[119] Through the process, some villagers are beginning to accept the possibility of an alternative viewpoint to the traditional notions of evil associated with anyone who worked for the Khmer Rouge regime. removal of Sihanouk as head of state in 1970, Allegations of United States support for the Khmer Rouge, Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, Anti-intellectualism § Democratic Kampuchea, Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation, Patriotic and Democratic Front of the Great National Union of Kampuchea, Crimes against humanity under Communist regimes, "The Chinese Communist Party's Relationship with the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s: An Ideological Victory and a Strategic Failure", "China Is Urged to Confront Its Own History", "How Red China Supported the Brutal Khmer Rouge", "No Redemption – The Failing Khmer Rouge Trial By Allan Yang", "Why the world should not forget Khmer Rouge and the killing fields of Cambodia", "Phnom Penh Journal; Lord Buddha Returns, With Artists His Soldiers", "Khieu Ponnary, 83, First Wife Of Pol Pot, Cambodian Despot", "Khmer People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP)", "Cambodia: U.S. bombing, civil war, & Khmer Rouge", "China defends its Khmer Rouge ties as trial opens", "Khmer Rouge — Facts, Leadership, & Death Toll", "Literacy and Education under the Khmer Rouge", "State Violence in Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979) and Retribution (1979–2004)", "Cambodian court sentences two former Khmer Rouge leaders to life term", "Counting Hell: The Death Toll of the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCNbBIiPTc4, "Meanwhile: When the Khmer Rouge came to kill in Vietnam", "Margaret Thatcher – Transcript for the interview with Blue Peter in 1988", "Pol Pot men say sorry for killing fields", In Cambodia, a Clash Over History of the Khmer Rouge", "Textbook sheds light on Khmer Rouge era", "Senior Khmer Rouge Cadre Jailed for Mass Murder, Torture", "Trials, tribulations and textbooks: Govt, DC-Cam review KR teaching", "The International Center for Conciliation", "ICfC Fosters Open Dialogue between Victims and Cadres", "Through Dialogue, Healing Pain in Eastern Cambodia", Irrigating a Socialist Utopia: Disciplinary Space and Population Control under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–1979, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia. [23]:62 Banks were raided, and all currency and records were destroyed by fire, thus eliminating any claim to funds. [67] An additional 300,000 Cambodians starved to death between 1979 and 1980, largely as a result of the after-effects of Khmer Rouge policy. [39] Advocates of this line hoped that the prince could be persuaded to distance himself from the right-wing and to adopt leftist policies. Angelina's newest film is perhaps her most powerful yet. Khieu Samphan, Hou Yuon and Hu Nim were forced to "work through the system" by joining the Sangkum and by accepting posts in the prince's government. Tuol Sleng was operated by the Santebal commander Khang Khek Ieu, more commonly known as Comrade Duch, together with his subordinates Mam Nai and Tang Sin Hean. His Cambodian lawyer Kar Savuth stunned the tribunal further by issuing the trial's first call for an acquittal of his client even after his French lawyer denied seeking such a verdict. [17]:26, Once in power, the Khmer Rouge explicitly targeted the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Cham minority and even their partially Khmer offspring. [30]:184, Beyond primary education, technical courses were taught in factories to students who were drawn from the favoured "base people". Dispatch Khmer Rouge troops to the Thailand and Vietnam borders to secure the integrity of the revolution from encroachment from Cambodia’s traditional rivals. [10][11] Despite a massive American bombing campaign against them, the Khmer Rouge won the Cambodian Civil War when they captured the Cambodian capital and overthrew the Khmer Republic in 1975. [7]:[12][13] The Khmer Rouge's attempts at agricultural reform through collectivisation similarly led to widespread famine, while its insistence on absolute self-sufficiency even in the supply of medicine led to the death of many thousands from treatable diseases such as malaria. [37] The question of cooperation with, or resistance to, Sihanouk was thoroughly discussed. [23]:244 However, the Khmer Rouge displayed these characteristics in a more extreme form. Cambodia Tribunal, "Life in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge Regime". The new government was quickly dismissed by the Khmer Rouge and China as a "puppet government". [7]:96–8[60] Peter Rodman and Michael Lind claim that the United States intervention saved the Lon Nol regime from collapse in 1970 and 1973. [103], After claiming to feel great remorse for his part in Khmer Rouge atrocities, Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch), head