Pol Pot refused to accept responsibility for these mutated and horrific conditions. He blamed hidden enemies who were burrowing from within. He lived in a make belief world with imaginary enemies. His vision of a prosperous Cambodia was lost to his fickle ideals, which were basically violent in nature. His paranoia prompted him to take all the wrong decisions. In 1977, he made an official visit to China, which resulted in Pol Pot’s dreams being heightened to fanatism. He declared if every Cambodian could kill 30 Vietnamese, the Khmer Rouge could emerge victorious. He also asked China for assistance. But better sense prevailed in China and Pol Pot was left alone to fend for Cambodia. Trained as guerillas, the Khmer Rouge lost to the tactics and artilleries of the Vietnamese in 1979.
His personal life was also on the rocks. He lost his wife Khieu Ponnary to insanity in 1979. Left all alone and cornered by the enemy, he flew to the Thai-Cambodian border. He started his resistance program all over again. To strengthen his strategy, he conducted seminars throughout the 1980s for the Khmer Rouge military leaders. He educated them about the loopholes in the Vietnamese backed puppet government of Cambodia. The boost in morale and updated technical knowledge kept his guerillas in the fortified encampments in the jungle for 18 years. To extend his receding lifeline, he made brief sojourns to Bangkok and Beijing for medical treatment. The struggle for power continued with tacit support from China and Thailand, working out strategies to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen in Cambodia.
These years of penance were speckled with some happiness for Pol Pot, as he remarried and had a daughter of whom he used to talk of, very fondly. During these times, the multifaceted personality of Pol Pot was revealed to his Khmer Rouge forces. His disciples saw him as a smooth-faced teacher who was very idealistic. All the tales of cruelty during his regime seemed to be well -woven fiction. His distancing from reality reflects on him as an insane master. But to those who held him in awe, he was hero who was blamed for the mistakes of his ‘enemies’. His sincerity, his low melodious voice and genteel charisma mesmerized his audience. One of his students from school teaching days recollects him to be a very soft-spoken teacher. He believes that the atrocities caused due to inequalities in society inflicted by the Americans must have kindled the fires of violence in teacher’s heart.
With so many opposing views about the same person, he comes across as a psychopath who was not sure of his aim in life. He switched loyalties without batting an eyelid. Even in the 1980s, he willfully took help from Thailand, which was a US ally. His fight that started against the Americans with Vietnamese assistance next trained his guns at his own fellow brothers. The Americans then continued extending diplomatic support to this maniac. They avoided taking him to task, of pinning him as the person behind the genocide for over a decade, as their secret agenda would be exposed.
If the Khmer Rouge did not disintegrate completely after this debacle, it was largely because it was backed by powerful support. The most crucial role was played by the United States government, which saw Pol Pot as a useful Cold War ally, since he was at war with Vietnam, which was the Soviet Union's ally. With US backing, China supplied the Khmer Rouge with military equipment and the military right wing regime in Thailand, a US client state allowed free flow of supplies to Pol Pot’s guerillas in their base camps.
Equally important was the diplomatic support from the US and imperialist powers which recognized the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government of Cambodia and backed the seating of Pol Pot’s representative as the Cambodian delegate to the United Nations for more than a decade. Throughout the 1980s the Reagan administration blocked international efforts to characterize the events of 1975-78 in Cambodia as genocide. With Pol Pot under camouflage, world politics continued using him as the mask till things went overboard. In 1985, he lost his position as the military and political leader of the Khmer Rouge. But he stayed put in an ill-defined and unclear position.
These eight years of war had undermined the infrastructure of Cambodia. So, when the Khmer Rouge took over after declaring the state as Democratic Kampuchea, the people heaved a sigh of relief. They perceived these silent, heavily armed young men as fellow Khmer who could lead a revolutionary society. Their optimism was tragically misplaced as Pol Pot ordered for immediate severing of relations with all neighboring countries. He banned foreign and minority languages and attacked Thailand, Laos and Vietnam who shared a common border with Cambodia.
