Pol Pot. Maniac, hero of Kampuchea or scapegoat? A Brief But Instructive History of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge

“You talk about me like I’m some kind of Pol Pot,” the heroine of Lyudmila Gurchenko said offendedly in one popular Russian comedy. “Pol Potism”, “Pol Pot regime” - these expressions firmly entered the vocabulary of Soviet international journalists in the second half 1970s. However, this name thundered throughout the world in those years. In just under 4 years of his reign, more than 3,370,000 people were exterminated in Cambodia.

Common noun

In just a few years, the leader of the Khmer Rouge movement became one of the bloodiest dictators in human history, earning the title of “Asian Hitler.”

Little is known about the childhood of the Cambodian dictator, primarily because Pol Pot himself tried not to make this information public. Even about the date of his birth there is different information. According to one version, he was born on May 19, 1925 in the village of Prexbauw, into a peasant family. The eighth child of the peasant Pek Salot and his wife Sok Nem was given the name Salot Sar at birth.

Although Pol Pot’s family was a peasant family, it was not poor. Cousin The future dictator served at the royal court and was even a concubine of the crown prince. Pol Pot's elder brother served at the royal court, and his sister danced in the royal ballet.

Salot Sara himself, at the age of nine, was sent to live with relatives in Phnom Penh. After several months spent in a Buddhist monastery as an altar boy, the boy entered a Catholic school. primary school, after which he continued his studies at Norodom Sihanouk College, and then at the Phnom Penh Technical School.

The Marxists by royal grant

In 1949, Salot Sar received a government scholarship for higher education in France and went to Paris, where he began to study radio electronics.

The post-war period was marked by a rapid growth in the popularity of left-wing parties and national liberation movements. In Paris, Cambodian students created a Marxist circle, of which Saloth Sar became a member.

In 1952, Saloth Sar, under the pseudonym Khmer Daom, published his first political article, “Monarchy or Democracy?” in a Cambodian student magazine in France. At the same time, the student joined the French Communist Party.

His passion for politics pushed his studies into the background, and in the same year Salot Sara was expelled from the university, after which he returned to his homeland.

In Cambodia, he settled with his older brother, began to look for connections with representatives of the Communist Party of Indochina and soon attracted the attention of one of its coordinators in Cambodia, Pham Van Ba. Salot Sara was recruited to party work.

"The Politics of the Possible"

Pham Van Ba ​​quite clearly described his new ally: “a young man of average abilities, but with ambitions and a thirst for power.” Salot Sara's ambitions and lust for power turned out to be much greater than his fellow fighters expected.

Salot Sar took a new pseudonym - Pol Pot, which is short for the French "politique potentielle" - "politics of the possible." Under this pseudonym he was destined to go down in world history.

In 1953, Cambodia gained independence from France. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who was very popular and oriented toward China, became the ruler of the kingdom. In the war that followed in Vietnam, Cambodia formally adhered to neutrality, but units of North Vietnam and South Vietnamese partisans quite actively used the territory of the kingdom to locate their bases and warehouses. The Cambodian authorities preferred to turn a blind eye to this.

During this period, Cambodian communists operated quite freely in the country, and by 1963 Saloth Sar had risen from novice to party general secretary.

By that time, a serious split had emerged in the communist movement in Asia, associated with a sharp deterioration in relations between the USSR and China. The Cambodian Communist Party relied on Beijing, focusing on the policies of Comrade Mao Zedong.

Leader of the Khmer Rouge

Prince Norodom Sihanouk saw the growing influence of the Cambodian communists as a threat to his own power and began to change policy, reorienting from China to the United States.

In 1967, a peasant uprising broke out in the Cambodian province of Battambang, which was brutally suppressed by government troops and mobilized citizens.

After this, the Cambodian communists launched a guerrilla war against the Sihanouk government. The detachments of the so-called “Khmer Rouge” were formed for the most part from illiterate and illiterate young peasants, whom Pol Pot made his main support.

Very quickly, Pol Pot’s ideology began to move away not only from Marxism-Leninism, but even from Maoism. Coming from a peasant family himself, the leader of the Khmer Rouge formulated much more for his illiterate supporters. a simple program- way to happy life lies through the rejection of modern Western values, through the destruction of cities that are carriers of a pernicious infection, and the “re-education of their inhabitants.”

Even Pol Pot’s comrades had no idea where such a program would lead their leader...

In 1970, the Americans contributed to strengthening the position of the Khmer Rouge. Considering that Prince Sihanouk, who had reoriented towards the United States, was not a reliable enough ally in the fight against the Vietnamese communists, Washington organized a coup, as a result of which Prime Minister Lon Nol came to power with strong pro-American views.

Lon Nol demanded that North Vietnam cease all military activities in Cambodia, threatening to use force otherwise. The North Vietnamese responded by striking first, so much so that they almost occupied Phnom Penh. To save his protege, US President Richard Nixon sent American units to Cambodia. The Lon Nol regime ultimately survived, but an unprecedented wave of anti-Americanism arose in the country, and the ranks of the Khmer Rouge began to grow by leaps and bounds.

Victory of the partisan army

The civil war in Cambodia flared up with renewed vigor. The Lon Nol regime was not popular and was supported only by American bayonets, Prince Sihanouk was deprived of real power and was in exile, and Pol Pot continued to gain strength.

By 1973, when the United States, having decided to end the Vietnam War, refused to further provide military support to the Lon Nol regime, the Khmer Rouge already controlled most of the country. Pol Pot already managed without his comrades in the Communist Party, which was relegated to the background. It was much easier for him not with educated experts in Marxism, but with illiterate fighters who believed only in Pol Pot and the Kalashnikov assault rifle.

In January 1975, the Khmer Rouge launched a decisive offensive against Phnom Penh. The troops loyal to Lon Nol could not withstand the blow of the 70,000-strong partisan army. In early April, American Marines began evacuating US citizens from the country, as well as high-ranking representatives of the pro-American regime. On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh.

"The city is the abode of vice"

Cambodia was renamed Kampuchea, but this was the most harmless of Pol Pot's reforms. “The city is an abode of vice; You can change people, but not cities. Working hard to uproot the jungle and grow rice, a person will finally understand the true meaning of life,” this was the main thesis of the Khmer Rouge leader who came to power.

The city of Phnom Penh, with a population of two and a half million people, was decided to be evicted to within three days. All its inhabitants, young and old, were sent to become peasants. No complaints about health conditions, lack of skills, etc. were accepted. Following Phnom Penh, other cities in Kampuchea suffered the same fate.

Only about 20 thousand people remained in the capital - the military, the administrative apparatus, as well as representatives of the punitive authorities who took up the task of identifying and eliminating the dissatisfied.

It was supposed to re-educate not only the inhabitants of the cities, but also those peasants who had been under the rule of Lon Nol for too long. It was decided to simply get rid of those who served the previous regime in the army and other government agencies.

Pol Pot launched a policy of isolating the country, and Moscow, Washington, and even Beijing, which was Pol Pot’s closest ally, had a very vague idea of ​​what was actually happening in it. They simply refused to believe the information leaking out about hundreds of thousands of people who were executed, who died during relocation from cities and from backbreaking forced labor.

At the pinnacle of power

During this period, an extremely complicated political situation developed in Southeast Asia. The United States, having ended the Vietnam War, set a course for improving relations with China, taking advantage of the extremely strained relations between Beijing and Moscow. China, which supported the communists of North and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, began to treat them extremely hostilely, because they were oriented toward Moscow. Pol Pot, who was focused on China, took up arms against Vietnam, despite the fact that until recently the Khmer Rouge viewed the Vietnamese as allies in a common struggle.

