Cambodian students learn about the Khmer Rouge government
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A new textbook that describes what happened during the Khmer Rouge era has been released in schools across Cambodia. Although three decades have passed since the fall of the Khmer Rouge it is only now that Cambodian school children are starting to learn about Pol Pot and his followers. Official information about this grim period of Cambodian history has been scarce with the subject disappearing from the curriculum in the early 1990s when Pol Pot was a signatory to a peace agreement. The presence of former Khmer Rouge members in the current government means that it is still a sensitive topic. The new textbook gained official approval by offering the facts of the Pol Pot era and avoiding political analysis or judgement.
Information about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge:
- Pol Pot was the Prime Minister of Cambodia from 1976 to 1978. The Khmer Rouge was the name given to Pol Pot’s followers who supported his vision for a farming based communist society.
- While Pol Pot was in power, Cambodia was known as Democratic Kempuchea.
- Pol Pot made a series of changes to Cambodia to establish a socialist society. These changes included evacuating cities and sending mass amounts of people to the countryside to work as land labourers.
- During Pol Pot’s rule economic failure caused a nationwide hunger crisis but outside aid was not accepted because self reliance was believed to be the foundation of the Khmer Rouge.
- As many as two million people died from forced labour, malnutrition and the execution of people who threatened the socialist vision.
- In 1978 Vietnam invaded Cambodia and Pol Pot fled to Thailand. He spent the remaining 20 years of his life in the forests of Cambodia and Thailand. He died in 1998.
- Pol Pot received both domestic and international support as he was trying to create a just society. It was the brutality of his methods rather than his idealistic dreams which led to his downfall.
