Cambodia and the khmer rouge
Cambodia was a very high tension country in the 1960's and the 1970's.The Khmer Rouge was the brutal regime, in power from 1975-1979, claimed the lives of up to two million people. In 1975 they controlled all of Cambodia. Under Pol Pot's leadership, and within days of overthrowing the government, they ruthlessly imposed an extremist program to reconstruct Cambodia. The population must, they believed, be made to work as laborers in one huge federation of collective farms. The U.S. was scared that the views of communism would spread. The country’s name was changed to Kampuchea and all civil rights and liberties were immediately taken away. Basically everything was shut down; hospitals, colleges, and factories included. The Khmer Rouge believed that their biggest threats were intellectuals because they had the intelligence to question authority and possibly overthrow the regime. This civil war in Cambodia was very brutal and killed many innocent civilians and soldiers. This was all happening during the Cold war aside from all the other conflicts in the world.