Pol Pot, abandoning internationalism, relied on nationalism, which was widespread among the Cambodian peasantry. Brutal persecution of ethnic minorities, especially the Vietnamese, resulted in armed conflict with a neighboring country.

In 1977, the Khmer Rouge began to penetrate into neighboring areas of Vietnam, carrying out bloody reprisals against local population. In April 1978, the Khmer Rouge occupied the Vietnamese village of Batyuk, destroying all its inhabitants, young and old. The massacre killed 3,000 people.

Pol Pot went wild. Feeling the support of Beijing behind him, he not only threatened to defeat Vietnam, but also threatened the entire “Warsaw Pact,” that is, the Warsaw Pact Organization led by the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, his policy forced former comrades and previously loyal military units to rebel, considering what was happening to be unjustified bloody madness. The riots were suppressed ruthlessly, the rebels were executed in the most brutal ways, but their numbers continued to grow.

Three million victims in less than four years

In December 1978, Vietnam decided it had enough. Units of the Vietnamese army invaded Kampuchea with the aim of overthrowing the Pol Pot regime. The offensive developed rapidly, and already on January 7, 1979, Phnom Penh fell. Power was transferred to the United Front for the National Salvation of Kampuchea, created in December 1978.

China tried to save its ally by invading Vietnam in February 1979. The fierce but short war ended in March with a tactical victory for Vietnam - the Chinese failed to return Pol Pot to power.

The Khmer Rouge, having suffered a serious defeat, retreated to the west of the country, to the Kampuchean-Thai border. They were saved from complete defeat by the support of China, Thailand and the United States. Each of these countries pursued its own interests - the Americans, for example, tried to prevent the strengthening of pro-Soviet Vietnam's position in the region, for the sake of this they preferred to turn a blind eye to the results of the activities of the Pol Pot regime.

And the results were truly impressive. In 3 years, 8 months and 20 days, the Khmer Rouge plunged the country into a medieval state. The protocol of the Commission for the Investigation of Crimes of the Pol Pot regime dated July 25, 1983 stated that between 1975 and 1978, 2,746,105 people died, of which 1,927,061 were peasants, 305,417 workers, employees and representatives of other professions, 48,359 representatives national minorities, 25,168 monks, about 100 writers and journalists, as well as several foreigners. Another 568,663 people were missing and either died in the jungle or were buried in mass graves. The total number of victims is estimated at 3,374,768.

In July 1979, the People's Revolutionary Tribunal was organized in Phnom Penh, which tried the leaders of the Khmer Rouge in absentia. On August 19, 1979, the tribunal found Pol Pot and his closest associate Ieng Sary guilty of genocide and sentenced them in absentia to death penalty with confiscation of all property.

The Leader's Last Secrets

For Pol Pot himself, this verdict, however, meant nothing. He continued his guerrilla war against the new government of Kampuchea, hiding in the jungle. Little was known about the leader of the Khmer Rouge, and many believed that the man whose name had become a household name had long since died.

When processes of national reconciliation began in Kampuchea-Cambodia aimed at ending the long-term civil war, a new generation of Khmer Rouge leaders tried to relegate their odious “guru” to the background. There was a split in the movement, and Pol Pot, trying to maintain leadership, again decided to use terror to suppress disloyal elements.

In July 1997, on the orders of Pol Pot, his long-time comrade, former minister Defense of Kampuchea Son Sen. Along with him, 13 members of his family were killed, including young children.

However, this time Pol Pot overestimated his influence. His comrades declared him a traitor and held his own trial, sentencing him to life imprisonment.

The Khmer Rouge's trial of its own leader sparked a final surge of interest in Pol Pot. In 1998, prominent leaders of the movement agreed to lay down their arms and surrender to the new Cambodian authorities.

But Pol Pot was not among them. He died on April 15, 1998. Representatives of the Khmer Rouge stated that former leader heart failed. There is, however, a version that he was poisoned.

The Cambodian authorities sought from the Khmer Rouge to hand over the body in order to make sure that Pol Pot was really dead and to establish all the circumstances of his death, but the corpse was hastily cremated.

The leader of the Khmer Rouge took his last secrets with him...

Childhood and youth

Village of Prexbauw. Birthplace of Pol Pot

Pol Pot's biography is still covered with blank spots, since he himself hid the details of his life. It is known that Salot Sar was born, as is commonly believed, in 1925 in the village of Prexbauw (English) Russian in the Khmer peasant family of Pek Salota and Sok Nem and was the eighth of nine children. His cousin Meak occupied the status of khun preab me neang(literally "lady in charge of women") and was a concubine of Crown Prince Sisowath Monivong (English) Russian , from whom she gave birth to a son, Kossarak; one of Salot Sara's older brothers, Lot Suong, worked as a servant in the palace, and their sister Salot Royong danced in the royal ballet and also became a concubine of King Monivong.

At the age of nine he was sent to Phnom Penh to live with relatives. After moving, he spent several months as a servant at the Buddhist monastery Wat Botum Vaddey, where he studied the Khmer language and the basics of Buddhism. In 1937, Sar entered the Catholic primary school École Miche, where he received the basics of a classical education. After graduating in 1942, Sar continued his studies at Norodom Sihanouk College in Kampong Cham. Sar's attempt in 1948 to continue his education at the prestigious Sisowath Lyceum ended in failure; he failed to pass the exams and was forced to continue his studies at the Technical School in Phnom Penh. In 1949, Salot Sar received a government scholarship to pursue higher education in France. It was expected that he would continue his studies at a vocational school in Limoges or Toulon.

Years of study in France

Arriving in France, Sar went to Paris, where he began studying radio electronics. Reflecting on his first year as a student at the University of Paris, Sar later noted that he worked hard and was a good student. In the summer of 1950, together with other students, Sar went to work in Yugoslavia, where he worked in Zagreb for about a month. At the end of the same year he arrived in Paris old friend Sarah - Ieng Sari. Ieng Sary introduced Saloth Sara to Keng Vannsak, a patriotic nationalist with whom he had studied at the Sisowath Lyceum. It was in the apartment of Keng Vannsak that the Marxist circle began to work, the initiators of the creation of which were Ieng Sari and Rat Samoyon. Among the works discussed within the circle are Marx's Capital.

The nickname "Pol Pot" is an abbreviation of the French "politique potentielle" - "politics of the possible." Salot Sar began to resort to the pseudonym “Pol” back in the 1950s; he began using the pseudonym “Pol Pot” in 1976.

Guerrilla warfare

Head of State

Relocation of people from cities to villages

The population of Phnom Penh came out to greet the “liberators” who overthrew the Lonnol regime, but no one suspected that the new government would begin to “cleanse” the cities. Almost immediately after the capture of the capital, all residents of the 2.5 million population of Phnom Penh were evicted from the capital within 72 hours. The issue of evicting people from the city to the countryside was raised back in the summer of 1971 at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Communists, but was not approved then. However, in February 1975, a few months before the capture of the capital, at a closed meeting of the second national congress of the NEFK, a plan to evict people from Phnom Penh was approved, and it did not meet with any opposition from the Khmer Rouge leadership, with the exception of protests from Hu Yong. When discussing this event, Salot Sar appealed to the fact that

According to him, “the existence of cities creates inequality between residents.” It was “explained” to the population that “the city is an abode of vice; You can change people, but not cities. Working hard to clear out the jungle and grow rice, a person will finally understand the true meaning of life. He needs to remember that he came from a rice seed. All Kampucheans must become peasants.". Among the people there were those who tried to explain the actions of the Khmer Rouge by the fact that throughout history the Khmers changed their capital four times, and “Due to extraordinary circumstances, Pol Pot only followed historical traditions”. According to another version, which J. Hildenbrand and G. Porter refer to in their works, the campaign was carried out without any killings or repressions, and people, on the contrary, were saved from possible epidemics and famine.

