Pol Pot ( UK: , US: ; Khmer: Born Saloth Sar (Khmer: ?????? ) to a prosperous farmer in Prek Sbauv, Cambodia France, Pol Pot was educated in several schools elite of Cambodia. In the 1940s, Pol Pot moved to Paris, France, where he joined the French Communist Party and adopted Marxism-Leninism, especially when it was presented in the writings of Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. Returning to Cambodia in 1953, he joined the Khmer Vi Marxist-Leninist organization? T Minh in guerrilla war against the new government of the newly independent King Norodom Sihanouk. After the Khmer Vi retreat? T Minh in 1954 to North Vietnam, Pol Pot returned to Phnom Penh, worked as a teacher while remaining a central member of the Cambodian Marxist-Leninist movement. In 1959, he helped transform the movement into the Kampuchean Labor Party - later renamed the Communist Party of Kampuchea - and in 1960 took over as a secretary party. To avoid state oppression, he moved in 1962 to Vi camp? T C? Ng in the forest before visiting Hanoi and Beijing. In 1968, he relaunched the war against Sihanouk. Renaming the Democratic Country of Kampuchea and trying to create an agrarian socialist society, the Pol Pot government forcibly relocated urban dwellers to the countryside to work on collective farms. Those who are considered enemies of the new government are killed. This mass murder, coupled with malnutrition, severe working conditions, and poor medical care, killed between 1.5 and 3 million people from a population of about 8 million (about 25%), a later period called the Cambodian genocide. Marxists and Leninists who are unhappy with the Pol Pot government are pushing Vietnam intervention. In 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia, overthrowing the Pol Pot government in 1979. Vietnam installed a Marxist-Leninist group that competed against Pol Pot and renamed the country as the People's Republic of Cambodia. Pol Pot and its Khmer Rouge retreat to a forest base near the Thai border. Until 1993, they remained part of an internationally recognized coalition as a legitimate government in Cambodia. Ta Mok faction places Pol Pot under house arrest, where he died. Video Pol Pot
Initial life
Smaller time: c. 1925-1941
Pol Pot was born in the village of Prek Sbauv, outside the town of Kampong Thom. He was named Saloth SÃÆ'Â ¢ r, with the word sÃÆ'Â ¢ r ("white, pale") referring to his relatively light skin. The biographer Philip Short biographed his birth in March 1925, though his previous biography by David P. Chandler noted that the French colonial record placed him on May 25, 1928. His family was a mix of Chinese and Khmer ethnic heritage, although they did not speak Mandarin and live as if they are completely Khmer. His father, Loth - who later took the name of Phem Saloth - was a prosperous farmer who had nine hectares of paddy fields and some cattle. The Loth House is one of the largest in the village, and during planting and harvesting, he hires a poorer neighbor to do a lot of agricultural work. Mrs. Pol Pot, Sok Nem, is locally respected as a devout Buddha. Pol Pot is the eighth child of nine children; two women, and seven men. Three of them died young. They were raised as Theravada, and at the festival they went to the temple of Kampong Thom.
At that time, Cambodia was a monarchy but the king had little political control, which was actually carried out by the French colonial regime. The Pol Pot family has connections to Cambodian royal households; His cousin, Meak, was the king's queen, Sisowath Monivong, and later worked as a ballet teacher. When Pol Pot was six, he and a brother were sent to live with Meak in the capital Phnom Penh; informal adoption by wealthy families was a standard practice in Cambodian society at the time. In Phnom Penh, he spent several months as a novice monk at the Vat Botum Vaddei monastery town. There he became educated in Khmer.
In the summer of 1935, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r went to live with his brother Suong and his wife and last son. That year he began his education at the Roman Catholic elementary school, ÃÆ' â € ° Cole Miche, with Meak paying tuition. Most of his classmates are children of French and Catholic Vietnamese bureaucrats. Here, he became educated in French and familiar with Christianity. SÃÆ' Â ¢ r was not academically gifted and he was held for two years, receiving only the title of Certificat d'Etudes Primaires ComplÃÆ' © mentaires in 1941 when - Short opinion - he was already eighteen years old. SÃÆ' Â ¢ r continued to visit Meak in the king's palace and there, among several king's concubines, that he had some of his earliest sexual experiences.
Education later: 1942-1948
While SÃÆ'Â ¢ r was at school, the King of Cambodia died and in 1941 the French government appointed Norodom Sihanouk as his successor. A junior high school, CollÃÆ' Â © ge Pream Sihanouk, was established in Kampong Cham and was selected to become a boarding house at the institute in 1942. This level of education gave him a privileged position in Cambodian society. There, he learned to play the violin and take part in the school play. Most of his spare time is spent playing soccer and basketball. Some of his fellow students, among them are Hu Nim and Khieu Samphan, then served in his government. During the New Year holiday in 1945, SÃÆ' Â ¢ r and several friends from a college theater group went on a provincial tour on the bus to raise money for a trip to Angkor Wat. In 1947, he left school.
That year he passed an exam that admitted him to LycÃÆ' e Sisowath, while living with Suong and his new wife. In the summer of 1948, he took the bridet entrance test for upper class LycÃÆ' © e but failed; unlike some of his friends, he can not continue in school for baccalaurÃÆ' © at. Instead, he enrolled in 1948 to study carpentry at the Ecole Technique in Russey Keo, located on the northern outskirts of Phnom Pehn. This reduction from an academic to a vocational school may be a surprise to students. Here, his student friends generally came from a lower class than the students he had met in the previous school, even though they were not farmers. It was there where he met Ieng Sary, who became a close friend and later became a fellow member of his government. In the summer of 1949, SÃÆ'n ¢ r graduated and got one of five scholarships that allowed him to travel to France to study at one of his engineering schools.
