In 1915–1916 and 1925, Cambodia experienced outbreaks of anti-French peasant protest, in turn peaceful and violent. Colonial taxes remained high, and the impact of the Second World War brought new pressures and new forms of resistance. Vichy French rule, Thailand’s seizure of Cambodia’s northwest provinces, and Japanese military occupation saw the birth and growth of the Khmer Issarak (“Independent Khmer”) movement. After Japan’s surrender, the returning French proved unable to suppress this movement; their attempts drove some of its members into alliance with the neighbouring communist-led Việt Minh.

Since 1994, the award-winning Cambodian Genocide Program, a project of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University’s MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, has been studying these events to learn as much as possible about the tragedy, and to help determine who was responsible for the crimes of the Pol Pot regime.

Of all the horrors human beings perpetrate, genocide stands near the top of the list. Its toll is staggering: well over 100 million dead worldwide. Why Did They Kill? is one of the first anthropological attempts to analyze the origins of genocide. In it, Alexander Hinton focuses on the devastation that took place in Cambodia from April 1975 to January 1979 under the Khmer Rouge in order to explore why mass murder happens and what motivates perpetrators to kill. Basing his analysis on years of investigative work in Cambodia, Hinton finds parallels between the Khmer Rouge and the Nazi regimes. Policies in Cambodia resulted in the deaths of over 1.7 million of that country's 8 million inhabitants—almost a quarter of the population--who perished from starvation, overwork, illness, malnutrition, and execution. Hinton considers this violence in light of a number of dynamics, including the ways in which difference is manufactured, how identity and meaning are constructed, and how emotionally resonant forms of cultural knowledge are incorporated into genocidal ideologies.

In January 1979, Pol Pot and his brutal Khmer Rouge regime were defeated. Under new progressive leadership, the country struggled to re-emerge from the devastation and pioneer the difficult transition to a new era of peace and tranquility for a country and people that had endured an unprecedented reign of terror. That era of peace and tranquility continued as Cambodia embarked on the 21st century and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the ECCC, successfully prosecuted and imprisoned senior regime leaders in a sequence of criminal trials that many Cambodians viewed in person. Justice having been served, even if imperfectly, the country and its people are now poised to enter an era of greater peace and tranquility. That peace will be inspired by how the nation reconciled itself to this difficult era and triumphed over it, confident that the tragedy it created will never be repeated.

THE CONSCIENCE OF NHEM EN explores conscience and complicity in the story of a young soldier responsible for taking ID photos of thousands of innocent people before they were tortured and killed by the Khmer Rouge at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison in Cambodia.

The Cambodian photojournalist survived and then exposed atrocities under the Khmer Rouge.

Wherever travellers go in Cambodia, certain things will stick in their minds and leave a lasting imprint. Travellers will remember the warm hospitality shown through ever-present Cambodian smiles, the sense of spirituality never far away, and the awe-inspiring architecture of iconic temples. Through it all, in the photographs and in the memories of travellers, there will be the ubiquitous krama.

New research highlights the Khmer Rouge’s terrible legacy.

My personal life trauma experiences during the Khmer Rouge regime are described in this paper along with applications to Constructivist Self Development Theory (CSDT). This theory provides a basis for understanding the interrelatedness of biological and psychological self adaptation necessary to surviving and maintaining a consistent sense of self and the world. Five areas of self that were described in CSDT and which were applicable to my experiences of trauma are as follows:

The aim of the present study was to investigate the moderating role of racial–ethnic identity in the relation between emotion dysregulation and alcohol use and related harms among Asian Americans.

I tend to withdraw when it all becomes too much. A lot has changed since this summer when I wrote you last, I believe in July or August.

I’ve always avoided taking photographs of my family because it hurts.

Writing this with a heavy heart. Yesterday I arrived in Hilton, a town twenty minutes outside of Rochester, New York. I’m here at my grandma’s Simone’s house, alone with her and my step-grandpa Mike.

Writing has always been my strong suit but I stopped in the tenth grade.