Brief Biography of Pol Pot

Personal Background

1- Original Name: Saloth Sar. Revolutionary Names and Aliases: Pol Pot, Pol, Comrade Pol, Comrade Secretary, Angkar, Hai, 870, Brother Number One, Brother 87 or 870 Committee. Nickname: Comrade Pouk.
2- Place of Birth: Prek Sbauv Village, Sangkat Number 4, Stung Sen District, Kampong Thom Province, Region 43, Northern Zone.
3- Age: Born in the year of Ox, month of Boss-January 25, 1925.
4- Personal Characteristics: Making jokes about serious statements. Suffered from frequent illnesses, including dysentery and malaria.

Pre-1975 Activities

- 1948: Enrolled in technical school to study carpentry at Russei Keo, Phnom Penh.
- 1949: Received a scholarship to the Ecole Francaise de Radioelectricite in France. Failed to meet the school’s requirements and returned home on January 14, 1953.
- Mid 1950s: Teacher at Kampuchbotr High School (a CPR cell), Phnom Penh.
- August 1953: Joined United Issarakn Front based in the Eastern Zone.
- 1954: Arrested and detained for 4 months. Served as a secretary of Kampong Cham Provincial Town of Kampong Cham.
- 1960: Held a third position in the Workers’ Party
- 1962: Lecturer at a Party School (next to Preah Sang Hospital), Phnom Penh, and secretary of the CPK.
- 1963: Fled into the jungle in the Northeastern Zone.
- 1964: Lecturer on Communism at Chamreun Vichea high school.
- 1966: Shifted the line and changed the date of the CPK’s founding to 1960.
- 1967: Promoted up to Office 102, where he suffered serious and frequent malaria.
- 1968: Party Secretary of the Northeastern Zone.
- 1970: Went to Beijing and returned to the Northeastern Zone (elected by members of the Kampuchean Workers’ Party).
- 1968-1970: CPK’s Northern Zone Secretary. Leader of Internal Guerilla Movement under his name (Saloth Sar).
- 1973: So Phim requested Men Chhay to be appointed as Acting Party secretary in the Eastern Zone, but this was rejected by Pol Pot.

Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979)

- The Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. As the leader of the Communist Party, Saloth Sar was the designate leader of the new regime. He took the name "brother number one" and declared his name “ Pol Pot”
- The new constitution was adapted on January 5, 1976, effectively abolishing the monarchy and placing princes Sihanouk under detention.
- The newly-established Representative Assembly held its first plenary meeting on April 11-13,1975 electing a new government with Pol Pot as its leader. His predecessor, Khieu Samphan was instead given the new post as president of the State Presidium, thus the effective head of state.
- The new administration was inaugurated at May 13, 1975 with Pol Pot as prime minister.
- In December 1976, Pol Pot issued directives to the senior leadership to the effect that Vietnam was now an enemy. Defenses along the border were strengthened and unreliable deportees were moved deeper into Cambodia. Pol Pot's actions were in response to the Vietnamese Communist Party's fourth Congress which approved a resolution describing Vietnam's special relationship with Laos and Cambodia. It also talked of how Vietnam would forever be associated with the building and defense of the other two countries.
- In September 1977, Cambodia launched division scale raids over the border which once again left a trail of murder and destruction in villages. Three days after the raid, Pol Pot officially announced the existence of the formerly secret Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and finally announced to the world that the country was a Communist state.
- In late 1978, in response to threats to its borders and the Vietnamese people, Vietnam attacked Cambodia to overthrow the Khmer Rouge, which Vietnam could justify on the basis of self-defense.
- The Cambodian army was defeated, the regime was toppled and Pol Pot fled to the ThailandThai border area. In January 1979, Vietnam installed a new government under Heng Samrin, composed of Khmer Rouge who had fled to Vietnam to avoid the purges.

