Pol Pot

Pol Pot (Saloth Sar) was an infamous war criminal and the leader of the Cambodian communist movement called the Khmer Rouge. He was also the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea from 1975-1979. Pol Pot’s totalitarian regime brought severe hardships on Cambodia, killing at least 1.5- 3 million people. This is at least one-fifth of the Cambodian population. Pol Pot brought a reign of horror with devastating effects to the people of Cambodia as a ruthless dictator for 4 years. The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot had made a significant effect on history, by attempting to create an agrarian communist utopia. Pol Pot however was unsuccessful in reaching a revolution of radical egalitarianism with an aftermath that had affected a whole nation and its people.

After the invasion of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh on April 17 1975, Pol Pot declared “Year Zero” a program to "purify" Cambodian society of capitalism. This meant forcing people to evacuate villages, cities and towns to the countryside. Pol Pot believed in the Maoist idea, where peasants were the true working class. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were willing and were able to destroy symbols of modernisation and destroy consumer goods. Not only did he erase these symbols, he also wanted to destroy the people associated with them. Pol Pot targeted well educated citizens, including lawyers, doctors or anyone from the middle and upper classes. He also targeted former members of the government, Buddhist monks, Muslims and ethnic Chinese, Laotians and Vietnamese. The massive changes within Cambodia and the specific targeting of large sections of the population led to the Cambodian Genocide.
An example of Pol Pot’s negative impacts is seen through sending innocent people to concentration camps in the country side, where they were brutally tortured, suffered starvation and some were instantly killed. The people of Cambodia lived in brutal conditions, where families were separated and Buddhist monks were not allowed to practise their religion and forced into labour brigades. According to historian Philip Short, Cambodia became “the first modern slave state”. These actions are why Pol Pot is considered to be a ruthless killer. Pol Pot in his aim to create his utopia, at any cost would order the people of Cambodia through guerrilla violence, to move to the country side and become slaves.

Pol Pot systematically destroyed food sources that could not be easily subjected to centralised storage and control. The Khmer Rouge cut down fruit trees, forbade fishing and outlawed the planting or harvest of mountain leap rice. Due to Pol Pot’s decision, food sources were scarce and many victims had suffered from malnutrition or had suffered from starvation. According to Solomon Bashi, the Khmer Rouge exported 150,000 tons of rice in 1976. This traumatised victims of the Khmer Rouge, as starvation to some extent had made a massive impact than the murders they witnessed. Solomon Bashi quotes, “even today, victims talk about how each meal they eat evokes a visceral memory of the hunger they endured 30 years ago.” This highlights the decision of destroying food sources had made a devastating effect and traumatised the victims of Pol Pot’s regime.

After Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime took Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975 and forcefully evacuated people out of the capital, it was essentially a ghost city. After the Vietnam War and the Khmer Rouge had been destroyed, the victims of the Khmer Rouge were allowed to move back into Phnom Penh. The city was left in a shambles, most of it was largely intact but it was looted and thoroughly neglected. The Khmer Rouge fled the city on December 1978-January 1979, leaving behind their horrors such as the S-21 facility used to keep prisoners who were tortured for useful information for the Khmer Rouge.
Henri Locard’s article highlights how Phnom Penh was treated while Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had occupied the city. “The city had been neglected. The Khmer Rouge had virtually destroyed the great city, leaving nothing behind for the people to come back to”. The quote proves that the victims had no home to go back to after the fall of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Phnom Penh was a home to many of the victims, in which they had to rebuild the city from ruins.

The infamous “Killing Fields” also made a negative impact. Pol Pot stated that only 1-2 million people were needed to create the new agrarian communist utopia. The “useless” victims according to Pol Pot were neither a benefit to keep them or a loss to kill them. The victims were taken to large farm fields, where they had to dig their own mass graves. They were then buried alive, as the Khmer Rouge was ordered that “Bullets are not to be wasted”. The mass graves are referred to as the Killing Fields. According to Alexander Hinton, “the “Killing Fields” was a place where the people who weren’t of any use were killed”. This proves that the men, women and children who weren’t of any use to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were forced to dig their own grave.

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime had an effect on history. His idea of an agrarian utopia to obliterate the symbols of modernisation and the people associated with it, bought a reign of terror to Cambodia. This idea had placed Cambodia in many years of madness and oppression and had setback the country for many years. Pol Pot and his radical regime had made Cambodia, a once gentle and carefree land into a concentration camp of the mind, a slave state in which absolute obedience was enforced through violence on innocent people of Cambodia.