Cambodian Genocide

During the Vietnam War, an offshoot of the North Vietnamese Army known as the Khmer Rouge started its campaign against the Cambodian Government. The deposed former King Shinanouk allied himself with the Khmer Rouge against the Republican regime that toppled him. Both the Khmer Rouge and Government forces were aided by the North Vietnamese and American forces respectively. American bombings helped the dying Republican regime survive Khmer Rouge assaults. Once the Americans evacuated their citizens and troops in Operation Eagle Pull in 1975, the only thing that was keeping the Khmer Republic government from falling was gone. 5 days after the Americans left, Khmer Rouge forces quickly sized the capital, and the Khmer Republic had finally fallen. "King" Shinanouk quickly became a puppet head of state and a hostage, while the Khmer Rouge held the true power. The Khmer Rouge quickly attempted to instal Maoist policies in Cambodia by forcing urban populations into collective farms. The results were disastrous. Thousands of people in the collectives were ever killed for the most minor of reasons or died from forced labor and famine. Religion in general was banned by the aggressively atheist Khmer Rouge. Several Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims were executed for practicing their religion. Educated people were also targeted by the regime. My father while on his LDS mission to California met a man that survived the Khmer Rouge. The man's ordinal happened when Khmer Rouge soldiers attempted to see if he was educated by having him read a book. He turned the book upside down and sideways, pretending to not know how to read. That is how he survived the Khmer Rouge. One almost comical reason to be executed was to be wearing glasses. Wearing glasses is stereotypically means you are educated, and the Khmer Rouge believed that stereotype. The irony of this is that the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot was an educated man himself. Khmer Rouge prisons were horrific with one notable prison called S-21 had 20,000 inmates. Only 12 inmates have been known to survive S-21. The behavior of the Khmer Rouge government became increasingly erratic with its persecution of Vietnamese (the Khmer Rouge's former ally). The Khmer Rouge's hatred for Vietnamese lead to its downfall when it unwisely massacred Vietnamese civilians ON VIETNAMESE SOIL. Understandably, the Vietnamese government was outraged by this atrocity. In 1978, Vietnamese  forces invaded Cambodia. Vietnamese forces finally toppled the Khmer Rouge regime. The Khmer Rouge's ally China attacked Vietnam in retaliation, but the Vietnamese army beat back the Chinese. Khmer Rouge forces continued guerrilla warfare until the 90s. The rule of the Khmer Rouge manged to kill 1/4 of Cambodia in just 4 years. Few of the Khmer Rouge leaders were ever trialled for their crimes.