Pol Pot
Leader of the Khmer Rouge, under whose rule about 1.5 to 2 million people died in Cambodia.
Life
Student in Paris
Pol Pot, born Saloth Sar to a farming family, went to study in Paris in 1949, where he encountered communism. After returning home he became a leader of the Communist Party of Kampuchea and led an armed struggle from the jungle.
Democratic Kampuchea
In 1975 the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh and established "Democratic Kampuchea," with him as Prime Minister. The government emptied the cities, drove the population into the countryside for forced labor, abolished money, schools and religion, and carried out mass executions of intellectuals, officials and ethnic minorities. By 1979 about 1.5 to 2 million people had died from execution, starvation, forced labor and disease.
Massacre
In 1979 Vietnamese troops entered Phnom Penh; he retreated to the mountains along the Thai-Cambodian border. In 1997 he was placed under house arrest by his own comrades, and he died in 1998.
Legacy
The Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot caused one of the most horrific humanitarian disasters of the 20th century; in 2018 Cambodia's special tribunal found Khmer Rouge leaders guilty of genocide.
Did you know? The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh was originally the Khmer Rouge's S-21 prison.
Key dates
- 1949Went to study in Paris
- 1963Became leader of the Cambodian Communist Party
- 1975Captured Phnom Penh, established Democratic Kampuchea
- 1979Overthrown
- 1997Placed under house arrest
- 1998Died