In the middle of the Second World War, France was conquered by Nazi Germany and in 1945 Japan overthrew French control over Cambodia, with Sihanouk proclaiming independence for his country. After the war ended with the defeat of Germany and Japan, France reaffirmed its control over Cambodia in 1946, although it was allowed for the establishment of a new constitution and the formation of various political parties. The most successful was the Democratic Party, which won the 1946 general election. According to Chandler, SÃÆ' Â ¢ r and Sary worked for the party during a successful election campaign, although Short maintained that SÃÆ'Â ¢ r himself had no contact with the party. The king opposed leftist party reform and in 1948 dissolved the National Assembly and began to govern by decree. Newborn Communist movements have also been established in Cambodia by Vietnam's better communist group co-operative, Vi Vi Minh, Vi Minh, despite being plagued by ethnic tensions between the Khmer and Vietnam. News from the group was censored from the press, and it was impossible for SÃÆ'Â ¢ r to realize them.
Paris: 1949-1953
Access to further education abroad is marked as part of a small elite in Cambodia. SÃÆ'  ¢ r and 21 other selected students sailed from Saigon over SS Jamalque and arrived in Marseille almost a month later; on their way to stop in Singapore, Colombo, and Djibouti. In Paris, SÃÆ' ¢ r registered in ÃÆ'â € ° Cole FranÃÆ'§aise de RadioÃÆ' © lectricitÃÆ' © to study radio electronics. He took a room at the Indochinese Citadel Cità ©  © Universitaire, then stayed at rue Amyot and finally a bed in the corner of rue de Commerce and rue Letelier.
He spent three years in Paris, though went on a few days off. In the summer of 1950, he was one of 18 Cambodian students who joined French colleagues on a trip to Yugoslavia, the Marxist-Leninist state, to volunteer at a construction workers' battalion in Zagreb. He returned to Yugoslavia the following year for a camping holiday. In Paris, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r making little or no effort to assimilate into French culture, never being completely comfortable with French. He spends a lot of time reading and visiting the movies. He gained familiarity with much of the French literature, one of his favorite writers was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His most significant friendship in the country was with Ieng Sary, who had joined him there, Thiounn Mumm, and Keng Vannsak. He was a member of the Vannsak discussion circle, whose diverse ideological membership was discussed to achieve Cambodia's independence from the French government.
In Paris, Ieng Sary and two others founded Cercle Marxiste ("Marxist Circle"), a Marxist-Leninist organization organized in a secret cell system. The cells meet to read Marxist texts and hold self-criticism sessions. SÃÆ' Â ¢ r join the cells that meet on rue LacepÃÆ'¨de; his cell friends include Hou Yuon, Sien Ary, and Sok Knaol. He helped duplicate the Cercle newspaper, Reaksmei ("The Spark"), named after the former Russian newspaper. In October 1951, Yuon was elected chairman of the Khmer Student Association (AEK), establishing close ties between the organization and Union Nationale des ÃÆ' â € ° tudiants de France. The Cercle Marxiste manipulates AEK and its successor organization for the next 19 years. A few months after the formation of Cercle Marxiste, SÃÆ' Â ¢ r and Sary joined the French Communist Party (CFP). SÃÆ'Â ¢ r attending party meetings, including Cambodian groups and reading his magazine, Les Cahiers Internationaux . The Marxist-Leninist movement is then in a strong position globally; The Chinese Communist Party has recently ruled under Mao Zedong and the French Communist Party is one of the largest political parties in the country, attracting about 25% of French voters.
S ÃÆ' Â ¢ r finds many of Karl Marx's difficult solid texts, then reveals that he "does not really understand" them. Instead he became familiar with the writings of Marxist-Leninist Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, including Stalin the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik) . Stalin's approach to Marxism-Leninism - known as Stalinism - gives Sense a sense of purpose in life. SÃÆ' Â ¢ r also read Mao's work, especially On New Democracy, a text that outlines the Marxist-Leninist framework for revolution in semi-feudal colonial and semi-colonial societies. Along with these Marxist texts, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r read anarchist Peter Kropotkin's book on the French Revolution of 1789, the Great Revolution . From Kropotkin, he takes the idea that an alliance between intellectuals and peasants is necessary for revolution; that a revolution needs to be made to its final conclusion without compromise in order to succeed; and egalitarianism is the basis of communist society.
In Cambodia, increasing internal disputes resulted in King Sihanouk dismissing the government and declaring himself prime minister. In response to the growing power of Sihanouk, Saloth wrote the article "Monarchy or Democracy?"; it was published in Khmer Nisut student magazine under the pseudonym "Khmer daom" ("Khmer Native"). In this essay, he refers positively toward Buddhism, portraying Buddhist monks as an anti-monarchical force on the part of the peasantry. At a meeting, Cercle decided to send someone back to Cambodia to assess the situation and decide which rebel group they should support; SÃÆ' Â ¢ r volunteered for the role. His decision to go may also be related to the fact that he has failed the second year's exam two years in a row and thus lost the scholarship. In December, he boarded SS Jamaique, returning to Cambodia without a formal degree.
Maps Pol Pot
Revolutionary and political activism
Return to Cambodia: 1953-1954
SÃÆ' ¢ r arrived in Saigon on January 13, 1953, the same day when Sinahouk dissolved the Democratic-ruled National Assembly, began to govern by decree and imprisoned the Democratic Member of Parliament without trial. In the wake of the wider Indochina War in neighboring French Indochina, Cambodia is in a state of civil war, with civil massacres and other atrocities perpetrated by all parties. SÃÆ'Â ¢ r spent several months at the headquarters of Prince Norodom Chantaraingsey - leader of one of these factions - at Trapeng Kroloeung, before moving to Phnom Pehn, where he met fellow Cercle member Ping Say to discuss the situation. SÃÆ'Â ¢ r consider the most promising resistance group to become Khmer Vi? T Minh, a Vietnamese and Cambodian guerrilla subgroup mixed from the larger Vi? T Minh, Vietnam anti-imperialist militia organized by Marxist-Leninist Ho Chi Minh. SÃÆ'Â ¢ r believe that Khmer Vi? T Minh to Vi Vit Minh is wider and thus the international Marxist-Leninist movement makes it the best group for Cercle Marxiste to support. His recommendations were approved by Cercle members in Paris.
