One of the first actions of the Khmer Rouge was the evacuation of the entire urban population to the countryside. For C. Etcheson, at least five reasons can be speculated for this decision:[8]​.

• - The problem of security in the city: The Khmer Rouge feared that counterrevolutionary elements could destabilize urban areas, so it was better to move the entire urban population to the countryside, which they knew better.

• - Health problems.

• - Political program based on the theories of Huo Yuon") that advocated the construction of a strictly agrarian society and Pol Pot had in his program the fulfillment of said ideal to the letter.

• - Internal divisions in the Party and Pol Pot's intention to definitively establish his supremacy.

• - Fears of a bombing of the capital.

A first stage after the fall of Phnom Penh is the liquidation of the republican army of the dictator Lon Nol, decreeing as a first measure the murder of all officers from second lieutenant and above and their wives, a fact that was immediately known in the international media without any reaction.[9]​.

According to Etcheson's studies, the Khmer Rouge "acted quickly and systematically to liquidate the senior commanders of the defeated army."[10] One of the testimonies presented by the author takes place on April 19, 1975 in the Battambang area:

However, for some scholars this first phase of deaths cannot be directly attributed to the subsequent genocide plan, as Etcheson himself argues:

This position held then by authors such as Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman is answered by the majority of scholars on the subject who say that if this was the case, it is not understood why they waited for six weeks to pass before the central authorities of the party gave the order to stop said acts of elimination (May 28).[13]​.

Contenido

Si se incluyen las estadísticas de población de la llamada República Jemer fundada por el dictador Lon Nol en 1970 hasta la caída del régimen de los jemeres rojos en 1979, Camboya presenta el crecimiento de población negativo más alto de la historia de la humanidad desde la II Guerra Mundial.[14]​ Según un censo de población de 1962, Camboya debía tener una previsión de 7,1 millones de habitantes para 1970 y, si todo hubiera sido normal, para 1979 debería de haber tenido 9 millones de habitantes. Cuando Vietnam invadió el país había entre 4,7 y 5,5 millones de habitantes.

Se tienen entonces dos periodos irregulares que no deben confundirse: el primero corresponde a la «República Jemer» de Lon Nol (1970-1975) y el segundo a la Kampuchea Democrática de Pol Pot (1975-1979). Evidentemente el descenso de población que se dio durante el primer periodo por causa de la guerra y sus consecuencias y varias fuentes determinan que el número de muertes está en un rango entre 200 000 (según W.J. Sampson) y un millón de personas (según Khieu Samphan), con una estimación más frecuente que indica unas seiscientas mil personas. En 1975, con la victoria de los jemeres rojos, el cálculo de población es de 7,2 millones de personas, es decir, el crecimiento es mínimo en relación con los datos de 1970. Esto quiere decir que un promedio de 1,7 millones de personas desaparecieron durante el régimen de Pol Pot.

Death calculation

The following sources presented by Etcheston[15] give an estimate of deaths during the years of the regime (1975-1978):

1. • Ieng Sary: 3000.

2. • Time Magazine: 60,000.

3. • Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France: 800,000.

4. • Pol Pot: 800,000.

5. • Khieu Samphan: 1,000,000.

6. • Barron and Paul: 1,200,000.

7. • US Department of State: 1,200,000.

8. • Amnesty International: 1,400,000.

9. • Norodom Sihanouk: 1,500,000.

10. • Ben Kiernan: 1,500,000.

11. • François Ponchaud: 2,030,000.

12. • Lon Nol: 2,050,000.

For Etcheston, all these calculations cannot be considered strict simply because there was no real population census during the period 1970-1978. The ones we have are those from 1967 and 1983. However, the evidence of widespread deaths, extrajudicial executions, famines, state terrorism and epidemics is legitimate and the most objective figure for the number of missing people can be put at 1.7 million people for the period 1975-1979:.

Causes of morbidity

Although famines and epidemics can be noted among the causes of morbidity of the population during the years of the regime (1975-1979), the evidence currently preserved by the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam)[17]​[18]​ adds the following:

• - Systematic torture.

• - Extensive practice of extrajudicial executions.

• - Specific genocide programs against religious groups and ethnic minorities.

• - Dramatic decline in the national population.

The evidence of the existence of said acts can be classified as follows:

• - Testimonies of survivors, both victims and the executioners themselves.

• - Testimonies of war refugees in Thailand, especially after the invasion by Vietnam began. The refugees were the first to share the first accounts of the bloody regime. These testimonies have produced a large amount of documentary material today such as books, videos and graphic art. The testimonies all agree on the following historical facts:

• The hasty evacuation of large urban centers.

• The forced march during a period of three months towards different sectors of the country.

• The abrupt collectivization of production and the collectivization of daily life.

• The destruction of freedom of the press.

• The abolition of currency.

• The abolition of the market.

• The abolition of schools.

• Daily attacks on religions and cultural traditions.

• The normalization of summary executions.

• Hunger and epidemics.

• - The interrogation and torture centers discovered by the Vietnamese in 1979.

• - The mass graves found and excavated with human skeletons of all ages.

• - The dramatic decline in population on a global scale by at least one and a half million people and also the reduction of ethnic minorities such as the Cham or Cambodians of Vietnamese origin and those of Chinese origin.

• - The large amount of material prepared at that time by the Khmer Rouge themselves, such as photographs of the victims, their testimonies signed under torture, reports prepared by middle and superior managers, orders and letters.

In Tuol Sleng, as an example, there is the following balance of prisoner executions presented by David Hawk:[19]​.

1. • October 15, 1977: 418.

2. • October 18, 1977: 179.

After the victory of April 17, 1975, Pol Pot launched a rapid government program seeking the consolidation of a regime with totalitarian features, based on an economic system of radically agrarian exploitation, which included the forced evacuation and disappearance of the cities, considered spaces of the bourgeoisie, currency, the market, religions and a complete ruralization of society, and the tight control of the guerrilla army bases over the civilian population. Pol Pot had been general secretary of the Cambodian Communist Party since February 1963 and with his associates he formed the top leadership of the party, placing his allies in key positions. Pol Pot began a purge of his opponents, both real and imagined, which he called "in search of the hidden enemy", which led to numerous party members, including high-ranking officials, being executed, along with large sections of the civilian population, applying an extensive system of arrest, torture and summary executions.

Opposition to Vietnam was a characteristic of Democratic Kampuchea. First Pol Pot prevented any interference by Hanoi within Cambodia and then advocated returning to Cambodia the so-called Kampuchea Krom"), the south of Vietnam, which had been Cambodian territory in past centuries. For this reason, he directed multiple hostilities against neighboring countries, but especially against Vietnam.

Prince Sihanouk, who had been overthrown by Lon Nol in 1970 and who had led a government in exile from China, was rather an emblematic figure used by the Khmer Rouge to consolidate their power in a rural nation that deeply respected the tradition of reverence for the king (although Norodom Sihanouk had abdicated in order to run as prime minister, for the people he was still the king):.