The shortsightedness of the rulers that claimed to restore the purity of the Khmer race eliminated the foreign educated people. Soon their atrocities multiplied to engulf the non-Cambodians, Vietnamese and people of other religion. The Khmer Rouge evacuated the urban populace by force to shift to the rural areas and become workers in agricultural communes. Money, markets, schools, newspapers, religious practices and private property were razed to the ground. Pol Pot himself being an atheist suppressed Cambodia’s Buddhist religion, monks were beheaded, temples, artifacts and Buddha’s statues were destroyed. The people who displayed their religious sentiments were killed. This oppression disillusioned the subjects. To add to the woes, Pol Pot hastily drafted a four-year plan that sought to triple the country’s agricultural production within a year, without fertilizers, modern tools or material incentives. This plan was designed without any consideration of the Cambodian geography or common sense. The farmlands, which had been rendered barren due to bomb craters, made it impossible for the frightened farmers to produce the allotted amount of grain. The fear of reprisal clubbed with overwork, absence of medical attention and poor lifestyle led to the death of thousands of Cambodians.
The people had lost hope but the revolution derived its energy from the empowerment of the rural poor. The recent victory against the Vietnamese led Pol Pot to believe that he was invincible. He thought that his efforts to make Cambodia a rural success would be swifter and authentic than what Vietnam could carry out. This egoistic war got a boost from the Chinese patrons who shared a common enemy – Vietnam. This crazy and headstrong dictator inspired thousands of youngsters to dismantle the Cambodian society whose foundation had been meticulously laid over the centuries. This wanton destruction inflicted on the Cambodian structure will take generations to recover, because women who continue the genre have also been affected severely.
Spouses were separated from families so that personal distractions were at the lowest ebb and state loyalty could take front seat. Hordes of women were flocked together and forced to marry men whom they didn’t even know. It is believed that there were thousands of such weddings of which no records were maintained. The couples who were forced to live together did not share much in common, so internal conflicts were on the rise which left every Cambodian high and dry.
The streets were littered with bodies, the politics in utter chaos and even the haven of the secure house was shattered by family squabbles. Patience was scarce, because it was each one for himself. Everyone had to fend for his survival, thus disintegrating the whole structure of society. Family ties that laid the foundation of social fabric were severed. The atmosphere within the four walls was no more conducive to living. The men folk were busy fighting tooth and nail to provide the family with the bare minimum of life and the women were struggling to keep the children alive by feeding them with the frugal food that the men brought home. Tension hung heavy in the air, so pleasantries were hardly exchanged at home. The uncertainties ran so high that no one could be sure if he or she would return home to rest in the bed that they left in the morning. It was a bleak chance that people were able to make these marriages work. A lucky few managed to manipulate the odds to marry the one they loved. But unfortunately such marriages were held only on blue moon day.
The worst affected were the children, who saw their parents queued up for divorce. The divorced were burdened with the upbringing of these children, which they failed. These children had to bear the trauma of losing their parents as most of them perished through executions, torture, enslavement, starvation and other brutal policies.
These orphaned or children with single parent were adopted by institutions that found homes for these children. The dismal experience of these children crops up frequently in biographical or autobiographical text. Countless children were born out of such wedlock's. The children born out of resultant sexual experiments are today not only in Cambodia, but they are scattered as far as the United States. Most of these ‘set-up’ families ended in divorce, as the partners had nothing in common. The alliance was decided on the basis of the Khmer Rouge’s fancies.
Superficial rules like ‘men who raped women would be punished with death’ did exist. But the puritanical way was fake, because women in prisons were raped. The belief that set the rulers free from guilt was, ‘these women are going to die anyway.’ Such contradictory principles confused the people at large. These women were raped and the babies were 'smashed' against trees and mercilessly killed. Survivors recollect the days of Pol Pot’s regime with horror. Four years of continuous labor for 16 hours a day in farm camps, sleeping under the open sky, living through starvation, re-education programs and relentless humiliations kept piling on the minds and bodies of the people. Every child, adult, elderly or clergy groups that were suspected of seeking education were executed. The turmoil of unpredictability and the death of near and dear ones brought people on the edge of breakdown.
