S21 Re-Education Camp,  Phnom Phen, Cambodia

In short though the Khmer Rouge pretty much did empty the city of people and transplanted them to the country side. People with any amount of education were usually targeted for elimination as their education had “tainted” them with western thinking.

Phnom Penh was used by the new government as a base of operations. S-21 detention center in Phnom Penh was where they kept detainees for torture and “re-education”.

The Khmer Rouge was a communist revolutionary government in Cambodia in the mid/late 70’s. It was founded by a group of largely western-educated Cambodians who entirely rejected concepts of the free market and individual liberties. Instead, they attempted to construct an entirely self-sustaining nation through a rigid regime of top-down social engineering. This included the abolishment of banking, finance, currency, and some religions. People living in urban areas were (often forcibly) moved to the rural areas of the country to work in agriculture (again, often against their will). It was a bold and frankly inhuman stab at what could conceivably be called a “classless” society.

The genocide came in a number of forms, which included but were not limited to:

Famine, disease, execution and reeducation.