The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by then Chief of State Norodom Sihanouk to describe his country's heterogeneous, communist-led dissidents, with whom he allied after his 1970 overthrow.
Pol Pot was a Cambodian revolutionary, politician and a dictator who ruled Cambodia as Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea between 1976 and 1979. Ideologically a communist and a Khmer ethnonationalist, he was a leading member of Cambodia's communist movement, the Khmer Rouge, from 1963 to 1997 and served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea from 1963 to 1981. His administration converted Cambodia into a one-party communist state and perpetrated the Cambodian genocide.
Ta Mok, also known as Nguon Kang, was a Cambodian military chief and soldier who was a senior figure in the Khmer Rouge and the leader of the national army of Democratic Kampuchea. He was also known as "Brother Number Four" or "the Butcher". He was captured along the Thailand-Cambodia border in March 1999 by Cambodian government forces while on the run with a small band of followers and was held in government custody until his death in 2006 while awaiting his war crime trial.
Haing Somnang Ngor was a Cambodian-born American actor, gynecologist, and obstetrician. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1985 for his debut performance in the film The Killing Fields (1984), in which he portrayed Cambodian journalist and refugee Dith Pran.
Son Sen, alias Comrade Khieu (សមមិត្តខៀវ) or "Brother Number 89", was a Cambodian Communist politician and soldier. A member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea/Party of Democratic Kampuchea, the Khmer Rouge, from 1974 to 1992, Sen oversaw the Party's security apparatus, including the Santebal secret police and the notorious security prison S-21 at Tuol Sleng.
Ieng Sary was the co-founder and senior member of the Khmer Rouge and one of the main architects of the Cambodian Genocide. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea led by Pol Pot and served in the 1975–79 government of Democratic Kampuchea as foreign minister and deputy prime minister. He was known as "Brother Number Three" as he was third in command after Pol Pot and Nuon Chea. His wife, Ieng Thirith, served in the Khmer Rouge government as social affairs minister. Ieng Sary was arrested in 2007 and was charged with crimes against humanity but died of heart failure before the case against him could be brought to a verdict.
The Killing Fields is a 1984 British biographical drama film about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which is based on the experiences of two journalists: Cambodian Dith Pran and American Sydney Schanberg. It was directed by Roland Joffé and produced by David Puttnam for his company Goldcrest Films. Sam Waterston stars as Schanberg, Haing S. Ngor as Pran, and John Malkovich as Al Rockoff. The adaptation for the screen was written by Bruce Robinson; the musical score was written by Mike Oldfield and orchestrated by David Bedford.
The Dângrêk Mountains, also the Dângrêk Range, is a mountain range forming a natural border between Cambodia and Thailand.
Year Zero is an idea put into practice by Pol Pot in Democratic Kampuchea that all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded and that a new revolutionary culture must replace it starting from scratch. In this sense, all of the history of a nation or a people before Year Zero would be largely deemed irrelevant, because it would ideally be purged and replaced from the ground up.
Elizabeth Becker is an American journalist and author. She has written five books and is best known for her reporting and writing on Cambodia.
Cinema in Cambodia began in the 1950s, and many films were being screened in theaters throughout the country by the 1960s, which are regarded as the "golden age". After a near-disappearance during the Khmer Rouge regime, competition from video and television has meant that the Cambodian film industry is a small one.
Phnom Malai is a mountain area in Malai District, Banteay Meanchey Province of Cambodia. The district became a Khmer Rouge stronghold and battleground through the 1980s and 1990s. Today it is a remote and sparsely populated border area with scattered settlements mostly made up of former rebels.
Kampuchea, officially Democratic Kampuchea (DK) from 1976 onward, was the Cambodian state from 1975 to 1979, under the totalitarian dictatorship of Pol Pot and the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), commonly known as the Khmer Rouge (KR). It was established following the Khmer Rouge's capture of the capital Phnom Penh, effectively ending the United States-backed Khmer Republic of Lon Nol.
Peter Vronsky is a Canadian author, filmmaker, and investigative historian. He holds a PhD in criminal justice history and espionage in international relations from the University of Toronto. He is the author of the bestseller true crime histories Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters (2004), Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters and Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers From the Stone Age to the Present (2018), a New York Times Editors' Choice, and most recently American Serial Killers: The Epidemic Years 1950–2000 (2021), a history exploring the epidemic surge of serial killers in the second half of the 20th century. He is the director of several feature films, including Bad Company (1980) and Mondo Moscow (1992). Vronsky is the creator of a body of formal video and electronic artworks and new media. He has also worked professionally in the motion picture and television industry as a producer and cinematographer in the field of documentary production and news broadcasting with CNN, CTV, CBC, RAI and other global television networks in North America and overseas. Vronsky's 2011 book, Ridgeway: The American Fenian Invasion and the 1866 Battle That Made Canada, is the definitive history of Canada's first modern battle – the Battle of Ridgeway fought against Irish American Fenian insurgents who invaded across the border from the United States on the eve of Canadian Confederation shortly after the American Civil War. He currently lectures at Toronto Metropolitan University's History Department in the history of international relations, terrorism, espionage, American Civil War, and the Third Reich. He consults as an investigative criminal historian to a number of law enforcement cold case homicide units including the NYPD, New York State Police, and Bergen County Prosecutor's Office New Jersey.
The National Army of Democratic Kampuchea (NADK) was a Cambodian guerrilla force. NADK were the armed forces of the Party of Democratic Kampuchea also known as "Khmer Rouge", operating between 1979 and the late 1990s.
Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia is a 1979 British television documentary film written and presented by the Australian journalist John Pilger, which was produced and directed by David Munro for the ITV network by Associated Television (ATV). First broadcast on 30 October 1979, the filmmakers had entered Cambodia in the wake of the overthrow of the Pol Pot regime.
The K5 Plan, K5 Belt or K5 Project, also known as the Bamboo Curtain, was an attempt between 1985 and 1989 by the government of the People's Republic of Kampuchea to seal Khmer Rouge guerrilla infiltration routes into Cambodia by means of trenches, wire fences, and minefields along virtually the entire Cambodia–Thailand border.
Cambodian genocide denial is the belief expressed by some Western academics that early claims of atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge government (1975–1979) in Cambodia were much exaggerated. Many scholars of Cambodia and intellectuals opposed to the US involvement in the Vietnam War denied or minimized reports of human rights abuses of the Khmer Rouge, characterizing contrary reports as "tales told by refugees" and US propaganda. They viewed the assumption of power by the Communist Party of Kampuchea as a positive development for the people of Cambodia who had been severely impacted by the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War. On the other side of the argument, anti-communists in the United States and elsewhere saw in the rule of the Khmer Rouge vindication of their belief that the victory of Communist governments in Southeast Asia would lead to a "bloodbath."
The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Communist Party of Kampuchea general secretary Pol Pot. It resulted in the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population in 1975.
Khmer nationalism is a form of nationalism found in Cambodia, that asserts that Khmers (Cambodians) are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of the Khmer (Cambodian) race.
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