the base people, sad stories

The Base People The base people lived in the areas that were "liberated" by the Khmer Rouge before 1975. They generally came from rural areas and remained in the village or district of their birth throughout most of the Democratic Kampuchea regime. However, they were frequently forced to move to work sites within their districts to meet changing agricultural and labor demands. The Khmer Rouge claimed to revere the base people and gave them more privileges than the new people (those evacuated from the cities after 1975). But like other Cambodians, they were subjected to severe deprivation, hard labor, and food shortages during Democratic Kampuchea. Late in the regime, the Khmer Rouge herded them into cooperatives in distant provinces in an effort to stay in control of the population while escaping the Vietnamese Army in January 1979.