The Khmer Rouge Genocide: History and Legacy

Between 1975 and 1979, Cambodia experienced one of the 20th century’s darkest chapters, when the Khmer Rouge set out to remake society—and killed around two million people in the process. In this episode, we trace how a revolutionary movement born from war, colonial collapse, and Cold War chaos turned cities into graveyards, emptied Phnom Penh overnight, and forced millions into a brutal agrarian experiment built on fear and impossible quotas. We explore how execution, starvation, and disease became tools of governance, and why the regime devoured even its own cadres. But the story doesn’t end with the fall of the Khmer Rouge. We also examine the uneasy legacy of justice, the limits of international tribunals, and why many Cambodians today still struggle to separate perpetrators from victims in a trauma that reshaped an entire nation.https://youtu.be/8_TYFfkc_1U?si=O3gN9DPSECGGOgE9