‘Genocide’ and its interpretations

Re: ក្រសួង​វប្បធម៌​បដិសេធ​សំណើ​បក្ស​ប្រឆាំង​សុំ​ធ្វើ​ពិធី​បង្សុកូល​នៅ​សារមន្ទីរ​ទួលស្លែង


by School of Vice


‘ក្រសួងវប្បធម៌ បានបដិសេធសំណើរបស់គណបក្សសង្គ្រោះជាតិ ធ្វើពិធីបង្សុកូលរាប់បាត្រឧទ្ទិសកុសលជូនដល់វិញ្ញាណក្ខន្ធជនរងគ្រោះ ដែលបានបាត់បង់ជីវិតក្នុងរបបខ្មែរក្រហមនៅឯសារមន្ទីរឧក្រិដ្ឋកម្មប្រល័យពូជសាសន៍ទួលស្លែង ដែលគ្រោងនឹងធ្វើនៅថ្ងៃទី១៧ មេសា។’

[The Ministry of Culture has turned down the opposition party CNRP’s request to hold a religious ceremony in memory of those who perished under the KR regime at the Museum of Genocide on 17th April].  

No surprise there! 

These so-called "memorials" and "stupas" are not there to commemorate the victims' memory, but rather to serve the real killers and 'genocide' plotters' political propaganda only – even if they had only done so in the main by proxy means and by way of indoctrination via the actual people who pulled the triggers or wielded the axes.

Even the insistence on the use of the term "genocide" gives us some clue as to the real intention and motivation, or the identity of the party who would have been and are thus still responsible for having committed the mass killings then. 

The term 'genocide' as such makes the atrocities more easily digestible to governments and citizens around the world as this same word has always been well established in their minds, and recalls the atrocities engineered by the Nazi regime across Europe some decades earlier. 

One of the reasons why the Vietnamese banned the Khmer word "Yuon" during their occupation of Cambodia and labelled it "racist" is because they did not want their well publicised campaign about this 'genocide' [in Cambodia] to be linked or traced back historically to all the genocides they or their ancestors [who have always been known as "Yuon" to all their victims/nations] had committed in recent memory. 

The success of this 'genocide' propaganda campaign along with the success in getting many to accept that the term "Yuon" is loaded with racialist or "pejorative" undertones place the due responsibility firmly with the Khmers or Cambodians themselves as architects of their own tragedy and sufferings. And since the word "Yuon" or "yuon" is so commonly uttered as part of Cambodians' everyday vocabulary and language [simply because any other alternative references are not part of their common speech] the easiest or most obvious of assumption for outsiders as well as uncritical minds to draw is that this ‘racist’ sentiment must be widespread, as indeed, has been pointed out in a recent response by the editor of the Phnom Penh Post to Rainsy' letter to the Post regarding the legitimate [or otherwise] use of the term in question. 

Thus, both the 'genocide' campaign and the demand to affect how the Khmer people should use their own language and vocabularies lead logically to the banning and criminalising of Cambodian 'nationalism' itself, or to the end of any hope many Cambodians may have over the idea of reviving national sovereignty or political independence as such. 

Here is the main definition for ‘genocide’ as provided by Google:

       

"The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group."

The Chams or other ethnic groups might have been deliberately targeted by the KR regime, yet all these ethnic groups had had, and have still even today, shown indisputable signs of peaceful co-existence with the majority Khmers as the dominant group. Even the 'Khmers' themselves are thoroughly mixed or diluted with most of these other ethnic groups anyway through historical interbreeding. The other obvious detail to note in this context is that these majority Khmers had not been spared from this ‘genocide’ either regardless how one chooses to conjecture as to the KR’s so-called ‘xenophobia’ towards various ethnic groups at the time. 

One interesting fact is that only one major ethnic group of all Cambodia’s pre-war ethnic minorities had somehow escaped this Pol Pol era "genocide", and this group had been former ethnic Vietnamese residents in Cambodia who had left the country and returned to Vietnam prior to and/or just after the KR take-over in April 1975.