From 1975-1979, about 25% of Cambodia’s population were engaged in a macabre civil conflict. Many people were forced to labor, executed, deported, or starved due to the actions by the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge were followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. The main goal of the Khmer Rouge was to abolish all luxurious and become a basic utopia in the eyes of Pol Pot, the leader of the party. In order to do this, the Khmer Rouge sent many different groups of people to work in the farm fields, while revoking all media usages for all of the citizens in Cambodia. Cambodia was one of the countries who ratified the Genocide Convention in 1951, but genocide charges were never brought against the Khmer Rouge regime. The US nor any other nation came to aid the Cambodian or charged the Khmer Rouge until 2000. The conflicts in Cambodia were not defined as a genocide: it was a civil war, there was no proven intent for the…show more content… For example, the Khmer Rouge acted the same to all groups. “[The Khmer Rouge] were forcing everybody to leave their homes and build new collectivized living communities” (Document 8). The Khmer Rouge didn’t just send one specific group to the living communities, but sent everyone. Genocide is defined by enacting on a single group, so there is no proven intent for the annihilation of a certain group. Secondly, the Khmer Rouge’s standing committee was also diverse. Four were Chinese, two were Vietnamese, and two Khmers. The Khmer Rouge killed 23 total ethnic and religious minorities. Two of the groups were Vietnamese and Chinese. The diverse standing committee shows that the Khmer Rouge didn’t have an intent to kill off certain groups of people for their gender, race, religion, ethnicity, etc. as defined in the Genocide Convention. Therefore, The US nor any other nation has the obligation to intervene because no intent for annihilation doesn’t define