of a torture centre from which 16,000 men, women and children were sent to their deaths, surprised the court in his trial on 27 November 2009 with a plea for his freedom. [30]:191 While there was extreme harassment of Buddhist institutions, there was a tendency for the CPK regime to internalise and reconfigure the symbolism and language of Cambodian Buddhism so that many revolutionary slogans mimicked the formulae learned by young monks during their training. The leadership of Angkar was much less visible than that of other d… self-appointed agent, the Khmer Rouge assumed extraordinary license to care for, protect, direct, control, torture, work to death, and murder its children for the good of the nation. [71] Military officers and those occupying elite professional roles were usually sent for reeducation, which in practice meant immediate execution or confinement in a labour camp. [59] According to Ben Kiernan, the Khmer Rouge "would not have won power without U.S. economic and military destabilization of Cambodia. Ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Thai and other minorities in the Eastern Highlands, Cambodian Christians (most of whom were Catholic). [46], The political appeal of the Khmer Rouge was increased as a result of the situation created by the removal of Sihanouk as head of state in 1970. By June, three months after the removal of Sihanouk, they had swept government forces from the entire northeastern third of the country. The leadership of the Party Centre, the faction which was headed by Pol Pot, remained largely unchanged from the early 1960s to the mid-1990s. The treatment of these groups can be seen to fall under the legal definition of genocide, as they were targeted on the basis of their religion or ethnicity. [47], His comrades Ieng Sary and Hou Yuon became teachers at a new private high school, the Lycée Kambuboth, which Hou Yuon helped to establish. The region where Pol Pot and the others moved to was inhabited by tribal minorities, the Khmer Loeu, whose rough treatment (including resettlement and forced assimilation) at the hands of the central government made them willing recruits for a guerrilla struggle. Pol Pot (Saloth Sar), "Brother number 1", General Secretary from 1963 until his death in 1998 and effectively the leader of the movement. In October 1978, Chea Sim led a group of 300 people across the border into Vietnam, and the Vietnamese then launched a raid into the eastern zone that allowed Heng Samrin and his group of 2,000 to 3,000 soldiers and followers to seek refuge in Vietnam. Western governments voted in favor of the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea retaining Cambodia's seat in the organization over the newly installed Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea, even though it included the Khmer Rouge. The party was renamed the Indochinese Communist Party, ostensibly so it could include revolutionaries from Cambodia and Laos. Historian David Chandler, in an interview conducted in 2018, states that crimes against humanity was the term that best fit the atrocities of the regime and that some attempts to characterise the majority of the killings as genocide was flawed and at times politicised. In 1951, the two men went to East Berlin to participate in a youth festival. [48]:181–2, 194[53], On 29 March 1970, the North Vietnamese launched an offensive against the Cambodian army. In 1988, Margaret Thatcher stated: "So, you'll find that the more reasonable ones of the Khmer Rouge will have to play some part in the future government, but only a minority part. [65] It is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid to Khmer Rouge came from China, with 1975 alone seeing US$1 billion in interest-free economics and military aid and US$20 million gift, which was "the biggest aid ever given to any one country by China". According to a document issued after the reorganization, the Vietnam Workers' Party would continue to "supervise" the smaller Laotian and Cambodian movements. [30]:158 Over the next two years, So Phim, Nhim Ros, Vorn Vet and many other figures who had been associated with the pre-1960 party were arrested and executed. [44], Two members of the group, Khieu Samphan and Hou Yuon, earned doctorates from the University of Paris while Hu Nim obtained his degree from the University of Phnom Penh in 1965. Acting through the Santebal, the Khmer Rouge arrested, tortured and eventually executed anyone who was suspected of belonging to several categories of supposed enemies:[46], The Santebal established over 150 prisons for political opponents; Tuol Sleng is a former high school that was turned into the Santebal headquarters and interrogation center for the highest value political prisoners. [46] From the 1950s on, Pol Pot had made frequent visits to the People's Republic of China, receiving political and military training—especially on the theory of dictatorship of the proletariat—from the