Cham Muslims

In February 1974, the Cham in Region 31, which is in the Western Zone of DK, protested the CPK policy which required the fishermen to register their daily catch with the local cooperative and sell them to the cooperative at a low price. At the same time, the locals were also made to buy those fishes from the cooperative at a higher price. This prompted the locals to confront the cooperative to express their discontent, only to be shot at, "killing and wounding more than 100", as one account put it. By December 1974, a rebellion by the Cham in Region 21 of the Eastern Zone had broken out against the CPK after community leaders were arrested. The rebellion was repressed forcefully by the regime with no records of casualties documented.

As much as there are records of these restrictions, resistance, and repressions, there were also accounts from the Cham community which deny the oppression by the regime between 1970 and early 1975. While restrictions on certain activities like trade and travel were in place during that period, they were understood to be by-products of the ongoing civil war. Moreover, some Cham had also joined the revolution as soldiers and members of the CPK. According to some local accounts, people had confidence in the Khmer Rouge when they first came to the village communities who assisted the locals with food and provisions, and there were no bans on local culture or religion; even if restrictions were imposed, the consequences were not harsh. The CPK were considered heroes of the revolution as they struggled for the cause of the peasantry and nation against the United States (Hinton, 2005:58). As the Cham communities were to be found across DK, various Cham communities might have experienced the effects of the CPK pre-1975 differently; some communities experienced the repressions and restrictions while others did not. Only when Pol Pot had consolidated power by the end of 1975 that the persecution became more severe and affected all of the Cham people indiscriminately. This could well be one of the simpler factors as to why the Cambodian government and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) do not prosecute the pre-1975 Khmer Rouge perpetrators before Pol Pot consolidated his power. As such, the accounts of those who experienced the repressions prior to 1975 were not considered to be part of the genocide as the case for a systematic annihilation of a people based on ethnic or religious profiling was not concrete enough.

Ratify: To formally approve or sanction.

Traverse: A mound of earth used to protect gun positions from explosion or to defilade the inside of a field work or fortification.

Copperhead: Term for a Northerner who opposed the war effort.

Agriculture: The science of growing crops or raising livestock; farming.

Torpedo Boats: Small submersible vessels with long wooden spars mounted on the bow for ramming enemy ships. Torpedoes were lashed to the tip of the spar to explode on impact.