ABSTRACT
The ultra-nationalist and xenophobic Khmer Rouge regime sought to eliminate every aspect of what they perceived as non-native or anti-communist influences on Cambodian society. One of the many manifestations of this effort was a virulent hatred of all forms of religious faith that the regime linked with colonial or foreign influences. The elimination of such influences was deemed necessary to construct the new utopian order and safeguard what the regime deemed as elements of traditional Cambodian society. The Khmer Rouge associated Buddhism with Chinese and Vietnamese cultural influences and nearly eradicated the faith, with up to two-thirds of Cambodia’s Buddhist monks killed in the genocide. The small Muslim population comprised primarily the county’s ethnic Cham minority and was almost entirely liquidated. At the end of the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror, as few as 200 people remained of Cambodia’s Christian population. This chapter explores the nature and extent of the Khmer Rouge as genocide directed toward religious communities and examines the origins of the movement’s animosity toward religious faiths.