One of Lon Nol's most serious mistakes was not that he had carried out a coup d'état against the Kingdom of Cambodia to establish his "Khmer republic", but that he carried out a coup d'état against the one who held the lineage of the old Khmer Empire and the glory of Angkor. The Khmer Rouge had been more aware of this fact than the dictator and took advantage of it by telling the peasants that they were fighting not only for the expulsion of the Western imperialists, but also for the restitution of the King. Proof of the manipulation of the figure of the ancestral monarchy and religion is the fact that the Khmer Rouge placed artillerymen at the bases of the Temple of Angkor, a strategy that attracted their sympathy among Cambodians who saw the act as a demonstration that the guerrillas were protecting the sacred places from the illegitimate government. The attacks against that artillery that damaged part of the Temple by the dictator's army was also proof in the eyes of the Cambodians that Lon Nol wanted nothing more than to destroy the Khmer identity: the strategy paid off.

With the victory the king was no longer necessary, just as the monks were no longer necessary. The rapid process of replacing the king and religion with that of the Party then began. Prince Norodom Sihanouk was presented during the first months of the regime as the restored prime minister, but he was nothing more than a protocol figure. His apparent resignation and his "voluntary retirement" with a pension set by the Party, would give way to the definitive proclamation of a constitution proclaimed on January 5, 1976 and which officially began the "Democratic Kampuchea":.

El artículo XX de la Constitución de la Kampuchea Democrática establecía la libertad de culto:.

Pero la realidad fue bien diferente y analistas vietnamitas se refieren a este punto como «letra muerta».[24]​ En la mente de los líderes de la Kampuchea Democrática las «religiones reaccionarias» eran el budismo, Islam y cristianismo, las tres religiones de mayor práctica en el país junto a formas de religiones naturales animistas. Estas tres religiones no sólo fueron prohibidas, sino que todos sus lugares de culto fueron destruidos o desacralizados.

Dice en tal sentido Gregory H. Stanton, presidente de «Genocide Watch»:.

Buddhism

In the case of Buddhism, the majority religion of the Khmer people, the pagodas were converted into indoctrination centers, warehouses and even torture and prison centers.[26]​ The monks - the other "great king" of Khmer culture - were forced to shed their orange habits and forced to work in the fields under the stigma "parasites that eat the people's rice."[26] There are some indications of areas generally removed from the center of Party power. in which some pagodas were respected:.

According to the reports collected by Prea Mojá Ghosananda in his campaign of national pacification and restoration of Buddhism as a key piece in the reconstruction of the country, in 1976 the population of Buddhist monks in Cambodia was 60 thousand people. In 1979, when Ghosananda entered the refugee camps from Thailand, the remaining monks numbered only three thousand.[28]

Islam

The two main minority religions of the time in Cambodia (Islam and Catholicism) also do not have better memories:.

Among the Cambodians, the Cham ethnic group stands out, descendants of the disappeared Kingdom of Champa who were of Malay and Sunni Muslim origin. Ysa Osman, from the Documentation Center of Cambodia, in her book "Oukoubah: Justice for Cham Muslims under the regime of Democratic Kampuchea", states that between 400,000 and 500,000 Chams died between 1975 and 1979.[29] The data was contested by Ben Kiernan in his report "Critical Asian Studies"[30]​ who states that there were 87 000 chams, but new investigations have not been able to refute Osman's data.

For Stanton, the genocide was part of the political programs of the Khmer Rouge, which can be evidenced in multiple orders preserved in the Documentation Center of Cambodia (CD-Cam) and in the Department of History at Yale University, a center for studies on the Cambodian genocide. One of the most famous refers precisely to the Cham and says:

According to the studies by Stanton and CD-Cam, there is the case of the Kompung Cham, the natural territory of the ethnic group, where in a single day five thousand people were murdered and thrown into mass graves, according to testimonies from the survivors and who also claim that several people were burned alive.[32]​ Stanton also mentions that Etcheson's studies show strong indications that the Cambodian Vietnamese ethnic group was also a target of the program:

Catholicism

The third Cambodian religious group before 1975 was the Catholic Church, which was made up mostly of ethnically Vietnamese Cambodians. This fact meant that native Catholics were seen more as interference by that country in Cambodian internal affairs and that all Catholics were identified as Vietnamese or related to Vietnam. The first act against the Catholic Church was the destruction of the Phnom Penh Cathedral, seat of the Apostolic Vicariate of Phnom Penh, which had been built during the French Colony; All the foreign missionaries were expelled—among them François Ponchaud who wrote the first report on the bloody events of the regime—and many of the native religious people suffered the same fate as the Buddhist monks. Shortly before the entry of the Khmer Rouge into Phnom Penh, the Church ordained Cambodian priest Joseph Chhmar Salas as bishop of the city on April 14, 1975. The reason for this act was the hope that the new regime would respect a Church led by a Cambodian alongside the native bishop Paul Tep Im Sotha, apostolic prefect of Battambang. However, both bishops, all Cambodian and Catholic priests, men and women religious suffered the same fate as the rest of the population: the two bishops soon died exhausted due to forced labor in the countryside, many priests were executed and all places of worship were destroyed. All foreign religious who refused to leave the country were executed under the accusation of espionage.[34]​.

The Democratic Kampuchea regime maintained close ties with China, its main sponsor, and to a lesser extent with North Korea. In 1977, in a congratulatory message to Cambodian comrades on the 17th anniversary of the CPK, Kim Jong-il congratulated the Cambodian people for having “annihilated the counter-revolutionary group of spies who had committed subversive and sabotage activities.”[35]​.

Upon taking power, the Khmer Rouge rejected both Western states and the Soviet Union as sources of support.[36] Instead, China became Cambodia's main international partner.[37] With Vietnam increasingly siding with the Soviet Union over China, the Chinese viewed Pol Pot's government as a bulwark against Vietnamese influence in Indochina.[38][39] It is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid the Khmer Rouge received Khmer Rouge came from China, and in 1975 alone, at least US$1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid came from China.[40][41][42] However, the relationship between the governments of China and Cambodia was marred by mutual suspicion and China had little influence on Pol Pot's domestic policies.[43] It had greater influence on Cambodia's foreign policy, successfully pressuring the country to seek a rapprochement with Thailand and open communication with the US to combat Vietnamese influence in the region.[44]​ After Mao's death in September 1976, Pol Pot praised him and Cambodia declared an official period of mourning.[45][46]​ In November 1976, Pol Pot secretly traveled to Beijing, seeking to maintain his country's alliance with China after the Gang of Four was arrested.[47]​ From Beijing, he was then taken away. touring China, visiting sites associated with Mao and the Chinese Communist Party.[48]​.

While Democratic Kampuchea held Cambodia's seat at the UN and was internationally recognized, only the following countries had an embassy in Cambodia: Burma "Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma (1962-1988)"), Albania, People's Republic of China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Laos, Romania, Vietnam and Yugoslavia.[49] Democratic Kampuchea itself, on the other hand, established embassies in several countries: Albania, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, People's Republic of China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Romania, Laos, Sweden, Tanzania, USSR, Vietnam and Yugoslavia.[50] The Chinese were the only country allowed to retain their former embassy in Phnom Penh.[51] All other diplomats were forced to live in assigned rooms on Monivong Boulevard. This street was blocked with barricades and diplomats were not allowed to leave without escorts. Their food was brought and provided to them through the only store that remained open in the country.[52]​.

