Social Humanitarian and Cultural Committee
Combating Racism and Xenophobia
Kingdom of Cambodia
Rohan Reddy
Forest Hills Eastern
Racism is the prejudice of people of different races, and Xenophobia is the prejudice of people from different countries. According to the Chair of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, “We still live in a world where we witness politicians and leaders using hateful and divisive rhetoric to divide instead of unite societies. Race-based police brutality and retaliatory killings, waves of hate crimes against minorities, and discrimination and violence towards migrants and refugees were all signs of pervasive racism.” She urges for a greater determination to terminate racism and xenophobia and even exposed countries that have not implemented laws regarding racism yet. Despite many countries having laws against racism, it is still prominent throughout the world.
In 1975 through 1979, the Pol Period took place in The Kingdom of Cambodia. The leader at the time, Pol Pot, was considered as one of the most radical political leaders in the entire history of Cambodia. Cambodia’s cities were emptied, the economy was militarized, the Buddhist religion and folk culture were destroyed, and more than 1 million of its 8 million people were starved and massacred. On top of that, foreign and minority languages were banned. Pol’s regime denied Cambodia’s, as well as other countries’, minorities. He claimed they were 1% of 100, and that they should be forgotten. Due to this thinking, he got rid of the Vietnamese, the Chinese, and more that were considered minorities in Cambodia. Even after 1979, the Khmer Rouge continued. An estimated 1.3 – 1.7 million people were killed. The Cambodian genocide is often seen as an auto-genocide because of the killing of its own people. Since then, the Kingdom of Cambodia has learned from the past and to maintain social stability.
The Kingdom of Cambodia acknowledges its past and learned that social stability must be maintained to avoid war. Although Cambodia is eager to find a solution, Cambodia does not want any solution to infringe on a country’s national sovereignty. Cambodia does not believe any solution should be enforced onto a country and that countries should be left to decide what is best for their own countries.
- Rohan Reddy