The Use of Children in the Cambodian Genocide - Essay Example

Lisa Haddon 11th November 2008 The use of children in the Cambodian genocide Genocide is the premeditated and methodical destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group and was an atrocity that marks Cambodian history. The communist regime the Khmer Rouge, that reigned between 1975 and 1979 singled out certain groups for elimination and torture and led a brutal revolution within its borders. The regime led by Pol Pot forced social engineering by attempting to eliminate all but the peasant classes interpreting Marxist and Leninist models to the extreme. The date was determined as year zero, cities were to be emptied of people and those who survived elimination were forced to farm the land. The farms today are known as the 'killing fields' as so many died through over work, hunger or slaughter. Amongst the victims were the children who were taken away from their families and made to live in communal groups where the only family they were to consider was that of the Khmer Rouge. This essay sets out to show the lives these children led and how the regime used, manipulated and brainwashed the children who saw them as an integral part of their revolutionary plan. The Khmer Rouge wanted to eradicate anyone suspected of "involvement in free-market activities" including professionals, almost everyone with an education and who had connections to government and those who lived in the cities. The regime did not want the risk of anybody having the consciousness to rebel against their movement. The country was predominantly Buddhist and its monks were disrobed, half of them were killed and the rest forced to work in the harsh agricultural labor camps and Christianity was also abolished. They also believed that parents were corrupted by capitalism and felt that children should be separated from their families in order to ensure that they were swathed in socialist ideology. Children were taught methods of torture and were instrumental to the leadership of the communist dictatorship. The regime saw that children could be molded and indoctrinated to their political ideology; they were able to condition the children to believe that they were not the enemy and in doing so developed a community of children who were not able to identify with any other than the Khmer Rouge. The intention was to destroy the family values that were part of their culture and irradiate the trust that is held within family and community networks. Community and family members were expected and given incentives to spy on each other and this shattered networks and dissolved any trust through imbedding deeply rooted fear [1]. The young minds of children were easier to manipulate and the regime were able to brainwash children to such an extent that they would report back to the regime if their own parents were being antagonistic, the regime taught them to believe that they were their family and that their own kin were their enemies. Slogans such as 'I'm not killing my mother -I'm killing my enemy' were planted into their minds [2]. A propaganda song entitled, "We Children Love Angkar boundlessly," compared pre-revolutionary children to orphans abandoned by "the enemy", their parents, an excerpt from the song follows: [1] Colletta, N. J., & Cullen, M. L. (2000). The nexus between violent conflict, social capital and social cohesion: Case studies from Cambodia and Rwanda [electronic version]. [2] Martin, M. A. (1994). Cambodia: A shattered society. Berkeley, California: University of California Press Before the revolution, children were poor and lived lives of misery, Living like animals, suffering as orphans. The enemy abandoned all thought of us Now the glorious revolution supports us all [3]. The book the 'Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields' contains 29 essays from children who suffered at the hands of the regime. The children speak about their astonishing and painful experiences at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, how their families were torn apart to assist the social engineering plan of the regime, how captives were executed in front of them and how they were subjected to ruthless brainwashing. One of the children Teeda Bu Mam entitled her essay Worms from Our Skin she writes "I wanted to commit suicide but I couldn't, if I did, I would be labeled the enemy because I dared show my unhappiness with their regime. My death would be followed by my family's death because they were the family of the enemy - We not only lost our identities, but we lost our pride, our senses, our religion, our loved ones, our souls, ourselves" [4]. [3] Ben Kiernan Genocide and Resistance in Southeast Asia: Documentation, Denial and Justice in Cambodia and East Timor, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0QLQ/is_/ai_n24377875 [4] Pran Dith (1997) (Eds DePaul Kim0 Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors Yale University Press, 1997 The Khmer Rouge also had a youth league known as the Communist Youth League of Kampuchea. Pol Pot considered this youth to be his most faithful supporters. The children were collaborators in some of the worst atrocities that occurred under the regime and were encouraged o play cruel games and torture animals for fun. The social engineering that Pol Pot and his commanders had wanted to achieve was becoming a reality through brainwashing and manipulation. The children were attempted to be taught that the cruel ideology of the regime was the right way and the only way. Through losing their parents and in the absence of family and cultural values that had previously existed the youth lacked the knowledge and the self-consciousness that could have weakened the revolution [5]. An eyewitness account shows that meetings were held on a daily basis where the attendees would find fault with each other so in order to survive one had to succumb to the regimes way of thinking [6]. It is estimated that during their reign the Khmer Rouge were responsible for some 1.5 million deaths through execution, starvation and torture and has been labeled as [5]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_period_(1975-1979) [6]http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/p/pran-cambodia.html one of the most lethal regimes of the 20th century through its committal of crimes against humanity. It was on January 7th 1979 when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and liberated its people. Many fled to Thai refugee camps and never returned back to their home country choosing to emigrate to America, France and Australia [7]. The healing process for many of the children was absent and at the least slow as the engineering of distrust, the coercion they had experienced and the lack of core family, traditional values and support networks had been deliberately broken down and no longer existed. The children of Cambodia during the reign of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot witnessed unimaginable atrocities and had their innocence taken away from them. They were a major part in the social engineering that the regime wished to achieve. Through the disembodiment of the family and the breakdown of traditional values the children were shown another way of life and many were convinced that this was the only way. The regime used and abused the innocence of children as a means to adapt and control their newly found distorted society through the dismantling of family units [7] http://www.killingfieldsmuseum.com/genocide/genocide.html and community networks. Through means of manipulation trust became eradicated and was something to be valued if it could be found. In their attempts to create a utopian world where everyone was equal what they did was ensure everyone was equally poor except for themselves and in doing so used children as a means to an end. Whole families were destroyed, whole villages wiped off the face of the earth as part of what could be termed a social experiment. The elation of liberation can be summed up in the words of one of the children of the killing fields "In 1979, the Buddhist New Year, exactly four years after the Khmer Rouge came to power, I joined a group of corpselike bodies dancing freely to the sound of clapping and songs of folk music that defined who we were. We danced under the moonlight around the bonfire. We were celebrating the miracles that saved our lives. At that moment, I felt that my spirit and my soul had returned to my weak body. Once again, I was human [8]. [8] Pran Dith (1997) (Eds DePaul Kim0 Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors Yale University Press, 1997 Bibliography Colletta, N. J., & Cullen, M. L. (2000). The nexus between violent conflict, social capital and social cohesion: Case studies from Cambodia and Rwanda [electronic version]. Social Capital Initiative Working Paper 23. (Retrieved November 10th, 2008) www.worldbank.org Pran, Dith (1997) (Eds DePaul Kim0 Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors Yale University Press, 1997 Kiernan Ben Genocide and Resistance in Southeast Asia: Documentation, Denial and Justice in Cambodia and East Timor, (Retrieved November 11th 2008) http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0QLQ/is_/ai_n24377875 Martin, M. A. (1994). Cambodia: A shattered society. Berkeley, California: University of California Press The Khmer Rouge Period (1975- 1979) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_period_(1975-1979) (accessed November 11th 2008) The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/p/pran-cambodia.html (accessed November 11th 2008) The killing fields Cambodia's Darkest Days http://www.killingfieldsmuseum.com/genocide/genocide.html (accessed November 11th 2008) Read More