Ideological influences

The Khmer Rouge were heavily influenced by Mao Zedong,[53]​ the French Communist Party and the writings of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin,[54]​ as well as ideas of Khmer racial superiority.[55]​ Looking back at the roots of the ideology that guided the JR intellectuals behind the revolution, it becomes evident that the roots of such radical thinking can be traced back to an upbringing in France that set many of them on the path to senior JR officials to think that communism required violence.[56][57]​.

The influences of the French Revolution led many who studied in Paris to believe that Marxist political theory based on class struggle could be applied to the national cause in Cambodia.[58] The premise of class struggle sowed the ideological seeds of violence and made violence seem even more necessary for the success of the revolution. Furthermore, because many of the JR's senior officials such as Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan and Kang Guek Eav (also known as Duch) were educators and intellectuals, they were unable to connect with the masses and became alienated upon their return to Cambodia, fueling their radical thinking.[57]​.

Michael Vickery downplays the importance of personalities in explaining the KD phenomenon, noting that pre-war contemporaries never considered KD leaders evil. This view is disputed by some, including Rithy Phan, who after interviewing Duch, the head of Tuol Sleng, seems to suggest that Duch was a fearsome individual who preyed on and took advantage of the weaknesses of others. Ultimately, the historical context of the civil war, along with the ideological ferment of Cambodian intellectuals returning from France, set the stage for the JR revolution and the violence it would spread.[59][60]​.

Operationalization of ideology through violence

The Khmer Rouge were determined to turn the country into a nation of peasants in which the corruption and "parasitism" of city life would be completely uprooted. Communalization was implemented by putting men, women and children to work in the fields, which disrupted family life. The regime claimed to have "liberated" women through this process and, according to Zal Karkaria, "seemed to have implemented Engels' doctrine in its purest form: women produced, therefore they had been liberated".[61]

Under Pol Pot's leadership, cities were emptied, organized religion was abolished, and private property, money, and markets were eliminated.[62] An unprecedented campaign of genocide followed, leading to the annihilation of around 25% of the country's population, with much of the killing motivated by the Khmer Rouge ideology that called for "disproportionate revenge" against wealthy and oppressors. powerful.[63][64][65] Victims included class enemies such as wealthy capitalists, professionals, intellectuals, police, and government employees (including most of Lon Nol's leaders), along with ethnic minorities such as the Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cham.

The Khmer Rouge regime was one of the most brutal in recorded history, especially considering how brief the country's rule was. Based on an analysis of mass graves, the DC-Cam Mapping Program and Yale University estimated that the Khmer Rouge executed more than 1.38 million people. Counting deaths from disease and hunger, up to 2.5 million people died as a result of Khmer Rouge rule. This included most of the country's minority populations. For example, the country's ethnic Vietnamese population was almost completely wiped out; almost all ethnic Vietnamese who did not flee immediately after the takeover were exterminated.

The Revolutionary Army of Democratic Kampuchea (in Khmer: កងទ័ពបដិវត្តន៍កី of Democratic Kampuchea, the state ruled by the Khmer Rouge. The name "Revolutionary Army of Democratic Kampuchea" first emerged during the peasant uprising that took place in the Samlout district of Battambang province in 1967. In practice, it was a general term for the armed groups of the Khmer Rouge. After the establishment of Democratic Kampuchea, the 68,000-strong Khmer Rouge-dominated National Liberation Armed Forces of the Cambodian People (FALNPC) completed the conquest of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge forces were renamed the (Revolutionary Army of Democratic Kampuchea) (ERKD). This name dates back to the peasant uprising that broke out in the Samlout district of Battambang province in 1967. Under its veteran commander and Defense Minister, Son Sen, the ERKD had 230 battalions divided between 35 and 40 regiments, and between 12 and 14 combat brigades. The command structure of the units was based on committees of three people, in which the political commissar of the unit had the rank of commander. Cambodia was divided into zones and special sectors by the ERKD, whose boundaries changed slightly over the years. Within these areas, the first task of the ERKD was the execution of former officers of the Khmer National Armed Forces (JNF) and their families. The prisoners were executed extrajudicially, thus eliminating the enemies of the Khmer Rouge. The ERKD's next priority was to consolidate into a new national army the separate forces that operated more or less autonomously in the different areas. The Khmer Rouge units were commanded by the zone secretaries of the Khmer Communist Party, and these secretaries were party members and army soldiers, some of whom presented some characteristics of warlords. Troops were frequently sent from one zone to another to enforce party discipline. These efforts to discipline zone secretaries and their dissident and ideologically impure cadres led to purges that would decimate the ranks of the ERKD, undermine the morale of the Red Army, and generate the seeds of future rebellion. In this way, the Khmer Rouge used the ERKD to sustain and fuel their violent genocidal campaign.

After the victory of the Khmer Rouge in 1975, skirmishes occurred between their troops and Vietnamese forces. The Cambodians launched an attack on the Vietnamese islands of Phu Quoc and Tho Chu") and made incursions into the border Vietnamese provinces. At the end of May, at the same time that the United States bombed the Kompung Sao oil refinery after the Mayagüez incident, Vietnamese forces took the island of Poulo Wai"), belonging to Democratic Kampuchea. The following month, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary visited Hanoi. They proposed a treaty of friendship between both countries, an idea that received a cold reception from the Vietnamese leaders. Although Vietnam evacuated Poulo Wai in August, incidents continued along Democratic Kampuchea's northeastern border.

Relations between Democratic Kampuchea and Vietnam improved in 1976, partly due to problems within the CPK. In May, representatives from both countries met in Phnom Penh to establish a commission to resolve border disputes. Vietnam refused to accept the "Brévié Line" (colonial demarcation of maritime borders between the two countries) and negotiations broke down. At the end of September, however, days after Pol Pot resigned as prime minister (although this was a political move because he remained in power), an airline began operating between Phnom Penh and Hanoi.

With Pol Pot again at the head of the government in 1977, the situation deteriorated rapidly. An escalation of incidents occurred along all borders of Democratic Kampuchea. Khmer Rouge forces attacked villages in the border areas of Thailand, near Aranyaprathet. The brutal manner in which the Thai peasants died was noted as the first recorded concrete evidence of Khmer Rouge atrocities. Incidents also occurred on the border with Laos. Around the same time, Vietnamese border towns were attacked again. In response, Vietnam launched airstrikes against Cambodia. In September, border fighting resulted in 1,000 Vietnamese civilian deaths. The following month, the Vietnamese counterattack mobilized 20,000 soldiers. Vietnam's defense minister, General Vo Nguyen Giap, underestimated the tenacity of the Khmer Rouge and had to send 58,000 more in December. On January 6, 1978, Giap's forces began their withdrawal from Kampuchean territory. But Pol Pot proclaimed that this "victory" had been even greater than that of April 17, 1975.

