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Pol Pot

A portrait of Pol Pot

Saloth Sar (better known as Pol Pot; May 19, 1925 – April 15, 1998[1]) was the dictator of Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.[2][3] His government killed between 1.7 and 2.2 million people in the Cambodian genocide. He has been called one of the most brutal dictators in world history.[4]

Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge. They were radical members of the country's Communist Party.[5] Under Pol Pot's leadership, this group of peasant revolutionaries turned Cambodia into a military dictatorship.

Pol Pot was thrown out of power in January 1979, when the North Vietnamese military liberated Kampuchea.

Before the war

Pol Pot was born on May 19, 1925. His village was around 2 miles (3.2 km) from the capital city of the Kompong Thom province. At that time, Cambodia was a colony of France (part of French Indochina).

Pol Pot's father was a land-owning farmer named Pen Saloth.[1] His mother was named Sok Nem, and the family had nine children. Around age 5 or 6, Pol Pot was sent to live with an older brother in Phnom Penh, where he received an education.[1]

Pol Pot's family had connections with the Cambodian royal family. His brother, Loth Suong, was a palace clerk. His cousin was married to Prince Sisowat Monivong and had a son named Kossarak. These connections helped Pol Pot get a scholarship to France.

In 1949, he went to Paris, France, and studied radio electronics. However, he got distracted by Marxism, a form of communism. He didn't study, and his scholarship was taken away. In 1953, he went back to Cambodia and became a communist. The following year, Cambodia gained its independence from France and became the Kingdom of Cambodia.

Revolution

 
Pot in 1978-1979 in Democratic Kampuchea

In 1962, Pol Pot became the leader of the Communist Party in Cambodia. This party was illegal and hidden, because Prince Sihanouk did not like Pol Pot nor the Communists.

Pol Pot went to the jungle and created a guerrilla force called the Khmer Rouge. (The Khmer are the main ethnic group in Cambodia, and rouge is French for "red", the colour of communism). As guerilla fighters, they hid and ambushed people rather than being visible and directly attacking their enemies. They were the source of Pol Pot's power. Most Khmer Rouge members were teenagers.

In 1970, the U.S. got rid of Prince Sihanouk and unknowingly made Pol Pot more popular. They also made Prince Sihanouk angry, so he joined Pol Pot, but that alliance only gave Pol Pot an advantage. This created a lot of confusion and only made Pol Pot even more popular.

During the Vietnam War, the United States tried to defeat the communist North Vietnamese, but only drove them deeper into the countryside. Some hid in Cambodia. Between 1969-1973 the U.S. bombed these Cambodian hiding places. Many peasants fled to cities to escape.

Government

On April 17, 1975, Pol Pot entered Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital city, and took control. He planned for a "super great leap forward", inspired by Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward in China.

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge forced all of the people in Cambodia's cities towards fields in the countryside. Many people died on the way to the fields. The people who survived had to do forced labor from dawn until dusk. Even more died in the fields from hunger, thirst, overwork, and sickness. They were harvesting fruits and rice, but got only a 180-gram can of rice every day. Every tenth day was a rest day, and there were festival days.

The Khmer Rouge government closed banks, made money illegal, and closed free markets. They also made religion illegal. Teenagers had to join the army, and children learned how to set land mines and make booby traps.

People were not allowed to gather in groups. Only two people were allowed to see each other at a time. People were forced to marry in big groups, and they could not choose who they married.

 
Skulls from people who were tortured and killed at Security Prison 21 during the Cambodian genocide

After the Vietnamese and underground Cambodian parties got Pol Pot out of power on 7 January 1979, he went to a zone near Thailand called Pailin. There, he tried to get control of Cambodia again by fighting a ten-year-long guerilla war. The war was not successful, and the Khmer Rouge broke up in the early 1990s.

Extent of the genocide

Pol Pot was responsible for the Cambodian genocide.[6][7] This was the planned, organized persecution and genocide of Cambodians that the Khmer Rouge regarded as enemies. The genocide, malnutrition, and poor medical care killed between 1.5 and 2 million people (around one in every four people in Cambodia).

Pol Pot's second in command, Noun Chea (also called Brother Number Two) later said that these mass killings were a mistake.

Death

On the evening of April 15, 1998, on April 17, 1975, Pol Pot died of a possible heart attack in his hut in the jungle. This was just just 2 days before the anniversary of Khmer Rouge's takeover of Cambodia.

Nate Thayer believed that Pol Pot killed himself with diazepam (Valium) and chloroquine to avoid trial.[8][9] He was cremated without any ceremony.[10]

Pol Pot Media

  • Prek Sbauv, the village where Pol Pot was born and spent his early years

  • Sâr arrived in Paris on 1 October 1949. Paris pictured in 1950.

  • In Paris, Pol Pot was inspired by the writings of Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin (pictured together in 1949) on how to conduct a revolution

  • King Sihanouk disbanded the Cambodian government and National Assembly before securing independence from French colonial rule in 1953.

  • The flag of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, a group whose members were informally known as the "Khmer Rouge"

  • In 1970, a coup led to Lon Nol taking control of Cambodia and instituting a right-wing, pro-U.S. administration

  • After Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia to overthrow Lon Nol's government, the U.S. (forces pictured) also sent in its military to bolster his administration

  • Uniforms worn by the Khmer Rouge during their period of control

  • View of Phnom Penh from a US helicopter, 12 April 1975

  • Pol Pot's government held its early meetings in the Silver Pagoda, which later served as Pol Pot's home

Related pages

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Pol Pot". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  2. ↑ "BBC – History – Historic Figures: Pol Pot (1925–1998)". BBC. Archived from the original on 26 October 2019. Retrieved 25 January 2011.
  3. ↑ Chandler, David (23 August 1999). "Pol Pot". Time Magazine. Archived from the original on February 3, 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110203010225/http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/pol_pot1.html. Retrieved 4 February 2011. 
  4. ↑ "List of Top 10 Most Brutal Dictators in Modern History - History Lists". historylists.org. Archived from the original on 2022-08-09. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  5. ↑ "Khmer Rouge". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  6. ↑ Kiernan, Ben 2003. The demography of genocide in Southeast Asia: the death tolls in Cambodia, 1975–79, and East Timor, 1975–80. Critical Asian Studies. 35 (4): 585–97.
  7. ↑ Heuveline, Patrick 2001. The Demographic Analysis of Mortality Crises: The Case of Cambodia, 1970–1979. Forced Migration and Mortality. National Academies Press. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-309-07334-9.
  8. ↑ "Pol Pot is the Dead One Lying Down: Nate Thayer is the Live One Standing". Nate Thayer. Archived from the original on 2021-08-02. Retrieved 2021-08-02.
  9. ↑ "Pol Pot 'suicide' to avoid US trial". The Independent. 22 October 2011. Archived from the original on 1 May 2019. Retrieved 31 August 2017.
  10. ↑ "The Dispatch - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Archived from the original on 2021-07-13. Retrieved 2021-07-14.

References

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