personnel of the CPC. [86] Although considerably higher than earlier and more widely accepted estimates of Khmer Rouge executions, Etcheson argues that these numbers are plausible, given the nature of the mass grave and DC-Cam's methods, which are more likely to produce an under-count of bodies rather than an over-estimate. The deaths occurring as a result of targeting these Khmer, whether it was the "new people" or enemies of the regime, was based on political distinctions rather than ethnic or religious. Pol Pot had shortly before been put on a list of 34 leftists who were summoned by Sihanouk to join the government and sign statements saying Sihanouk was the only possible leader for the country. In the September 1955 election, it won about 4% of the vote but did not secure a seat in the legislature. [105] In February 2012, Duch's sentence was increased to life imprisonment following appeals by both the prosecution and defence. It is noteworthy that Cambodia has a very young population, and by 2003 three-quarters of Cambodians were too young to remember the Khmer Rouge era. -. [81], According to a 2001 academic source, the most widely accepted estimates of excess deaths under the Khmer Rouge range from 1.5 million to 2 million, although figures as low as 1 million and as high as 3 million have been cited; conventionally accepted estimates of executions range from 500,000 to 1 million, "a third to one half of excess mortality during the period". However, government documents show that there were several major shifts in power between factions during the period in which the regime was in control. [102] As of 2020, there are 3 open cases. Angkar, Locard notes, was simultaneously "the Communist Party of Kampuchea, its Standing Committee, as well as the state security apparatus, represented in every social cell of Khmer Rouge society." The relationship between the massive carpet bombing of Cambodia by the United States and the growth of the Khmer Rouge, in terms of recruitment and popular support, has been a matter of interest to historians. [2]:201–21, Eastern and central Cambodia were firmly under the control of Vietnam and its Cambodian allies by 1980, while the western part of the country continued to be a battlefield throughout the 1980s, and millions of land mines were sown across the countryside. ICfC launched the Justice and History Outreach project in 2007 and has worked in villages in rural Cambodia with the goal of creating mutual understanding and empathy between victims and former members of the Khmer Rouge. In dismissing the defence's appeal, Judge Kong Srim stated that "Duch's crimes were "undoubtedly among the worst in recorded human history" and deserved "the highest penalty available". [102] Furthermore, trials and transcripts are partially available with English translation on the ECCC's website.[109]. Kiernan, Ben (Winter 1989). Of the 3,157 civilians who had lived in Ba Chúc,[88] only two survived the massacre. The Khmer Rouge then fled to Thailand, whose government saw them as a buffer force against the communist Vietnamese. That was when Pol Pot declared in a speech that the Communist Party of Kampuchea was actually in charge of the country. The regime was primarily interested in increasing the young population and one of the strictest regulations prohibited sex outside marriage which was punishable by execution. [23]:244, While the CPK described itself as the "number 1 Communist state" once it was in power,[17]:25 some communist regimes, such as Vietnam, saw it as a Maoist deviation from orthodox Marxism. The party leadership endorsed armed struggle against the government, then led by Sihanouk. The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia ended the genocide by defeating the Khmer Rouge in 1979. "The Angkar" was actually a front until 1977, Jolie also cast soldiers from Cambodia's actual army. A year later, thousands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas surrendered themselves in a government amnesty. Arbitrary executions and torture were carried out by its cadres against perceived subversive elements, or during genocidal purges of its own ranks between 1975 and 1978. Report everything to the Angkar! [76], Education came to a "virtual standstill" in Democratic Kampuchea. Sihanouk returned to Cambodia in September 1975 and became a roving ambassador for the Khmer Rouge. If you already have some understanding of the history of the Khmer Rouge, but you want to learn specifically about the sayings of Angkar, then this book is a solid resource. Documents uncovered from the Soviet Union archives revealed that the invasion was launched at the explicit request of the Khmer Rouge following negotiations with Nuon Chea. Following the conference, about 1,000 members of the KPRP, including Son Ngoc Minh, made a Long March into North Vietnam, where they remained in exile. The pro-Vietnamese regime of the People's Republic of Kampuchea implied in the 1980s