In 1978 Vietnam decided to support internal resistance to Pol Pot's government, which resulted in the eastern area becoming a focus of insurrection. Hysteria reached extreme levels within Democratic Kampuchea. In May 1978, on the eve of the So Phim uprising in the east, Phnom Penh radio declared that if each Kampuchean soldier killed thirty Vietnamese, two million soldiers would be enough to eliminate the entire population of Vietnam (about fifty million at the time). The leaders of Phnom Penh harbored great territorial ambitions (such as recovering the Mekong Delta region, which they considered Khmer territory).

Massacres of ethnic Vietnamese and their sympathizers by the Khmer Rouge intensified in the east following the May uprising. In November, Vorn Vet led an unsuccessful coup d'état. At that time there were tens of thousands of Cambodians and Vietnamese refugees in Vietnam. On December 3, 1978, Radio Hanoi announced the formation of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation. It was a heterogeneous group of communists and non-communists who shared their enmity with the Pol Pot regime and an almost total dependence on Vietnam. The Front offered the image of legitimacy that Vietnam needed to invade Democratic Kampuchea and the subsequent establishment of a satellite government in Phnom Penh.

As 1978 wore on, Cambodian bellicosity in the border areas had surpassed Hanoi's threshold of tolerance. Vietnamese politicians opted for a solution and on December 22 launched an offensive to overthrow the government of Democratic Kampuchea. An invasion force of 120,000 men, consisting of a combination of artillery and infantry, pushed into the southeastern plains of Democratic Kampuchea. After a blitzkrieg that lasted 14 days, Phnom Penh fell on January 7, 1979. From some strongholds in the mountains and jungle, Pol Pot and other Khmer leaders regrouped their units and launched a new call to arms, restarting a stubborn insurgency against the regime in power just as they had done in the 1960s. For the moment, the Vietnamese invasion had managed to depose the established government. A new administration was installed in power under the influence of Hanoi and the internal and international dispute began to appear as the legitimate government, compared to that of the Khmer Rouge. However, peace had not yet come to this war-torn nation. Although the insurgency launched by the Khmer Rouge was not capable of overthrowing the pro-Vietnamese regime, it was capable of keeping the country in a permanent state of insecurity.

In September 1977, it was revealed that the "Angkar" is the Cambodian Communist Party, (CCP). Considerable famines occur in the country, conflicts begin on the borders with Thailand, Laos and Vietnam and the latter begins to have more relations with the USSR than with China.

In December 1976, Pol Pot would announce to all officers that they should prepare for a guerrilla and conventional war and for the first time spoke of Vietnam as an "enemy of Democratic Kampuchea."[66] On January 27, 1977, a Khmer Rouge raid killed 30 Thai farmers while they began to cause disturbances on the borders with Laos. But the most serious events would occur on the border with Vietnam: according to Vietnamese reports, since March 1977 the Khmer Rouge launched continuous attacks in the southwestern area of Vietnam with raids that attacked the army of that country and the peasant population, especially in Ha Tien and Chau Doc. These Vietnamese reports coincide with testimonies of refugees from that country abroad according to the Keesing Contemporary Archives.[67]​ Pol Pot claimed then. that the enemy Vietnam would not "dare attack us" because, in their view, Vietnam was less powerful than Cambodia (possibly relying on the friendship it had with China and China's enmity with Vietnam). For Pol Pot, the way Vietnam attacked Cambodia was not openly but silently, infiltrating the Khmer ranks. This would lead him to develop a real paranoia that would lead him to look for the "hidden enemy" within his own party. On the contrary, Vietnam would always refer to Cambodian communism as "its brother", as witnessed by Cambodian refugees who entered that country's territory in 1977. It would only be from 1978 onwards that Vietnamese authorities would begin to see the Khmer Rouge from a different perspective.

Kampuchea Krom was a former Cambodian province that fell into the hands of the Vietnamese in the 19th century and is today southern Vietnam. There is now a significant population of ethnic Khmer Vietnamese who feel naturally closer to their ancestral homeland than to Vietnam. From Pol Pot's perspective, the "recovery" of said territory was a historical duty for Cambodia and that was the main cause of the attacks in southwestern Vietnam where numerous peasants, both Khmer and Vietnamese, died.

On January 6, 1978, Pol Pot would address the troops in the eastern zone:

In an interview that Ben Kiernan did with Heng Sarim about the purpose of the raids in Vietnam, he responded:

While the Khmer Rouge concentrated on attacking all their "enemies", Phnom Penh radio called on the inhabitants of the east of the country to "raise the flags of national zeal, confront the duty of hatred and blood against... expansionism and annexationism".[70]

In 1978 Pol Pot launched a campaign to "discover" what he called "the hidden enemy": his idea was that the Party and the Army were infiltrated by Vietnamese and CIA agents; He had many of his men arrested, interrogated, tortured and executed. The theory of the regime was that within the Party there were "enemies" and that locating and eliminating them was an obligation at all costs. The "counterrevolutionary enemies" were to disappear in a process that Pol Pot called "sweeping and cleansing" (boh somat).[71] One of the party's mottos was "one hand for production and another to fight the enemy." Vann Nath, one of the few survivors of S-21, told Alexander Hinto that "the enemy's word had great power... hearing it, we all got nervous."[73]

The "hidden enemy" became an obsession for Pol Pot and if they did not exist, he would soon create them himself. For him, the "external enemies" were visible, easy to identify and combat, but the "enemies within" were a task in which everyone had to get involved. In his announcement of the existence of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (PCK), he told the assembly:

Interpreting the words of Pol Pot's speech literally and following Chandler's reading, one or two percent of the Cambodian population then represented 140 thousand people out of 7 million inhabitants, that is, all of those people were considered "enemies of the State." Pol Pot said that enemies could not be treated in the same way: some had to be "re-educated" and others had to be "neutralized." At the same time that this speech was being held, hundreds of people were interrogated, tortured and executed in S-21.

In 1978, during the anniversary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, Pol Pot expressed:

On May 10 of the same year, in a broadcast on Radio Democratic Kampuchea, he would address the following words in the context of the attacks on Vietnam:

The repeated attacks on Vietnamese territory and persecutions within the party itself would combine to quickly precipitate the end of the regime. A wave of desertions began in 1978 that would prepare the elements for a new history on Cambodian soil: the Vietnamese invasion carried out with the Cambodians themselves.

• - Cambodia.

• - Khmer Rouge.

• - Khmer Republic.

• - Pol Pot.

• - Cambodian genocide.

• - Trial of the Khmer Rouge.

• - History of Cambodia.

• - wikisource:es:Political Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea.

• - Documents of Democratic Kampuchea.

• - What went wrong in the Pol Pot regime (F.G.).

• - Justice cries out in Cambodia (Miguel Jiménez).

• - Kampuchean Genocide and the World, Gregory H. Stanton, Genocide Watch.

• - In Search of Brother Number One, Dale Keiger, Johns Hopkins Magazine.

