Cambodia Under the Pol Pot Regime (1975-1979)

RHA,Vol. 4, Núm. 4 (2006), 107-130 ISSN 1697-3305 CAMBODIA UNDER THE POL POT REGIME (1975-1979). AN EXAMPLE OF A TOTALITARIAN COMMUNIST REGIME? Ruth Erken* Recibido: 26 Marzo 2006 / Revisado: 30 Abril 2006 / Aceptado: 3 Mayo 2006 INTRODUCTION 1.1. Definition of terms he name of Pol Pot is associated with one of the The definition of terms starts with the na- Tmost terrible politically motivated crimes of the ming of the unquestionably “inconceivable cri- 20th century. Descriptions such as “Red Holocaust” mes”1. Such an engagement in the establishment of (Horst Möller), “Genocide in Cambodia” (Ben Kier- definitions could be considered unnecessary, pos- nan), “Holocaust in Cambodia” (Ariane Barth, Ti- sibly even irreverent. But certain terms imply poli- ziano Terzani), “a political catastrophe with few mo- tical-historical classifications, and such classifica- dern parallels” (Chanthou Boua, Ben Kiernan), “Pol tions have so far only been very insufficient in the Pot’s reign of terror in Cambodia” (Manfred Hil- case of crimes committed under Communist regi- dermeier) show how difficult it is to name the crimes mes – as the intense reaction to the “Blackbook of committed under Pol Pot’s regime. The above des- Communism”2 has demonstrated. Alex P. Schmid, criptions reveal the efforts to cover both the extent of who scrutinizes the terms “Repression, State Te- the crime and its political background in one phrase. rrorism and Genocide”3, discusses the development Some of the descriptions not only generally define a of the term “genocide”, which was first used in political background, but even specify a very particu- 1944 by Raphael Lemkin in his book “Axis Rule in lar background (‘Red Holocaust’, ‘holocaust’, and Occupied Europe”. Lemkin belonged to those who –to a certain extent– also ‘genocide’). took the initiative for “the United Nations Con- This paper will first explain the important vention on the Punishment and Prevention of Ge- terms in connection with Pol Pot’s regime, then go nocide (1948)”, in which genocide is defined as on to outline Cambodia’s historical-cultural deve- follows: “Genocide means any of the following acts lopment, describe life under Pol Pot’s regime, and committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or finally provide the reader as far as possible with an in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, answer to the question posed in the title. such as: (1) killing members of the group, (2) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, (3) deliberately inflicting on the group con- 1. CAMBODIA UNDER THE POL POT RE- ditions of life calculated to bring about its physical GIME (1975-1979) – AN EXAMPLE OF A destruction in whole or in part, (4) imposing mea- TOTALITARIAN COMMUNIST REGIME? sures intended to prevent birth within a group, and * University of Köln, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]. 1 Margolin, Jean-Louis, “Kambodscha: Im Land der unfaßbaren Verbrechen“, in Stéphane Courtois et al. (eds.), Das Schwarzbuch des Kommunismus – Unterdrückung, Verbrechen und Terror. München 2000, 643. 2 Courtois, Stéphane et al. (eds.), Das Schwarzbuch des Kommunismus – Unterdrückung, Verbrechen und Terror. München 2000. 3 Schmid, Alex P., “Repression, State Terrorism and Genocide – Conceptual Clarifications“, in Timothy P. Bushnell et al. (eds.), State Organized Terror – The Case of Violent Internal Repression. Boulder, 1991, 23. © 2006 Revista de Historia Actual 107 RHA,Vol. 4, Núm. 4 (2006), 107-130 Ruth Erken (5) forcibly transferring children of the group to today. Do we have to accept the fact that they are another group”4. living in freedom? If not, for what crime could they 9 Besides the political-historical classification, be sentenced?” . there is another significant aspect to these efforts to The Allies already posed these questions when define, namely the attempt to provide a legal fra- they decided to hold the Nuremberg Trials: “The mework by which to judge such crimes by means delegates unanimously agreed to hold the trials. of their conceptualization. The Geneva Conven- They therefore tried hard to avoid any conflict tion of December 9, 1948, defines genocide as a among themselves”10. This means that they were “crime under international law”5. In this context, not willing to include the genocide of the European the definition quoted above shows certain weak- Jews – which was not yet called holocaust at that nesses, e.g., regarding the proof of intent concer- time – among the charges in the Nuremberg ning the macabre question of how many human Trials”11. They were afraid of a potential compari- lives are meant by the words “in whole or in part”. son, for in particular the United States and the Herbert Jäger deals with the criminological pro- Soviet Union had severely abused minorities in blems of state-sponsored mass killings6. He points their own countries. This example demonstrates out that criminal law is basically not equipped to the high risk of the judgment of such macro-crimes deal with the cold functioning and lack of human and their comparison being