that the September 1960 meeting was nothing more than the second congress of the KPRP. He was reportedly impressed with the self-sufficient manner in which the mountain tribes of Cambodia lived, which the party believed was a form of primitive communism. Ieng Sary was a founder member of the Khmer Rouge and officially at least the third most important member of Angkar. In addition, one of the seven survivors shares his story with visitors at the museum. He remained loyal to the Khmer Rouge until the very end and was not captured until 1998. [32]:176 Monks were not ordered to defrock until as late as 1977 in Kratié Province, where many monks found that they reverted to the status of lay peasantry as the agricultural work they were allocated to involved regular breaches of monastic rules. The Khmer Rouge continued to fight against the Vietnamese and the government of the new People's Republic of Kampuchea until the end of the war in 1989. [citation needed] A reorganisation which occurred in September 1976, during which Pol Pot was demoted in the state presidium and was later presented as an attempted pro-Vietnamese coup by the Party Center. On arrival at the villages to which they had been assigned, evacuees were required to write brief autobiographical essays. Angkar’s polices were largely uniform across the country with some regional and individual variations. The Standing Committee of the Khmer Rouge's Central Committee during its period of power consisted of the following: The Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from all foreign influences, closing schools, hospitals and some factories, abolishing banking, finance and currency, and collectivising agriculture. In March 1977, the center ordered So Phim, the eastern zone commander, to send his troops to the border; however with class warfare purges underway in the eastern zone, many units staged a mutiny and fled into Vietnam. After three months of interrogation at Tuol Sleng, he confessed to working with the CIA to undermine the revolution following which he and his wife were executed. After the end of the war, he moved to Phnom Penh under Tou Samouth's "urban committee", where he became an important point of contact between above-ground parties of the left and the underground secret communist movement. The Khmer Rouge forced my family [my wife and four children] out of Phnom Penh in 1975, and we went to live in Takeo. [2]:[24], One of the regime's defining characteristics was its Khmer nationalism, which combined an idealisation of the Angkor Empire (802–1431) and the Late Middle Period of Cambodia (1431-1863) with an existential fear for the survival of the Cambodian state, which had historically been liquidated during periods of Vietnamese and Siamese intervention. Actually Angka is simply an idea, like a religion, made up by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. So Phim was called to a meeting by Son Sen but refused to attend, instead sending four messengers who failed to return. The prevalent "urban" line endorsed by North Vietnam recognized that Sihanouk by virtue of his success in winning independence from the French was a genuine national leader whose neutralism and deep distrust of the United States made him a valuable asset in Hanoi's struggle to "liberate" South Vietnam. Le Parti communiste du Kampuchéa (PCK, Parti communiste du Cambodge) est le dernier nom utilisé par un parti politique cambodgien, apparu en 1951 durant la guerre d'Indochine sous le nom de Parti révolutionnaire du peuple khmer et également appelé par la suite Parti ouvrier du Kampuchéa. Premier Lon Nol deposed Sihanouk with the support of the National Assembly. (2004). Islamic religious leaders were executed, although some Cham Muslims appear to have been told they could continue devotions in private as long as it did not interfere with work quotas. [113] The 74-page textbook was approved by the government as a supplementary text in 2007. The Party Centre's ideology combined elements of Marxism with a strongly xenophobic form of Khmer nationalism. The Angkar was the name the Communist Party of Kampuchea (Cambodia) went by early on in their regime. [30]:158 A possible military coup attempt was made in May 1976, and its leader was a senior Eastern Zone cadre named Chan Chakrey, who had been appointed deputy secretary of the army's General Staff. The seat was retained under the name Democratic Kampuchea until 1982 and then under the name Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea. The Faces of Angka: The People Behind the Genocide For the first two years of Khmer Rouge regime, most Cambodians had no idea who was running the country. The Khmer Rouge regime murdered hundreds of thousands of their perceived political opponents, and its racist emphasis on national purity resulted in the genocide of Cambodian minorities. [37], Viet Minh units occasionally made forays into Cambodian bases during their war against the French