| executions of children, only because they were not born of peasant
families or of Vietnamese or Chinese origin. Whosoever was suspected of being educated, or
to be a member of a merchant family, was murdered: clubbed to death, not shot, in order to
save ammunition" (see Asia tour). Why would anyone do this?
Pol Pot was trying to bring Cambodia back to what he called ‘Ground Zero’.
‘Ground Zero’ was Pol Pot’s idea of what a utopian society should be.
"When the Khmer Rouge seized power in April 1975, they did so with the intention of
obliterating its hierarchic political culture in order to reconstruct Cambodian society
from ‘ground zero’ as the world’s most egalitarian, and therefore
revolutionary, social order" (Jackson pg.7). In order to reach this perfect society,
all the citizens would have to be peasants who lived life on a subsistence level. Another
theory is that Pol Pot was afraid that since he wasn’t very powerful, revolt and
overthrow could easily be obtained. So killing all of the city dwellers was his only hope
for retarding a coup, because he figured that only the educated and already tainted
citizens would have the power to unite against him. |
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