Those who refused or complained about the forced labor were tortured to death in detention centers. The government called the process “re-education.” Pol Pot was the Prime Minister of Cambodia beginning in 1976 and he formed a new Khmer Rouge government under him that killed millions of people by forced labor, starvation, diseases, torture, or direct execution.Īll the former civil servants, professors, doctors, and basically all the professionals were forced to work in fields. Image credits: gulfnews, Thanachet Maviang via Shutterstock

Pol Pot (Image to the left), View of Toul Sleng Genocide Museum. The act of punishing those who actually spoke against the right-wing ideology was justified by calling the process “re-education.” This campaign of picking out critics lasted until 1959 and it re-established Maoist orthodoxy in public expression. Some were forced to do manual labor, and some were arrested. Instantly identified critics lost their jobs. Mao saw the criticisms going too far, and by July 1957, it was completely called off. The criticisms grew very rapidly with posters against the specific faults of government, and students and teachers began criticizing members of the ruling party. The movment developed gradually and was at its peak in spring 1957 when intellectuals and articulated people began criticizing the government openly in public. The campaign started with Mao Zedong’s famous slogan “Let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend.” The campaign was influenced by similar actions taken by the Soviet Union in February 1956. Image credits: Shutterstock, schoolhistory Portrait of Mao Zedong (Image to the left), Hundred Flowers Movement. The names of the children were also changed so the criminals at fault could not be asked to pay reparations to victims and so they could not uncover their lost identities. When everything came to light, the misdeed was regarded as a crime against humanity. The idea behind selecting only babies from working-class women was that the working class had been the motor of the Republican revolution, and if not taken away, these children would have been raised to question the dictatorship. Most of the kidnapped children had working-class mothers. The kidnapping of children literally became a state-sanctioned policy and the Ministry of Justice was given the task of collecting the babies. The babies went through child trafficking, illegal adoption, and some were even orphaned because of the civil war. Approximately 300,000 children were taken away from their parents.

The Republican parents of the babies were either killed or put behind bars by the Nationalist troops.

Image credits: Biblioteca Virtual de Defensa via Wikimedia, The “Lost children of Francoism” was the categorical name given to all the babies stolen by the doctors and nuns. Portrait of Francisco Franco (Image to the left), Children during the Spanish Civil War.

Inhuman Acts by Ocean Tigrox