In fact, hundreds of thousands of people, including the elderly, the disabled and pregnant women, were forced to walk long distances in the hottest tropical season. Tens of thousands were shot on the road. Many died from loss of strength, sunburn and hunger. The rest, having arrived at their destination, died a slow death. Sometimes, in the crush and confusion, family members lost each other. According to a survey conducted in 1979, out of one group of 100 evacuated capital families, only 41% survived. Along with thousands of Phnom Penh residents, Salot Sara’s relatives, who had known nothing about him since the early 1960s, also left the capital. His elder brother Salot Chhay, like many other exiles, died on the way, and another brother Lot Suong and his wife Chea Sami reached their home province of Kompong Thom, where they began to engage in peasant farming. Their The only son, nephew of Salot Sara, Pan Thuol died of hunger and abuse in Battambang. Of the 3 million population of Phnom Penh, only 20 thousand people remained in the city, mostly soldiers, officers, and administrative staff. On April 18, the population left Riyom, April 24 - Poipet, April 26-28, Pailin, etc. . At the same time, there was a resettlement of rural residents from the eastern part of the country to the western and residents of the western zone to the eastern. On April 23, Salot Sar secretly entered the deserted capital and located his first headquarters near railway station, surrounding it around the perimeter with a double ring of defense.

Democratic Kampuchea: Creating a New Society

On April 25-27, 1975, the Extraordinary National Congress was held in Phnom Penh, at which it was announced that the new authorities intended to build “a national community of harmony, which will be based on equality and democracy, the absence of exploiters and the exploited, rich and poor, where everyone will work”. Having come to power, the Pol Pot government set three tasks that required immediate solutions:

1. Stop the policy of ruining the peasantry - the basis of Kampuchean society, end corruption and usury;
2. Eliminate the eternal dependence of Kampuchea on foreign countries;
3. To restore order in a country that is sinking deeper into anarchy, for which, first of all, it is necessary to establish a tough political regime.

The entire population of the country, by decision of the people's power, was divided into three main categories. The first - the “main people” - included residents of the regions. Second part - " new people"or "people on April 17th." These are residents of cities and villages located for a long time in territory temporarily occupied by the Americans or under the control of the puppet forces of Lon Nol. This part of the population had to undergo serious re-education. The third part is the intelligentsia, the reactionary clergy, persons who served in the state apparatus of previous regimes, officers and sergeants of Lonnol's army, revisionists who were trained in Hanoi. This category of the population had to be subjected to large-scale cleansing.

The situation of ethnic minorities. Religion

Cambodia is home to more than 20 ethnic groups, the largest of which are the Khmers. The peoples of Cambodia actively participated in the civil war and contributed to the victory over the London government. According to Kerman, ethnic minorities "made up more than 15% of the [pre-revolutionary] Cambodian population." It is noteworthy that many of Pol Pot's bodyguards came from ethnic groups. As Taing Kim Myung noted, Pol Pot's bodyguards were “Coming from minorities. When they spoke in Khmer, I couldn't understand a word.". For example, in 1967-1975. Pol Pot's bodyguard - Phi Phuon was an ethnic Jarayan, there is also a report of bodyguards coming from the Tapuon tribe (English) Russian . However, during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, the country's ethnic minorities were subjected to mass extermination. The Angki directive to provincial authorities stated:

The Kampuchean revolution is one whole. The Kampuchean nation is one whole. The only language is Khmer. From now on, any nationalities no longer exist in Kampuchea... Therefore, residents must replace their names with names characteristic of the Khmer race. Languages, ethnic characteristics, clothing, habits and religion former nationalities must be decisively eradicated. Persons who disobey the order will bear all full responsibility for that .

It is characteristic that the Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea, adopted in 1976, said nothing about any ethnic groups. Pol Pot's magazine, published in Beijing, stated that “the people of Democratic Kampuchea consist of Khmers (99% of the population) and numerous national minorities living together as one big family, united in the defense and construction of the country" .

Cambodian chams (chams), 2007.

The Lao and the Kula people settled in the Pailin area were massacred (English) Russian (Burmese) and others. If the Thai minority inhabiting the southwestern province of Koh Kong numbered about 20 thousand people at the beginning of 1975, then after January 7, 1979, only 8 thousand Thais remained alive. The Vietnamese were especially persecuted, especially since Kampuchea launched a “border war” with neighboring Vietnam. Thousands of Vietnamese were killed and many expelled. According to the testimony of the Australian scientist and journalist Wilfred Burchett, who spent a long time in Vietnam, “in total, from April 17, 1975 to October 20, 1978, almost 270 thousand Vietnamese crossed from Kampuchea to Vietnam, most of whom were exhausted people suffering from dystrophy”. Sliwinski talks about the disappearance of 37.5% of the Vietnamese and 38.4% of the Chinese. Muslims (in particular Chams and Malays), some of whom had collaborated with the Lon Nol regime, were subjected to severe persecution. Beginning in October 1975, all Chams were evicted from their places of residence in remote areas, and the names of settlements of Cham origin were changed to Khmer. Later, the Chams were settled only surrounded by Khmers at the rate of one Cham family for every 19 Khmers. They were categorically forbidden to speak their native language, forced to abandon their customs and follow their culture. Moreover, the Chams were forbidden to meet with each other and enter into marriages in their community, and their children were sent to be raised in Khmer families. B. Kiernan believes that half of the Chams died; Slivinsky gives a figure of 40.6%.

Religion did not stand aside either. The Constitution of Kampuchea stated: “Reactionary religions harmful to Democratic Kampuchea and the Kampuchean people are strictly prohibited.” The main religion, Buddhism, as well as Islam, practiced by the Chams and Malays, and Christian communities were persecuted. On April 18, 1975, the supreme leader of the Mahannikai Buddhist sect was assassinated at Prang Pagoda. (English) Russian Huot Tat. One of the Angka representatives convinced the peasants:

After torture, the head of the Muslims, Imam Hari Roslos, and his assistants, Haji Suleiman and Haji Mat Suleiman, were brutally killed. All 114 mosques in Cambodia were destroyed and plundered by Polpotavs, a number of which were blown up with dynamite, bulldozed or turned into pigsties. Koran and others holy books were burned. The Cham were forced to raise pigs as punishment, and those who tried to object were shot. According to Sliwinski's calculations, the number of Catholics in Cambodia (English) Russian decreased by 48.6%.

Anti-government protests. Opposition

Already from the first months of the Khmer Rouge coming to power, they were faced with protests, which gradually began to acquire a wide and widespread character. In September 1975, the people of Siem Reap province rebelled. In November, the Chams rebelled in the village of Trea. The village was razed to the ground, and the remaining Chams were executed by smashing their heads with a hoe.

In February 1977, 600 soldiers of the 170th Division, responsible for the defense of Phnom Penh, rebelled, which was suppressed. Division commander Cha Krai was shot, and three other leaders were burned alive in the capital's stadium. In April, an uprising broke out in Chikreng, Siem Ream province, lasting a week, but it was also brutally suppressed. Representatives of the ruling government also began to take part in the speeches. So, in 1978, in one of the country’s military districts, the uprising was led by the first deputy chairman of the State Presidium, Sor Phim.

