Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Pol Pot & His Comrades
Pol Pot: Brother Number One
Pol Pot is a name that sends shivers down the spines of Cambodians and foreigners alike. It
is Pol Pot who is most associated with the bloody madness of the regime he led between
1975 and 1979, and his policies heaped misery, suffering and death on millions of Cambod-
ians.
Pol Pot was born Saloth Sar in a small village near Kompong Thom in 1925. As a young
man he won a scholarship to study in Paris, where he came into contact with the Cercle
Marxiste and communist thought, which he later transformed into politics of extreme Mao-
ism.
In 1963, Sihanouk's repressive policies sent Saloth Sar and his comrades fleeing to the
jungles of Ratanakiri. It was from this moment that Saloth Sar began to call himself Pol
Pot. Once the Khmer Rouge was allied with Sihanouk, following his overthrow by Lon Nol
in 1970 and subsequent exile in Beijing, its support soared and the faces of the leadership
became familiar. However, Pol Pot remained a shadowy figure, leaving public duties to
Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary.
When the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975, few people could
have anticipated the hell that was to follow. Pol Pot and his clique were the architects of
one of the most radical and brutal revolutions in the history of mankind. It was Year Zero
and Cambodia was on a self-destructive course to sever all ties with the past.
After being ousted by the Vietnamese, Pol Pot was not to emerge as the public face of
the revolution until the end of 1976, after he returned from a trip to see his mentors in
Beijing. He granted almost no interviews to foreign media and was seen only on propa-
ganda movies produced by government TV. Such was his aura and reputation that, by the
last year of the regime, a cult of personality was developing around him.
Pol Pot spent much of the 1980s living in Thailand and was able to rebuild his shattered
forces and once again threaten Cambodia. His enigma increased as the international media
speculated on his real fate. His demise was reported so often that when he finally passed
away on 15 April 1998, many Cambodians refused to believe it until they had seen his
body on TV or in newspapers. Even then, many were sceptical and rumours continue to cir-
culate about exactly how he met his end. Officially, he was said to have died from a heart