In August 1953, SÃÆ' Â ¢ r and Rath Samoeun traveled to Krabao, the headquarters of the Vi Minh City East Zone. Over the next nine months, about 12 other Cercle members joined them there. They found that Khmer Vi? T Minh is run by - and dominated numerically by - the Vietnamese guerrillas, with members of the Khmer who are mostly given rough tasks; SÃÆ' Â ¢ r was assigned to plant cassava and work in the canteen. He gained a basic understanding of Vietnam, and rose to become secretary and aide to Tou Samouth, Secretary of the Eastern Zone of Khmer Vi? T Minh.
Sihanouk wanted independence from the French colonial government, but after the French government rejected his request, he called for public resistance against their government in June 1953. Khmer troops left the French Army in large numbers and the French government - fearful of costly and protracted warfare to maintaining colonial control - succumbing. In October, full military power was transferred to Sihanouk and in November he declared Cambodia an independent kingdom. Post-independence, civil conflict escalated, with France supporting Sihanouk's war against insurgent groups. After the Geneva Conference held to end the First Indochina War, Sihanouk obtained approval from North Vietnam that they would withdraw Khmer Vi? T Minh troops from the Cambodian territories. Khmer Vi unit? The last T Minh left Cambodia for North Vietnam in October 1954. None of them decided to stay in Cambodia; he traveled, through South Vietnam, to Prey Veng to reach Phnom Penh. He and other Cambodian Marxists-Leninists are now deciding to move from armed struggle and pursue their goals through electoral means.
Developing Communist Party: 1955-1962
Cambodian Marxists-Leninists established a socialist party, Pracheachon, to serve as a leading organization through which they could compete in the upcoming 1955 elections as they continued to operate in secret. Although Pracheachon has strong support in some areas, most observers expect the Democrats to win. Marxists-Leninists engage in entryism to influence the policy of the Democratic Party; Vannsak has become deputy party secretary, with SÃ <â € <Â ¢ r working as his assistant, possibly helping to change the party's podium. Sihanouk feared the Democratic government and in March 1955 surrendered the throne for the sake of his father, Norodom Suramarit. This enabled him to legitimately form a political party, Sangkum Reastr Niyum, who participated in the election. The September election witnessed widespread voter intimidation and electoral fraud, so Sangkum Sihanouk won all 91 seats. The establishment of a de facto state by Sihanouk quelled the hope that the Cambodian Left could take over power electorally. The North Vietnamese government still urges Cambodian Marxists-Leninists not to restart armed struggle; the first focusing on undermining South Vietnam and having little desire to disrupt the Sihanouk regime given that it was - easy for them - remained internationally incompatible rather than following the governments of Southern Thailand and Vietnam in building alliances with the anti-communist United States.
Using a pseudonym, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r rent a house in Boeng Keng Kang area in southern Phnom Penh. Although he did not qualify for teaching in public schools, he obtained a history of French teaching and employment at a private school, Chamraon Vichea ("Progressive Knowledge"); his pupils, including the novelist then Soth Polin, described him as a good teacher. He appealed to the primadonna of Soeung Son Maly, before entering into relations with communist revolutionary fellow Khieu Ponnary, who was the sister of Sary's wife, Thirith. They were married in a Buddhist ceremony in July 1956.
SÃÆ' Â ¢ r remained deeply involved on the left of Cambodia as he oversaw many Marxist-Leninist underground communications' while all correspondence between the Democratic and Pracheachon parties passed through. Sihanaouk has cracked down on the Marxist-Leninist movement, whose membership has been halved since the end of the civil war. Relations with the Marxist-Leninists of North Vietnam decreased, something that was later described as a good thing. He and other members increasingly consider Cambodians too subservient to their Vietnamese counterparts; to deal with this, SÃÆ' Â ¢ r, Tou Samouth, and Nuon Chea devised a program and law for a new Marxist-Leninist party that would ally, though not below, to Vietnam. They form party cells, emphasize the recruitment of a small number of dedicated members, and organize political seminars in safe houses. At the 1959 conference, the movement's leadership formed the Kampuchean Labor Party, based on the Marxist-Leninist democratic centralist model. SÃÆ' Â ¢ r, Tou Samouth, and Nuon Chea are part of the four 'General Affairs Committee' who lead the party. Its existence must be kept secret from non-members.
At the 1960 communist party conference, held at the railway station place, Samouth became the party secretary and Nuon Chea his deputy, while SÃÆ'Â ¢ r took third place senior and Ieng Sary the fourth. Sihanouk speaks vocally against the Cambodian Marxists-Leninists; although he is an ally of the Chinese Marxist-Leninist government and recognizes Marxism-Leninist ability to bring about rapid economic development and social justice, he also warns his totalitarian character and his oppression of personal freedom. In January 1962, Sihanouk's security services followed up Cambodian socialists, imprisoned Pracheachon leaders and left most of the party almost dead. In July, Samouth was arrested, tortured and killed. Nuon Chea also took a step back from his political activities, leaving the way for SÃÆ'Â ¢ r to become party leader. At the two parties' conference, held in an apartment in central Phnom Penh, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r was elected as party secretary and the organization was renamed the Kampuchean Labor Party.
In addition to facing leftist opposition, the Sihanouk government also faces hostilities from the right-wing opposition centered on former Sihanouk State Minister Sam Sary, backed by the United States, Thailand and South Vietnam. After South Vietnam supported a failed coup against Sihanouk, relations between countries deteriorated and the United States began Cambodia's economic blockade in 1956. After Sihanouk's father died in 1960, Sihanouk introduced a constitutional amendment which allowed him to become the head of state for life.. In February 1962, an anti-government student protest turned into a riot, in which Sihanouk rejected the Sangkum administration, called a new election, and produced a list of 34 Left-leaning Cambodians demanding that they meet with him to form a new government. SÃÆ'Â ¢ r is on the list - perhaps because he is known as a left teacher rather than because he is known as a Marxist-Leninist leader - but refuses to meet Sihanouk. He and Ieng Sary left Phnom Penh to the Viet Cong camp near Thboung Khmum in the forest along the Cambodian border with South Vietnam. According to Chandler, "from this point on he is a full-time revolutionary".
