaten, and killed.

The fundamental problems existing in the KR’s ideology are the disregard for human life and the hypocrisy of attempting to kill off an entire group of people in the name of equality. The KR imagined a society whrere everyone lived under complete equality. However, forcing people to live in communes simply because of their national identity or political idology is against the very definition of equality. These were not just issues in the KR ideology, they apply to communism as well. Communism too, as in idea is not inherently bad or evil, but in practice Communism has only been used for oppression and corruption. When everyone is equal, everyone is inherantly oppressed becuase they can’t advance themselves in any way. Anti-capitalist people say that capitalism fosters a system where the poor get more poor as the rich get richer. In Communism as it has been implemented, everyone becomes impoverished except the government. This is as much a fundamental issue with communism as it is an issue with the KR ideology. In a system where society is so constrained that there is no room for individuality or expression of any kind, the people are oppressed. Therefore, the effective, equitabe and benevolant communism is impossible to be achieved in the real world.

It is accurate to say that the world and the United states failed in their lack of intervention in Cambioda. It is wrong however to place all of the the blame on the United States. In an excerpt from Chapter 6 of, “A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide (Cambodia: This Is Not 1942 and and Options Ignored; Futility, Perversity, Jeopardy),” asserts that it was, “Certainly impossible to overstate the importance of historical context in dictating America’s response to the atrocities in Cambodia.” Considering that the US had just pulled troops out of a failed war in Vietnam and wanted nothing to do with continuing in the region, it is completely unfair to argue that they should’ve risked their own troops’ lives again in such proximity to the mistake of vietnam by putting boots on the ground in the region yet again. However, I do beleive that the US should’ve engaged in, “soft,” options such as helping to inform and influence action from the UN.

I agree with fridakahlo216 in that both communism and capitalism have contributed to struggling and oppression. However, I disagree with the assertion that capitalism is as much to blame for the trend in authoritarianism. Capitalism does fundamentally lead to government superiority and inequity and until we find a perfect system, capitalism is way more likely to lead to less oppression and malice.

In Samantha Power’s A Problem From Hell, she compares the Khmer Rouge’s plan to that of the Nazi’s in which they use psychological and physical terror to “reprogram” the Cambodians, and even kill them. The Khmer Rouge’s idea to relocate all Cambodians to farms and communes to create a single communist society may have sounded like a good plan, but the torture and killing that came with it were everything but peaceful and happy, as the Khmer Rouge had made it sound. Cambodians were forced to work long, grueling hours with barely any shelter, food, water, or rest. Plus, the indoctrination of children and use of child soldiers was completely unethical in every sense of the word. Children are easily swayed and molded, and handing a ten year old a gun and telling them they have power and are part of something bigger are bound to make that child feel a sense of purpose and self. These children had no control over their own will. Also, children are usually raised to be submissive to adults and authority figures. So, how can a child differentiate a “good” adult from a “bad” one? How are they able to discern was is morally right and morally wrong, when the adult in charge of them is telling them what is good

The Rise and Fall of Democratic Kampuchea by Sok Udom Deth, written in 2009, begins with an explanation of the beginning of the People’s Socialist Communist Party. This party was founded by Norodom Sihanouk, the former king of Cambodia, who freed the Cambodians from France in 1953. A party founded by the man who helped bring freedom to his people must be a good thing, right? He obviously must have had the best intentions in mind for his people, otherwise would he have helped free them? The first red flag with the communist party was the fact you had to completely abstain from any interaction or mixing with any other political party, and pledge complete allegiance to the communist party. To me, the line where a movement crosses from ethical to unethical is when any human life is lost. To bring about change in a country, yes, some people may be unhappy, but no one will be dead. The Khmer Rouge didn’t just kill innocent Cambodians, they also forced them to labor “for their own good”, spread disease through the country, forced the Cambodians, the people they claim to be helping, to live in terrible, disgusting conditions, and tortured and killed more than 2 million Cambodians. There is no way any of that “change” can be seen as ethical.

The international community had the responsibility to step in when the country was taken over and millions of people were killed, tortured, and forced to work. But they didn’t. The international community then had the responsibility to serve justice and convict the people responsible for the deaths of over 2 million people. But they didn’t. It wasn’t as if the international community didn’t know what was happening in Cambodia, because many journalists, like Samantha Powers, were writing reports, taking pictures and videos, and reporting all of the murder, torture, and squalor that the Khmer Rouge were forcing on the innocent Cambodians. The international community had a duty to defend the innocent Cambodians, and they failed them.

There were many fundamental problems with the Khmer Rouge’s ideology and plan. One of the most important ones was the idea that anything foreign was fundamentally bad. To start off, the leader of the Khmer Rouge had learned about and adopted communism while studying in France. So then, once the Khmer Rouge had taken over, saying that education and foreign influence were evil, going to the length of persecuting intellectuals seems, to me, so fundamentally counterintuitive and without reason. An additional flaw in the Khmer Rouge’s plan was the idea that constant warfare, or some other kind of fear-provoking violence, was needed to maintain control. This contradicts a fundamental pillar of communism, that society is controlled directly by and for the people. This also leads to an endless cycle of violence and bloodshed that is undoubtedly unsitainable in the long term. More than demonstrating that communism is inherently wrong, the Cambodian Genocide serves as a reminder of the atrocities that typically occur when communism is implemented incorrectly. Especially because some of the Khmer Rouge interpretation of communism is in complete contradiction with the ideology created by Marx, I do not think it would be fair for one to dismiss this ideology entirely. This being said, since its invention, communism has never been either executed successfully or correctly.

In my opinion, there is nothing ethical or moral about war and armed struggle. Both will undoubtedly end in innocent civilians being impacted. That could mean that civilians are displaced, injured, or even killed. However, war and armed conflict can be the less unethical choice. Where the line is, as I see it, when war is necessary is when civilians begin to be the targets of attack. In a democratic system, and ideally any type of government, no amount of suffering is tolerable to bring about a “better society” unless a super-majority of the people of said society (say a two-thirds majority) agree that such suffering is worth it in order to create a “better society”. While many “considered the KR promise of peace an appealing alternative”, at the time they did not have all the necessary information in order to make an informed decision. When it becomes clear that a struggle for change is in fact making a society worse, as it was in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, I think the international community should be responsible for ensuring that the situation is rectified, as long as the people of said society want something to be done. This should most definitely be the case when there is a breach of international law. When such a breach of international law occurs, it is the international community’s responsibility to respond and ensure that this breach is stopped and the people responsible for the breach are held accountable. During the late 70s the intel that the US and other countries had confirmed the breaching of international law and the potential commitment of genocide by the Khmer Rouge. As a result, although Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge’s regime was still considered to be a sovereign nation, the international community could have invaded. According to Powers, “[e]ven the “soft” response options that were available to the United States were passed up.” The US could have condoned the genocidal massacres happening in Cambodia. Furthermore, other nations around the world could have stepped up and sent troops to Cambodia.