Who Was responsible?
While the Khmer Rouge was the figure most directly responsible for the atrocities, the United States was another key player in this disaster. Because of its original violence toward Cambodia in attempting to eliminate Vietnamese enemies in Cambodia and for its, later, complicity with the Khmer Rouge, the United States is also partially responsible. While government officials at the time would have most certainly denied that they knew the extent of the atrocities occurring, they were of no help to the Cambodian people until the Khmer Rouge regime crumbled and the constitutional monarchy was reinstated.