Planning a Rebellion: 1962-1968
Conditions at Viet Cong camp are basic food and rare food. When the Sihanouk government crushed the movement in Phnom Penh, more and more of its members escaped to join the SIA at its forest base. In early 1964, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r founded his own camp, Office 100, on the border side of South Vietnam. Although allowing his actions to be officially separated from the Viet Cong, the latter still holds significant control over his camp. At the plenary meeting of the Party Central Committee, it was agreed that they should re-emphasize their independence from the Vietnamese Marxists-Leninists and support the armed struggle against Sihanouk. The Central Committee met again in January 1965 to denounce the "peaceful transition" to socialism supported by Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev, who accused him of being a revisionist. In contrast to Khrushchev's interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, SÃÆ' Â ¢ r and his friends sought to develop their own ideological variant, explicitly Cambodia. Their interpretation shifted from an orthodox Marxist focus on the urban proletariat as a revolutionary force to building socialism; instead they give that role to the rural peasants, which is a much larger class in Cambodian society. In 1965, the party considered the small Cambodian proletariat to be full of "enemy agents" and systematically refused membership of their party. The main growth areas were in the rural provinces and in 1965 in 2000.
In April 1965, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r traveled - on foot, along the Ho Chi Minh Trail - to Hanoi to meet North Vietnamese government figures, among them Ho Chi Minh and Le Duan. North Vietnam is preoccupied with the ongoing Vietnam War and therefore does not want Sar's troops to undermine the stability of the Sihanouk government; the latter anti-American attitude made him a de facto ally. In Hanoi, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r reading the archives of the Vietnam Labor Party, concluded that the Vietnamese Marxists-Leninists committed themselves to the pursuit of the Indochina Federation and that their interests were incompatible with Cambodia. From Hanoi, he flies to Beijing, where his official host is Deng Xiaoping despite most of his encounters with Peng Zhen. SÃÆ'Â ¢ r gained sympathy from many people in the ruling Chinese Communist Party - notably Chen Boda and Zhang Chunqiao - who shared his negative view of Khruschev amid the Sino-Soviet split.
After a month in Beijing, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r flying back to Hanoi before a four-month journey along the Ho Chi Minh line to reach the new Marxist-Leninist base at Loc Ninh. In October 1966, he and other Cambodian party leaders made several important decisions. They decided to change the name of their organization to the Kampuchea Communist Party, a decision that was originally kept secret. It was agreed that they would move their headquarters in Ratanakiri Province, away from the Viet Cong, and that - regardless of the North Vietnamese view - they would order each party zone committee to prepare for the relaunch of armed weapons. struggle. North Vietnam refused to help in this regard, refusing their request for weaponry. In November 1967, SÃÆ' Â ¢ r traveled from Tay Ninh to the 102nd Headquarters near Kang LÃÆ'ªng. During the trip, he fell ill with malaria and needed a rest at the Viet Cong medical base near Mount Ngork. In December, plans for armed conflict have been completed, with the war starting in the North-West Zone and then spreading to other areas. As communication in Cambodia is slow, each zone must operate independently most of the time.
Civil War: 1968
In January 1968, the war was launched with an attack on the Damris Bay military post south of Battambang. Further attacks aimed at police and soldiers and seized weapons. The government responded with a scorched earth policy, bombarding the airspace where the rebels were active. Members of the Buddhist hierarchy and other founding figures expressed concern about the brutality of government troops. In some areas, troops are rewarded for every head cut they produce, so they target civilians as well as rebels and in Phnom Penh the army beheads two children using palm tree fron because they are accused of being rebel spies. Such brutal reports help the rebels. As the insurgency spread, more than 100,000 villagers joined the rebels. In the summer, Pol Pot moves his base thirty miles north, to the more mountainous Tail of the Dragon, to avoid attacks by government forces. At this base, called K-5, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r builds an ever-increasing dominance over the party and has its own campsite, its own staff and keeper and no outsiders are allowed to meet with him without escort. He took over from Sary as Secretary of the Northeast Zone. In September, Sihanouk's warm relationship with China worsened and he implemented a marked political change to the right, enhancing relations with the United States.
Leadership
The movement is estimated to consist of no more than 200 ordinary members, but the core of the movement is supported by a number of villages many times that much. While weapons are not widely available, the uprising still operates in 12 of Cambodia's nineteen districts. In 1969, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r held a party conference and decided to change the party's propaganda strategy. Before 1969, the opposition to Norodom Sihanouk was the main focus of his propaganda. However, the party decided in 1969 to shift its focus on propaganda against the right-wing parties of Cambodia and the pro-American stance they suspected. While the party ceased making anti-Sihanouk statements in public, the party personally did not change his view of him.
The road to Sar and the Khmer Rouge was opened by the events of January 1970, in Cambodia. When he was abroad, Sihanouk ordered the government to launch anti-Vietnam protests in the capital. The protests quickly spread beyond control and the North and South Vietnamese embassies were destroyed. Sihanouk, who had ordered the protests, then denounced them from Paris and blamed unnamed people in Cambodia for inciting them. These acts, along with covert operations by Sihanouk's followers in Cambodia, convince the government that he should be removed as head of state. The National Assembly voted to remove Sihanouk from the office and close the Cambodian port to North Vietnam arms traffic, demanding that North Vietnam leave Cambodia.
North Vietnam reacts to political change in Cambodia by sending Prime Minister Ph'n V'n'ng to meet Sihanouk in China and recruit him into an alliance with the Khmer Rouge. SÃÆ' Â ¢ r was also contacted by North Vietnam, who reversed their position, offering him whatever resources he wanted for his uprising against the Cambodian government. SÃÆ' Â ¢ r and Sihanouk were actually in Beijing at the same time, but the Vietnamese and Chinese leaders never told Sihanouk about the presence of SÃÆ'§r or allowed the two men to meet. Shortly thereafter, Sihanouk issued a radio call to the Cambodians asking them to rise up against the government and support the Khmer Rouge. In May 1970, SÃÆ' Â ¢ r finally returned to Cambodia and the uprising gained fascination.
Earlier on March 29, 1970, North Vietnam took its own action and launched an attack on the Cambodian army. The power of North Vietnam quickly invaded most of the eastern Cambodia region that reached 25 km (15 miles) from Phnom Penh before being withdrawn. In this battle, Khmer Merah and Sar play a very small role.
