Pol Pot

Former Cambodian Communist Leader

1925 - 1998

Born: Saloth Sar, May 19, 1925 in Kompong Thom Province, Cambodia

Education: Lived in Buddhist monastery for six years; Studied carpentry for

one year at a technical school in Phnom Penh; Studied radio electronics in

Paris (1949).

Military Service: Assumed leadership role in guerrilla warfare.

Occupation: Military and political leader.

Early Years: Taught at private school in Phnom Penh (1954-1963).

Political Career: Joined anti-French resistance under Ho Chi Minh (1940s);

Joined Cambodian Communist Party (1946); While a student in Paris, engaged in

revolutionary activities (1949-53); Fled from Phnom Penh because police

suspected his Communist activities (1963); Built up Cambodian Communist

Party, served as party secretary (1963- 1975); Led Khmer Rouge guerrilla

forces in overthrow of Lon Nol regime (1975); Prime minister of new Khmer

Rouge government (1976-1979); Headed Khmer Rouge forces in mountains of

southwestern Cambodia against Hanoi-backed government (1975-1985); Alleged

removed from military and political leadership of Khmer Rouge (1985).

Pol Pot

1925 - 1998

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Pol Pot, whose name became synonymous with the Khmer Rouge guerrillas and

genocide, was born into a peasant family in Cambodia. He spent six years of

his youth in a Buddhist monastery, including two years as a Buddhist monk. He

studied carpentry at a technical school in the nation's capital and joined

the anti-French resistance organized by Ho Chi Minh. He entered the Cambodian

Communist Party in 1946. In 1949 Pol studied radio electronics in Paris,

France, on a scholarship. He spent more time on his clandestine Communist

activities than studying radio, and failed his examinations and returned to

Cambodia in 1953.

Pol Pot taught at a private school from 1954 to 1963 but had to flee the

capital when the police discovered his Communist activities. From that time

on, he devolved himself to building up the Cambodian Communist Party and

serving as its secretary. In 1975 he led the Khmer Rouge in its overthrow of

the government of Norodom Sihanouk and the military government of Lon Nol.

Between 1975 and 1979 Pol Pot was prime minister of the infamous "killing

fields" Communist government . His radical Maoist version of Communism

centered on a return to a utopian agricultural society and rejection of

modern urban life. The populations of Cambodia's cities were forced to

evacuate the cities, move to the countryside and engage in agricultural

labor. In the forced mass exodus, the government caused the deaths of an

estimated 2 million Cambodians through imprisonment, torture, overwork,

starvation and execution. Finally in 1979, a border dispute led to a

Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia which overthrew Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge

government and installed a regime friendly to the Vietnamese.

Pol Pot fled to southwestern Cambodia where he led a Khmer Rouge insurgency

against the Vietnamese-backed central government. China and Thailand in the

1980s supported a three-party guerrilla alliance that included the Khmer

Rouge and royalists against the Vietnamese-supported government of Premier

Hun Sen. The government would not negotiate with the Khmer Rouge as long as

Pol Pot remained its leader.

In 1985, Pol Pot was allegedly removed from military and political leadership

of the Khmer Rouge, but he stayed in the Khmer Rouge in an ill-defined

defense position. In 1991 the Khmer Rouge signed a peace treaty officially

ending the Cambodian war. In 1992 Prince Sihanouk denounced the Khmer Rouge

and allied with Hun Sen, upsetting the balance of power. The Khmer Rouge

withdrew from the peace process, resumed fighting, and in 1993 boycotted a

national election. Royalists won the election, a new constitution

reestablished the monarchy, and Norodom Sihanouk again became king.

In the mid-1990s, the Khmer Rouge suffered reverses due to internal

factionalism and government military offensives against them. The Khmer Rouge

split apart in 1996 and its moderate faction based in the north defected to

the government. Hard-liners under Pol Pot stayed in their mountain jungle

stronghold.

Pol Pot died on April 15, 1998 in Bangkok, Thailand, evading prosecution for

the deaths of as many as 2 million of his countrymen.

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Yale University is cataloging millions of documents and photographs as

evidence of one of the Twentieth Century's worst atrocities, the murder of at

least 1 million Cambodians during the 1975-79 rule of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge

government. Yale's Cambodian Genocide Program, sponsored by the United States

and Australian governments, will establish data bases on the Internet to help

families identify missing loved ones and help officials and scholars research

the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime.

In Hartford, Connecticut, there is a therapy group that operates specifically

for survivors of the Khmer Rouge.

Cambodian journalist Dith Pran, who now works as a news photographer for the

New York Times, barely survived the mass killings by the Pol Pot regime and

was the central character in the 1984 Warner Brothers movie "The Killing

Fields."

Dr. Haing S. Ngor, the Cambodian actor best known for his Oscar-winning

portrayal of Dith Pran in "The Killing Fields," was gunned down outside his

home near the Chinatown section of Los Angeles in February 1996. It may have

been a political slaying. Ngor's wallet and money were not taken.