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Question: Why was there a genocice in Camobida following the Communist Khmer Rouge's take over!?
I've read about many communist regimes and their rise to power/running of a nation!. I know the Nixon administration tried to help the democratic side, and Vietnam helped the Khmer Rouge!. Why is it that the country turned to killing each other after this shift in government!? Why did Vietnam not have a genocide in their nation after the party change, but let the Cambodians kill each other off only to enter years later when the country had lost 2/3 of the population!? Seems really strange to me, and they never thought this to me in high school!.Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
The Khmer Rouge, who took over the Cambodian state, wanted to purge their nation of all intellectuals and urban-dwellers in order to return Cambodia to a state of utopia -- a state without technology, religion, private ownership of property, intellectualism, et cetera in which the economy would be based entirely on agriculture (farming)!. To that end, they decided that they had to kill not only everyone who opposed their government but anyone who could remember the culture and traditions that Cambodia had before the Khmer Rouge took power!. They were hoping to revert the entire country to a theoretical 'Year Zero' and start the entire Cambodian nation over from the very beginning under their guidance!.

Vietnam did not have this same ideology and so when their Communists took over they were not as fervent in their internal persecutions of dissidents!. While there was a lot of purges against enemies of the state, the Vietnamese government had no intention of completely annihilating everyone except for farmers and so their purges did not reach the level of genocide!. Make no mistake; the Vietnamese government (both the Communist one and the Republican one) were responsible for shocking atrocities against their own people!. The Khmer Rouge's crimes are simply more vivid due to the sheer scale of the killings as well as the unusual justification for it!.

Vietnam invaded Cambodia after relations between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese Communist Party started to get bad and the border disputes between Vietnam and Cambodia became more and more frequent and violent!. Vietnam didn't invade to rescue the Cambodians but instead decided to do so in order to topple the enemy party and effectively colonize the country for some time!.

Hope that helps!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

I think poster Doc has answered this question brilliantly!.
The news media in general always had an aversion to reporting genocides when its perpetrators were Communist or leftist regimes!.
It was years before the news media even admitted the true scope of the genocides that occurred in the Soviet Union where whole classes of people were exterminated and whole nations deported!.
One should always remember that most western media are liberal to far-left in outlook and though they raise a big smokescreen about being so-called objective journalists they are far from neutral in their reporting!.
The American news media were overwhelmingly against the war in Vietnam (like Iraq) so they slanted their stories to reflect their bias!.
When we left Vietnam terrible things occurred there and it's estimated by some that hundreds of thousands were murdered by the Communist regime-a fact carefully covered up by most mediaWww@QuestionHome@Com

Yes , a genocide !. Your first three posts answered well !. See links below for further edification !.
:0)Www@QuestionHome@Com

They were killed far as little as wearing eyeglasses
It made them look educated !?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?Www@QuestionHome@Com

A genocide in Cambodia!? Yes, there were millions murdered!. There is an old Sam Waterston movie that was shot during the early 1980s "The Killing Fields!." You should get a copy of it!.
As for Vietnam after the fall of So!. Vietnam, there was a massive number of tortures and murder!. The news media politely called them "re-education camps!." The truth is, it was the western news media who was responsible for the fall of So!. Vietnam and for them to actually report the truth would be entirely too much to ask!. No one likes to rummage through their closet full of skeletons and have to own up to their life's mistakes!. The likes of Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite should be treated more like the treasonous SOBs they truly are!. Millions were tortured and murdered because of the personalized agenda they pushed on the "nightly news!."Www@QuestionHome@Com