In October 1970, Sar issued a resolution on behalf of the Central Committee. The resolution states the principle of self-sufficiency (aekdreach machaskar), which is a call for Cambodia to decide its own future independent of the influence of other countries. The resolution also includes a statement depicting the betrayal of the Cambodian Socialist movement in the 1950s by the Viet Minh. This was the first statement of anti-Vietnam policy that would be a major part of the Pol Pot regime when it took power a few years later.
Kaing Guek Eav claims that American support for the Lon Zero coup contributed to the revival of Khmer Rouge rule. However, diplomat Timothy M. Carney disagreed, asserting that Pol Pot won the war because of support from Sihanouk, a massive supply of military aid from North Vietnam, government corruption, the severance of American air support after Watergate and the determination of Socialist Cambodia.
Throughout 1971, Vietnam (North Vietnam and Viet Cong) did most of the fighting against the Cambodian government while Sar and the Khmer Rouge functioned almost as auxiliary troops of their troops. SÃÆ'Â ¢ r takes advantage of the situation to gather new members and to train them according to higher standards than was previously possible. SÃÆ'Â ¢ r also places resources from all Khmer Rouge organizations into political education and indoctrination. When accepting anyone regardless of the background of the current Khmer Rouge forces, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r greatly increases the requirements for membership in the party. Students and so-called "middle farmers" are now rejected by the party. Those with a clear farming background are members elected to party membership. This restriction is highly ironic since most senior party leaders including Sar are from the background of students and middle peasants. They also created intellectual divisions between old-schooled members of the old party and uneducated farmer's new party members.
In early 1972, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r toured the rebel-held areas of North Vietnam in Cambodia. He saw regular Khmer Rouge soldiers made up of 35,000 people formed supported by around 100,000 troops. China supplies five million dollars a year in weapons and Sar has arranged an independent source of income for parties in rubber plantations in eastern Cambodia using forced labor.
After a central committee meeting in May 1972, the party under the direction of SÃ <â € ¢ r began to establish new levels of discipline and conformity in the areas under their control. Minorities such as the Chams were forced to adjust to the style of dress and appearance of Cambodia. These policies, such as banning the Chams from wearing jewelry, are soon extended throughout the population. Careless version of land reform conducted by SÃÆ' Â ¢ r. The bottom line is that all land ownership should be uniform. The party also confiscated all private means of transportation. The 1972 policy aims to reduce the people of the liberated areas into a kind of feudal peasant equality. These policies are generally beneficial when poor farmers are very unfavorable to refugees from the cities, who have fled to the countryside.
In 1972, North Vietnamese military forces began to withdraw from the battle against the Cambodian government. SÃÆ'Â ¢ r issued a new set of decisions in May 1973 that started the process of rearranging farmer villages into cooperatives where property is shared and where personal belongings are prohibited.
Rural control
The Khmer Rouge advanced in 1973. After they reached the outskirts of Phnom Penh, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r issued an order that the city be taken at the height of the rainy season. The order caused useless attacks and wasted lives inside the Khmer Rouge army. In mid-1973, the Khmer Rouge under SÃÆ'Â ¢ r controlled nearly two-thirds of the country and half the population. North Vietnam realized that they were no longer in control of the situation and began treating Sar more as an equal leader than as a junior partner.
In late 1973, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r made strategic decisions that determined the future of the war. First, he decided to cut capital out of contact with outside supply sources, putting the city under siege. Second, he imposed strict controls on people trying to leave the city through the Khmer Rouge line. He also ordered a series of general cleanup of former government officials, and anyone with an education. A new set of prisons is also being built in Khmer Rouge-controlled areas. Cham minority groups try rebellion to stop the destruction of their culture. The rebellion was quickly destroyed for ordering that severe physical abuse be used against the vast majority of people involved in insurrection. As before, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r tested a tough new policy against Cham minority before expanding them to the general population of the country.
The Khmer Rouge also has a policy of evacuating urban areas and forcibly relocating their inhabitants to the countryside. When the Khmer Rouge took the town of KratiÃÆ'Ã… © in 1971, SÃÆ' Â ¢ r and other members of the party were shocked at how quickly the "liberated" urban areas ruled out socialism and returned to the old way. Various ideas are attempted to recreate the city according to the party image, but nothing works. In 1973, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r decided it was a total frustration that the only solution was to send the entire townspeople to the fields in the countryside. He wrote at the time "if the result of so much sacrifice is that the capitalists remain in control, what is the point of the revolution?". Shortly after, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r ordered the evacuation of 15,000 people of Kompong Cham for the same reason. The Khmer Rouge then moved in 1974 to evacuate the larger city of Oudong.
Internationally, the SÃÆ' Â ¢ r and the Khmer Rouge gained recognition from 63 countries as the true Cambodian government. A move was taken at the UN to provide a seat for Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge; they won by three votes.
In September 1974, Sar assembled a joint party central committee. As the military campaign moves towards a conclusion, Sar decides to move the party toward the application of the state socialist transformation in the form of a series of decisions, the first of which is to evacuate the main cities, mobilizing the population into the countryside. The second dictates that they will stop putting money into circulation and quickly end it. The final decision is that the party will receive the first major cleanup. In 1974, SÃÆ'Â ¢ r had cleared a top party official named Prasith. Prasith was taken to the forest and shot without being given a chance to defend himself. His death was followed by the cleansing of cadres who, like Prasith, were ethnic Thai. The explanation of SÃÆ' â € <â € <â € The Khmer Rouge was positioned for the final attack against the government in January 1975. At the same time, Sihanouk proudly announce at a press event on Beijing's "death list" of enemies who had to be killed after the victory. The list, which originally contained seven names, expanded to 23 names and included the names of all senior government leaders along with the names of all officials who were in a leadership position in the police and military. Competition between Vietnam and Cambodia is also out into the open. North Vietnam as a rival socialist state in Indochina is determined to take Saigon before the Khmer Rouge takes Phnom Penh. In April 1975, the government established the Supreme National Council with a new leadership, with the aim of negotiating a surrender to the Khmer Rouge. It was led by Sak Sutsakhan who had studied in France with Sar and the cousin of Khmer Rouge deputy minister, Nuon Chea. SÃÆ' Â ¢ r reacted to this by adding the names of everyone involved in the Supreme National Council to its post-winning death list. Government resistance finally collapsed on 17 April 1975.
