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| |  | | Saloth Sar | | | context : | Cambodia  | | judgement place : | Cambodia | | status : | Sentenced | | particulars : | Sentenced in absentia to the death penalty in 1979 by a People’s revolutionary tribunal ; died in 1998 | | position : | Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976 to 1979 ; General Secretary of the Khmer Rouge |
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| | | | Saloth Sar, aka Pol Pot, was born on 19 May 1925 in Prek Sbauv, in the Cambodian province of Kampong Thom. His parents are prosperous Sino-Khmer farmers with ties to the royal authorities of Cambodia. After attending a catholic high-school in Phnom Penh, Saloth Sar wins a government scholarship to study radio electronics in France where he will stay from 1949 to 1953.
In France, he joins the French communist party and discovers Marxism.
After having his scholarship revoked in 1953 he returns to Cambodia where he becomes a French teacher in Phnom Penh.
When the monarchy is restored in 1954 after the withdrawal of the French from the country, Saloth Sar enters the opposition to the new government and joins the communist party. In 1962 he is chosen as General Secretary of the party. The following year he leaves Phnom Penh to go underground and starts training the first Khmer Rouge with the help and support of China.
In 1970, a civil war breaks out in Cambodia after the coup of Lon Nol. King Norodom Sihanouk and his supporters then join up with the Khmer Rouge. Together they oppose the new government. In the face of the incompetence and corruption of the latter, the popularity of the Khmer Rouge rises and they come out of the underground to wage an open war against it.
On 17 April 1975, the Khmer Rouges capture Phnom Penh. Saloth Sar then takes the name of “Brother number One” or of Pol Pot, nickname that was given to him by the Chinese authorities and which stands for “Politique potentielle”. 1975 is declared Year Zero by the Khmer Rouge.
Soon after taking power, the Khmer Rouge subject the country to dictatorship by setting up a totalitarian regime whose first action is the elimination of all the people with ties to the former government. The new government also marches the cities’ inhabitants to the countryside to work in the fields to feed the population. The regime particularly targets the population of the cities and intellectuals.
In 1976, Cambodia becomes Democratic Kampuchea and Pol Pot is appointed Prime Minister. The following year, after surviving three assassination attempts, he launches repeated purges within his own party. He also spreads anti-personnel mines all along the border. Furthermore, he makes a list of three types of individuals to suppress:
- all the Vietnamese living in Cambodia
- all the Vietnamese-speaking Khmers
- Khmers with ties or interests with the Vietnamese.
People with education or any kind of religious belonging are also targeted.
It is alleged that Pol Pot ordered five purges throughout the country: two in 1976, two in 1977 and one in 1978. A total of over 1.5 million people are estimated to have died under the Khmer Rouge regime either of execution, torture, or due to an overload of forced labor, untreated diseases or of hunger.
In 1979, as the Khmer Rouge are overthrown, Pol Pot disappears. He is charged in absentia by a People’s revolutionary tribunal.
In 1985, Pol Pot officially resigns as commander of the Khmer Rouge military forces, although he retains a de facto supervisory role. In 1993, as King Sihanouk is in power, Pol Pot opposes the government. Three years later, the remaining of the Khmer Rouge group splits and some of them defect to the government.
In June 1997 Pol Pot orders the execution of Song Sen, former friend and defence minister, because he suspects him of working with the government. Song Sen’s wife and children are also executed. As a result, Pol Pot is arrested for treason and tried by a People’s tribunal who sentences him to house arrest for life.
Pol Pot dies on 15 April 1998, at the age of 73. He had just learned that Ta Mok, former “Brother number Five” who had defected for the new government, had agreed to turn him over to the Cambodian government. | |     click for more... | | Trial Watch would like to remind its users that any person charged by national or international authorities is presumed innocent until proven guilty. | |  |  | | nationality : | | | Cambodia | | | date of birth : | | | 19.05.1925 | | | also known as : | | | Pol Pot, Brother Number One, Code 87, Bang Pol, Lamoth | | | period of charges : | | | 17.04.1975 - 07.01.1979 | | | judgement period : | | | 15.08.1979 - 19.08.1979 | | | charges : | | | Genocide | | | profile last modified : | | | 22.11.2007 |
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