Aftermath (1979-1998)

- Mid-1980s Pol Pot fled to Thailand where he lived for the next six years. His headquarter was a plantation villa near Trat. He was guarded by Thai Special Unit 838.
- 1985 Pol Pot officially resigned from the party.
- In 1986, his new wife Mea Son gave birth to a daughter, Sitha. Shortly after, Pol Pot moved to China for medical treatment for cancer of the face. He remained there until 1988.
- In 1989, Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge established a new stronghold area in the west near the Thai border and Pol Pot relocated back into Cambodia from Thailand. The Khmer Rouge kept the government forces at bay until 1996, when troops started deserting. Several important Khmer Rouge leaders also defected. The government had a policy of making peace with Khmer Rouge individuals and groups after negotiations with the organization as a whole failed. In 1995 Pol Pot experienced a stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body.
- Pol Pot ordered the execution of his life-long right-hand man Son Sen on June 10, 1997 for attempting to make a settlement with the government. Eleven members of his family were killed also, although Pol Pot later denied that he had ordered this. He then fled his northern stronghold, but was later arrested by Khmer Rouge military Chief Ta Mok. In November he was subjected to a show trial for the death of Son Sen and sentenced to lifelong house arrest.

Death

On the night of 15 April, 1998 the Voice of America, of which Pol Pot was a devoted listener, announced that the Khmer Rouge had agreed to turn him over to an international tribunal. According to his wife, he died in his bed later in the night while waiting to be moved to another location. Ta Mok claimed that his death was due to heart failur.Despite government requests to inspect the body, it was cremated a few days later at Anlong Veng in the Khmer Rouge zone, raising strong suspicions that he committed suicide or was poisoned.

CAMBODIA History

The Funan Kingdom, believed to have started around the first century BC, is the first known kingdom of Cambodia. The kingdom was strongly influenced by Indian culture by shaping the culture, art and political system.An alphabetical system, religions and architectural styles were also Indian contributions to the Funan Kingdom. There is archeological evidence of a commercial society in the Mekong Delta that prospered from the 1st to 6th centuries.Returning from abroad, a Khmer prince declared himself the ruler of a new kingdom during the 9th century. Known as Jayavarman II, he started a cult that honored Shiva, a Hindu god, as a devaraja (god-king) which then linked the king to Shiva.He also began the great achievements in architecture and sculpture while his successors built an immense irrigation system around Angkor.. His successors (26 from the early 9th to the early 15th century), built a tremendous number of temples - of which there are over a thousand sites and stone inscriptions (on temple walls). By the 12th century, Cambodia had spread into other areas, now known as Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Malaysia (the peninsula). There is actually still evidence of Khmer inhabitance in Thailand and Laos to this day. The 13th and 14th centuries were not as successful for Cambodia, some believe it was due to the increased power of (and wars with) Thai kingdoms that had at one time paid homage to Angkor. Others believe it was due to the induction of Theravada Buddhism, which was totally contrary to the Cambodian societal structure at that time. After this time historical records are rather sketchy at best regarding Cambodia and it is considered the "Dark Ages" of Cambodian history.
Cambodia was ravaged by Vietnamese and Thai invasions and wars up until the 19th century, when new dynasties in these countries fought over control of Cambodia. The war, that began in the 1830's almost destroyed Cambodia. King Norodom signed a treaty that enabled the French to be a protectorate, thus effectively stopping the Viet-Thai war within. For the next 90 years, France in essence ruled over Cambodia.Although officially they were just advisors, it was known that the French had final say on all topics of interest. Although the French built roadways and made other improvements regarding trade and transportation, they sadly neglected the Cambodian educational system, which is still not effective to this day.
In 1953, Cambodia managed to gain their independence in spite of World War II and the First Indochina War. Their independence was obtained through the political savvy of King Sihanouk. Wanting to be released from the pressures of the monarchy, Sihanouk abdicated the throne and became a full time politician. He started a political faction called the People's Socialist Community (Sangkum Reastr Niyum) which then won by a landslide in the 1955 national elections. In part the success was due to his popularity, but also from police brutality at the polling stations.
In 1960, when his father died he was named head of state (up until then he'd been the prime minister). Although he had remained neutral in a struggle between the US and USSR regarding tensions in Vietnam, he changed his position in 1965 and eliminated diplomatic relations with the US.At the same time he allowed the Communist Vietnamese access to Cambodian soil to set up bases. With the Cambodian economy becoming unstable, Sihanouk decided to renew his relations with the US, who were secretly planning on bombing Cambodian areas suspected of housing Vietnamese Communists.While Sihanouk was abroad in 1970, he was ousted from power and fled to China. General Lon Nol, the prime minister, had hoped for US aid, but the US was occupied with Vietnamese troubles and didn't help. In the meantime, since his army was ill-equipped, they couldn't stop an invasion by the South Vietnamese, searching for North Vietnamese.

