Khmer Rouge, << kuh MEHR ROOZH, >> was a Cambodian Communist movement. The Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Pol Pot led the group for much of its existence. The Khmer Rouge sought to turn Cambodia into a Communist state based on peasant society. It committed genocide (deliberate and systematic mistreatment or extermination of an entire people) against the Cambodian population. Over 1 1/2 million people were killed or died of mistreatment under the Khmer Rouge.
Khmer is the name of the people of Cambodia. Rouge is the French word for red. Red is often associated with Communism. A group of Cambodian Communists founded the Khmer Rouge in the 1950’s. In the 1960’s, Pol Pot organized the group to fight Cambodia’s government. In 1975, Khmer Rouge troops captured Phnom Penh, the nation’s capital. The Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia. The new government renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea. Pol Pot served as the secretary-general of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. In 1976, he became the country’s prime minister.
The Khmer Rouge sought to change the country into a classless state. It abolished banks, currency, foreign trade, and private property. It outlawed all religions. The regime forced millions of city dwellers to move to work camps in the countryside. The Khmer Rouge enforced its rule by executions, torture, and other forms of terror.
In 1979, Vietnamese troops and Cambodian groups opposed to the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh. Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge troops fled into the jungles of northern Cambodia. Throughout the 1980’s, the Khmer Rouge carried on guerrilla warfare against the new government that the Vietnamese had installed.
In 1989, Vietnam completed the withdrawal of its military forces from Kampuchea. The country then resumed the name Cambodia. In 1990, the Khmer Rouge took part in peace negotiations with the Vietnamese-backed government and two non-Communist groups. In 1991, it signed a cease-fire agreement. But some Khmer Rouge groups rejected the agreement and continued fighting. The Khmer Rouge gradually weakened. Opposing factions split from it. Many of its members defected to the government. In 1997, one of the factions captured Pol Pot. He died in its custody in 1998. By 1999, the Khmer Rouge movement came to an end.
In 2004, Cambodia’s National Assembly approved the creation of a special international court to try surviving Khmer Rouge leaders. The first Khmer Rouge leader to stand trial was Kaing Guek Eav, who had run a prison where an estimated 17,000 people died. In 2010, he was convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity, murder, and torture. In 2012, he was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2020. In 2014, two other Khmer Rouge leaders were convicted of similar charges and were sentenced to life in prison. They were Nuon Chea, who served as Pol Pot’s deputy, and Khieu Samphan, who was the Khmer regime’s head of state. Nuon Chea died in 2019.
See also Cambodia (History); Norodom Sihanouk; Pol Pot.