Pol Pot refused to accept responsibility for these mutated and horrific conditions. He blamed hidden enemies who were burrowing from within. He lived in a make belief world with imaginary enemies. His vision of a prosperous Cambodia was lost to his fickle ideals, which were basically violent in nature. His paranoia prompted him to take all the wrong decisions. In 1977, he made an official visit to China, which resulted in Pol Pot’s dreams being heightened to fanatism. He declared if every Cambodian could kill 30 Vietnamese, the Khmer Rouge could emerge victorious. He also asked China for assistance. But better sense prevailed in China and Pol Pot was left alone to fend for Cambodia. Trained as guerillas, the Khmer Rouge lost to the tactics and artilleries of the Vietnamese in 1979.
His personal life was also on the rocks. He lost his wife Khieu Ponnary to insanity in 1979. Left all alone and cornered by the enemy, he flew to the Thai-Cambodian border. He started his resistance program all over again. To strengthen his strategy, he conducted seminars throughout the 1980s for the Khmer Rouge military leaders. He educated them about the loopholes in the Vietnamese backed puppet government of Cambodia. The boost in morale and updated technical knowledge kept his guerillas in the fortified encampments in the jungle for 18 years. To extend his receding lifeline, he made brief sojourns to Bangkok and Beijing for medical treatment. The struggle for power continued with tacit support from China and Thailand, working out strategies to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen in Cambodia.
These years of penance were speckled with some happiness for Pol Pot, as he remarried and had a daughter of whom he used to talk of, very fondly. During these times, the multifaceted personality of Pol Pot was revealed to his Khmer Rouge forces. His disciples saw him as a smooth-faced teacher who was very idealistic. All the tales of cruelty during his regime seemed to be well -woven fiction. His distancing from reality reflects on him as an insane master. But to those who held him in awe, he was hero who was blamed for the mistakes of his ‘enemies’. His sincerity, his low melodious voice and genteel charisma mesmerized his audience. One of his students from school teaching days recollects him to be a very soft-spoken teacher. He believes that the atrocities caused due to inequalities in society inflicted by the Americans must have kindled the fires of violence in teacher’s heart.
With so many opposing views about the same person, he comes across as a psychopath who was not sure of his aim in life. He switched loyalties without batting an eyelid. Even in the 1980s, he willfully took help from Thailand, which was a US ally. His fight that started against the Americans with Vietnamese assistance next trained his guns at his own fellow brothers. The Americans then continued extending diplomatic support to this maniac. They avoided taking him to task, of pinning him as the person behind the genocide for over a decade, as their secret agenda would be exposed.
If the Khmer Rouge did not disintegrate completely after this debacle, it was largely because it was backed by powerful support. The most crucial role was played by the United States government, which saw Pol Pot as a useful Cold War ally, since he was at war with Vietnam, which was the Soviet Union's ally. With US backing, China supplied the Khmer Rouge with military equipment and the military right wing regime in Thailand, a US client state allowed free flow of supplies to Pol Pot’s guerillas in their base camps.
Equally important was the diplomatic support from the US and imperialist powers which recognized the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government of Cambodia and backed the seating of Pol Pot’s representative as the Cambodian delegate to the United Nations for more than a decade. Throughout the 1980s the Reagan administration blocked international efforts to characterize the events of 1975-78 in Cambodia as genocide. With Pol Pot under camouflage, world politics continued using him as the mask till things went overboard. In 1985, he lost his position as the military and political leader of the Khmer Rouge. But he stayed put in an ill-defined and unclear position.
In 1991, the banished Khmer Rouge signed a peace treaty that brought the Cambodian war to an end. The very next year, deposed King Sihanouk, who had been supporting the guerillas against Hun Sen withdrew support, thus toppling the fine balance of power. The Khmer Rouge soon went back on their word to maintain a low profile.
They resumed fighting and boycotted the elections in 1993. In these elections, the royalists emerged victorious with Sihanouk as King. This led to differences and due to internal factional politics, the Khmer Rouge finally split in 1996.
