Destinations: Cambodia

[Weatherman2020]

A thousand years ago Angkor Wat at Siem Reap was an economic powerhouse like Hong Kong is today. Abandoned it lay in decaying ruins and is now being rediscovered. The lake shown around the temple in the photo below and the rectangular lake in the distance were all dug by hand a thousand years ago.

This an interesting carving. It is one thousand years old.

In the 1970's the Khemer Rouge communists took over the Cambodian government. They forced everyone out of the cities and into labor camps in the jungles and rice paddies. There they slaughtered an estimated 3-4 million people, 1/3 of the population of Cambodia. They targeted anyone perceived to be educated, which made you a threat to the government. They would go into the camps and ask for anyone who knew math. They got into trucks and drove off. No one knew they were being taken to the killing fields. The next day anyone who could read, and so forth. You wore glasses it was a death sentence.

And they didn't just murder everyone with a bullet. A lot of people were tortured to death here in this school converted to a torture chamber. When you walk in you can feel the evil.

They would take young children and infants by the ankles and smash their heads against this tree all day long, 7 days a week.

With every educated person dead you can imagine the impact it had on the society. Today it is rapidly recovering, with schools and a reviving economy. As the Governor of a State there once told us, wherever you Christians go, good things happen.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Hmmm...sounds familiar.

 

[Onyx]

I believe it is more accurate to say that the Khmer Rogue slaughtered 2 million, but it would not surprise me if the bodycount was higher.

Those killed were primarily Vietnamese.

 

[Weatherman2020]

I believe it is more accurate to say that the Khmer Rogue slaughtered 2 million, but it would not surprise me if the bodycount was higher.

Those killed were primarily Vietnamese.

A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic........
Estimated death toll is 3-4 million, and most were Cambodian. The Vietnamese finally came in and stopped the slaughter while the world sat silent.

 

[Onyx]

A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic........
Estimated death toll is 3-4 million, and most were Cambodian. The Vietnamese finally came in and stopped the slaughter while the world sat silent.

Where are you getting your statistics?

I know for a fact that the genocide targeted the Vietnamese. Most of them were probably Cambodian nationals that had Vietnamese ethnicity.

 

[Weatherman2020]

A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic........
Estimated death toll is 3-4 million, and most were Cambodian. The Vietnamese finally came in and stopped the slaughter while the world sat silent.

Where are you getting your statistics?

I know for a fact that the genocide targeted the Vietnamese. Most of them were probably Cambodian nationals that had Vietnamese ethnicity.

The government of Cambodia is where I get my statistics.
And it's like saying the Japanese bombed Europe on Dec 7 because most were European ethnicity.

 

[Onyx]

The government of Cambodia is where I get my statistics.

How come just about every study on the subject says around 2 million?

I searched for statistics from the Cambodian government. I was unsuccessful.

And it's like saying the Japanese bombed Europe on Dec 7 because most were European ethnicity.

No, not really. Imagine if the US military went solely into neighborhoods filled predominantly with Latinos and massacred them. Would you say they targeted Mexicans or Americans?

It is the same deal in Cambodia. There were those considered ethnically Vietnamese, and they lived in their own villages and such.