Pol Pot

62
Pol Pot bigraphy, stories - Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976–1979

Pol Pot : biography

May 19, 1925 – April 15, 1998

Pol Pot (born Saloth Sar (); 19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was a Cambodian Communist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge"Red Khmer," from the French rouge "red" (longtime symbol of Communism) and Khmer, the term for ethnic Cambodians from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1963 to 1981, he served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. From 1976 to 1979, he also served as the prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea. Pol Pot became leader of Cambodia on April 17, 1975, and his rule was a dictatorship.Kiernan, Ben. The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–79. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. During his time in power he imposed agrarian socialism, forcing urban dwellers to relocate to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labor projects. The combined effects of executions, forced labor, malnutrition, and poor medical care caused the deaths of approximately 25 percent of the Cambodian population.Heuveline, Patrick (1998), "Between One and Three Million": Towards the Demographic Reconstruction of a Decade of Cambodian History (1970-79),’ Population Studies, Vol. 52, Number 1: 49-65.Craig Etcheson, After the Killing Fields (Praeger, 2005), p119.Locard, Henri, , European Review of History, Vol. 12, No. 1, March 2005, pp.121–143. In all, an estimated 1 to 3 million people (out of a population of slightly over 8 million) died due to the policies of his three-year premiership.Heuveline, Patrick (2001). "The Demographic Analysis of Mortality in Cambodia." In Forced Migration and Mortality, eds. Holly E. Reed and Charles B. Keely. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.Marek Sliwinski, Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique (L’Harmattan, 1995).Banister, Judith, and Paige Johnson (1993). "After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia." In Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community, ed. Ben Kiernan. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies.

In 1979, after the Cambodian–Vietnamese War, Pol Pot fled to the jungles of southwest Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge government collapsed. From 1979 to 1997, he and a remnant of the old Khmer Rouge operated near the border of Cambodia and Thailand, where they clung to power, with nominal United Nations recognition as the rightful government of Cambodia. Pol Pot died in 1998 while under house arrest by the Ta Mok faction of the Khmer Rouge. Since his death, rumours that he was poisoned have persisted.

The path to power (1969–75)

The movement was estimated to consist of no more than 200 regular members, but the core of the movement was supported by a number of villagers many times that size. While weapons were in short supply, the insurgency still operated in twelve of nineteen districts of Cambodia. In 1969 Sar called a party conference and decided on a change in the propaganda strategy. Before 1969, opposition to Sihanouk was the main focus of their propaganda. The party decided to shift the propaganda to oppose the right-wing parties of Cambodia and their alleged pro-American attitudes. While the party ceased making anti-Sihanouk public statements, in private the party had not changed its view of him.

The road to power for Sar and the Khmer Rouge was opened by the events of January 1970 in Cambodia. Sihanouk, while out of the country, ordered the government to stage anti-Vietnamese protests in the capital. The protesters quickly spilled out of control and wrecked the embassies of both North and South Vietnam. Sihanouk, who had ordered the protests, then denounced them from Paris and blamed unnamed individuals in Cambodia for them. These actions, along with clandestine operations by Sihanouk’s followers in Cambodia, convinced the government that he should be removed as head of state. The National Assembly voted to remove Sihanouk from office and closed Cambodia’s ports to Vietnamese weapons traffic, demanding that the Vietnamese leave Cambodia.