and in conjunction with the leftist government that ruled Thailand until 1947. The lack of agricultural knowledge on the part of the former city dwellers made famine inevitable. This was the party led by Pol Pot that took power in 1975, and which thrust the war-torn country into a period of death and despair rarely seen before or since. On 25 May, Son Sen sent two brigades of troops to attack the eastern zone and capture So Phim. Troops from the western and southwestern zones were ordered into the northwestern zone. [7]:[50] This experience had enhanced his prestige when he returned to the WPK's "liberated areas". May 1, 2004. Cambodians were expected to produce three tons of rice per hectare, whereas before the Khmer Rouge era the average was one ton per hectare. Following their victory, the Khmer Rouge, who were led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, and Khieu Samphan, immediately set about forcibly evacuating the country's major cities. China, the United States and the ASEAN countries sponsored the creation and the military operations of a Cambodian government in exile, known as the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, which included the Khmer Rouge, the republican Khmer People's National Liberation Front and the royalist Funcinpec Party. In 1970 alone, the Chinese reportedly gave 400 tons of military aid to the United Front. [30]:284, Democratic Kampuchea is sometimes described as an atheist state,[31] although its constitution stated that everyone had freedom of religion, or not to hold a religion. The comm… The essay's content, particularly with regard to the subject's activity during the Khmer Republic regime, was used to determine their fate. Without radios or televisions, the Khmer Rouge is the only source of information in these villages, so it can easily skew news to suit its own agenda. First They Killed My Father makes a serious attempt to show the devastation caused to the nation of Cambodia by the Angkar and its Khmer Rouge army, and it's important that the world never forget what happened there. In keeping with the regime's theories on Khmer identity, the majority of new words were coined with reference to Pali or Sanskrit terms[77] while Chinese and Vietnamese-language borrowings were discouraged. The rural peasantry were often unsympathetic, or they were too frightened to assist them. If people refused to evacuate, they would immediately be killed and their homes would be burned to the ground. [123] Aiming at preventing the passing on of hatred and violence to future generations, the program allows former Khmer Rouge to talk anonymously about their past experience. The book is unique in that instead of focusing on the victims as most books do, it collects the stories of former Khmer Rouge, giving insights into the functioning of the regime and approaching the question of how such a regime could take place. Workers were executed for attempting to escape from the communes, for breaching minor rules, or after being denounced by colleagues. Even Cambodians' deep religious devotion to Buddhism was regarded with suspicion by cadres, who defrocked monks and defaced temples across the kingdom. Meanwhile, the center decided that the entire eastern zone was full of traitors and embarked on a large scale purge of the area, with over 10,000 killed by July 1978, while thousands were evacuated to other zones to prevent them from defecting to the Vietnamese. Les Khmers rouges (en khmer : Khmaer Krahom ខ្មែរក្រហម) sont le surnom d'un mouvement politique et militaire communiste radical d'inspiration maoïste, qui a dirigé le Cambodge de 1975 à 1979 . Tou Samouth, who advocated a policy of cooperation, was elected general secretary of the KPRP that was renamed the Workers' Party of Kampuchea (WPK). Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History, 1987. p. 32. [30]:158 Phim's execution was followed by that of the majority of the cadres and much of the population of the Eastern Zone that he had controlled. In 1976, the Angkar moved us … This experience is considered to have been a turning point in their ideological development. [107] In order to assist people's will to participate in the public hearings, the court provides free bus transportation for groups of Cambodians who want to visit the court. He has stood by the movie's production choices, according to the Huffington Post, saying that "the casting was done in the most sensitive way possible.". Pol Pot’s regime of extreme violence and torture between 1975-1979 turned neighbor against neighbor and resulted in the deaths of nearly 2 million people. [32]:176 Nevertheless, Mat Ly, a Cham who served as the deputy minister of agriculture under the People's Republic of Kampuchea, stated that Khmer Rouge troops had perpetrated a number of massacres in Cham villages in the Central and Eastern zones where the residents had refused to give up Islamic customs. [21]:311–2, Many of the surviving eastern