Pol Pot: Overseer of the Cambodian Genocide

In recent history, few countries have suffered the level of trauma that Cambodia has. In the late 1970s, the country was turned into a butcher’s yard as the government purged the population of its suspected enemies. At the head of this government was one of the most brutal men who ever lived.

Within the space of four years, this man would be responsible for between 1.2 and 2.8 million Cambodians. This is the story of Pol Pot.

Saloth Sâr was born in the village of Prek Sbauv near the city of Kampong Thom in central Cambodia. The exact date of his birth is unknown and subject to academic debate. French records at the time place his birthday on May 25, 1928, but a more widely quoted date is May 19, 1925. Cambodia was a French territory at the time but was also ruled by a monarchy that the French controlled.

Saloth Sâr’s family was of mixed Chinese and Khmer descent but were fully integrated into Khmer culture.

Although rural, his family was not poor. His father, Loth, was a rice farmer who owned nine hectares of land and draft cattle, considerably more than the national average at the time. His mother, Sok Nem, was a devout Buddhist who was well respected in the community. Sâr’s family was reasonably large. He was the eighth of nine children, three of whom died at a very young age.

Sâr’s childhood was typical in rural Cambodia. He and his brothers helped their father in the rice fields and played around the outskirts of the jungle. One of Sâr’s brothers, Nhep, stated that Sâr was a hardworking, considerate child.

At the age of six, Sâr and his brother were sent to live in Phnom Penh with his wealthy uncle Meak, who was a consort of King Sisowath Monivong (who was succeeded by King Norodom Sihanouk in 1941). Sâr entered the monastery life and lived as a novice Buddhist monk before enrolling in a Roman Catholic primary school. He struggled academically and was held back two years before graduating from primary school in 1943 at the age of 18.

He then attended Collége Pream Sihanouk, a middle school in Phnom Penh that offered considerable opportunities. Sâr learned to play the violin and took part in many social activities. He would later study carpentry at a technical college.

Throughout the 1940s, huge events would shape the political future of Cambodia. The French were driven out of Cambodia by the Japanese, who were, in turn, defeated in the Second World War. In 1946, the French returned and reasserted their control over their wayward territory.

Similar events were also happening in Vietnam, where the French were engaged in a struggle for dominance over a country that was becoming increasingly independent-minded. With such developments happening all over French Indochina, Pol Pot was drawn into the revolutionary circles of Cambodia.

Sâr managed to obtain a scholarship to an engineering school in Paris, and in 1949, he left Cambodia for Europe. In Paris, Sâr met up with other academically inclined Cambodians. Within them, the spark of communism had been lit, and Sâr, along with his acquaintances, discussed the application of communism in Cambodia. From these people, two movements would emerge. One movement wished to establish communism in Cambodia through peaceful means, while the other saw the violent overthrow of the French as the only way forward.

Sâr found himself attracted to the latter school of thought. Armed revolutions were happening all over the world at the time, and all the examples of success were violent in nature. Armed with the teachings of Stalin, Pol Pot returned to Indochina in 1953 and threw himself into the revolutionary movement in Cambodia.

He stepped into a world of chaos and violence. While France had its back against the wall, fighting revolutionaries all over Indochina, Cambodia was also in a state of civil war. On January 13, 1953, King Sihanouk had disbanded the left-leaning National Assembly, a vital part of the Cambodian parliament, and began ruling as an authoritarian.

It was in this dynamic that Pol Pot discovered and joined the Khmer Việt Minh. This guerilla organization operated in Cambodia as a subgroup of the Việt Minh, which operated in North Vietnam. Although the organization was made up of Vietnamese and Khmer people, the Khmer were not assigned any positions of authority. For all intents and purposes, the organization was an extension of North Vietnamese will.

His start in the organization was humble. He was given menial tasks, such as harvesting cassava and working in the canteen—a far cry from the positions of authority he would eventually attain.