Conflict with Vietnam. Overthrow

On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh. At the same time, North Vietnamese troops defeated the South Vietnamese in a large-scale offensive and occupied Saigon on April 30, reuniting the two parts of the country and thus ending the many years of the Vietnam War. After the victory of the Vietnamese communists, China's policy towards its southern neighbor began to change. Almost immediately, armed clashes that began between Kampuchea and Vietnam were considered among American officials in the context of the Soviet-Chinese split. Advisor to the US President Zbigniew Brzezinski on January 8, 1978 called this conflict a “simulated war” (“proxy war”) between the USSR and China. In addition, China was considered a foreign policy ally of Kampuchea, while Vietnam was a pro-Soviet oriented state. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam Phan Hnen, in an interview with the Asahi newspaper, named China as the culprit for the beginning of the Kampuchean-Vietnamese conflict. Thanks to Beijing's assistance, Pol Pot's army increased from 50 thousand people in 1975 to 70 thousand in 1977.

On May 1, the Khmer Rouge invaded Vietnamese territory in various areas between the cities of Ha Tien (English) Russian and Tay Ninh (English) Russian . On May 4 they landed troops on the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc, and on May 10 they occupied the island of Thau Tau (English) Russian . During his visit to Vietnam in June of the same year, Pol Pot at the negotiations explained the landing of Kampuchean troops on Phu Quoc by the commanders' ignorance of the border line.

In addition to the foreign policy aspect, the extreme nationalism of the Khmer Rouge, especially manifested in relation to both the Vietnamese community of the country, contributed to the increase in tension in Cambodian-Vietnamese relations (English) Russian , and to neighboring Vietnam. Moreover, by adopting nationalist rhetoric, the country's leadership tried to solve internal problems, blaming Vietnam and the Vietnamese for everything. Pol Pot even said that Vietnam is “our enemy number one, our traditional enemy and he must be defeated at any cost”. Going further, Pol Pot in his public speeches appealed to the glorious historical past of Cambodia's history, to the period of the Angkor Empire, which covered the territory of present-day Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Laos. He called for a struggle for the revival of this state “within its former borders.” In one of the documents of that period, one of the primary tasks is the need “to organize provocations and invade the territory of the Khmer Krom and Saigon, and then occupy these areas”. Pol Pot himself said on Phnom Penh radio that “I hope to liberate Saigon in my lifetime” .

From April 1977 to December 1978 A “border war” actually unfolded along the entire 1,100-kilometer Kampuchean-Vietnamese border. Capuchian troops invaded 10 km deep into the territory of Vietnam and dealt with the inhabitants of the neighboring state with extreme cruelty. For example, after a Kampuchean raid on one of the villages located near the Vietnamese border town of Ha Tien, they were found dead in one of the huts. three women and three children, and the women’s stomachs were ripped open. A piece of paper lying nearby read: “This is our land.” Burning houses, killing people and destroying crops, the Pol Pot soldiers quickly retreated when regular units of the Vietnamese army approached the site of the attack. In December 1977, Vietnamese forces advanced deep into Kampuchea to the city of Svay Rieng (English) Russian . On December 31, official Phnom Penh announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Hanoi. At the same time, active anti-Vietnamese propaganda unfolded in Kampuchea. In 1977-1978 in the army and among the population, as well as in the means mass media propaganda slogans of an anti-Vietnamese nature were distributed: “Vietnam is enemy number one for Kampuchea!”, “Ready to fight Vietnam for 700 years!”, “800 million Chinese are behind us!”, “Kampuchean, kill 30 Vietnamese, and we will win!” . One of the leaflets distributed in the border areas in the Vietnamese province of Tay Ninh read: “Remember that this is the original Kampuchean territory. Kampuchea will extend to Saigon." On May 10, 1978, one of the Phnom Penh radio programs proudly reported that “So far we have already been able to achieve the goal: “1 in 30”, i.e. 30 killed Vietnamese for one Kampuchean. It is enough for us to sacrifice 2 million Khmers to destroy 50 million Vietnamese.” .

On December 22, 1978, the Kampuchean army, supported by tanks and artillery, attacked the Vietnamese city of Ben Xoi (Tay Ninh Province) with the goal of capturing the administrative center of the province and making its way deep into Vietnamese territory. The next day, in an interview with Washington Post correspondent Elizabeth Becker, Pol Pot said: “We are attacking them (the Vietnamese) in order to prevent them from entering certain areas of our territory. But if they managed to get there, it would be difficult for them to get out of there.”. The Vietnamese leadership, which views Democratic Kampuchea as a threat to its national security, began preparations for an invasion of the territory of a neighboring country. On December 25, motorized rifle and tank units of the Vietnamese People's Army crossed the Khmer border and, without encountering serious resistance, with the support of artillery and aviation, began to quickly advance through Cambodian territory. The massive offensive involved 14 Vietnamese divisions. At a meeting on December 29 with a Marxist-Leninist delegation from Canada, Pol Pot predicted the “inevitable defeat” of the Vietnamese and stated that the “Warsaw Pact” was also involved in the war.

"Tragic result"

On July 15, 1979, the People's Revolutionary Tribunal was established in Phnom Penh to try the crimes of genocide committed by the leaders of the Khmer Rouge. Two months later, on August 19, the People's Revolutionary Tribunal found Pol Pot and Ieng Sary guilty of genocide and sentenced them to death in absentia with confiscation of all property. During the trial, the tribunal accused the Chinese leadership of the fact that the ruling circles of this country were the inspirers and accomplices in the policies pursued by the Khmer Rouge. Present during the trial, member of the US Supreme Court Bar H.R. Stephen said that "Chinese leaders should sit in the dock with Pol Pot and Ieng Sary as accomplices in crime."

Photos of a woman with a baby who became victims of Tuol Sleng prison.

It is difficult to say how many people died during the 3.5 years of rule of the Khmer Rouge. Many Khmer Rouge leaders until the end of their lives denied the fact of “genocide”, or did not recognize the huge number of people killed; rank and file members sometimes claimed that they were unaware of what was happening in the country. In his last interview, given in December 1979, Pol Pot stated that “due to our mistakes in implementing the policy of national welfare, more than several thousand Cambodians could not have died”. Referring to party problems, Pol Pot subsequently blamed the Vietnamese and their agents for what happened - people with “the body of a Cambodian and the mind of a Vietnamese” who betrayed the revolution. In an official 1987 pamphlet, Khieu Samphan specified that 3,000 casualties were the result of “mistakes,” another 11,000 were executed as “Vietnamese agents,” and 30,000 were killed as “infiltrating Vietnamese agents.” It also said that the Vietnamese occupiers allegedly killed “about one and a half million people” in 1979-1980. Moreover, among the surviving written materials, not a single surviving document is known that was personally signed by Pol Pot. In 1995, one military man present at a training and preparatory meeting organized by Pol Pot said in an interview with David Ashley:

Former President Lon Nol stuck to the figure of "two and a half million" dead, and former Secretary General of the Kampuchea People's Revolutionary Party (English) Russian , who served as head of the government of the People's Republic of China, Pen Sovan, called the figure of 3,100,000 people accepted by the People's Republic of China and Vietnamese propaganda. David Chandler cites between 800,000 (one in ten) and a million (one in eight) men, women and children. According to Kiernan's calculations, 1,500,000 people died. The report of the Crime Commission dated July 25, 1983 states that for the period between 1975 and 1978. 2,746,105 people died, of which 1,927,061 were peasants, 305,417 workers, employees and representatives of other professions, 48,359 representatives of national minorities, 25,168 monks, about 100 writers and journalists, as well as several foreigners. Another 568,663 people were missing and either died in the jungle or were buried in mass graves. The number of people killed is estimated at 3,374,768. In addition, more than 200,000 children became orphans

And although the People's Revolutionary Tribunal made its verdict regarding the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary regime back in 1979, the trial of the Khmer Rouge leaders began only in the 21st century. A tribunal was established in 2006 (English) Russian , before whom appeared the head of the S-21 prison, Kang Kek Yeu, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs Ieng Sary (“brother number three”), his wife ex-Minister of Social Protection Ieng Thirith (English) Russian , ex-chairman of the Presidium Khieu Samphan (“brother number four”) and the main ideologist of the Khmer Rouge Nuon Chea (“brother number two”).