One of the first actions of the Khmer Rouge was the evacuation of the entire urban population to the countryside. For C. Etcheson, at least five reasons can be speculated for this decision:[8]​.

• - The problem of security in the city: The Khmer Rouge feared that counterrevolutionary elements could destabilize urban areas, so it was better to move the entire urban population to the countryside, which they knew better.

• - Health problems.

• - Political program based on the theories of Huo Yuon") that advocated the construction of a strictly agrarian society and Pol Pot had in his program the fulfillment of said ideal to the letter.

• - Internal divisions in the Party and Pol Pot's intention to definitively establish his supremacy.

• - Fears of a bombing of the capital.

A first stage after the fall of Phnom Penh is the liquidation of the republican army of the dictator Lon Nol, decreeing as a first measure the murder of all officers from second lieutenant and above and their wives, a fact that was immediately known in the international media without any reaction.[9]​.

According to Etcheson's studies, the Khmer Rouge "acted quickly and systematically to liquidate the senior commanders of the defeated army."[10] One of the testimonies presented by the author takes place on April 19, 1975 in the Battambang area:

However, for some scholars this first phase of deaths cannot be directly attributed to the subsequent genocide plan, as Etcheson himself argues:

This position held then by authors such as Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman is answered by the majority of scholars on the subject who say that if this was the case, it is not understood why they waited for six weeks to pass before the central authorities of the party gave the order to stop said acts of elimination (May 28).[13]​.

Contenido

Si se incluyen las estadísticas de población de la llamada República Jemer fundada por el dictador Lon Nol en 1970 hasta la caída del régimen de los jemeres rojos en 1979, Camboya presenta el crecimiento de población negativo más alto de la historia de la humanidad desde la II Guerra Mundial.[14]​ Según un censo de población de 1962, Camboya debía tener una previsión de 7,1 millones de habitantes para 1970 y, si todo hubiera sido normal, para 1979 debería de haber tenido 9 millones de habitantes. Cuando Vietnam invadió el país había entre 4,7 y 5,5 millones de habitantes.

Se tienen entonces dos periodos irregulares que no deben confundirse: el primero corresponde a la «República Jemer» de Lon Nol (1970-1975) y el segundo a la Kampuchea Democrática de Pol Pot (1975-1979). Evidentemente el descenso de población que se dio durante el primer periodo por causa de la guerra y sus consecuencias y varias fuentes determinan que el número de muertes está en un rango entre 200 000 (según W.J. Sampson) y un millón de personas (según Khieu Samphan), con una estimación más frecuente que indica unas seiscientas mil personas. En 1975, con la victoria de los jemeres rojos, el cálculo de población es de 7,2 millones de personas, es decir, el crecimiento es mínimo en relación con los datos de 1970. Esto quiere decir que un promedio de 1,7 millones de personas desaparecieron durante el régimen de Pol Pot.

Death calculation

The following sources presented by Etcheston[15] give an estimate of deaths during the years of the regime (1975-1978):

1. • Ieng Sary: 3000.

2. • Time Magazine: 60,000.

3. • Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France: 800,000.

4. • Pol Pot: 800,000.

5. • Khieu Samphan: 1,000,000.

6. • Barron and Paul: 1,200,000.

7. • US Department of State: 1,200,000.

8. • Amnesty International: 1,400,000.

9. • Norodom Sihanouk: 1,500,000.

10. • Ben Kiernan: 1,500,000.

11. • François Ponchaud: 2,030,000.

12. • Lon Nol: 2,050,000.

For Etcheston, all these calculations cannot be considered strict simply because there was no real population census during the period 1970-1978. The ones we have are those from 1967 and 1983. However, the evidence of widespread deaths, extrajudicial executions, famines, state terrorism and epidemics is legitimate and the most objective figure for the number of missing people can be put at 1.7 million people for the period 1975-1979:.

Causes of morbidity

Although famines and epidemics can be noted among the causes of morbidity of the population during the years of the regime (1975-1979), the evidence currently preserved by the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam)[17]​[18]​ adds the following:

• - Systematic torture.

• - Extensive practice of extrajudicial executions.

• - Specific genocide programs against religious groups and ethnic minorities.

• - Dramatic decline in the national population.

The evidence of the existence of said acts can be classified as follows:

• - Testimonies of survivors, both victims and the executioners themselves.

• - Testimonies of war refugees in Thailand, especially after the invasion by Vietnam began. The refugees were the first to share the first accounts of the bloody regime. These testimonies have produced a large amount of documentary material today such as books, videos and graphic art. The testimonies all agree on the following historical facts:

• The hasty evacuation of large urban centers.

• The forced march during a period of three months towards different sectors of the country.

• The abrupt collectivization of production and the collectivization of daily life.

• The destruction of freedom of the press.

• The abolition of currency.

• The abolition of the market.

• The abolition of schools.

• Daily attacks on religions and cultural traditions.

• The normalization of summary executions.

• Hunger and epidemics.

• - The interrogation and torture centers discovered by the Vietnamese in 1979.

• - The mass graves found and excavated with human skeletons of all ages.

• - The dramatic decline in population on a global scale by at least one and a half million people and also the reduction of ethnic minorities such as the Cham or Cambodians of Vietnamese origin and those of Chinese origin.

• - The large amount of material prepared at that time by the Khmer Rouge themselves, such as photographs of the victims, their testimonies signed under torture, reports prepared by middle and superior managers, orders and letters.

In Tuol Sleng, as an example, there is the following balance of prisoner executions presented by David Hawk:[19]​.

1. • October 15, 1977: 418.

2. • October 18, 1977: 179.

After the victory of April 17, 1975, Pol Pot launched a rapid government program seeking the consolidation of a regime with totalitarian features, based on an economic system of radically agrarian exploitation, which included the forced evacuation and disappearance of the cities, considered spaces of the bourgeoisie, currency, the market, religions and a complete ruralization of society, and the tight control of the guerrilla army bases over the civilian population. Pol Pot had been general secretary of the Cambodian Communist Party since February 1963 and with his associates he formed the top leadership of the party, placing his allies in key positions. Pol Pot began a purge of his opponents, both real and imagined, which he called "in search of the hidden enemy", which led to numerous party members, including high-ranking officials, being executed, along with large sections of the civilian population, applying an extensive system of arrest, torture and summary executions.

Opposition to Vietnam was a characteristic of Democratic Kampuchea. First Pol Pot prevented any interference by Hanoi within Cambodia and then advocated returning to Cambodia the so-called Kampuchea Krom"), the south of Vietnam, which had been Cambodian territory in past centuries. For this reason, he directed multiple hostilities against neighboring countries, but especially against Vietnam.

Prince Sihanouk, who had been overthrown by Lon Nol in 1970 and who had led a government in exile from China, was rather an emblematic figure used by the Khmer Rouge to consolidate their power in a rural nation that deeply respected the tradition of reverence for the king (although Norodom Sihanouk had abdicated in order to run as prime minister, for the people he was still the king):.

