Cambodian Genocide - Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge

Big Picture

Human rights should be able to be practiced and given to everyone. Unfortunately, in Cambodia the government thinks otherwise. The government still denies human rights to some of the population. During certain periods of times being a certain ethnicity or being just male or female were just a few of the reasons why rights were denied to them.
Knowing this about one of the few countries in the world, you know that it is also common in other places that people are not given the rights that they should have even if it is the law.

Future

The record trying to fix human right issues, and recover after Khmer Rouge, is unsteady. The efforts are poor, and still will be for another while in the future. If the government still keeps denying the rights that their citizens should have, bad things might start to happen. People can start to leave the country, or go against the government.
With the slow progress being made, there are a lot of Human Right Campaigns happening and trying to push people in helping out.

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78769.htm

Impact

THE IMPACT
Denial of Human Rights and Khmer Rouge leave a negative impact on Cambodia, and still has not fully recovered.

Khmer Rouge, a huge part of the denial of human rights for Cambodian citizens, left one-fourth of the population dead. 16,000+ were killed, tortured and interrogated. There was 62,000 Cambodian refugees. There was also the 'Cambodian Genocide' leading to 1.7 million dead.



CONCERNS
>Cambodia faced one of the worst genocides, and not one of the leaders of the Khmer Rouge was brought into court of law to answer questions of the crimes.
>Men and Women have equal rights under the constitution, but cultural practices still deny females fair treatment.
>Trafficking in humans is a major industry.

Location

The issue on Human Rights is affecting all of the people and country of Cambodia.

Cambodia is located South of Thailand and Laos, and is Northwest of Vietnam. The weather is tropical and rainy; dominant monsoons. Cambodia consists of low, flat plains with some mountains. It has many beautiful architectural works, that are now major tourist attractions.
Theravada Buddhist is the most dominant religion, but Islam, animism and Christianity are still practiced. The people of Cambodia mostly speak Khmer, and are Cambodian, but there are small percentages of vietnamese, chinese, or other ethnic groups.

Development

There is still a denial for human rights to about one-fifth of the population of Cambodia. This percentage has decreased over time, but is still an issue, and the actions trying to overcome this has been unsteady. Violence is still very common along the streets of Cambodia (fights, robberies, gangs etc.) This country has developed peace, and is now trying to keep that peace consistent.


Important events:

-1975-1979: A communist party called the "Khmer Rouge" was responsible for many war crimes, genocide, and other crimes against humanity that killed about 25% of the population.
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-1977: War breaks out with Vietnam.
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-1993: Equal rights for men and women. Government: multi-party liberal democracy under constitutional monarchy.

Backround

In the last 30 years the Cambodia has experienced one of the worst human right cases in modern history. Human rights is still denied to about 20% of the population that is not apart of the Khmer ethnic group by Cambodian law. A lot more people are getting to have their rights then in the past, but the issue is still affecting a good amount of the Cambodian population. Human rights trouble has left a big impact on how the country is like today.