The Hidden History of the US Involvement in the Cambodian Genocide

By Archer Gandhi

A few years after the Vietnam War, the United States entered Cambodia and supported the Khmer Rouge, an oppressive dictatorship, by bombing Cambodia, supplying arms, food, and clothing, and declining humanitarian aid to those oppressed by the government. 

 The US paved the way for the Khmer to take over by dropping bombs into Cambodia before they took over. During the Vietnam War, the US military aimed to combat Northern Viet Cong by targeting their pathways through Cambodia. It is estimated that in the missions to wipe out the Viet Cong, nicknamed Operation Menu, US B52 planes dropped 2,756,941 tons of bombs into the Cambodian countryside, a number that outweighed that dropped in Japan during World War II. This destabilized the region by killing Cambodians, rendering much of the countryside unusable for farming and habitation, and causing social unrest, all of which were key factors in allowing the Khmer Rouge to take over with relative ease. A newspaper article from a 1997 edition of The Independent explained that, “Pol Pot [the dictator heading the Khmer Rouge] stands accused of engineering the deaths of more than 2 million Cambodians during his brutal "Killing Fields" regime”. Pol Pot stood trial for genocide on behalf of the Khmer government as a whole, but the US aided the Khmer Rouge come into power. 

After the Khmer took over, the US supplied them with arms, food, and clothing. John Pilger found that through the World Food Programme, the US sent the Khmer Rouge twelve million dollars’ worth of food supplies, aiding between twenty and forty thousand Khmer soldiers. Uniforms, battle plans, and satellite intelligence were a few of the types of armed assistance that the Khmer received from the US, amounting to twenty-four million dollars of military aid. These helped the Khmer take over quickly and squash any rebellions that arose from oppressed Cambodians. Finally, the US declined humanitarian aid to those affected by the Khmer government. Keith Pomakoy explained that US embargos on Vietnam ended aid to Cambodia because trade routes were effectively closed in the entire region. Additionally, as Vietnam encroached further upon Cambodian territory, “Carter supported… the remnants of the Khmer Rouge.” The US’s obsession with anti-Communist alignments led to prolonged support for an oppressive dictatorship. Bombings, military aid, and a lack of humanitarian aid contributed to genocide, all because of anti-Vietnamese, anti-Communist sentiment. The Khmer Rouge committed unfathomable atrocities, but because of US support, they were able to continue ruling for many more years.  

Sources:

Matthew Chance Bangkok, "Year Zero for Tyrant of the Killing Fields; International Calls to Bring the Architect of Genocide to Justice," The Independent (London, England), July 30, 1997https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A66984644/WHIC?u=lnoca_hb&sid=bookmark-WHIC&xid=feea507e.

Emily Mitamura, "The Coloniality of Abridgment: Afterlives of Mass Violence in Cambodia and the US.," Third World Quarterly 40, no. 2 (February 2019), https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2019.1568191.

Keith Pomakoy, Helping Humanity : American Policy and Genocide Rescue (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2011), 169, 171, 173, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=506221&site=ehost-live.

John Pilger, "How Thatcher Gave Pol Pot a Hand.," New Statesman 129, no. 4482 (April 17, 2000), https://www.infohio.org/launch/?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=3027777&site=ehost-live&scope=site&authtype=url,cookie,ip,custuid&custid=infohio.