One of Lon Nol's most serious mistakes was not that he had carried out a coup d'état against the Kingdom of Cambodia to establish his "Khmer republic", but that he carried out a coup d'état against the one who held the lineage of the old Khmer Empire and the glory of Angkor. The Khmer Rouge had been more aware of this fact than the dictator and took advantage of it by telling the peasants that they were fighting not only for the expulsion of the Western imperialists, but also for the restitution of the King. Proof of the manipulation of the figure of the ancestral monarchy and religion is the fact that the Khmer Rouge placed artillerymen at the bases of the Temple of Angkor, a strategy that attracted their sympathy among Cambodians who saw the act as a demonstration that the guerrillas were protecting the sacred places from the illegitimate government. The attacks against that artillery that damaged part of the Temple by the dictator's army was also proof in the eyes of the Cambodians that Lon Nol wanted nothing more than to destroy the Khmer identity: the strategy paid off.

With the victory the king was no longer necessary, just as the monks were no longer necessary. The rapid process of replacing the king and religion with that of the Party then began. Prince Norodom Sihanouk was presented during the first months of the regime as the restored prime minister, but he was nothing more than a protocol figure. His apparent resignation and his "voluntary retirement" with a pension set by the Party, would give way to the definitive proclamation of a constitution proclaimed on January 5, 1976 and which officially began the "Democratic Kampuchea":.

El artículo XX de la Constitución de la Kampuchea Democrática establecía la libertad de culto:.

Pero la realidad fue bien diferente y analistas vietnamitas se refieren a este punto como «letra muerta».[24]​ En la mente de los líderes de la Kampuchea Democrática las «religiones reaccionarias» eran el budismo, Islam y cristianismo, las tres religiones de mayor práctica en el país junto a formas de religiones naturales animistas. Estas tres religiones no sólo fueron prohibidas, sino que todos sus lugares de culto fueron destruidos o desacralizados.

Dice en tal sentido Gregory H. Stanton, presidente de «Genocide Watch»:.

Buddhism

In the case of Buddhism, the majority religion of the Khmer people, the pagodas were converted into indoctrination centers, warehouses and even torture and prison centers.[26]​ The monks - the other "great king" of Khmer culture - were forced to shed their orange habits and forced to work in the fields under the stigma "parasites that eat the people's rice."[26] There are some indications of areas generally removed from the center of Party power. in which some pagodas were respected:.

According to the reports collected by Prea Mojá Ghosananda in his campaign of national pacification and restoration of Buddhism as a key piece in the reconstruction of the country, in 1976 the population of Buddhist monks in Cambodia was 60 thousand people. In 1979, when Ghosananda entered the refugee camps from Thailand, the remaining monks numbered only three thousand.[28]

Islam

The two main minority religions of the time in Cambodia (Islam and Catholicism) also do not have better memories:.

Among the Cambodians, the Cham ethnic group stands out, descendants of the disappeared Kingdom of Champa who were of Malay and Sunni Muslim origin. Ysa Osman, from the Documentation Center of Cambodia, in her book "Oukoubah: Justice for Cham Muslims under the regime of Democratic Kampuchea", states that between 400,000 and 500,000 Chams died between 1975 and 1979.[29] The data was contested by Ben Kiernan in his report "Critical Asian Studies"[30]​ who states that there were 87 000 chams, but new investigations have not been able to refute Osman's data.

For Stanton, the genocide was part of the political programs of the Khmer Rouge, which can be evidenced in multiple orders preserved in the Documentation Center of Cambodia (CD-Cam) and in the Department of History at Yale University, a center for studies on the Cambodian genocide. One of the most famous refers precisely to the Cham and says:

According to the studies by Stanton and CD-Cam, there is the case of the Kompung Cham, the natural territory of the ethnic group, where in a single day five thousand people were murdered and thrown into mass graves, according to testimonies from the survivors and who also claim that several people were burned alive.[32]​ Stanton also mentions that Etcheson's studies show strong indications that the Cambodian Vietnamese ethnic group was also a target of the program:

Catholicism

The third Cambodian religious group before 1975 was the Catholic Church, which was made up mostly of ethnically Vietnamese Cambodians. This fact meant that native Catholics were seen more as interference by that country in Cambodian internal affairs and that all Catholics were identified as Vietnamese or related to Vietnam. The first act against the Catholic Church was the destruction of the Phnom Penh Cathedral, seat of the Apostolic Vicariate of Phnom Penh, which had been built during the French Colony; All the foreign missionaries were expelled—among them François Ponchaud who wrote the first report on the bloody events of the regime—and many of the native religious people suffered the same fate as the Buddhist monks. Shortly before the entry of the Khmer Rouge into Phnom Penh, the Church ordained Cambodian priest Joseph Chhmar Salas as bishop of the city on April 14, 1975. The reason for this act was the hope that the new regime would respect a Church led by a Cambodian alongside the native bishop Paul Tep Im Sotha, apostolic prefect of Battambang. However, both bishops, all Cambodian and Catholic priests, men and women religious suffered the same fate as the rest of the population: the two bishops soon died exhausted due to forced labor in the countryside, many priests were executed and all places of worship were destroyed. All foreign religious who refused to leave the country were executed under the accusation of espionage.[34]​.

The Democratic Kampuchea regime maintained close ties with China, its main sponsor, and to a lesser extent with North Korea. In 1977, in a congratulatory message to Cambodian comrades on the 17th anniversary of the CPK, Kim Jong-il congratulated the Cambodian people for having “annihilated the counter-revolutionary group of spies who had committed subversive and sabotage activities.”[35]​.

Upon taking power, the Khmer Rouge rejected both Western states and the Soviet Union as sources of support.[36] Instead, China became Cambodia's main international partner.[37] With Vietnam increasingly siding with the Soviet Union over China, the Chinese viewed Pol Pot's government as a bulwark against Vietnamese influence in Indochina.[38][39] It is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid the Khmer Rouge received Khmer Rouge came from China, and in 1975 alone, at least US$1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid came from China.[40][41][42] However, the relationship between the governments of China and Cambodia was marred by mutual suspicion and China had little influence on Pol Pot's domestic policies.[43] It had greater influence on Cambodia's foreign policy, successfully pressuring the country to seek a rapprochement with Thailand and open communication with the US to combat Vietnamese influence in the region.[44]​ After Mao's death in September 1976, Pol Pot praised him and Cambodia declared an official period of mourning.[45][46]​ In November 1976, Pol Pot secretly traveled to Beijing, seeking to maintain his country's alliance with China after the Gang of Four was arrested.[47]​ From Beijing, he was then taken away. touring China, visiting sites associated with Mao and the Chinese Communist Party.[48]​.

While Democratic Kampuchea held Cambodia's seat at the UN and was internationally recognized, only the following countries had an embassy in Cambodia: Burma "Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma (1962-1988)"), Albania, People's Republic of China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Laos, Romania, Vietnam and Yugoslavia.[49] Democratic Kampuchea itself, on the other hand, established embassies in several countries: Albania, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, People's Republic of China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Romania, Laos, Sweden, Tanzania, USSR, Vietnam and Yugoslavia.[50] The Chinese were the only country allowed to retain their former embassy in Phnom Penh.[51] All other diplomats were forced to live in assigned rooms on Monivong Boulevard. This street was blocked with barricades and diplomats were not allowed to leave without escorts. Their food was brought and provided to them through the only store that remained open in the country.[52]​.