Kampuchea Leader
The Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975. As the leader of the Communist Party, Sao became the de-facto leader of the country. He adopted the title of "number one brother" and uses Pol Pot's "de-voter". Philip Short offers an explanation for the origin of Pol Pot's name, stating that SÃÆ'Â ¢ r announced that he adopted the name in July 1970. The short suspect that it originated from pol i as "Pols is a royal slave, indigenous people "and that the" Pot "is just the" eufonik monosel "that he likes. However, the word Khmer pol is derived from Sanskrit bala ("army", "guard") and Khmer spelling is different from spelling Pol Pot's name. The name has no special meaning in Khmer.
Cambodia adopted a new constitution on January 5, 1976, formally renaming the country to Democratic Kampuchea. The newly formed Assembly held its first plenary session from 11 to 13 April, electing a new government with Pol Pot as prime minister. His predecessor, Khieu Samphan, became head of state as President of the Presidium of the State. Prince Sihanouk did not accept a role in government and was placed in custody. The Khmer Rouge government sees agriculture as the key to nation building and national defense. Pol Pot's goal for the country is to have 70-80% of agricultural mechanization completed within 5 to 10 years, to build a modern industrial base on agricultural mechanization within 15 to 20 years, and to become an independent country. He wanted to take the economy and make it the main source of goods for the nation, cut off foreign relations and radically reconstruct the community to maximize agricultural production. To avoid the dominance of foreign industry, Pol Pot refused to buy goods from other countries.
Immediately after the fall of Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge began applying their Year Zero concept and ordered a complete evacuation from Phnom Penh and all other major cities and towns recently captured. Those who went were told that the evacuation was due to the severe threat of American bombing and it would last no more than a few days. The Western media described the incident as a "death march", with American sources predicting that the Khmer Rouge's policy of forced evacuation would result in starvation and mass deaths of hundreds of thousands.
Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge have evacuated captured urban areas for years, but the evacuation of Phnom Penh is unique in its scale. Pol Pot states that "the ongoing first step [is] deliberately designed to annihilate the entire class". The first operation to evacuate urban areas occurred in 1968, in the Ratanakiri area and aimed to move people deeper into the Khmer Rouge area to control them more easily. From 1971-1973, motivation changed. Pol Pot and other senior leaders are frustrated because the urban Cambodians are maintaining the old capitalist traditions and business practices. When all other methods fail, the government adopts an evacuation policy to the countryside to solve the "problem".
In 1976, Pol Pot's rugs reclassified Kampucheans into three groups, namely as persons with full rights (base), as candidates and as depositee, so called because they included most of the new people who had been deposited from cities to communes.. Deposit marked for destruction. Their rations are reduced to two bowls of rice soup or p'baw per day, which causes widespread famine. The "new people" are suspected of being denied the election on 20 March 1976, despite the fact that the constitution establishes universal suffrage for all Cambodians over the age of 18.
The Khmer Rouge leaders boasted over state-controlled radio that only needed one or two million people to build a new agrarian socialist utopia. As for the others, as their saying goes: "To make you useless, to destroy you no loss".
Hundreds of thousands of new people and then deputies were brought out in the chains to dig their mass graves when the Khmer Rouge army bore them alive. An order of the Khmer Rouge dictatorship ordered: "Bullets can not be wasted". Such mass grave is often referred to as "The Killing Fields".
The Khmer Rouge also classifies people based on their religious and ethnic backgrounds. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge has a state atheism policy. All religions are forbidden, and the repression of Islam, Christianity and Buddhism is vast. Nearly 25,000 Buddhist monks were slaughtered by the regime. The regime dissolves minority groups, forbidding them to speak their language or practice their habits. They primarily target Muslim, Christian, Western-educated intellectuals, educated people in general, people who have contact with Western or Vietnamese countries, people with disabilities and ethnic Chinese, Laotian and Vietnamese. Some were imprisoned in the S-21 camp for interrogations involving torture in cases where the admission was useful to the government. Many are executed.
According to the book FranÃÆ'§ois Ponchaud's Cambodia: Zero Year : "Since 1972, the guerrilla fighters have sent all the villagers and towns they live into forests to live and often burn their homes, have nothing to return ". The Khmer Rouge systematically destroyed food sources that could not easily be controlled and controlled centrally, cut down fruit trees, forbade fishing, forbidding the planting or harvesting of mountain bumps, drugs and hospital that had been removed, people to line up long distances without access. watering, exporting food, and refusing the offer of humanitarian assistance. As a result, the humanitarian disaster was revealed: hundreds of thousands of people died from hunger and cruel government labor in the countryside. For the Khmer Rouge, outside assistance was at odds with the principle of their national independence. According to Solomon Bashi, the Khmer Rouge exported 150,000 tons of rice in 1976 alone. In addition to:
Heads of cooperatives often report better results to their superiors than they actually accomplish. The enclosure is then taxed on the reported rice produced. Rice is taken from the mouths of people and given to the Center to make up for the increased amount [...] 'There is a pile of rice as big as a house, but they pick it up with a truck. We raise chickens and ducks, vegetables, and fruit, but they take everything. You will be killed if you try to take something for yourself. '
According to Henri Locard, "the reputation of KR leaders for the Spartan austerity is rather excessive, and they own the entire property of all city dwellers who are expelled at their disposal completely, and they never suffer from malnutrition."
Property is billed, and education is distributed in public schools. Children are raised on communal grounds. Even food is prepared and eaten communally. Pol Pot's regime is very paranoid. Political dissent and opposition are not allowed. People are treated as opponents based on their appearance or background. The widespread torture, thousands of politicians and bureaucrats accused of linking with the previous government were executed. The rÃÆ'Ã… © gime transforms Phnom Penh into a ghost town, while the people in the countryside die of starvation or disease, or just killed.
