Ethnic victims

Scholars and historians have varying opinions on whether the persecution and killings under the hands of the Khmer Rouge should be considered genocide. This is because the earlier scholarship which came about right after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 had claimed that the victims could have been killed due to the circumstances they were in. For instance, Michael Vickery opined that the killings were "largely the result of the spontaneous excesses of a vengeful, undisciplined peasant army."

This view was also supported by Alexander Hinton, who related an account by a former Khmer Rouge cadre who claimed that the killings were acts of retribution for the injustices of the Lon Nol soldiers when they killed people who were known to be former Viet Minh agents before the rise of Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge to power. Vickery�"erroneously, as maintained by the more recent scholarship of Ben Kiernan�"argued that the number of Cham victims during the Khmer Rouge regime to be around 20,000 which would rule out the crime of genocide against Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The killings were a centralized and bureaucratic effort by the Khmer Rouge regime, as recently documented by the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) through the discovery of Khmer Rouge internal security documents which instructed the killings across Cambodia. However there were also instances of "indiscipline and spontaneity in the mass killings." On top of that, Etcherson has also maintained that with the systematic mass killings based on political affiliation, ethnicity, religion, and citizenship resulting in the loss of a third of the Cambodian population, the Khmer Rouge is effectively guilty of committing genocide.

Coup de Main: (pronounced koo-duh-mahn) A French term used to describe a quick, vigorous attack that surprises the enemy.

Enfilade: (pronounced en-fuh-leyd) To fire along the length of an enemy's battle line.

Rout: A crushing defeat where, often, the losers run from the field.

Furlough: A leave from duty, granted by a superior officer. The furloughed soldier carried papers which described his appearance, his unit, when he left and when he was due to return. Furlough papers also contained a warning that failure to return on time would cause the soldier to be "considered a deserter".

Nom-de-guerre: (pronounced nahm-duh-gair) Literally, in French this means "war name". A nom-de-guerre is a nickname earned in battle, such as "Stonewall" Jackson or "Fighting Joe" Hooker.