Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia

Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (Full Version)

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Sanity -> Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 7:03:50 AM)
quote: PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – The chief of a prison where some 16,000 men, women and children were tortured before being killed appeared Tuesday before Cambodia's genocide tribunal in its first trial over the Khmer Rouge reign of terror more than three decades ago. Kaing Guek Eav — better known as Duch — is charged with crimes against humanity and is the first of five defendants scheduled for long-delayed trials by the U.N.-assisted court. They were among a close-knit, ultra-communist clique that turned Cambodia into a vast slave labor camp and charnel house in which 1.7 million or more died of starvation, disease and execution. Duch, who headed the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh for the Khmer Rouge, is the only defendant to have expressed remorse for his actions, and on Tuesday he again voiced regret for what he did and sought forgiveness. (Full article here). Why do they call it "genocide" when it wasn't really an effort to wipe out any specific group of people. It wasn't genocide at all - it was something else.

Irishknight -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 1:41:00 PM)
Didn't they specifically target certain tribes? Even if they didn't they're still mass murdering fuckheads.

Sanity -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 4:42:44 PM)
No, the killings weren't in any way genocidal - they were entirely political. Anyone suspected of harboring capitalist thoughts was sent to the reeducation camps, which almost certainly meant death. quote: ORIGINAL: Irishknight Didn't they specifically target certain tribes? Even if they didn't they're still mass murdering fuckheads.

slaveboyforyou -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 6:02:52 PM)
Sanity, the Khmer Rouge did target specific minorities. Chinese, Vietnamese, Thais, and Chams were all targeted for elimination by the Khmer Rouge. In addition to those specific ethnic minorities, they targeted Buddhist monks (targeting a religion. Of course; they did kill many of their own people (Khmers), which is autogenocide. It's still the mass slaughter of people for perceived differences. City dwellers were a minority in Cambodia, and they were targeted. You could draw a parallel to the Nazi persecution of homosexuals, which aren't a religious, racial, or ethnic minority either.

MichiganHeadmast -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 6:55:51 PM)
It was mass murder. Initially cheered on by fellow travelers abroad, until they couldn't make excuses any more.

Vendaval -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 7:56:58 PM)
Fast Reply - slaveboy is correct. "Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2, of this convention defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."[1]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide and "Crimes Against Humanity" "The Khmer Rouge government arrested, tortured and eventually executed anyone suspected of belonging to several categories of supposed "enemies": anyone with connections to the former government or with foreign governments professionals and intellectuals - in practice this included almost everyone with an education, or even people wearing glasses (which, according to the regime, meant that they were literate) ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Thai and other minorities in Eastern Highland, Cambodian Christians, Muslims and the Buddhist monks "economic sabotage" for which many of the former urban dwellers (who had not starved to death in the first place) were deemed to be guilty of by virtue of their lack of agricultural ability." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge

Sanity -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 8:13:08 PM)
Thanks Vendavel for once again providing us with a link (even if you do keep leaving out the parts that prove me to be correct, for whatever reason). quote: Khmer Rouge wanted to eliminate anyone suspected of "involvement in free-market activities". Suspected capitalists encompassed professionals and almost everyone with an education, many urban dwellers, and people with connections to foreign governments.... Edited to remove the Wiki references to children

Vendaval -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 8:20:03 PM)
What part of murdering ethnic minorities did you not read?

Sanity -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 8:25:36 PM)
According to the link that you so kindly provided, the primary targets of the socialists' mass murders in this case were those who disagreed with them politically. I can only speculate as to why you skipped over that part. [sm=dunno.gif]

slaveboyforyou -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 8:34:01 PM)
Sanity, you said they weren't in any way genocidal. The fact that they specifically targeted specific ethnic and religious groups for annhilation would make the killings genocide. I listed several of those ethnic and religious minorities. Now the killings of fellow Khmer people was autogenocide, which is a term invented to describe what happened in Cambodia.

popeye1250 -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 8:37:21 PM)
I'm just wondering when some group or another will try to say it was the fault of the U.S. that all those people got killed. Hopefully this bad economy will also take a toll on "Neighborhood organizers," and all the other assholes who want to get the U.S. involved in their "causes" and problems in foreign countries.

Sanity -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 8:44:26 PM)
That's kind of like saying that if while the Son of Sam was out offing couples in parked cars he was also alleged to have kicked a dog, he was therefore an animal abuser (as opposed to a serial killer of couples). What Khmer Rouge did was kill their own genetic kind, anyone among them who was politically what we consider to be "conservative" or even moderate, and anyone else who got in their way. I stand by what I said, they weren't genocidal like the Nazis. The Nazi primary (mass murder) goal was genocide, of the Jews. Khmer Rouge, no. Some peoples were targeted and killed almost incidentally, yes, sure. But they were political killings, primarily. Not genocidal. quote: ORIGINAL: slaveboyforyou Sanity, you said they weren't in any way genocidal. The fact that they specifically targeted specific ethnic and religious groups for annhilation would make the killings genocide. I listed several of those ethnic and religious minorities. Now the killings of fellow Khmer people was autogenocide, which is a term invented to describe what happened in Cambodia.

rexrgisformidoni -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 8:51:22 PM)
Good lord. A large portion of the people killed were the ethnic minorities slaveboy listed. Also, killing your own people off is a form of genocide, again autogenocide, defined to you by slaveboy. If I went out and started some sort of crazy, looney toon dictatorship and killed just tall people with glasses, it would be autogenocide, just based on them being killed for looking like the one ordering it. Or I could wipe out pizza drivers, clowns, and zamboni drivers along with them, and then it would be genocide as well.

Sanity -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 9:01:31 PM)
Wouldn't "autogenocide" effectively be suicide? Oh well. Socialists murdering millions and millions of people who they suspect of harboring Capitalist thoughts is "autogenocide". Fine. Whatever.

slaveboyforyou -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 9:06:52 PM)
quote: What Khmer Rouge did was kill their own genetic kind, anyone among them who was politically what we consider to be "conservative" or even moderate, and anyone else who got in their way. I stand by what I said, they weren't genocidal like the Nazis. The Nazi primary (mass murder) goal was genocide, of the Jews. Khmer Rouge, no. Some peoples were targeted and killed almost incidentally, yes, sure. But they were political killings, primarily. Not genocidal. The Nazis targeted the Jews for political reasons. Jews were seen as in control of international political and economic systems, and the reason why the "Aryan" race was being denied it's rightful place in the world. It was a politically motivated slaughter based on Hitler's insane ideas. Likewise the Khmer Rouge slaughtered groups they felt were or would deny them their goal of a agrarian, communist paradise. The Armenian genocide pepetrated by the Turks was politically motivated, the genocide of the Tutsis by the Hutu in Rwanda was politically motivated. The reason doesn't make it any more or less of a genocide.

Owner59 -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 9:14:18 PM)
Did`t take long for a semantics argument to tum into a hack political dig. Feeling guilty about anything,sanity? <thinks Freudian>

Sanity -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 9:16:09 PM)
Read up on "Eugenics" some time. The Nazis killed most of their victims in the name of science. What was deemed a perfect science at the time, much like global warming is today.

Owner59 -> RE: Khmer Rouge genocide trial opens in Cambodia (2/17/2009 9:17:36 PM)
oh lord,that`s a stretch.....

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