Modern research has found 20,000 mass graves from the Khmer Rouge era throughout Cambodia. Various studies have estimated the death toll between 740,000 and 3,000,000 - most often arriving at a rate between 1.7 million and 2.2 million, with perhaps half of these deaths caused by execution, and the rest caused by hunger and disease. Demographic analysis by Patrick Heuveline shows that between 1.17 and 3.42 million Cambodians were killed. Demographer Marek Sliwinski concluded that at least 1.8 million were killed from 1975 to 1979 on the basis of total population decline. Researcher Craig Etcheson of the Documentation Center of Cambodia shows the death toll between 2 and 2.5 million, with the most "likely" 2.2 million. After five years of researching about 20,000 grave sites, he concluded that "these mass graves contain the remains of 1,386,734 execution victims". UN investigations report 2-3 million people dead while UNICEF estimates that 3 million have been killed. The Khmer Rouge itself claims that 2 million have been killed - even though they linked the death to the next Vietnam invasion. At the end of 1979, UN and Red Cross officials warned that another 2.25 million Cambodians could die of starvation due to the "near destruction of Cambodian society under the ousted Prime Minister Pol Pot's regime", largely rescued by international aid after the Vietnam Invasion. An additional 300,000 Cambodians died of starvation between 1979 and 1980, largely as a result of the effects of the Khmer Rouge policies.
Pol Pot aligned the country diplomatically with the People's Republic of China and adopted the anti-Soviet line. This alignment is more political and practical than ideological. Vietnam paralleled the Soviet Union, so Cambodia aligned itself with Asian rivals from the Soviet Union and Vietnam (China had supplied the Khmer Rouge with weapons for years before they took power).
In December 1976, Pol Pot issued a directive to the Khmer Rouge senior leadership stating that Vietnam is now the enemy. Defenses along the border were strengthened and unreliable people were moved further into Cambodia. Pol Pot's actions came in response to the fourth Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (14 to 20 December 1976), which approved a resolution depicting Vietnam's special relationship with Laos and Cambodia. It also talks about how Vietnam will forever be associated with the development and defense of the other two countries.
Unlike many communist leaders, Pol Pot has never been the object of a cult of personality. Even when he was in power, CPK retained the secrecy that has been safeguarded for years on the battlefield. For more than two years after taking power, the party simply calls itself as Angkar ("Organization"). Just after a speech on April 15, 1977, Pol Pot revealed the existence of CPK. At that time, international observers confirmed the identification of Pol Pot as Saloth SÃÆ' Â ¢ r.
Conflict with Vietnam
In May 1975, a team of Khmer Rouge army invaded and took the island of PhÃÆ'º Qu? C. In 1977, relations with Vietnam began to fall apart. There was a small border clash in January. Pol Pot is trying to prevent a border dispute by sending a team to Vietnam. Negotiations failed, which led to more border disputes. On April 30, Cambodian soldiers, backed by artillery, crossed into Vietnam. In an attempt to explain Pol Pot's behavior, a regional observer suggested that Cambodia try to intimidate Vietnam with irrational acts to honor or at least worried about Cambodia to the point that they would leave the country alone. However, these measures only served to expel the people of Vietnam and the government against the Khmer Rouge.
In May 1976, Vietnam sent the air force to Cambodia in a series of raids. In July, Vietnam forced a Friendship Treaty on Laos that gave Vietnam complete control of the country. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge commanders in the East Zone began to inform their people that the war with Vietnam was inevitable and that once the war began, their aim was to restore parts of Vietnam (Khmer Krom) which was once part of Cambodia the inhabitants, they suspect, are fighting for independence from Vietnam. Whether these statements are Pol Pot's official policy has never been confirmed.
In September 1977, Cambodia launched a large-scale offensive to the border, once again leaving traces of killings and destruction in the villages. The Vietnamese claim that about 1,000 people have been killed or injured. Three days after the attack, Pol Pot officially declared the existence of the previously secretive Kampuchea Communist Party (CPK) and finally announced to the world that it was a Communist country. In December, after spending all the other options, Vietnam sent 50,000 troops to Cambodia in the same amount as a brief attack. The attack was intended to be kept secret. The Vietnamese resigned after declaring that they had reached their destination and the invasion was just a warning. After being threatened, the Vietnamese army promised to return with support from the Soviet Union. Pol Pot's actions made the operation much more visible than the one intended by Vietnam and they created a situation where Vietnam seemed weak.
After making one last attempt to negotiate a settlement with Cambodia, Vietnam decides that they must prepare for full-scale war. Vietnam also tried to suppress Cambodia through China. However, China's refusal to suppress Cambodia and the flow of arms from China to Cambodia is a sign that China also intends to act against Vietnam.
When Cambodian socialists revolted in the eastern zone in May 1978, Pol Pot's troops could not destroy them quickly. On May 10, his radio broadcast calls not only to "wipe out 50 million Vietnamese" but also to "purify the masses of the people" of Cambodia. Of the 1.5 million easterners, branded as "Khmer body with Vietnamese minds", at least 100,000 were destroyed in six months. Later that year, in response to threats to its borders and Vietnamese people, Vietnam invaded Cambodia to overthrow the Khmer Rouge, which Vietnam justified on the grounds of self-defense.
The Cambodian army was defeated, the regime was overthrown and Pol Pot fled to the Thai border area. In January 1979, Vietnam installed a new government under the leadership of Khmer Rouge Heng Samrin, composed of the Khmer Rouge who fled to Vietnam to avoid purge. Pol Pot eventually rejoined his main supporters in the Thai border area where he received shelter and assistance. At different times during this period, he was on both sides of the border. The Thai military government uses the Khmer Rouge as a buffer force to keep Vietnam away from the border. The Thai military also made money from shipping weapons from China to the Khmer Rouge. Finally, Pol Pot rebuilds a small military force in the western part of the country with the help of the People's Republic of China. The China-Vietnam War started around this time.
The People's Republic of China is a major international supporter of the Khmer Rouge and its leader Pol Pot. China provided financial and military support to the party even after its overthrow in 1979. The UN also recognizes the Democratic Kampuchea Coalition Government, including the Khmer Rouge, not the People's Republic of Kampuchea.
