When most people refer to the Cambodian genocide, they refer to the totality of excess mortality within DKR, which is made up primarily of deaths by starvation as a result of poor economic planning, as well as political repression. From my understanding, most of these starvation deaths emerged as an attempt to reform Cambodia towards agrarian society rather than an attempt to eliminate a particular ethnic group.
I've heard some scholars label this a form of "auto-genocide", but the concept is confusing to me for a number of reasons. One of the main reasons I'm confused is that similar events - starvation resultant from incompetent policies of a government towards its own people, e.g. the great leap forward - aren't generally labeled genocide.
To be clear, I'm not referring to Pol Pot's targeting of specific ethnic groups; I can easily see how the massacres against the Cham and Vietnamese populations, among others, fit into the definition of genocide, since they were very clearly aimed at the destruction of those peoples.
My question is as follows: how do these deaths fit into the notion of a broader Cambodian genocide, when they don't seem to specifically target any ethnic group? Is Pol Pot's concept of "New Peoples" and "Old Peoples" central to this?
Apologies for any misconceptions. I'm not an expert, please correct anything I've said that's inaccurate.
Yeah you raise a good point, I do have a minor correction to add however just on the death toll itself and the percentage that can be attributed to ‘poor economic planning’ and the direct violent deaths. See this answer here for a longer explanation, but essentially the numbers are actually closer to about half of the entire death toll being the result of state-sponsored violence, so in the region of one million people.
As for ‘auto-genocide’, I find the use of the term to be a complete waste of time. It doesn’t make much sense, particularly in light of the fact that the majority who died under the Khmer Rouge were themselves Khmer. They were not targeted on the basis of their ‘khmerness’. It fails to grasp the intent of the regime and the policies which led to these deaths. Not only does it not qualify as genocide but just inventing a term like ‘auto-genocide’ when it doesn't need to be done is baffling. David Chandler once told me that the only real ‘auto-genocide’ to ever occur was in Jonestown.
I think generally using the term ‘Cambodian Genocide’ to refer to Khmer Rouge period is problematic. As you mentioned there are some ethnic or religious groups that can be shown to have been targeted for those distinctions (which might account for 5% of the death toll). But the vast majority of the victims of the Khmer Rouge, whether that was through starvation, overwork, disease – or execution – were Khmer. Which simply does not fit the UN definition of genocide. People might point to 'national or ethnic group' being one of the categories, however that (again) fails to take into consideration the intent. It's all about intent. The Khmer Rouge killed Cambodians because they lacked 'revolutionary consciousness', they killed these people because they were not politically aligned with the aims of the regime. Political groups are not a category of genocide, there are reasons for this relating to some government's wishes that it remain off the list, but it also makes sense in terms of genocide being a crime that was committed against people for some kind of immutable characteristic. Like their race or their religion, not something which can change fairly readily like someone's political views.
There are scholars who argue that a broader definition of genocide can be applicable, or those that stretch the definition in order to make it apply. But I don't see the need to do so, because there is a term that perfectly captures the majority of the Khmer Rouge's policies. These were crimes against humanity.
I've answered a few questions here that have a similar theme that you might enjoy reading:
Were the crimes of the Khmer Rouge a unique form of genocide
What were the reasons and consequences of anti-intellectual killings in Cambodia
To what extent can DK be considered communist
I've also made a video about the applicability of the term 'Cambodian Genocide' on Youtube