Word: cambodias
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...years since Phnom-Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge, more than a third of the population of Cambodia, once estimated at 8 million, has perished from war, disease and the genocidal policies of the murderous Pol Pot regime. Last week, as the Vietnamese prepared for a final onslaught on sanctuaries near the Thai border used by the Pol Pot forces, Cambodia faced yet another horror: a famine. At least 2 million people are believed to be on the verge of death by starvation or disease. Many have been reduced to eating the leaves off trees, peeling the bark and boiling...
...other providing for $30 million. Says Republican Representative John B. Anderson of Illinois, co-sponsor of the latter measure: "If we fail to mobilize the resources of the world, we will be guilty of the crime of silence as we stand by and watch the condemned people of Cambodia march through what has been termed the Auschwitz of Asia on the road to death...
Until now, attempts to get food to the starving Khmers have been hampered by red tape and the anarchic conditions inside Cambodia. The World Food Program, UNICEF and the International Red Cross have been supplying emergency rations to the refugees who have fled into Thailand as well as to the 80,000 Thais who have been displaced from their border villages by the fighting. Initially, Hanoi and the regime of Heng Samrin in Phnom-Penh objected to the relief operation because many of the refugees being helped were considered members or supporters of the Khmer Rouge. But it now appears...
Famine is only the latest in a series of wrenching tragedies that have befallen Cambodia since it first became engulfed by the Indochina war in 1970. Following the Communist takeover by China-backed Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge in 1975, between 2 million and 3 million Cambodians were systematically murdered or otherwise eliminated under a genocidal "purification" policy. It was aimed at destroying the educated class and creating a peasant society. Some journalists who have visited the country have seen mass graves and torture camps reminiscent of Dachau and Auschwitz...
...December 1978, Viet Nam invaded Cambodia, swiftly managed to depose Pol Pot and installed Samrin as President. In fierce fighting against the surviving Khmer Rouge cadres, food became a military weapon on both sides. Explained a Western military analyst in Bangkok last week: "If you can't grow food, you can't eat, and if you can't eat, you can't fight." Rice crops have been destroyed and planting new fields has become dangerous. Pol Pot's forces harass farmers in areas controlled by Viet Nam, while the Vietnamese do their best to prevent...