Rather than risk a protracted war with the Cambodians, France relented on its position and granted the country independence. It was agreed that Khmer Việt Minh forces would leave Cambodian territory and move back to North Vietnam. Saloth Sâr did not join them and instead went to Phnom Penh, where he spent several years working as a teacher while spending much of his spare time invested in helping to build the communist movement.

While working as a teacher in Phnom Penh, Saloth Sâr involved himself in the communist movement, albeit clandestinely. At this point, Cambodia was ruled as an authoritarian state, and those suspected of being communists faced serious repercussions.

In 1956, he also married Khieu Ponnary, a fellow revolutionary and learned woman who had been the first Cambodian woman to receive a baccalaureate degree.

When the Kampuchean Labour Party was established in 1959 (later becoming the Communist Party of Kampuchea), Saloth Sâr became one of the senior members. After a government crackdown in 1962, the party’s leader was killed, and its deputy stepped back from politics, leaving the way open for Saloth Sâr to take over the reins.

In February 1962, anti-government protests and riots broke out in Cambodia. Sihanouk, who had abdicated the throne to focus on politics, had left the monarchy in the hands of his father in 1955.

Meanwhile, Sihanouk, who had become prime minister, established himself with increasingly authoritarian powers and imprisoned his political rivals. The unrest, however, threatened the country’s stability, and fearing a total revolution, Sihanouk dismissed his government and called for elections to establish a new one. He invited several of Cambodia’s left-leaning politicians to join him in talks. On this list was Saloth Sâr, who refused the invitation and instead fled to the jungle to take up armed resistance.

It was there that Saloth Sâr adopted the name Pol Pot, derived from the French “Politique Potentielle” (Potential Politics). His charisma shined through during these times, and the movement grew, eventually becoming known as the Khmer Rouge. The ranks of this military group swelled, and Pol Pot became revered as a father figure, guiding new recruits to take up arms and fight for revolution.

In 1967, the nation descended into civil war as communist forces clashed with government forces under the command of General Lon Nol, who had become prime minister. Ruthlessly anti-communist, he had carried out brutal oppression of communist elements until war eventually broke out. The Khmer Rouge joined the fight in 1970 with a total force of just a few thousand soldiers. This small number would surge in the wake of the events over the next few months.

Using the presence of the Việt Minh and Viet Cong in Cambodia as an excuse, 70,000 South Vietnamese and US troops crossed the border to root out their enemies. Meanwhile, a US bombing campaign left Cambodia in a state of humanitarian crisis. The brutality committed by the United States, as well as Lon Nol’s forces and the South Vietnamese, radicalized the Cambodians who flocked to the cause of the Khmer Rouge.

Khmer Rouge forces eventually took Phnom Penh, and on April 17, 1975, Pol Pot became the de facto leader of Cambodia. Lon Nol escaped and lived in exile until his death in 1985 from a heart condition. Cambodia was renamed Democratic Kampuchea and would be a one-party state for years to come while Pol Pot enacted his vision.

Horror

The Cambodian people, jubilant over the victory, were quickly disappointed as it became clear that Pol Pot’s rule would reach new heights of brutality, the likes of which Cambodia had not seen before.

Pol Pot initiated massive reforms in the country. Wishing to return Cambodia to its agrarian roots, he established a peasant autarky, forced collectivization in the country, and targeted academics as enemies of his revolution. Urban areas were evacuated, and professionals such as doctors, civil servants, and lawyers were arrested and forced into re-education camps. Stripped of all their possessions, these people were forced to toil in the fields under extremely harsh conditions.

Families were split up, and people were put into groups determined by age and gender. Schools were closed, and education was banned.

Meanwhile, Khmer Rouge soldiers combed an empty Phnom Penh, destroying the trappings of modern society and anything that indicated class differences. People who were found hiding were taken out into the street and shot.

