John Bingham wrote: ↑Mon Sep 07, 2020 11:45 am They weren't found and tortured and killed because they had a huge army and were very effective guerrilla fighters. You should try reading up on it yourself, it's complicated and beyond anyone's scope to answer in a few sentences.

Edit- From your last couple of posts it doesn't seem you are very interested in finding out about it.

Well I was talking about after the war, they had no army then and were disarmed.
There was plenty of time for the survivors to exact "kum" on them but they didn't.

They were brought to trial and sentenced.
That is not the same as the "kum" explanation that's used to explain why they had to kill children.
Like I was trying to say, the "kum" explanation sounds more like a defense argument to somehow temper their brutality and cruelty.

PS. I tried to edit my previous post to clarify that but couldn't find the edit button.
Can someone tell me how to do that?
thanks

To me (only) there is no big intellectual argument as to why they killed the educated.
There is very little intellectual about it in any way.
i don't even agree that it primary stemmed from intellectual based anything.
And it had very little to do with the leaders standing, or their thinking, about intellectual or academic matters.

IMO, there were two simple, clear, very basic reasons they eliminated the educated
i/ To remove critical thinking and hence any challenge.
2/ Longstanding generational resentment by the masses against the few who wield all power. (and their functionaries)
- which was easily forged into blind hatred by men like Ta Mok, and others.

It had no intellectual underpinnings, nor any intellectual drivers in it's execution.
nor did it come from particularly strong intellectual circles.
So in other words i don't think you can validly say - "the intellectuals did it"

(just my view,
and once again we are probably splitting hairs on the Titanic, a bit)

amatuertrader wrote: ↑Mon Sep 07, 2020 12:18 pm
Well I was talking about after the war, they had no army then and were disarmed.
There was plenty of time for the survivors to exact "kum" on them but they didn't.

They were brought to trial and sentenced.
That is not the same as the "kum" explanation that's used to explain why they had to kill children.
Like I was trying to say, the "kum" explanation sounds more like a defense argument to somehow temper their brutality and cruelty.

PS. I tried to edit my previous post to clarify that but couldn't find the edit button.
Can someone tell me how to do that?
thanks

That pencil icon up on the right hand corner of every post is the edit button, Trader.
If you edit before somebody has posted another reply it will edit without note.
If somebody has posted something since, there will be that note on the bottom "edited 1 time by..."
(no drama either way)

Not sure about your point that kun is used as a defence argument
It is simply a sad tragic aspect of Khmer character - and one that is definitely of relevance in the KR killings.
(nb, the trials were not an example of "kun" - exactly the opposite in fact, a rational, proportional response)

Personally i reckon kun stems from that long standing mass resentment against the unjust and rigid system that i talked about before. A suppressed rage. But that is another discussion.

This LA Times snapshot is from 1985, when the KR were kicking back against the Vietnamese controlled government here
- but it gives a pretty good indication of the forces they had at their disposal right up until the big organised defections/integrations in the late '90s (as JB explains ^^^)
ie, enough to cause serious disruption to large parts of the country

Cambodian Resistance Goes on Offensive :
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html

This 1989 NYP report spotlights the status of KR threats to Cambodian restoration just before the UNTAC led peace process.
But it also gives a realistic snapshot of KR's very real threat pretty much for the next ten years..
Especially when contrasted to the dysfunctions of the other contenders for power.

In Cambodia, a Deepening Fear Of a New Khmer Rouge Regime
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/19/worl ... egime.html

Moved a couple of KR topics to General Chatter from Ask the Expats (Q&A)

I had said that I was still unsatisfied by all of points raised in this thread as to why the KR had to kill children.
Bingham offered the explanation that the KR were afraid of the children of murdered parents seeking revenge when they grew up and offered the "kum" explanation.

I pointed out that never did happen even after the war and the KR were around to extract revenge on.

In fact Duch himself was around after the war and could have been found and tortured by the survivors but was not.

From wiki:

"Shortly after the Paris agreement in October 1991, he moved with his family to the small isolated village of Phkoam close to the Thai border. Here he purchased some land, and began teaching in the local school. He was known as a good teacher, but one with a fiery temper.

Soon after his identity was discovered, Duch accepted a transfer to Samlaut as Director of Education. When fighting broke out in 1996 following the split of the Khmer Rouge and the coup to oust Prince Rannariddh in 1997, he fled with his family to the Ban Ma Muang camp just inside Thailand. At the camp, he worked for the American Refugee Committee as the Community Health Supervisor.In late 1998, he returned to Cambodia when fighting subsided. He settled in the village of Andao Hep in Rattanak Mondul and worked closely with World Vision International, the Christian relief agency.

After serving ten years in prison, on September 2nd, 2020, Duch died at the age of 77 at a hospital in Phnom Penh of a lung disease. Due to the complicated situation of COVID-19 in Cambodia"

I think that after years of trying to explain how and why the Khmer Rouge could have committed such horrors and all kinds of intellectual theories were advanced I think it all boils down to something much simpler and closer to the Thai farmer sentiment that I began this thread with.
Many people thought and think even today that education is bad and is not helpful to society.

amatuertrader wrote: ↑Mon Sep 07, 2020 8:26 pm I had said that I was still unsatisfied by all of points raised in this thread as to why the KR had to kill children.
Bingham offered the explanation that the KR were afraid of the children of murdered parents seeking revenge when they grew up and offered the "kum" explanation.

I pointed out that never did happen even after the war and the KR were around to extract revenge on.
In fact Duch himself was around after the war and could have been found and tortured by the survivors but was not.

I think that after years of trying to explain how and why the Khmer Rouge could have committed such horrors and all kinds of intellectual theories were advanced I think it all boils down to something much simpler and closer to the Thai farmer sentiment that I began this thread with.
Many people thought and think even today that education is bad and is not helpful to society.

I think you are looking for one single answer, Trader
There is none. Just because kum is a factor in some situations does not mean that it is a factor in all.
That people did not take revenge on Duch does not mean it was not a factor on killing dissenters children.

It takes a while to appreciate the complexities, the diversities, the interplays, the subtleties, that there are always currents that you cannot see. That's Cambodia - never think the reasons for anything are as simple as what they seem.