Ideological influences

The Khmer Rouge were heavily influenced by Mao Zedong,[53]​ the French Communist Party and the writings of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin,[54]​ as well as ideas of Khmer racial superiority.[55]​ Looking back at the roots of the ideology that guided the JR intellectuals behind the revolution, it becomes evident that the roots of such radical thinking can be traced back to an upbringing in France that set many of them on the path to senior JR officials to think that communism required violence.[56][57]​.

The influences of the French Revolution led many who studied in Paris to believe that Marxist political theory based on class struggle could be applied to the national cause in Cambodia.[58] The premise of class struggle sowed the ideological seeds of violence and made violence seem even more necessary for the success of the revolution. Furthermore, because many of the JR's senior officials such as Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan and Kang Guek Eav (also known as Duch) were educators and intellectuals, they were unable to connect with the masses and became alienated upon their return to Cambodia, fueling their radical thinking.[57]​.

Michael Vickery downplays the importance of personalities in explaining the KD phenomenon, noting that pre-war contemporaries never considered KD leaders evil. This view is disputed by some, including Rithy Phan, who after interviewing Duch, the head of Tuol Sleng, seems to suggest that Duch was a fearsome individual who preyed on and took advantage of the weaknesses of others. Ultimately, the historical context of the civil war, along with the ideological ferment of Cambodian intellectuals returning from France, set the stage for the JR revolution and the violence it would spread.[59][60]​.

Operationalization of ideology through violence

The Khmer Rouge were determined to turn the country into a nation of peasants in which the corruption and "parasitism" of city life would be completely uprooted. Communalization was implemented by putting men, women and children to work in the fields, which disrupted family life. The regime claimed to have "liberated" women through this process and, according to Zal Karkaria, "seemed to have implemented Engels' doctrine in its purest form: women produced, therefore they had been liberated".[61]

Under Pol Pot's leadership, cities were emptied, organized religion was abolished, and private property, money, and markets were eliminated.[62] An unprecedented campaign of genocide followed, leading to the annihilation of around 25% of the country's population, with much of the killing motivated by the Khmer Rouge ideology that called for "disproportionate revenge" against wealthy and oppressors. powerful.[63][64][65] Victims included class enemies such as wealthy capitalists, professionals, intellectuals, police, and government employees (including most of Lon Nol's leaders), along with ethnic minorities such as the Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cham.

The Khmer Rouge regime was one of the most brutal in recorded history, especially considering how brief the country's rule was. Based on an analysis of mass graves, the DC-Cam Mapping Program and Yale University estimated that the Khmer Rouge executed more than 1.38 million people. Counting deaths from disease and hunger, up to 2.5 million people died as a result of Khmer Rouge rule. This included most of the country's minority populations. For example, the country's ethnic Vietnamese population was almost completely wiped out; almost all ethnic Vietnamese who did not flee immediately after the takeover were exterminated.

The Revolutionary Army of Democratic Kampuchea (in Khmer: កងទ័ពបដិវត្តន៍កី of Democratic Kampuchea, the state ruled by the Khmer Rouge. The name "Revolutionary Army of Democratic Kampuchea" first emerged during the peasant uprising that took place in the Samlout district of Battambang province in 1967. In practice, it was a general term for the armed groups of the Khmer Rouge. After the establishment of Democratic Kampuchea, the 68,000-strong Khmer Rouge-dominated National Liberation Armed Forces of the Cambodian People (FALNPC) completed the conquest of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge forces were renamed the (Revolutionary Army of Democratic Kampuchea) (ERKD). This name dates back to the peasant uprising that broke out in the Samlout district of Battambang province in 1967. Under its veteran commander and Defense Minister, Son Sen, the ERKD had 230 battalions divided between 35 and 40 regiments, and between 12 and 14 combat brigades. The command structure of the units was based on committees of three people, in which the political commissar of the unit had the rank of commander. Cambodia was divided into zones and special sectors by the ERKD, whose boundaries changed slightly over the years. Within these areas, the first task of the ERKD was the execution of former officers of the Khmer National Armed Forces (JNF) and their families. The prisoners were executed extrajudicially, thus eliminating the enemies of the Khmer Rouge. The ERKD's next priority was to consolidate into a new national army the separate forces that operated more or less autonomously in the different areas. The Khmer Rouge units were commanded by the zone secretaries of the Khmer Communist Party, and these secretaries were party members and army soldiers, some of whom presented some characteristics of warlords. Troops were frequently sent from one zone to another to enforce party discipline. These efforts to discipline zone secretaries and their dissident and ideologically impure cadres led to purges that would decimate the ranks of the ERKD, undermine the morale of the Red Army, and generate the seeds of future rebellion. In this way, the Khmer Rouge used the ERKD to sustain and fuel their violent genocidal campaign.

After the victory of the Khmer Rouge in 1975, skirmishes occurred between their troops and Vietnamese forces. The Cambodians launched an attack on the Vietnamese islands of Phu Quoc and Tho Chu") and made incursions into the border Vietnamese provinces. At the end of May, at the same time that the United States bombed the Kompung Sao oil refinery after the Mayagüez incident, Vietnamese forces took the island of Poulo Wai"), belonging to Democratic Kampuchea. The following month, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary visited Hanoi. They proposed a treaty of friendship between both countries, an idea that received a cold reception from the Vietnamese leaders. Although Vietnam evacuated Poulo Wai in August, incidents continued along Democratic Kampuchea's northeastern border.

Relations between Democratic Kampuchea and Vietnam improved in 1976, partly due to problems within the CPK. In May, representatives from both countries met in Phnom Penh to establish a commission to resolve border disputes. Vietnam refused to accept the "Brévié Line" (colonial demarcation of maritime borders between the two countries) and negotiations broke down. At the end of September, however, days after Pol Pot resigned as prime minister (although this was a political move because he remained in power), an airline began operating between Phnom Penh and Hanoi.

With Pol Pot again at the head of the government in 1977, the situation deteriorated rapidly. An escalation of incidents occurred along all borders of Democratic Kampuchea. Khmer Rouge forces attacked villages in the border areas of Thailand, near Aranyaprathet. The brutal manner in which the Thai peasants died was noted as the first recorded concrete evidence of Khmer Rouge atrocities. Incidents also occurred on the border with Laos. Around the same time, Vietnamese border towns were attacked again. In response, Vietnam launched airstrikes against Cambodia. In September, border fighting resulted in 1,000 Vietnamese civilian deaths. The following month, the Vietnamese counterattack mobilized 20,000 soldiers. Vietnam's defense minister, General Vo Nguyen Giap, underestimated the tenacity of the Khmer Rouge and had to send 58,000 more in December. On January 6, 1978, Giap's forces began their withdrawal from Kampuchean territory. But Pol Pot proclaimed that this "victory" had been even greater than that of April 17, 1975.