Torture and execution became commonplace to such a degree that it is said that a quarter of Cambodia’s population was wiped out during Pol Pot’s regime. In one instance, a detention center known as S-21 had at least 18,145 inmates, of whom 18,133 died. To ensure the success of his vision, Pol Pot was wary of anybody who could be seen as a traitor or an infiltrator. Those suspected were arrested and, along with their families, tortured and killed. This included children. Those too young to be interrogated were dispatched without mercy.

Uniformity was strictly enforced, and children were taken from their parents to undergo indoctrination by Khmer Rouge teachers. Marriages were arranged by the state; anyone suspected of deviating from this path was subject to beatings and execution. Reasons for torture and death were widespread, with some being so ridiculous that they seemed random. Even people wearing glasses were targeted.

Pol Pot also attacked religion and philosophy with the same fervor as he did education. Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity were eliminated, along with those who were suspected of having religious beliefs or political views that involved capitalism or revisionist communism.

In addition to the murders, mismanagement of resources led to widespread famine that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, their bodies dumped into the same mass graves as those who had been executed.

While in power, Pol Pot was a reclusive and secretive person. Audiences were few and far between, and as a result, it has been difficult to analyze him and define the personal characteristics that made him the man he was.

By the late 1970s, Vietnam had seen off the Americans and were able to turn their attention to other matters. A huge priority was dealing with the brutality happening just over the border in Cambodia.

Tensions rose between the two countries, and Pol Pot, fearing that his own troops were colluding with the enemy, instituted a new purge, targeting his own forces on the border. Soldiers, along with their families, were interrogated, and mass executions were carried out. More than 100,000 soldiers and their families were murdered.

This mass slaughter of his own forces left the eastern border weak. Despite the weakness, Khmer Rouge soldiers initiated attacks on Vietnamese citizens. In April 1978, the Ba Chúc massacre saw Khmer Rouge soldiers kill over 3,000 Vietnamese civilians by the border. On December 23, Khmer Rouge forces opened fire along the border with the intention of invading the Vietnamese provinces of Đồng Tháp, An Giang, and Kiên Giang.

Two days later, the Vietnamese responded with a full-scale invasion of their own. Within two weeks, The Khmer Rouge was defeated, and Pol Pot had fled Phnom Penh. For more than a decade after, he continued to wage a guerrilla war against the occupying Vietnamese forces. He ordered an end to the executions and moved the Khmer Rouge away from a communist stance. The about-turn was so drastic that the United Nations even voted to recognize the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government.

In 1985, Pol Pot stepped down as commander-in-chief of the Khmer Rouge forces in favor of Son Sen but continued to wield significant influence within the organization. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the Khmer Rouge’s fight with the Vietnamese was no longer a prime issue for many world powers. The United States withdrew support for the Khmer Rouge and its allies in their fight against the communist Vietnamese who occupied Cambodia.

In 1992, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) entered Cambodia and engaged with Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge as a necessary partner in order to bring peace to the nation.

The Khmer Rouge continued to conduct a guerrilla campaign well into the 1990s. Pol Pot’s health began to fail, along with his mental state. He grew paranoid about Son Sen’s power and ordered his assassination, which his cadres carried out. It is suspected that Pol Pot believed Son Sen to be negotiating a surrender to government forces.

A senior figure in the Khmer Rouge, Ta Mok, took control of the situation and put Pol Pot under house arrest. He was subsequently imprisoned.

On April 15, 1998, Pol Pot died from a heart attack. This version of events was disputed by American journalist Nate Thayer, who was present at the time. He stated that Pol Pot had committed suicide by ingesting a lethal amount of Valium and chloroquine.

There had been plans to bring Pol Pot to trial, but these plans were never carried out. Pol Pot died before he could be visited by any justice. He remained unrepentant.

Pol Pot’s Legacy

Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia was traumatic. It was a genocidal event of the most extreme brutality that would forever be imprinted on the nation’s psyche. To this day, re-enactments of the genocide take place on May 20 every year as part of the Day of Remembrance commemorations.

Pol Pot will forever be remembered as one of the most brutal and murderous human beings ever to have held power.