Cambodia, also known as Democratic Kampuchea or simply Kampuchea, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline along the Gulf of Thailand in the southwest. It spans an area of 181,035 square kilometres (69,898 square miles), dominated by a low-lying plain and the confluence of the Mekong river and Tonlé Sap, Southeast Asia's largest lake. It is dominated by a tropical climate and is rich in biodiversity. They led an insurgency against Lon Nol of the Khmer Republic from 1968 until 1975, after their victory in the Cambodian Civil War with the Fall of Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975 by the Khmer Rouge, Year Zero has aimed to create a classless society where all citizens were unpaid agricultural workers, controlled by the state through "Angkar," which dictated and abused every aspect of their lives, from work to food rations. Children were also targeted for indoctrination, with Angkar viewing them as "the dictatorial instrument of the party," making them valuable tools for enforcing the regime's ideology. Under Angkar's regime, private property, markets, family life and religion were abolished, and individual freedom of movement and communication was severely restricted. Angkar was not just a political party; it was the embodiment of the state and the revolutionary ideology with Marxist-Leninist Corporation with its roots of Maoist organization founded by Pol Pot (Saloth Sâr), encompassing all aspects of Cambodian life. It was the collective name for the ruling entity, representing a totalizing force that controlled all aspects of life, even to the point of erasing individual identities and family ties where all Cambodians had to believe, obey and respect only to Angkar, which was to be everyone's “mother, father and god.” The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge, led by Angkar. The Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and forced Cambodians to relocate to labour camps in the countryside, where mass executions, forced labour, physical abuse, malnutrition, and disease were rampant. Up to 20,000 mass graves, the infamous Killing Fields, were uncovered, where at least 1,386,734 murdered victims found their final resting place.