Pro-Vietnamese regime of Heng Samrin

After the loss of Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge forces retreated west to the Kampuchean-Thai border. This area became their base for the next two decades. According to the NRC Ministry of Defense, within six months from the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge regime during successful operations 42 thousand soldiers and officers of the former government were killed, captured, or voluntarily surrendered; was liquidated General base in Amleang, the last large Pol Pot strongholds in the province of Pousat and the remnants of the former fleet, hiding in the river arms of the province of Kah Kong, were destroyed. It seemed that the Khmer Rouge had been dealt a serious blow, but under the circumstances, Pol Pot gained support not only from China, but also from Thailand and the United States, which shared his hostility towards Vietnam. Fearing an invasion by Vietnamese troops, Thailand agreed with China on the condition that it would provide asylum to the Khmer Rouge in exchange for ending Chinese assistance to the Communist Party of Thailand, which was waging a guerrilla war in the country. The United States, which established friendly relations with Beijing against the backdrop of the Sino-Soviet split, did not oppose the Sino-Thai agreement, but, on the contrary, even supported the presence of Pol Pot’s delegation at the UN. For Pol Pot himself, the main goal now was the expulsion of Vietnamese troops from the country.

Thanks to Chinese assistance, the Khmer Rouge were able to rearm and reorganize their units. By 1983, they managed to restore 9 of their divisions and even created a special grouping called Ronsaye for operations in the deep rear.

Death

Pol Pot died on April 15, 1998 from heart failure, according to Ta Mok. A medical examination, however, subsequently showed that death was the result of poisoning. There is also a version that he died of illness in the jungle.

Notes

1. Cambodians pray at Pol Pot’s cremation site decade later (unavailable link)
2. KI Media: Khmer Rouge “Butcher” buried near Pol Pot
3. , With. 26
4. , With. 27
5. Chandler David P. Brother Number One: Political biography Pol Pot. - Ekaterinburg: Ultra. Culture, 2005, P.398.
6. , With. 94
7. The bloody utopia of the leader of the Khmer Rouge
8. Pol Pot: a fighter for the happiness of the people or a bloody dictator?
9. Chandler D. The tragedy of Cambodian history. P. 171. New Haven, 1991.
10. D.V. Mosyakov Kampuchea: features of the revolutionary process and Pol Pot’s “experiment”. - M.: Nauka, 1986. - P. 103.
11. , With. 215
12. , With. 217-218
13. D.V. Mosyakov Kampuchea: features of the revolutionary process and Pol Pot’s “experiment”. - M.: Nauka, 1986. - P. 104.
14. , With. 322
15. , With. 320
16. , With. 25
17. , With. 64
18. , With. 63
19. , With. 338
20. , With. 218
21. , With. 219
22. Wu Kang Former brother of Pol Pot // Kampuchea: life after death. - M.: Politizdat, 1985. - P. 78.
23. , With. 26
24. Recent history Kampuchea. - M.: Science, 1989. - P. 138. - ISBN 5-02-016678-2
25. , With. 318
26. , With. 321
27. The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective / Ed. Roberta Jellettly (English) Russian and Ben Kiernan (English) Russian . - Cambridge University Press, 2003. - P. 313.
28. , With. 243
29. , With. 185
30. M.P. Isaev The modern revolutionary process in the countries of Indochina (the problem of the development of national liberation revolutions into socialist ones). - M.: Nauka, 1985. - P. 190.
31. N.N. Bektimirova, Yu.P. Dementyev, E.V. Kobelev Recent history of Kampuchea. - M.: Science, 1989. - P. 158. - ISBN 5-02-016678-2
32. , With. 70
33. , With. 71
34. D.V. Mosyakov Kampuchea: features of the revolutionary process and Pol Pot’s “experiment”. - M.: Nauka, 1986. - P. 137.
35. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. - “Three centuries of history”, 2001. - P. 550. - ISBN 5-93453-037-2, 2-221-08204-4
36. , With. 72
37. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. - “Three centuries of history”, 2001. - P. 552. - ISBN 5-93453-037-2, 2-221-08204-4
38. , With. 35
39. , With. 37-38
40. N.N. Bektimirova, Yu.P. Dementyev, E.V. Kobelev Recent history of Kampuchea. - M.: Science, 1989. - P. 159. - ISBN 5-02-016678-2
41. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. - “Three centuries of history”, 2001. - P. 551. - ISBN 5-93453-037-2, 2-221-08204-4
42. , With. 232
43. , With. 38
44. , With. 294
45. , With. 52
46. , With. 307
47. Kampuchea: from tragedy to revival. - M.: Politizdat, 1979. - P. 29.
48. , With. 83

Prince of Cambodia.

The tragedy of Cambodia is a consequence of the Vietnam War, which first broke out in the ruins of French colonialism and then escalated into conflict with the Americans. Fifty-three thousand Cambodians died on the battlefields.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk, ruler of Cambodia and heir to its religious and cultural traditions, renounced royal title ten years before the start of the Vietnam War, but remained head of state. He tried to lead the country along the path of neutrality, balancing between warring countries and conflicting ideologies. Sihanouk became king of Cambodia, a French protectorate, back in 1941, but abdicated the throne in 1955. However, then, after free elections, he returned to lead the country as head of state.

During the escalation of the Vietnam War from 1966 to 1969, Sihanouk fell out of favor with the political leadership in Washington for not taking decisive action against arms smuggling and the establishment of Vietnamese guerrilla camps in the Cambodian jungle. However, he was also quite mild in his criticism of punitive air raids carried out by the United States.

On March 18, 1970, while Sihanouk was in Moscow, his prime minister, General Lon Nol, with the support of the White House, carried out a coup d'etat, returning Cambodia to its ancient name Khmer. The United States recognized the Khmer Republic, but within a month it invaded it. Sihanouk found himself in exile in Beijing. And here the ex-king made a choice, entering into an alliance with the devil himself.

Entering into power.

Pol Pot's real name was Salot Sar (also known as Tol Saut and Pol Porth). He was born in the rebel province of Kampong Thom. Pol Pot, who grew up in a peasant family in the Cambodian province of Kampong Thom and received elementary education in a Buddhist monastery, he was a monk for two years, supposedly receiving the science of tolerance and humility there. However, what was actually taught and taught in Buddhist monasteries is well known. These are techniques from various schools of oriental martial arts, meditation, occultism, etc. Therefore, it is not difficult to guess who set the future Pol Pot on the “true path.”

