this is a general question about the book and about the Khamer
Khmer Rouge was a totalitarian party bent on social engineering, self-sufficiency and cultural isolation. The results were widespread famine, preventable deaths from sickness and genocide. The fundamental problem in their plan was that they were crazy. They went after anything and everything they felt was subversive, eventually imploding on themselves. In the book Loung Ung's family is split up. Her father is killed and her sister dies of sickness. The Pol Pot regime was not interested in the people rather than power and "purification" in a very warped social order. The Khamer Rouge claimed a lot of things that, on face value, seemed desirable. Universal education, health care and food for everyone sounds great but the Khmer Rouge was the opposite. I don't share any values they even claimed to represent because they were always wrapped up with their horrific propaganda.