politically instrumen- emotions which are typical features of mass killings talized. Above all, stating how many people were carried out by a state. It is precisely this “phenome- killed under a certain regime can easily give the non of coldness” which links all types of mass des- impression that an attempt is being made to classify truction – this applies to genocide outside of war one crime as more or less severe than another one. situations and to modern warfare – and distingui- Steven T. Katz, who stands up for “the Uni- shes it from individual crimes. Herbert Jäger has queness of the Holocaust”, realizes this risk: “In ar- repeatedly underlined the difficulties of such com- guing for the uniqueness of the holocaust, I am not parisons, but he nevertheless strongly advocates is making a moral claim, in other words, that the holo- in order to recognize dangerous moments which caust was more evil than the other events (i.e., geno- “are not only of one-off, but of continuing impor- 12 7 cide / R.E.)” Katz explicitly refuses to discuss the tance” , above all, though, to “find assessment cri- number of the victims. He gives the following reason teria and categories which facilitate a moral and for his insistent opinion that the holocaust – accor- legal understanding of the phenomenon of mass 8 ding to his own definition – is the intended murder destruction by the state” . of the European Jews during the Second World War: Jean-Louis Margolin comments on this as- “[...] the holocaust is phenomenologically unique by pect: “This (the classification of the Khmer Rouge’s virtue of the fact that never before has a state set out, crimes / R.E.) is at the same time also a legal neces- as a matter of intentional principle and actualized sity: Many members of the leadership of the Cam- policy to annihilate physically every man, woman, bodian Communist Party still live an active life and child belonging to a specific people”13. Katz 4 Ibid, 32. 5 Ibid., 23. 6 Jäger, Herbert, “Über die Vergleichbarkeit staatlicher Großverbrechen – Der Historikerstreit aus kriminologischer Sicht”, in Jesse Eckart (ed.), Totalitarismus im 20. Jahrhundert – Eine Bilanz der internationalen Forschung. Bonn 1996, 344. 7 Ibid, 346. 8 Ibid, 349. 9 Margolin, Jean-Louis, “Kambodscha…”, op. cit., 138. 10 Hennigsen, Manfred, “Der Holocaust und andere Demozide”, in Horst Möller (ed.), Der rote Holocaust und die Deutschen – Die Debatte um das Schwarzbuch des Kommunismus. München 1999, 138. 11 Ibid, 137. 12 Katz, Steven E., “The Uniqueness of the Holocaust – The Historical Dimension”, in Alan S. Rosenbaum (ed.), Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide. Boulder, 1996, 19. 13 Ibid., 19. 108 Cambodia Under the Pol Pot Regime (1975-1979). An Example of a Totalitarian Communist Regime? MISCELÁNEA tries to verify his theory of the uniqueness of the following definition: “Democides are the direct re- holocaust by elaborating important differences bet- sult of political commands issued by the functional ween this and other genocides, e.g., of the Native centers of a regime. They do not arise as sponta- Americans, who in his opinion were mainly elimi- neous pogroms or as the culminating action of an nated by diseases brought in from Europe. David ideological development18. Rather they are part of E. Stannard14 disagrees with Katz’s thesis by poin- the “implementation of the mad plans to change ting out that “holocaust” is a very ancient term, the world pursued by leaders such as Lenin, Stalin, which was already used in the 17th century “[...] as Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot”19. 15 a term to describe mass destruction or slaughter” , This definition requires us to investigate the but primarily by emphasizing that although the political conditions which make genocide possible holocaust of the Jews, the genocides in Cambodia, in the first place. The first part of the definition Eastern Timor, Ruanda and in other places of the implies that a regime under which macro-crimes world were unique because of the differences with are possible must by nature allow political com- regard to the number of people killed, the weapons mands from the center of political function to be used, the behavior of the perpetrators and other directly executed; i.e., the center of political func- aspects, they have enough in common “to fall 16 tion is so omnipotent that it is not restricted by ins- within a single large classification” . titutions, e.g., by a parliament or judiciary. This, Another person who examines the problem of however, presupposes a totalitarian regime. In Italy, classifying such macro-crimes is Ben Kiernan, who the term totalitarianism was coined under Musso- also recognizes the risk of debating which crime is lini: “It was Amendola (i.e., the liberal Givonnia more or less severe but nonetheless sees enough evi- Amendola / R.E.) who obviously first accused dence to classify the atrocities of the Pol Pot regime as Mussolini of wanting to introduce a ‘sistema tota- genocide: “In Cambodia today, it is rather common litario’ (totalitarian system)20.

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