posted by Unknown at 2:46 PM
Monday, January 09, 2006
From April 17th 1975 till January 7th 1979 the ultra communist Khmer Rouge headed up by Pol Pot controlled the whole of Cambodia. Under the regime the country was known as Democratic Kampuchea. During their short reign between 1 million and 2.5 million people perished. Some were killed out right, others dying from disease, maluntrition, neglect & mistreatment.
Many of the dead ended up in various "killing fields" that can be found scattered around the country side.
The killing fields were esentially adhoc places of execution and dumping grounds for the dead bodies.
This memorial at Choeung Ek just outside Phnom Penh was formally an orchard and a Chinese Burial ground.
During the Khmer Rouge it became one of the "killing fields"
This particular "killing field" is the site where more than 17,000 men, women & children were executed, most of whom had suffered at the S-21 interagation Centre.
Everywhere you look there are mass graves and the memorial building houses thousands of skulls.
And yet, these autrocities apperared to go unnoticed by the rest of the world ? Did they?
1969 - Beginning in March, the US begins secret bombing raids on Vietnamese communist sanctuaries and supply routes inside Cambodia (dubbed the 'Menu Series'). Authorised by the newly installed US President, Richard M. Nixon, and directed by his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, the raids are illegal, as the US has not officially declared war on Cambodia. In 14 months, 110,000 tons of bombs are dropped. When news of the raids is leaked, Kissinger orders surveillance and phone tapping of suspects to uncover the source. US bombing raids into Cambodia will continue until 1973. All told, 539,129 tons of ordinance will be dropped on the country, much of it in indiscriminate B-52 carpet-bombing raids. The tonnage is about three and a half times more than that (153,000 tons) dropped on Japan during the Second World War.Up to 600,000 Cambodians die but the raids are militarily ineffective. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports that the bombing raids are serving to increase the popularity of the Khmer Rouge among the affected Cambodian population.
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