ආචාර්ය ශ්‍රීමාල් ප්‍රනාන්දු Dr.Srimal Fernando

Born on 19 May 1925 as Saloth Sar, Pol Pot was the Prime Minister of Cambodia from 1976 to 1978. While Pol Pot was in power, Cambodia was known as Democratic Kempuchea and underwent a series of experiments in order to become a socialist society. Pol Pot was born in the Kampung Thrum Province in Cambodia to a wealthy family. He was familiar with the royal family, since his sister was the concubine of a king.

An attempt by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot to form a Communist peasant farming society resulted in the deaths of 25 percent of the country’s population from starvation, overwork and executions.

Pol Pot was born in 1925 (as Saloth Sar) into a farming family in central Cambodia, which was then part of French Indochina. In 1949, at age 20, he traveled to Paris on a scholarship to study radio electronics but became absorbed in Marxism .Returned to Cambodia in 1953 and joined the underground Communist movement. The following year, Cambodia achieved full independence from France and was then ruled by a royal monarchy.

By 1962, Pol Pot had become leader of the Cambodian Communist Party and was forced to flee into the jungle to escape the wrath of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, leader of Cambodia. In the jungle, Pol Pot formed an armed resistance movement that became known as the Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodians) and waged a guerrilla war against Sihanouk’s government.

Saloth Sar  better known as Pol Pot,  was the leader of the Cambodian communist movement known as the Khmer Rouge and was Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976–1979. His time as the leader of Cambodia, in which he attempted to “cleanse” the country, resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.7 to 2.5 million people.

Pol Pot became leader of Cambodia in mid-1975 During his time in power, Pol Pot imposed a version of agrarian collectivization, forcing city dwellers to relocate to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labor projects, toward a goal of “restarting civilization” in a “Year Zero“. The combined effects of slave labor, malnutrition, poor medical care, and executions resulted in the deaths of approximately 21% of the Cambodian population

On December 25, 1978, Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion of Cambodia seeking to end Khmer Rouge border attacks. On January 7, 1979, Phnom Penh fell and Pol Pot was deposed. The Vietnamese then installed a puppet government consisting of Khmer Rouge defectors.

Pol Pot retreated into Thailand with the remnants of his Khmer Rouge army and began a guerrilla war against a succession of Cambodian governments lasting over the next 17 years. After a series of internal power struggles in the 1990s, he finally lost control of the Khmer Rouge. In April 1998, 73-year-old Pol Pot died of an apparent heart attack following his arrest, before he could be brought to trial by an international tribunal for the events of 1975-79.

Pol Pot died in 1998 while held under house arrest by the Ta Mok faction of the Khmer Rouge

“I did not join the resistance movement to kill people, to kill the nation. Look at me now. Am I a savage person? My conscience is clear”.
Pol Pot