In sum, life conditions in Cambodia were increasingly difficult before 1970, and difficulties intensified greatly after 1970. Because of the historical role of the ruler and his own long rule, Sihanouk’s ouster had great psychological impact on Cambodian peasants, especially when combined with loss of homes and livelihood, social disorganization, and constant violence. The results were, as usual, feelings of hostility and needs for defense of the physical and psychological self, renewed comprehension of reality, guidance, and connection to others. All this prepared Cambodian peasants to accept the Khmer Rouge and subordinate themselves to new leaders.
The Khmer Rouge rule and autogenocide
On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge occupied Phnom Penh. According to some reports they were greeted warmly by a population tired of war.12 They proceeded to evacuate the city, killing on the spot some who did not follow orders and driving others from their homes and even from hospital beds. Many died on the way out of the city. With three million people leaving at once, congestion was tremendous and progress very slow. Food was in short supply and temperatures in the 100s. People had to drink from roadside puddles, wells, and rivers, which were contaminated by corpses and excrement. They died of starvation, dehydration, and illness.13
There were several reasons for the evacuation of the cities. One was fear and suspicion of enemies, who were believed to be everywhere, threatening the rather small Khmer Army (party membership was only fourteen thousand people).14 In addition, the Khmer Rouge considered the cities evil. Some classes of city people, especially military officers, were regarded as traitors and were killed. Professionals and intellectuals were also regarded as enemies. Although there was no plan to kill all such people, many were killed; only those survived who faithfully and completely followed the rules, dictates, and ideals of the new society.
People sent to the country had to work with their own hands in the fields. These “new” people were not granted even the few privileges of the “old” people, the original peasants who were at first allowed to retain their land and animals. The new people were allowed no private property and had to work extremely hard, ten hours a day and often added hours at night, with limited food rations. Many of them starved. There was enough food in the forest for sustenance but the new people were forbidden to supplement their meager diets by foraging. Disease was rampant; medical care poor. In 1976, an estimated 80 percent of the population suffered from malaria.
With little or no experience of farming and entirely without help, the new people were to establish communities, under the most stringent rules. Even if villages emptied by the war were near the places where they were sent to settle, they were forced to start from scratch. At times the area proved unproductive and they had to move and start all over again.15
After they evacuated Phnom Penh and other cities, the communists began exterminating the officers of Lon Nol’s army. Many were instructed to put on their dress uniforms, ostensibly to greet Prince Sihanouk returning to Cambodia. Driven by trucks to the countryside, they were ordered to disembark and killed by machine-gun fire or marched into mine fields. At first sporadically but later more systematically, the Khmer Rouge also killed teachers, doctors, technicians, and intellectuals, individually or in groups. “Traitors” were executed by a blow from an axe handle to the back of the neck. Family members were forced to watch as their husbands, sons, and daughters were killed. They killed Buddhist monks and, guided by nationalism, members of ethnic minorities. People who deviated from communist rules or showed evidence of city ways might be executed.
Discipline, however, was extremely strict, and minor infractions could be punished with extreme severity. The most important criterion of survivability was to adopt entirely the demeanor of a poor peasant; and a former city intellectual who would not be bothered if he acted like a peasant and worked hard, might well be executed if he showed the least hint of his former class superiority.16
Killings also occurred in reeducation and interrogation centers. In the infamous Tuol Sleng, many communist government, party, and military personnel were tortured and killed – victims of purification and power struggles. They were forced to write and rewrite elaborate confessions before they were killed. Records suggest that about twenty thousand people were killed at Tuol Sleng.
Expressions of love, courting, sex before marriage, and adultery were strictly forbidden. Childen “educated” by the government spied on their parents and neighbors. The system broke up the extended family; it is uncertain whether it intended to break up and destroy nuclear families.17
The most common estimate is that nearly two million people were killed or died from starvation and disease under communist rule. The aim was to kill all actual or potential enemies, everyone who could not adopt the world view and way of life required in the new state. Some of the killing was seemingly casual, perhaps intended to terrorize the population and stifle resistance. Later, executions for transgressing rules became the normal operating procedure in certain places.
Ideological bias and reports and views of atrocities
Some of the reactions to events in Cambodia were guided by ideology. In an early report, Hildebrand and Porter describe the evacuation of Phnom Penh as necessary because of hunger and overcrowding. They present a positive image of the new regime and discount unfavorable news.18 They also blame the United States for starvation in Phnom Penh before the Khmer Rouge conquest and for conditions in Cambodia in general. (They are partly right; apart from military
