This week, our class was given a project about a dictator of our choice who ordered a mass genocide. Suprisingly, there are many dictators that did this. We chose our groups and chose our dictator. We were given a Cambodian dictator named Pol Pot. At first I had no idea who he was, but as I researched more about him, I learned more about the horrible things he had done. At first, Cambodia had a stable government. But when Pol Pot overthrew the leader of Cambodia, hell broke loose. He started ordering attacks on the neighboring Vietnamese. This proved helpful to the Americans who were currently battling Vietnam. But as time progressed, Cambodia proved to be ruthless as well. Pol Pot, ordered mass graves to be dug by the prisoners themselves, literally digging their own grave. This was similar to Hitler's ideals. However, Pot hated educated people, especially those who could fluently speak other languages. This was extremely hypocritical, because Pol Pot himself earned a Masters degree and could even speak fluent French. Over 20,000 mass graves have been discovered in Cambodia. Pol Pot surrendered to the Vietnamese after thet took over Cambodia's capital. After the end of the Khmer Rogue and the mass genocide, elite members of the Khmer Rouge were tracked down by the UN. They were prosecuted and some even faced the death penalty. The Cambodia Genocide caused the death of over 2,000,000 people. It killed 25% of Cambodia's population. We are currently reading a novel by Elie Wiesel in which Elie is forced into a concentration camp. Adolf Hitler, an infamous dictator, was the one that ordered for these camps.
http://www.history.com/topics/pol-pot
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May 2017
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