During World War II, Salot Sar joined the Indochina Communist Party. In the fifties he studied electronics in Paris and, like many students of that time, became involved in the leftist movement. Here Pol Pot heard - it is still not known whether they met - about another student, Khieu Samphan, whose controversial but exciting plans for an "agrarian revolution" fueled Pol Pot's great power ambitions. In Paris, he joined the ranks of the French Communist Party and became close with other Cambodian students who preached Marxism as interpreted by Maurice Therese. Returning to his homeland in late 1953 or 1954, Salot Sar began teaching at a prestigious private lyceum in Phnom Penh. At the turn of the sixties, the communist movement in Cambodia was split into three almost unrelated factions operating in different parts of the country. The smallest, but most active was the third faction, united on the basis of hatred of Vietnam. In 1962, with mysterious circumstances Secretary of the Cambodian Communist Party Tu Samut was killed. In 1963, Salot Sar was approved as the new party secretary. He became the leader of the Khmer Rouge, the communist guerrillas of Cambodia. Salot Sar left his job at the lyceum and went underground. By the early 70s, the Salot Sara group captured a number of posts in the highest party apparatus. He physically destroyed his opponents. For these purposes, a secret security department was created in the party, reporting personally to Salot Sar.

In 1975, the Lon Nol government, despite American support, fell to the Khmer Rouge. American B-52 bombers, using carpet bombing, dropped as many tons of explosives on this tiny country as were dropped on Germany during the last two years of the Second World War. Vietnamese fighters - the Viet Cong - used the impenetrable jungles of the neighboring country to set up military camps and bases during operations against the Americans. Bombing attacks were carried out on these strongholds. american planes. The Khmer Rouge not only survived, but also captured Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, on April 23, 1975. By this time, the Salot Sara group occupied strong, but not sole, positions in the leadership of the party. This forced her to maneuver. With his characteristic caution, the head of the Khmer Rouge retreated into the shadows and began to prepare the ground for the final seizure of power. To do this, he resorted to a number of hoaxes. Since April 1975, his name has disappeared from official communications. Many thought he was dead.

On April 14, 1976, the appointment of a new prime minister was announced. His name was Pol Pot. The unknown name raised eyebrows at home and abroad. It did not occur to anyone, except a narrow circle of initiates, that Pol Pot was the disappeared Saloth Sar. The difficult situation in which the Pol Pata faction found itself by the fall of 1976 was aggravated by the death of Mao Zedong. On September 27, Pol Pot was removed from the post of prime minister, as announced, “for health reasons.” Two weeks later, Pol Pot became prime minister again. The new Chinese leaders helped him. The dictator and his henchmen set out to destroy everyone they considered potentially dangerous, and indeed they destroyed almost all the officers, soldiers and civil servants of the old regime. Little is known about Pol Pot. This is a man with the appearance of a handsome old man and the heart of a bloody tyrant. It was with this monster that Sihanouk teamed up. Together with the leader of the Khmer Rouge, they vowed to merge their forces together for the common goal of defeating American troops.

The dictator outlined a bold plan for building a new society and said that its implementation would take only a few days. Pol Pot announced the evacuation of all cities under the leadership of newly appointed regional and zonal leaders, ordered the closure of all markets, the destruction of churches and the dispersal of all religious communities. Having received his education abroad, he hated educated people and ordered the execution of all teachers, professors and even kindergarten teachers.

Wheel of Death.

On April 17, 1975, Pol Pot ordered the forced assimilation of 13 national minorities living in Democratic Kampuchea. They were ordered to speak Khmer, and those who could not speak Khmer were killed. On May 25, 1975, Pol Pot's soldiers carried out a massacre of Thais in Koh Kong province in the southwest of the country. 20,000 Thais lived there, but after the massacre only 8,000 remained.

Inspired by Mao Zedong's ideas on communes, Pol Pot launched the slogan "Back to the Village!" To implement it, the population of large and small cities was evicted to rural and mountainous areas. On April 17, 1975, using violence combined with deception, the Pol Pot forces forced more than 2 million residents of newly liberated Phnom Penh to leave the city. Everyone indiscriminately - the sick, the old, the pregnant, the crippled, the newborn, the dying - was sent to the countryside and distributed among communes, 10,000 people in each. Residents were forced to do backbreaking work, regardless of age or health. With primitive tools or by hand, people worked 12-16 hours a day, and sometimes longer. As those few who managed to survive said, in many areas their daily food was only one bowl of rice for 10 people. The leaders of the Pol Pot regime created a network of spies and encouraged mutual denunciations in order to paralyze the people's will to resist. The Polpotites tried to abolish Buddhism, a religion professed by 85 percent of the population. Buddhist monks were forced to give up their traditional clothing and were forced to work in "comunes." Many of them were killed. Pol Pot sought to exterminate the intelligentsia and, in general, all those who had any education, technical connections and experience. Of the 643 doctors and pharmacists, only 69 remained alive. The Polpotites liquidated the education system at all levels. Schools were turned into prisons, places of torture, and dumps of manure. All books and documents stored in libraries, schools, universities, and research centers were burned or looted.

His “killing fields” were littered with the corpses of those who did not fit into the framework of the new world formed by him and his bloodthirsty minions. During the rule of Pol Pot's regime, about three million people died in Cambodia - the same number as the unfortunate victims who perished in the gas chambers of the Nazi death factory Auschwitz during the Second World War. Life under Pol Pot was unbearable, and as a result of the tragedy that took place on the soil of this ancient country in South-East Asia, its long-suffering population has come up with a new creepy name for Cambodia - the Land of the Walking Dead.

According to Samphan's theory, Cambodia, in order to achieve progress, had to turn back, renounce capitalist exploitation, the fattening leaders fed by the French colonial rulers, and abandon devalued bourgeois values ​​and ideals. Samphan's perverted theory stated that people should live in the fields, and all temptations of modern life should be destroyed. If Pol Pot had, say, been hit by a car at that time, this theory would probably have died out in coffee shops and bars without crossing the boundaries of the Parisian boulevards. However, she was destined to become a monstrous reality.

Pol Pot's perverted dream of turning back time and forcing his people to live in a Marxist agrarian society was helped by his deputy Ieng Sari. In his policy of destruction, Pol Pot used the term "getting out of sight." “They removed” - they destroyed thousands and thousands of women and men, old people and babies.

Buddhist temples were desecrated or turned into soldiers' brothels, or even simply slaughterhouses. As a result of the terror, out of sixty thousand monks, only three thousand returned to the destroyed temples and holy monasteries.

In the “commune” of Psot, the reprisal usually took place as follows: a person was buried up to his neck in the ground and beaten on the head with hoes. They didn’t shoot - they saved the bullets.” “Those who reached the age of fourteen or fifteen were forcibly sent to the so-called “mobile brigades” or to the army... The Polpot soldiers trained killers, recruiting 14-17 year old teenagers, who were taught that if they did not agree to kill, then after painful torture they would be killed themselves. In addition, selected teenagers were deliberately molested, taught to kill, and drunk with a mixture of palm moonshine and human blood. They were told that they were “capable of anything,” that they became “special people” because they drank human blood.” In this cannibalism we also see traces of the ancient religion of Cambodia. The entire population of the country was divided into three categories. The first group included residents of remote mountain and forest areas of the state. The second consisted of residents of those areas that were controlled by the overthrown pro-American regime of Lon Nol. The third group consisted of former military personnel, the old administration, their families and the entire (!) population of Phnom Penh. The third category was subject to complete destruction, and the second partial.

