Genocide. Cambodia. It happened. Why did I never know?
Nearly 35 years ago the country was in an uproar. A Civil War and genocide had errupted due to the Khmer Rouge. However, before the Khmer Rouge, parts of northern Cambodia were being devestated by the Vietnam War. Some of Cambodia had become their battlefield. American bombs were dropped in order to take out Vietnemese soldiers who were hiding in Cambodia. Innocent people were part of a war that had nothing to do with them. A few years later, the worse was about to come.
People were forced from their homes. Many were sent to concentration camps-the public schools- where they were interogated, tortured, and killed. Doctors, teachers, lawyers, Christians, Missionaries, foreigners, Thai and Chineese people, etc, were hated-were victims. Shcools shut down. No hospitals were open. From about 1975-1979 everyone who labored were practically enslaved. The rice and crops that were harvested were shipped to China to pay for the artilaries that were being supplied to Pol Pot’s regime. Starvation and death were the outcome.
People were displaced. People were starving. People were captured. People were slaves. People were simply BEING MURDERED. Murdered. If they were not killed at the camps, they were shipped to the Killing Fields where they were executed. For what? Being themselves? Being who God created them to be?
Genocide happened. When will America wake up to what is happening around the world? It’s happening right now in Sudan. Even more so, in Burma. (www.freeburmarangers.org) People are being forced from their homes along the Thailand border. Villages are being burnt. I just want to scream at the top of my lungs. So much hurt on all sides.
Prepare yourself. Here are a few pictures from the Genocide Museum and Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