To add to Lon Nol's problems, Sihanouk had been persuaded to set up a government while in exile, called the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge became a thorn in Lon Nol's side along with the Vietnamese until the Khmer regime collapsed. Another contributing factor to the collapse was the repeated US bombing of the Cambodian countryside. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge was able to take over Phnom Penh and shortly thereafter, the North Vietnamese were occupying South Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge felt antipathy toward Cambodians living in urban areas and forced them to the countryside where they were forced to work in various forms of agriculture. Leading the Khmer Rouge was a man by the name of Saloth Sar, better known as Pol Pot. The government, Democratic Kampochea (DK), was run in part by rural Cambodians who were illiterate, but had fought along with the Khmer Rouge in the war.The derision and ill-treatment felt towards the former city dwellers was slightly better than the treatment of anyone intellectual, religious, and those who were believed to be against the regime - their punishment was death. During Pol Pot's (Khmer Rouge's) regime over twenty percent of Cambodia's population was murdered.The Khmer Rouge's plan to attack Vietnam and other areas backfired when the Vietnamese surprised Cambodia with an attack of over 100,000 troops. They were accompanied by Cambodian Communist rebels and managed to invade Phnom Penh, which had been vacated by the Khmer Rouge the day before. The Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot among them, fled to the Thai-Cambodian border, where they were given asylum by the Thai government, which was unfriendly to Vietnam.The Vietnamese established a regime in Cambodia that included many members of the Khmer Rouge as well as Cambodians who had fled to Vietnam before 1975. Not to be swayed, the Khmer Rouge and it's followers created a government that was hostile to Vietnam while in exile, also known as DK.

The UN upheld this government in exile, with the support given to it by the US, China and Thailand. With more ensuing conflicts between the two governments, many of Cambodia's finest along with the general population, totaling over half a million people, resettled in other countries.
By the end of 1989, the Cold War had ended which had the Vietnamese exiting Cambodia. Without financial support from the Soviets, the Vietnamese couldn't keep their troops in the country.This withdrawal made things difficult for Cambodians, especially the prime minister, Hun Sen. The Khmer Rouge had not disappeared, but had made their presence known and were threatening military action. Since Cambodia was without much needed foreign aid, they discarded socialism and tried to get investors interested in the country.Another major change was in the country's name, it was changed to the State of Cambodia (SOC), while the KPRP (who currently ruled Cambodia) changed their name to the Cambodian People's Party. An attempt to have a free-market economy just increased the gap between the rich and the poor with many government officials becoming millionaires.In 1991, the UN, Cambodia, and other interested parties came to an agreement to end the Cambodian conflict. A United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTAC) and a Supreme National Council (SNC) were formed and were comprised of members from different factions within Cambodia. The agreement in Paris and the UN protectorate started competitive politics in Cambodia, something they hadn't seen for about 40 years.
In May 1993, UNTAC sponsored an election for the national assembly, which ended up ousting the military regime. The Cambodians wanted a royalist party, FUNCINPEC, but Hun Sen, who won the second largest number of seats, refused to give up his power. Fortunately a compromise was reached and a government was formed with two prime ministers, FUNCINPEC had the first prime minister, Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Hun Sen became the second prime minister.A name change for the country was in order, so in 1993 Cambodia became known as the Kingdom of Cambodia and Sihanouk became the king once again after ratifying a new constitution which re-established the monarchy. After these changes were made, the UN no longer accepted the DK as the ruling party, thus causing them (the DK) to lose their seat and power in the UN.The tentative compromise between the FUNCINPEC and the CPP fell apart in 1997 when Prince Ranariddh was overseas. Hun Sen took advantage of the Prince's absence and organized a violent takeover to replace him. He replaced Prince Ranariddh with another member of the FUNCINPEC, but this time with one who was more easily manipulated and compliant. In spite of this takeover, the elections of 1998 were carried out, but not without foreign observations.Although it was stated the voting was fair, the CPP hassled it's opposition and following the elections many were put in jail while a few others were killed. Once again, the results were not accepted, but this time it was Prince Ranariddh who opposed it. Yet again another compromise was reached with Hun Sen as the only prime minister and with Prince Ranariddh as the president of the national assembly.Things are stabilizing in Cambodia, but not without the help and support of foreign aid. With the outside world's interest waning, it's help is steadily decreasing, hich is discouraging any hopes for economic advancement and democracy.