The moderates among them defected with the government led by Ieng Sary, Pol Pot’s brother-in-law. The hardliners stayed in the mountainous jungle where they held a stronghold. From here, Pol Pot conspired to kill Ieng Sary and his family. This ultimate irrational step led to a revolt among his followers, who kept him under permanent house arrest.
On April 15, Pol Pot died peacefully in his bed, in a two-bedroom hut deep in the Dangrek Mountains. He was 73, and died of a stroke. He had complained of dizziness and soon death embraced him.
Pol Pot’s death cheated many victims and survivors, who were eager to see him brought to justice. Just when proceedings to nab the murderers were through, he gave them a slip. His dream of Year Zero was still a cause for which he fought and died. The affected Cambodians regret that they could not bring him to book and punish him for the genocide, which was entirely his doing; was the work of a savage.
"My conscience is clear. I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people,” he is quoted as saying. He died leaving all the sufferers dumbstruck, ruing their fate, and cursing his luck. Pol Pot sleeps easily, not haunted by the legions of skulls littering his country’s killing fields. In death, the architect of Cambodia's killing fields eluded justice
For most of us, zebras are animals with black stripes but the truth is that the animals are black, with white stripes. Similarly, Pol Pot was convinced that he was working towards a prosperous Cambodia. But his farce turned into a nightmare for those who bore the brunt of his atrocities. His whimsical escapades made him one of the most aggressive murderers in the world.
His vision of Cambodia now known as Kampuchea was based on utopian agrarian society that had been influenced by Maoist Communism. To achieve his dream he massacred all those who stood in his path. He disintegrated the urban society, forcing the Cambodian city populace to
evacuate their homes and move to rural areas. His method of bridging the economic gap in Cambodia by enforcing a Marxist regime was indeed ruthless.
During his four-year regime, the Cambodians led a nightmarish life of forced exodus, torture, imprisonment, overwork, starvation and execution. Whatever his intentions, the truth is that his name is synonymous with the Khmer Rouge guerillas and genocide. This sadist established a name for himself as the ideological villain who committed mass murder with a limitless capacity for human slaughter. He carried on subversive activities for 10 years against the Vietnam government, smuggled gems and timber from Thailand supporting the cause of the guerillas. Cambodia’s endangered wildlife was also bartered to China in return for arms.
Soon internal conflicts and distrust led to the execution of his defense minister and his family. This earned him the wrath of the Khmer Rouge forces. He was soon overthrown and kept under house arrest.
Just when the international community was getting optimistic about putting him on trial for genocide, he cheated them by embracing death. The only eulogy offered was by Ta Mok, a confidant, who had stood by Pol Pot throughout his misdemeanors. He called the deceased Prime Minister ‘cow dung’.
This comment seems to be the fitting answer for Pol Pot’s audacity. He always said, "Everything I did, I did for my country." Till the end he believed that his conscience was clear and that he wasn’t a savage, "Let history decide," was his challenge.
May 19, 1925
Saloth Sar was born at Prek Sbauv, Kompong Thom province, Cambodia.
1934
Saloth Sar (Pol Pot) joined his brother Loth Suong at the royal monastery.
1935-1941
He learnt the ways of the world under strict Catholic discipline.
1949
Pol Pot studied radio electronics in Paris. He became active in anti-French resistance under Ho-Chi Minh.
1953
Saloth Sar taught history and geography at a private school in Phnom Penh, for nine years.
1954
Fled Cambodia when Prince Norodom Sihanouk came to power.
1956
He married Khien Ponnary, who studied with him in France and was the first Khmer woman to receive a French Bachelor’s degree.
1962
His active role in journalism and politics earned him the rank of Deputy General Secretary in the underground Cambodian Communist Party. Pol Pot fled Phnom Penh and trained in guerilla warfare, because the country was taken over by King Sihanouk.
1975
His efforts during the years of exile paid off as he returned to Cambodia as the Prime Minister and unleashed a reign of terror that left a trail of death. Almost two million Cambodians were killed.
1979
Vietnam invaded Cambodia and he went into hiding.
1997
He was placed under house arrest by his own forces for having ordered the execution of his defense minister and his family.
1998
Pol Pot died a natural death in the jungles of Dangrek Mountains.