Pol Pot lives in the area of ​​Phnom Malai, giving interviews in the early 1980s and accusing all those who oppose him as a traitor and "doll" of the Vietnamese until he disappears from public view. In 1985, his "retirement" was announced, but he retained his influence over the party. A cadre who was interviewed during this period described Pol Pot's view of the death toll under his rule:
He said that he knew that many people in the country hated him and thought he was responsible for the killing. He said that he knew many people died. When she said this, she was almost desperate and crying. He says he has to accept responsibility because the line is too far to the left, and because he does not track well what is going on. He says he's like a maid in a house that he does not know what the kids are up to, and that he's too trusting people. For example, he allows [one person] to take care of the business of the central committee for him, [others] to take care of intellectuals, and [third person] to organize political education. [...] These are the people he feels very close, and he trusts them completely. Then in the end [...] they make a mess of everything [...] They will tell him things that are not true, that everything is fine, that this person or that is a traitor. In the end they are true traitors. The main problem is the cadres formed by the Vietnamese.
In December 1985, Vietnam launched a major offensive and raided most of the Khmer Rouge and other rebel positions. The Khmer Rouge's headquarters in Phnom Malai and its base near Pailin were completely destroyed, although the Vietnamese invaders suffered heavy losses during the attack.
Pol Pot escaped to Thailand where he lived for the next six years. Its headquarters is a plantation villa near Trat.
Pol Pot officially resigned from the party in 1985 on the grounds of asthma as a supporting factor, but he continues to be the de facto leader of the Khmer Rouge and he also remains a dominant force in anti-Vietnam alliance. He hands over the daily powers to Son Sen, his chosen successor.
In 1986, his new wife Mea Son gave birth to a daughter, Sitha, (now Sar Patchata, married in 2014), named after the main character of the Khmer religious epic, Reamker. Shortly after, Pol Pot moved to China for medical treatment for cancer. He remained there until 1988.
In 1989, Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge established a new fortress in the west near the Thai border and Pol Pot relocated back to Cambodia from Thailand. Pol Pot refused to cooperate with the peace process, and he continues to struggle against the new coalition government. The Khmer Rouge retained government troops until 1996, when troops began to defect. Some important Khmer Rouge leaders also defected. The government followed a policy of reconciliation with individuals and groups of the Khmer Rouge, after negotiations with the organization as a whole failed. In 1995, Pol Pot suffered a stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body.
Pol Pot ordered the execution of his right hand Son Sen on June 10, 1997 for trying to make a deal with the government. Eleven members of his family were also killed, although Pol Pot later denied that he had ordered this. He then escaped from the northern fortress, but was subsequently captured by Khmer Rouge's military chief Ta Mok on June 19, 1997. Pol Pot has not been seen in public since 1980, two years after his overthrow at the hands of the invading Vietnamese army. He was sentenced to death in absentia by the Phnom Penh court shortly thereafter. In July, he was subjected to court performance over Son Sen's death and was sentenced to life in prison.
Death
On the night of April 15, 1998, two days before the 23rd anniversary of the Khmer Rouge takeover in Phnom Penh, Voice of America, in which Pol Pot was a loyal listener, announced that the Khmer Rouge had agreed to submit it to an international tribunal. According to his wife, he died in his bed that night while waiting to be moved to another location. Ta Mok claims that his death is due to heart failure.
Ta Mok then explains how he died: "He was sitting in his chair waiting for the car to come in. But he was tired, his wife asked him to rest He lay on his bed His wife heard gasp from the air It was a dying voice When he touched her, It was 10:15 tonight. "
Despite a government request to examine the corpse, they were cremated at Anlong Veng in the Khmer Rouge zone a few days later, raising suspicions that he had committed suicide by taking an overdose of prescribed medication. Journalist Nate Thayer, who was present, argued that Pol Pot committed suicide when he was aware of Ta Mok's plan to hand him over to the United States.
He asserted that "Pol Pot died of a lethal dose of a combination of Valium and chloroquine". Ta Mok's statement that "nobody poisoned" prompted speculation that this was exactly what had happened. However, unlike Thayer, Ta was absent on the death of Pol Pot and today it is widely accepted that Pol Pot committed suicide.
Political ideology
Pol Pot is influenced by Marxism and wants an entirely independent agrarian society free from all foreign influences. Stalin's work has been described as an "important formative influence" on Pol Pot's thinking. What is also very influential is the work of Mao Zedong, especially his book On New Democracy . In the mid-1960s, Pol Pot redefined his idea of ​​Marxism-Leninism to better fit the Cambodian situation.
In rejecting the revolutionary role of the proletariat, Pol Pot emphasized the idea of ​​a revolutionary alliance between the peasantry and the intellectuals, an idea related to his reading of Kropotkin while in Paris. He found the idea that peasants can still develop "proletarian consciousness" and that this approach connects it with orthodox Marxist thought. Philip Short thinks that "the pervasive Theravada Buddhism of perception" of Cambodian Marxist thought as Confucianism has influenced the development of Maoism in China.
Pol Pot is an extreme nativist and xenophobe who seeks to remove all ethnic and religious minorities from Kampuchea. In addition, indigenous religion is prohibited as part of efforts to eliminate the religion of the country.
Personal life and characteristics
Pol Pot is very power-hungry. He is introspective and very closed. Briefly stated that he was "happy in appearing to be what he did not - anonymous faces in the crowd". During his political career, he used various aliases: Pouk, Hay, Pol, 87, Grand-Uncle, First Brother, First Brother, and in later years 99 and Phem. He told a secretary that "the more you change your name the better, this confuses the enemy." Later he hid and faked many details of his life.
Pol Pot displays what Chandler calls "polite charisma", with many commentators commenting on his typical smile. As a child, his brother characterized him as a person who has a sweet and pleasant temperament while his schoolmates remember that Pol Pot has been mediocre, but fun. As a teacher, he is characterized by his students as being quiet, honest and persuasive, having a "clear nature and an engaging personality". According to Short, Pol Pot's varied and eclectic upbringing means that he "is able to communicate naturally with people of all kinds and conditions, building an instinctive relationship that always makes them want to like it".
Pol Pot has a nationalist attitude and shows little interest in events outside of Cambodia.
During his childhood, Pol Pot developed love for music and
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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