Pol Pot Biography

Pol Pot once said, “although a million lives have been wasted, our party does not feel sorry.” Pol Pot was the ruthless dictator of Cambodia during the 1970s and was single handedly responsible for millions of deaths and suffering. Pol Pot was considered a dictator because he was the leader of three consecutive parties and governments in Cambodia, and in all of them, he made his own people suffer while trying to make radical changes. His main goals were to completely reshape his country Cambodia, into a communist society based on peasants and agriculture. He wanted to create a new type of Cambodia where the population was made up of entirely workers and peasants, and all evidence of the wealthy classes was removed. Pol Pot wanted an equal society

When the Soviet Union officially acknowledged the Viet Minh as the true Vietnamese government, the French communist group Parti communiste français declared their support for Vietnamese independence. Enraptured by their anti-colonialist views, Sar joined the Communist Party in 1950. He later became the head of the Khmer Student Association’s “Marxist Circle.” It was during this time period that Sar took on a new name, and a new mission in life. When Pol Pot returned to his home country in January 1953, he did so on a mission to overthrow his country’s government and put into power a communist dictatorship.

Pol Pot took advantage of Cambodia’s corrupt government and their lack of military support from the U.S. after the Vietnam war. Not only that but during the Vietnam war Pol Pot started a civil war within cambodia with his army which greatly weakened Cambodia’s army who was protecting themselves from North Vietnam but also fighting off Pol Pot’s army, the leader of Cambodia eventually fell and Pol Pot and his regime took over the capital city for nearly four years causing over a million deaths.

Although he was forced to fee into the jungle to get away from Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Norodom Sihanouk was the King of Cambodia from 1941 to 1955 and again from 1993 to 2004. Pol Pot formed a resistance movement while in the jungle known as the Khmer Rouge. They went to war with Cambodia against Sihanouk's government. Although Sihanouk was bested, by the U.S.

In Cambodia in the 1960s The Khmer Rouge Regime rose to power, which lead to the Cambodian genocide in the 1970s. Pol Pot, the leader of this group, believed in a new country without evils. He describes evils such as money and religion as the cause for the corrupt and terrible world he lives in. Pol Pot's goal was to bring Cambodia back to the middle ages. Pol Pot dreamed of a ‘perfect’ Cambodia in which the society “build a prosperous and happy Cambodian society in which all enjoy equality, happiness and a society free from all class or individual forms of exploitation, in which everyone strives to increase production and to defend the country (pg 415)”. He began enforcing communal farming as a new way of living. Pol pot states “When we have rice, we can have everything” is their ‘slogan’ (Journal of Contemporary Asia pg 414). Pol Pot along with the rest of the Khmer Rouge Regime believed strongly in the perks that come out of farming. They

In the years of 1975 to 1979, Pol Pot became the head of the most murderous revolution of our time. His communist regime with the Khmer Rouge created one of the largest, yet greatly under-looked atrocities of the time. The genocide in his Democratic Kampuchea has created a death toll that could be as high as 3,000,000 people, or 25% of the country's population. (Chandler, 1999; Cambodia Genocide) In an attempt to refashion his country, "people were simply sacrificed to our struggle, not killed," as Pol Pot himself stated. (Pol Pot: Life of a Tyrant, 2000)

Pol pot's had been taken over and many Cambodians suffered so much from the genocide during the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970. One out of Three of the population in Cambodia died during that time. It has been established that the Khmer Rouge targeted particular groups of people, among them were educated elites. The elites consisted of masters, Ph.D., professors, students, and international student. In addition, people who have survived from the Khmer Rouge (pol pot) lied about their education. If they knew that they lied, they would have died in the camp. The most sadness, memories ever which were, they had lost their friend, cousin and family. According to this two article "SCREAM BLOODY MURDER" by Jennifer Hyde, and "WHY THE ARTS ARE AS IMPORTANT

The Cambodian genocide was one of the worst atrocities in the twentieth century. Innocent civilians living in Cambodia were targeted by a communist group called the Khmer Rouge. Victims such as Cham Muslims, Buddhist Monks, Christians, and anyone who was considered a threat to the ultimate goal of the perpetrators were extensively tortured or brutally murdered. Year Zero was a society that the leader of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, wanted Cambodia to adapt. In order to do carry out his plan, he made everyone become farmers and started the genocide by evacuating the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. On April 17th, 1975, the Khmer Rouge Army stormed into Phnom Penh and forced two million people to the countryside. They ruled Cambodia until 1979

