The Khmer Rouge Army during the regime...

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The KCP’s first move after they entered the city was capturing key objectives such as the FANK general staff headquarters and the studios of Radio Phnom Penh. After that, they evacuated the whole city of Phnom Penh saying that the city might get attacked by the U.S. Air Force. In only three days, a city with more than three million people became empty with no civilians at all.

Later, if was found that the KCP had five reasons for this kind of evacuation, which is called as a rustication. The most important reason is to gain control of the whole urban populace. Many citizens are scattered around to places that Pol Pot don’t have much control of then, so evacuating everyone is basically gathering everyone. The other reasons, of course, include the fear of the bombing of the city, which is not groundless. The other three reasons are to secure everyone from any counterrevolutionary elements, solving the health, sanitation, food distribution and production problems of the authorities and the Khmer Rouge’s core purpose “call for construction of a rural-based society.”

Source: Etcheson, Craig. The Rise and Demise of Democratic Kampuchea. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1984.

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