The Evilest Man Pol Pot Sparknotes

After they seized power in Cambodia in April 1975, Saloth "Pol Pot" Sar and the Khmer Rouge were responsible for the death of 1.5-3 million Cambodian's and were perhaps one of the most ruthless regimes of the 20th century. The aim of this investigation is to evaluate Pol Pot's means of maintaining power from 1975 to 1979. An account of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge's drastic internal reforms including the slaughter of millions, economic reorganization, political restructuring, and the cultivation of social/ethnic groups will appear in section B. External forces including funding from China and the United States and repressive measures such as censorship, torture, and execution will be assessed. This

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,

Vietnam eventually overthrew the Khmer Rouge and effectively installed a socialist regime consisting of Khmer Rouge defectors. Most members of the Khmer Rouge escaped and fled to Thailand to receive assistance from the western countries. The Soviet Union would end up fighting the Khmer Rouge with help from China and Vietnam for over a decade. Due to economic sanctions that the U.S. placed on Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge had to withdraw their troops and leave. Afterward, a peace agreement was signed and a coalition government was formed and former monarch, Prince Sihanouk, was elected to run. Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge until 1997, when he was placed under house arrest until he died of natural causes without any charges being pressed against him (“The Cambodian Genocide”). The Khmer Rouge lasted until 1999, when most of it’s members died off or been arrested (“The Cambodian Genocide). After the genocide, the world was silent and refused to talk about it. Craig Etcheson, a Cambodia expert from George Mason University, felt that “For many years, their was a virtual taboo on even speaking of the Khmer Rouge, as if their words were … a malevolent spirit lurking in the corner of every room (Hume and Coren). Most of the Cambodian citizens were too afraid to speak up because they did not want to relive the horrors of what occurred. In essence, the Cambodian genocide was one of many genocides throughout history that share similarities with other

Later that same year, Pot and the Khmer Rouge took control over Cambodia. Pot wasted no time in starting his mission to reconstruct Cambodia. He thought that all the educated people needed to be killed (Melicharova). Also he thought that all noncommunist aspects of Cambodia needed to be wiped out. All rights you had were now gone. Religion was banned and if you were any kind of leader among the Buddhist monks, you were killed instantly (Melicharova). All kids were taken away and sent to work in the fields (Melicharova). If anyone was currently working and had a job, they were immediately killed along with their family members. It got so bad that you could be killed for just laughing, crying, and knowing another language. The Khmer Rouge motto was “To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss” (Melicharova). If you were lucky enough to escape death, you were put into the fields working usually from 4am to 10pm unpaid (“Pol”). From lack of food and sleep, people often became very ill which sadly led to death.

The next two decades of Pol Pot’s life are best characterized by his endless political maneuvering within the Cambodian Communist movement. Having struggled to gain independence from French colonialism during the 1940’s, and again during the First Indochina War of the 1950’s, there were already several prominent Communist factions active in Cambodia upon Pol Pot’s return to his country. His initial task as a clandestine operative of the Marxist Circle was to evaluate each of these factions, and to rise to power in the most promising

In the 1960’s a group named the Khmer Rouge surfaced, but was with few members. They were led by Pol Pot, a man who would soon bring terror to all Cambodians. Their goal was to bring Cambodia into a primal state, where everyone

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

There was one leader of Cambodia during the genocide. Pol Pot was in control of the Khmer Rouge and the violence that took place during those four horrific years. Pol Pot was not a good leader because he wasn’t able to follow through with what he said, he treated his citizens with cruelty and without any mercy, and he was responsible for the suppression of many traditions and an entire culture. With these points and the evidence presented it is clear that Pol Pot was a bad leader and caused many negative side effects on Cambodia. Cook, Vincent. "

In 1962, Pol Pot was leading the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), also known as Khmer

During the Pol Pot Regime, 25 percent of Cambodia’s population was killed due to executions, starvation, and overwork. Pol Pot wanted to form a communist farming society which resulted in the death of 2,000,000 people during 1975-1979. This genocide started because of a man named Pol Pot and the Communist group (Khmer Rouge) in Cambodia.

During the 1970s communism started to gain popularity among Asian countries, for instance in Vietnam and Cambodia. The communist party in Cambodia led by Pol Pot, the Kampuchea People Revolutionary Party, started underground and slowly rose to power. The KPRP, was the most prominent communist party at that time. This is because the ex-ruler Sihanouk supported it. In the beginning of its rule the KPRP was accepting of the monks and even Chantou Boua, a woman who was in Cambodia during the civil war period of 1970-1975, stated that it was not entirely “clear what the Khmers policy was towards Buddhism”. However, this was during a time before the Khmer Rouge had complete power. With the support of Sihanouk, who devised a militant organization

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.

One major factor that led to Khmer Rouge’s control over Cambodia was America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, and in particular, their bombings on Cambodia. As the Khmer Rouge began to pose a real threat to the Nol government in 1971, the U.S. motive for the bombings shifted from wanting to eliminate North Vietnamese bases to wanting to eliminate Nol’s internal opposition: Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. Ironically and unfortunately, The U.S. bombings that were intended to destroy the Red Khmers, directly led to their rise to power, as the bombings not only drove ordinary citizens into the hands of the brutal Khmer Rouge, but also drove North Vietnamese troops deeper into Cambodia, into closer contact with Cambodian civilians. There, the North Vietnamese troops most likely shared their anti-American opinions and influenced Cambodians to join Pol Pot. Before the bombings, the Khmer Rouge was barely a legitimate political group, and as Pol Pot himself stated, they were, “fewer than five thousand poorly armed guerrillas…scattered across the Cambodian landscape, uncertain about their strategy, tactics, loyalty, and leaders.” But as the bombs continued to fall, Pot and the Khmer Rouge used the opportunity to use the American bombing as a source of propaganda to recruit new members, thereby imitating their control over the