In 1978 Vietnam decided to support internal resistance to Pol Pot's government, which resulted in the eastern area becoming a focus of insurrection. Hysteria reached extreme levels within Democratic Kampuchea. In May 1978, on the eve of the So Phim uprising in the east, Phnom Penh radio declared that if each Kampuchean soldier killed thirty Vietnamese, two million soldiers would be enough to eliminate the entire population of Vietnam (about fifty million at the time). The leaders of Phnom Penh harbored great territorial ambitions (such as recovering the Mekong Delta region, which they considered Khmer territory).

Massacres of ethnic Vietnamese and their sympathizers by the Khmer Rouge intensified in the east following the May uprising. In November, Vorn Vet led an unsuccessful coup d'état. At that time there were tens of thousands of Cambodians and Vietnamese refugees in Vietnam. On December 3, 1978, Radio Hanoi announced the formation of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation. It was a heterogeneous group of communists and non-communists who shared their enmity with the Pol Pot regime and an almost total dependence on Vietnam. The Front offered the image of legitimacy that Vietnam needed to invade Democratic Kampuchea and the subsequent establishment of a satellite government in Phnom Penh.

As 1978 wore on, Cambodian bellicosity in the border areas had surpassed Hanoi's threshold of tolerance. Vietnamese politicians opted for a solution and on December 22 launched an offensive to overthrow the government of Democratic Kampuchea. An invasion force of 120,000 men, consisting of a combination of artillery and infantry, pushed into the southeastern plains of Democratic Kampuchea. After a blitzkrieg that lasted 14 days, Phnom Penh fell on January 7, 1979. From some strongholds in the mountains and jungle, Pol Pot and other Khmer leaders regrouped their units and launched a new call to arms, restarting a stubborn insurgency against the regime in power just as they had done in the 1960s. For the moment, the Vietnamese invasion had managed to depose the established government. A new administration was installed in power under the influence of Hanoi and the internal and international dispute began to appear as the legitimate government, compared to that of the Khmer Rouge. However, peace had not yet come to this war-torn nation. Although the insurgency launched by the Khmer Rouge was not capable of overthrowing the pro-Vietnamese regime, it was capable of keeping the country in a permanent state of insecurity.

In September 1977, it was revealed that the "Angkar" is the Cambodian Communist Party, (CCP). Considerable famines occur in the country, conflicts begin on the borders with Thailand, Laos and Vietnam and the latter begins to have more relations with the USSR than with China.

In December 1976, Pol Pot would announce to all officers that they should prepare for a guerrilla and conventional war and for the first time spoke of Vietnam as an "enemy of Democratic Kampuchea."[66] On January 27, 1977, a Khmer Rouge raid killed 30 Thai farmers while they began to cause disturbances on the borders with Laos. But the most serious events would occur on the border with Vietnam: according to Vietnamese reports, since March 1977 the Khmer Rouge launched continuous attacks in the southwestern area of Vietnam with raids that attacked the army of that country and the peasant population, especially in Ha Tien and Chau Doc. These Vietnamese reports coincide with testimonies of refugees from that country abroad according to the Keesing Contemporary Archives.[67]​ Pol Pot claimed then. that the enemy Vietnam would not "dare attack us" because, in their view, Vietnam was less powerful than Cambodia (possibly relying on the friendship it had with China and China's enmity with Vietnam). For Pol Pot, the way Vietnam attacked Cambodia was not openly but silently, infiltrating the Khmer ranks. This would lead him to develop a real paranoia that would lead him to look for the "hidden enemy" within his own party. On the contrary, Vietnam would always refer to Cambodian communism as "its brother", as witnessed by Cambodian refugees who entered that country's territory in 1977. It would only be from 1978 onwards that Vietnamese authorities would begin to see the Khmer Rouge from a different perspective.

Kampuchea Krom was a former Cambodian province that fell into the hands of the Vietnamese in the 19th century and is today southern Vietnam. There is now a significant population of ethnic Khmer Vietnamese who feel naturally closer to their ancestral homeland than to Vietnam. From Pol Pot's perspective, the "recovery" of said territory was a historical duty for Cambodia and that was the main cause of the attacks in southwestern Vietnam where numerous peasants, both Khmer and Vietnamese, died.

On January 6, 1978, Pol Pot would address the troops in the eastern zone:

In an interview that Ben Kiernan did with Heng Sarim about the purpose of the raids in Vietnam, he responded:

While the Khmer Rouge concentrated on attacking all their "enemies", Phnom Penh radio called on the inhabitants of the east of the country to "raise the flags of national zeal, confront the duty of hatred and blood against... expansionism and annexationism".[70]

In 1978 Pol Pot launched a campaign to "discover" what he called "the hidden enemy": his idea was that the Party and the Army were infiltrated by Vietnamese and CIA agents; He had many of his men arrested, interrogated, tortured and executed. The theory of the regime was that within the Party there were "enemies" and that locating and eliminating them was an obligation at all costs. The "counterrevolutionary enemies" were to disappear in a process that Pol Pot called "sweeping and cleansing" (boh somat).[71] One of the party's mottos was "one hand for production and another to fight the enemy." Vann Nath, one of the few survivors of S-21, told Alexander Hinto that "the enemy's word had great power... hearing it, we all got nervous."[73]

The "hidden enemy" became an obsession for Pol Pot and if they did not exist, he would soon create them himself. For him, the "external enemies" were visible, easy to identify and combat, but the "enemies within" were a task in which everyone had to get involved. In his announcement of the existence of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (PCK), he told the assembly:

Interpreting the words of Pol Pot's speech literally and following Chandler's reading, one or two percent of the Cambodian population then represented 140 thousand people out of 7 million inhabitants, that is, all of those people were considered "enemies of the State." Pol Pot said that enemies could not be treated in the same way: some had to be "re-educated" and others had to be "neutralized." At the same time that this speech was being held, hundreds of people were interrogated, tortured and executed in S-21.

In 1978, during the anniversary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, Pol Pot expressed:

On May 10 of the same year, in a broadcast on Radio Democratic Kampuchea, he would address the following words in the context of the attacks on Vietnam:

The repeated attacks on Vietnamese territory and persecutions within the party itself would combine to quickly precipitate the end of the regime. A wave of desertions began in 1978 that would prepare the elements for a new history on Cambodian soil: the Vietnamese invasion carried out with the Cambodians themselves.

• - Cambodia.

• - Khmer Rouge.

• - Khmer Republic.

• - Pol Pot.

• - Cambodian genocide.

• - Trial of the Khmer Rouge.

• - History of Cambodia.

• - wikisource:es:Political Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea.

• - Documents of Democratic Kampuchea.

• - What went wrong in the Pol Pot regime (F.G.).

• - Justice cries out in Cambodia (Miguel Jiménez).

• - Kampuchean Genocide and the World, Gregory H. Stanton, Genocide Watch.

• - In Search of Brother Number One, Dale Keiger, Johns Hopkins Magazine.