This was the course of the faithful Marxist Pol Pot, who had well mastered the principles of class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat. On April 16, 1975, over two million people were evicted from Phnom Penh, and they were not allowed to take anything with them. “In accordance with the order, all residents were required to leave the city. It was forbidden to take food or belongings. Those who refused to obey orders or hesitated were killed and shot. Neither the elderly, nor the disabled, nor pregnant women, nor the sick in hospitals escaped this fate. People had to walk, despite the rain or the scorching sun... During the journey, they were not given any food or medicine... On the banks of the Mekong alone, when Phnom Penh residents were transported to remote areas of the country, about five hundred thousand people died.” According to another Pol Pot plan, villages were to be destroyed. The massacre carried out in them defies description: “The population of the village of Sreseam was almost completely destroyed... the soldiers rounded up children, tied them in a chain, pushed them into craters filled with water and buried them alive... People were driven to the edge of the trench, struck in the back of the head with a shovel or hoe , and pushed down. When there were too many people to be eliminated, they were gathered into groups of several dozen people, entangled with steel wire, passed a current from a generator mounted on a bulldozer, and then the unconscious people were pushed into a hole and covered with earth.” Pol Pot even ordered his own wounded soldiers to be killed so as not to spend money on medicine.

Following the example of his teachers Stalin and Mao Zedong, Pol Pot also fought with the intelligentsia. “The intelligentsia was completely destroyed: doctors, teachers, engineers, artists, scientists, students were declared mortal enemies of the regime. At the same time, anyone who wore glasses, read books, knew a foreign language, and wore decent clothes, in particular European cut, was considered an intellectual.” How can one not remember the 20-30s in the USSR, when people were fired and killed for wearing a tie and ironed clothes? When everyone was forced to wear shirts and wrinkled trousers. “Schools were either destroyed or turned into prisons, places of torture, grain and fertilizer warehouses. Books from libraries, institutes, research centers, museum property were destroyed, and the most valuable items ancient art were kidnapped." And again, the analogy is with the USSR, where the most valuable works of art were sold abroad, while others were destroyed. “The bloody experiment of Pol Pot led to the destruction of all Cambodian cities with their industry and developed infrastructure, to the physical liquidation of millions of people, especially educated and specialists, to the transformation of the country into a huge concentration camp, where the Khmer Rouge ruled with impunity.

For the Pol Potites, oriented towards the values ​​of Marxist socialism, a person’s life was worth nothing: in order not to waste bullets, people were killed with shovels and other improvised means, starved, not to mention sophisticated bullying. It is worth noting in this regard that the attempts of communists in a number of countries, primarily Soviet ones, to dissociate themselves from these crimes and not see in them repressions akin to all communist dictatorships, are unconvincing. Of course, the Khmer Red Terror may be perceived as a caricature, but if you look closely and compare it with what has become known about our Red Terror over the past last years open publications and revelations, then there will be no doubt about the relationship. The source of the beliefs of the Khmer Rouge, as well as their unceremoniousness and disrespect for people’s lives, is still the same - the Marxist theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe destruction of hostile classes and in general all enemies of the revolution, which, as you know, can include anyone who does not kill with a shovel (and on occasion, himself too).”

Pol Pot's decree effectively eradicated ethnic minorities. Use of Vietnamese, Thai and Chinese languages was punishable by death. A purely Khmer society was proclaimed. The forced eradication of ethnic groups was especially hard on the Chan people. Their ancestors - people from what is now Vietnam - inhabited the ancient Kingdom of Champa. The Chans migrated to Cambodia in the 18th century and fished along the banks of Cambodian rivers and lakes. They professed Islam and were the most significant ethnic group in modern Cambodia, preserving the purity of their language, national cuisine, clothing, hairstyles, religious and ritual traditions.

Young fanatics from the Khmer Rouge attacked the vats like locusts. Their settlements were burned, the inhabitants were driven into swamps infested with mosquitoes. People were forcibly forced to eat pork, which was strictly prohibited by their religion, and the clergy were mercilessly destroyed. If the slightest resistance was shown, entire communities were exterminated, and the corpses were thrown into huge pits and covered with lime. Of the two hundred thousand Chans, less than half remained alive. Those who survived the beginning of the campaign of terror later realized that instant death was better than hellish torment under the new regime.

According to Pol Pot, the older generation was spoiled by feudal and bourgeois views, infected with “sympathies” for Western democracies, which he declared alien to the national way of life. Urban population were driven from their habitable places to labor camps, where hundreds of thousands of people were tortured to death by backbreaking labor.

People were killed for even trying to speak French - the biggest crime in the eyes of the Khmer Rouge, as this was considered a manifestation of nostalgia for the country's colonial past.

In huge camps with no amenities other than a straw mat for sleeping and a bowl of rice at the end of the working day, in conditions that even prisoners of Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War would not have envied, traders, teachers, entrepreneurs worked, the only survivors because they managed to hide their professions, as well as thousands of other citizens. These camps were organized in such a way as to, through “natural selection,” get rid of the old and sick, pregnant women and young children.

People died in hundreds and thousands from disease, hunger and exhaustion, under the batons of cruel overseers. Without medical assistance other than traditional herbal treatments, the life expectancy of prisoners in these camps was depressingly short. Stalin and Hitler are resting.

At dawn, people were sent in formation into the malarial swamps, where they cleared the jungle for 12 hours a day unsuccessful attempts conquer new arable lands from them. At sunset, again in formation, urged on by the bayonets of the guards, people returned to the camp to their cup of rice, gruel and a piece of dried fish. Then, despite terrible fatigue, they still had to go through political classes on Marxist ideology, during which incorrigible “bourgeois elements” were identified and punished, and the rest, like parrots, kept repeating phrases about the joys of life in the new state. Every ten working days there was a long-awaited day off, for which twelve hours of ideological classes were planned. Wives lived separately from their husbands. Their children began working at the age of seven or were placed at the disposal of childless party functionaries, who raised them to be fanatical “fighters of the revolution.”

From time to time, huge bonfires made of books were made in city squares. Crowds of unfortunate tortured people were driven to these bonfires, who were forced to chant memorized phrases in chorus, while the flames devoured the masterpieces of world civilization. “Lessons of hatred” were organized when people were flogged in front of portraits of the leaders of the old regime. It was an ominous world of horror and hopelessness. In the “commune” it was strictly forbidden to read... If they found a magazine or a book, they dealt with the whole family...

The Polpotites severed diplomatic relations in all countries, postal and telephone communications did not work, entry into and exit from the country was prohibited. The Cambodian people found themselves isolated from the rest of the world.

To intensify the fight against real and imaginary enemies, Pol Pot organized a sophisticated system of torture and execution in his prison camps. As during the Spanish Inquisition, the dictator and his henchmen proceeded from the premise that those who fell into these damned places, were guilty and all they had to do was admit their guilt. To convince its followers of the need for brutal measures to achieve the goals of “national revival,” the regime attached special political significance to torture.

Documents seized after the overthrow of Pol Pot show that Khmer security officers trained by Chinese instructors were guided by brutal, ideological principles in their activities. The Interrogation Guidelines S-21, one of the documents later submitted to the UN, stated: “The purpose of torture is to obtain an adequate response to it from the interrogated. Torture is not used for entertainment. Pain must be inflicted in such a way as to cause a quick reaction. . Another goal is psychological breakdown and loss of will of the interrogated person. When torture should not be based on one’s own anger or self-satisfaction. The person being tortured should be beaten in such a way as to intimidate him, and not beat him to death. Before starting torture, it is necessary to examine the health status of the interrogated person and examine instruments of torture. You should not try to kill the person being interrogated. During interrogation, political considerations are the main ones, causing pain is secondary. Therefore, you must not forget that you are engaged in political work. Even during interrogations, you should constantly conduct propaganda work. At the same time, you must avoid indecision and hesitation during torture, when there is an opportunity to get answers to our questions from the enemy. We must remember that indecisiveness can slow down our work. In other words, in propaganda and educational work of this kind it is necessary to show determination, persistence, and categoricalness. We must engage in torture without first explaining the reasons or motives. Only then will the enemy be broken."