zone leaders fled into the jungle where they hid from and fought center zone troops. [110] Of the estimated 15,000 to 30,000 prisoners,[111] only seven prisoners survived. Unable to reach the borders, ministry of industry personnel who could escape the purge went into hiding in Phnom Penh[21]:324–5, Fearing a Vietnamese attack, Pol Pot ordered a pre-emptive invasion of Vietnam on 18 April 1978. On 17 April 1975, the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh. However, it specified that what it termed "reactionary religion" would not be permitted. The Khmer Rouge banned more than 20 minority groups, constituting 15% of the population, and banned the use of minority languages. [30]:347, While François Ponchaud stated that Christians were invariably taken away and killed with the accusation of having links with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, at least some cadres appear to have regarded it as preferable to the "feudal" class-based Buddhism. This resulted in the expulsion and execution of numerous people within the party and army who were deemed to be of the wrong class. [79]:74, On 7 August 2014, when sentencing two former Khmer Rouge leaders to life imprisonment, Cambodian judge Nil Nonn said there were evidences of "a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Cambodia". Contrairement aux accusations que leurs homologues vietnamien… Journalist Nate Thayer, who spent some time with the Khmer Rouge during that period, commented that despite the international community's near-universal condemnation of the Khmer Rouge's brutal rule a considerable number of Cambodians in Khmer Rouge-controlled areas seemed genuinely to support Pol Pot. [29] Society was accordingly classified into peasant "base people", who would be the bulwark of the transformation; and urban "new people", who were to be reeducated or liquidated. Pol Pot and Ieng Sary married Khieu Ponnary and Khieu Thirith, also known as Ieng Thirith, purportedly relatives of Khieu Samphan. Cambodia has gradually recovered demographically and economically from the Khmer Rouge regime, although the psychological scars affect many Cambodian families and émigré communities. The court provides free transport for them to come to visit the court and meet with court officials to learn about its work, in addition to visits to the genocide museum and the killing fields. [17]:26, Its leaders and theorists, most of whom had been exposed to the heavily Stalinist outlook of the French Communist Party during the 1950s,[23]:249 developed a distinctive and eclectic "post-Leninist" ideology that drew on elements of Stalinism, Maoism and the postcolonial theory of Frantz Fanon. [30]:191 While in practice religious activity was not tolerated, the relationship of the CPK to the majority Cambodian Theravada Buddhism was complex; several key figures in its history such as Tou Samouth and Ta Mok were former monks, along with many lower level cadres, who often proved some of the strictest disciplinarians. [99] However, Cambodia's Education Ministry started to teach Khmer Rouge history in high schools beginning in 2009. The exception was the Eastern Zone, which until 1976 was run by cadres who were closely connected with Vietnam rather than the Party Centre, where a more organised system seems to have existed under which children were given extra rations, taught by teachers who were drawn from the "base people" and given a limited number of official textbooks. The Angkar, or the “organization” as the Khmer Communist Party called itself, was merciless. Despite a traditional Cambodian fear of Vietnamese domination, defecting Khmer Rouge activists assisted the Vietnamese and with Vietnam's approval became the core of the new People's Republic of Kampuchea. Until 1977, the Khmer Rouge’s top leadership (known as “Angkar Padevat”) worked … [93][95] This resulted in bloody factional fighting among the Khmer Rouge leaders, ultimately leading to Pol Pot's trial and imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge. In January 1978, following the Vietnamese withdrawal, a purge of the eastern zone began. Unable to believe he was being purged, So Phim went into hiding and attempted to contact Pol Pot by radio. [15][17]:[18] In June 1975, Pol Pot and other officials of Khmer Rouge met with Mao Zedong in Beijing, receiving Mao's approval and advice; in addition, Mao also taught Pot his "Theory of Continuing Revolution under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat（无产阶级专政下继续革命理论）". So Phim disputed the list and refused to execute those listed, for the center this implicated So Phim as a traitor. On her return to Phnom Penh she reported that the zone's cadres were deliberately disobeying orders from the center, blaming enemy agents who were trying to undermine the revolution. [13]:260 While two former leaders were convicted of genocide, this was for treatment of ethnic and religious minorities, the Vietnamese and Cham.