Alex Hinton - “Annihilating Difference - The Cambodian Genocide“

In April 1975, the Khmer Rouge, a Communist insurgency led by Pol Pot, seized control of Cambodia, bringing to an end a five-year civil war. Between this time and January 1979, when an invasion from Vietnam drove the Khmer Rouge from power, almost two million Cambodians, perhaps more, out of a total population of about eight million, were murdered by the Khmer Rouge or died in the labor camps that millions were forced into as the cities were emptied. The list of groups that were marked for persecution or death by Pol Pot and his followers was very long. The opening speaker of Holocaust Memorial Week 2013, on April 08th Alexander Hinton discussed the Cambodian Genocide and, more broadly, the issues of why genocides happen. Hinton is a professor of Anthropology and Global Affairs at Rutgers-Newark and is also the director of the Rutgers Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution, and Human Rights. He is author of the highly acclaimed and honored book, Why did They Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Gen