Pol Pot shut the country off from all outside influences such as newspapers, radio, television, mail, and even money. This was Pol Pot’s attempt to go back in time and have a higher control over the people. Human rights were revoked, no more free speech, religion was forbidden when 90 percent of the people were Buddhists. There was no traveling was permitted and the whole community was put on schedules and have strict rules. People who broke even the smallest rule were killed. People who were inhabitants were forced out of the cities by Khmer Rouge. Two million people had to leave Phnom Penh

Genocide is the mass killing of a specific group of people, mainly targeting people with certain ethnic backgrounds or religious groups. The Pol Pot genocide in Cambodia was endorsed by the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979. The Cambodians were under the control of Pol Pot during this time and the regime killed approximately 1.5 to 3 million Cambodian citizens, both children and adults. The Khmer Rouge was a communist party who began to make a move after seeing French colonization in Cambodia begin to struggle. The Khmer Rouge wanted to create the best community they could be, they started by killing and enslaving many Cambodians those who were educated and high up the social ladder (Sites.google.com, 2013). But there was one main perpetrator, Pol Pot who was a member but later on become the leader of the Khmer Rouge communist party.

The Communist Party of Kampuchea, also known as the Khmer Rouge, took control of Cambodia on April 17, 1975, which lasted until January 1979. For their three-year, eight-month, and twenty-one day rule of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge committed some of the most heinous crimes in current history. The main leader who orchestrated these crimes was a man named Pol Pot. In 1962, Pol Pot had become the coordinator of the Cambodian Communist Party. The Prince of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk, did not approve of the Party and forced Pol Pot to flee to exile in the jungle. There, Pol formed a fortified resistance movement, which became known as the Khmer Rouge, and pursued a guerrilla war against Sihanouk’s government. As Pol Pot began to accumulate power,

ONe of his followers was Prince Norodom, he believed in Communism and the way Pol Pot ruled. “Prince Norodom was one of the only people in Cambodia who had health care and food available on a daily basis.” as stated in www.history.com/topics/pol-pot. The guards and the loyal followers were too scared of the cruel ruler of the new government to speak out. The followers and workers were a strong part of the rebellion and the dictatorship because without their loyalty and will to work Napoleon and Pol Pot would not have been able to keep control of their

On December 25, 1978, Vietnam launched a land invasion of Cambodia in the hopes of ending the Khmer border attacks. On January 7, 1979, Pol Pot was disposed of and the capitol fell to Vietnam control. A temporary government was established and consisted of Khmer defectors. Pot retreated to Thailand with the remainder of the Khmer and fought a series of guerrilla wars against the new Cambodian government for 17 years. Pot lost power and later died of a heart attack just shortly after being arrested in April 1998. He did not live long enough to be tried in international court.

Some say that Pol Pot was responsible for the power and control of Cambodia because “Pol Pot cut Cambodia off from the world. He banned foreign and minority languages and attacked the neighboring countries of Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand in an attempt to regain ancient ‘lost territory’” (The life of Pol Pot- Cambodia 4). This statement is true because the Khmer Rouge did gain part of their power by isolating the country, but Pol Pot is not fully responsible for that. There were other people involved, like Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan all of these people were also leaders in the Khmer Rouge. Nuon Chea was the second leader in the Khmer Rouge he is known as “The evil genius of the movement” (Chandler 1), because he is the one who was in charge of the prison system. He was one of the one’s with a heartless mind, planning tortures and executing innocent people.

The development of the Khmer Rouge 's ideology was the result of modern and ancient roots, engineered and perpetuated by its leader, Pol Pot (Saloth Sar). As a notorious force throughout the late 20th Century, Pol Pot 's idealisms for a socialist Cambodia were manifested in the genocide and mass devastation of the country. The origin of his ideology stemmed from a series of factors all of varying importance in the final determination of his policies. His context and exposure to Marxist doctrine and his refinement of this doctrine, stemming from Maoist, Buddhist and Khmer beliefs lead to his theory of a classless, agrarian society sustained by its own labour productivity. The Communist Utopia philosophy itself was fuelled by ultra-nationalism, self-discipline and radical egalitarianism and thus, resulting from the combination of his collective beliefs, derived an envisaging of a Cambodian "super generation" lead by his totalitarian rule.