I have been reading (and watching movies and videos, obvs) about the Cambodian genocide every day for over a week now. I could not tell you why, I had no specific reason to, it just struck me one day and I am still doing it.

I have learned a lot. It was an unusually comprehensive genocide, wiping out around a third of the entire population of the country, maybe even as much as half.

It was also one of the few genocides where the differences between the killers and killed was not ethnic or religious or any other typical signifier. Yes, certain minority groups were targeted (like ethnically Vietnamese, Muslim Chams, Buddhist monks, etc.) But the vast majority of victims of the Khmer Rouge were ethnic Khmer. They were government employees, intellectuals, or even just people that lived in cities.

Oh yeah and the Khmer Rouge were ousted from governing the country in 1979 but were still a political organization in Cambodia until the mid nineties.