Democratic Kampuchea

Democratic Kampuchea was the official name of Cambodia, or Kampuchea, from 1976 to January 1979. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge ruled the country. When Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1979 and took over the government, Democratic Kampuchea became the People's Republic of Kampuchea.

Cambodian genocide

As many as 3,000,000 Cambodians ( of the Cambodian population) died in the Cambodian genocide ( / ) committed by Democratic Kampuchea's Khmer Rouge regime. This was around 25% of the population: one in every four people. 

Killing fields

The Khmer Rouge massacred at least hundreds of thousands of people in the "killing fields," and buried them in mass graves to destroy evidence that could be used for proving their genocide.Khmer Rouge leader admits crimes They also forced city populations into the countryside to work in labor camps, where many died from starvation, overwork, and disease.

End

In January 1979, communist Vietnam invaded Cambodia. They wanted to oust Pol Pot from power as his army had crossed the Cambodian–Vietnamese border to massacred Vietnamese civilians. They removed the Khmer Rouge from power and propped up another pro-Vietnamese communist dictatorship, which was not recognized by many UN members. Hundreds of thousands of survivors fled to refugee camps in Thailand,Caldwell, Malcolm. 1975. "Cambodia: Rationale for a Rural Policy." pp. 26–103 in Malcolm Caldwell’s South East Asia, edited by B. Hering and E. Utrecht. Townsville, Australia: Committee of South-East Asian Studies, James Cook University of North Queensland. Many of whom immigrated to the United States afterwards.thumb|The former S-21 prison (now Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum) through barbed wire.

Trials

In 2006, the United Nations and the Cambodian government established a special court called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). This court has tried some former Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes against humanity. 

Kaing Guek Eav – also known as Comrade Duch – was the first to be tried before the ECCC. Eav was the head of Security Prison 21 during the genocide. The court found him guilty of crimes against humanity and breaking the Geneva Conventions of 1949. He was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment.

In 2011, the ECCC convicted two top Khmer Rouge officials, Noun Chea and Khieu Samphan, for crimes against humanity, genocide, and breaking the Geneva Conventions.

References

Category:Former dictatorships
Category:Cambodian genocide
Category:Former socialist republics
Category:1976 establishments in Asia
Category:1979 disestablishments in Asia
Category:Former countries in Southeast Asia
Category:Totalitarian states