Year - 1975 - April 17th - the Khmer Rouge, a communist guerrilla group in Cambodia took power of the capital Phnom Penh - forcing all its citizens into labor camps. It is estimated that 2 million cambodians died of starvation and torture which was close to 30% of the then population.
The Khmer Rouge turned Cambodia to year zero. They banned all institutions, including stores, banks, hospitals, schools, religion, and the family. Everyone was forced to work 12 - 14 hours a day, every day. Children were separated from their parents to work in mobile groups or as soldiers. People were fed one watery bowl of soup with a few grains of rice thrown in. Babies, children, adults and the elderly were killed everywhere. The Khmer Rouge killed people if they didn't like them, if didn't work hard enough, if they were educated, if they came from different ethnic groups, or if they showed sympathy when their family members were taken away to be killed.
After the Vietnamese invaded and liberated the Cambodian people from the Khmer Rouge, 600,000 Cambodians fled to Thai border camps.
I watched a glimpse of this in a movie The Killing Fields (1984) - the terror people faced, shot and tortured for no reason. A newyork times reporter gets help from a local guy - Dith Pran and when the time comes to leave the country, cambodians are ordered to stay behind, a couple of american reporters try hard to save Pran, but in vain. The pains that Pran goes through and how he survives Khmer Rouge and escapes & re-unites with this friend and family is all the movie about.
one of a classic in its time - watch it when u get a chance.
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