Among the numerous sophisticated methods of torture that the Khmer Rouge executioners resorted to, the most favorite were the notorious Chinese water torture, crucifixion, and strangulation with a plastic bag. Site S-21, which gave the document its name, was the most notorious camp in all of Cambodia. It was located in the northeast of the country. At least thirty thousand victims of the regime were tortured here. Only seven survived, and only because the administrative skills of the prisoners were needed by their owners to manage this terrible institution.

But torture was not the only weapon to intimidate the already frightened population of the country. There are many known cases when guards in camps caught prisoners, driven to despair by hunger, eating their dead comrades in misfortune. The punishment for this was terrible death. The culprits were buried up to their necks in the ground and left to slowly die from hunger and thirst, while their still living flesh was tormented by ants and other living creatures. The victims' heads were then cut off and displayed on stakes around the settlement. They hung a sign around their necks: “I am a traitor to the revolution!”

Dith Pran, a Cambodian translator for American journalist Sidney Schoenberg, lived through all the horrors of Pol Pot's rule. The inhumane ordeal he endured is documented in the film The Killing Fields, in which the suffering of the Cambodian people was revealed to the world for the first time in stunning nakedness. The heartbreaking tale of Pran's journey from a civilized childhood to a death camp left viewers horrified. “In my prayers,” Pran said, “I asked the Almighty to save me from the unbearable torment that I was forced to endure. But some of my loved ones managed to flee the country and take refuge in America. For their sake I continued to live, but it was not life , but a nightmare."

The foreign policy of the Pol Pot regime was characterized by aggressiveness and a disguised fear of strong powers. After his final confirmation in power, Pol Pot decided to isolate himself from outside world. In response to Japan's proposal to establish diplomatic relations, the Pol Potians stated that Cambodia "will not be interested in them for another 200 years." Exceptions to the general rule were only a few countries for which Pol Pot, for one reason or another, had personal sympathy. In January 1977, after almost a year of silence, shots were heard on the Cambodian-Vietnamese border. Detachments of the Khmer Rouge, having crossed the Vietnamese border, killed residents of border villages with batons. In 1978, Vietnam signed a pact with Kampuchea's only ally China and launched a full-scale invasion. On Dec. 1978 Vietnamese troops, who had been in conflict with the Khmer Rouge for many years over disputed border areas, entered Cambodian territory with the help of several motorized infantry divisions supported by tanks. The country fell into such disrepair that, due to the lack of telephone communications, it was necessary to deliver combat reports on bicycles. The Chinese did not come to Pol Pot's aid, and in January 1979 his regime fell to the onslaught of Vietnamese troops. The fall happened so quickly that the tyrant had to flee Phnom Penh in a white Mercedes two hours before his triumphant appearance in the capital of the army of Hanoi. However, Pol Pot was not going to give up. He established himself in a secret base with a handful of his loyal followers and created the National Liberation Front of the Khmer People. The Khmer Rouge retreated into the jungle on the border with Thailand in an orderly manner.

In early 1979, the Vietnamese occupied Phnom Penh. A few hours earlier, Pol Pot left the deserted capital in a white armored Mercedes. The bloody dictator hurried to his Chinese masters, who provided him with refuge, but did not support him in the fight against the heavily armed Viet Cong.

When the whole world became aware of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime and the devastation that reigned in the country, help rushed to Cambodia in a powerful stream. The Khmer Rouge, like the Nazis in their time, were very pedantic in recording their crimes. The investigation discovered journals in which daily executions and torture were recorded in great detail, hundreds of albums with photographs of those sentenced to execution, including the wives and children of intellectuals liquidated in the initial stages of the terror, and detailed documentation about the notorious “killing fields.” These fields, conceived as the basis of a labor utopia, a country without money and needs, in fact turned out to be mass graves of the day of burial of people crushed by the yoke of cruel tyranny. “After three years of the existence of the Pol Pot regime, Kampuchea was called nothing less than a “huge concentration camp”, a “giant prison”, “a state of barracks socialism”, where blood flows like a river and a policy of genocide is mercilessly and systematically carried out against its own nation.” Of the country's eight million population, 5 million survived.

After the overthrow.

On August 15-19, 1979, the People's Revolutionary Tribunal of Kampuchea examined the case on charges of genocide against the Pol Pot-Ieng Sari clique. Pol Pot and Ieng Sary were found guilty and sentenced to death in absentia. Polpot's troops left Kampuchea in a very difficult state. Despite all this, representatives of the Khmer Rouge, led by Khieu Samphan, remained in Phnom Penh for some time. The parties have been looking for ways to mutual reconciliation for a long time. The support of the United States helped the Polpot residents feel confident. At the insistence of the superpower, the Pol Potites retained their place in the UN. But in 1993, after the Khmer Rouge boycotted the country's first parliamentary elections held under UN supervision, the movement completely hid in the jungle. Every year, contradictions among the leaders of the Khmer Rouge grew. In 1996, Ieng Sari, who was deputy prime minister in the Pol Pot government, went over to the side of the government with 10,000 fighters. In response, Pol Pot traditionally resorted to terror. He ordered the execution of Defense Minister Song Sen, his wife and nine children. The tyrant's frightened associates organized a conspiracy led by Khieu Samphan, Ta Mok, the commander of the troops, and Nuon Chea, the currently most influential person in the leadership of the Khmer Rouge. In June 1997, Pol Pot was placed under house arrest. He left with him his second wife Mia Som and daughter Seth Seth. The dictator's family was guarded by one of Pol Pot's commanders, Nuon Nu.

In early April 1998, the United States suddenly began to demand the transfer of Pol Pot to an international tribunal, pointing out the need for “just retribution.” Washington's position, difficult to explain in light of its past policy of supporting the dictator, caused a lot of controversy among the Angka leadership. In the end, it was decided to exchange Pol Pot for his own safety. The search for contacts with international organizations began, but the death of the bloody tyrant on the night of April 14-15, 1998 immediately solved all the problems. By official version, Pol Pot died of a heart attack. His body was cremated, and the skull and bones remaining after the burning were given to his wife and daughter.

Pran was lucky enough to survive this bloody Asian nightmare and reunite with his family in San Francisco in 1979. But in the remote corners of a devastated country that has experienced a terrible tragedy, mass graves of nameless victims still remain, above which mounds of human skulls rise in silent reproach. It is unlikely that Pol Pot knew the work of the artist Vereshchagin, but he apparently decided to recreate his painting “The Apotheosis of War” in real life.

In the end, thanks to military power, and not morality and law, it was possible to stop carnage and restore at least a semblance of common sense to the tormented land. To its credit, the UK protested against human rights abuses in 1978 following reports of rampant terror in Cambodia through intermediaries in Thailand, but this protest fell on deaf ears. Britain made a statement to the UN Commission on Human Rights, but a representative of the Khmer Rouge hysterically retorted: “The British imperialists have no right to talk about human rights. The whole world knows their barbaric essence. The leaders of Britain are drowning in luxury, while the proletariat has the right only for unemployment, illness and prostitution."

Pol Pot, who seemed to have faded into oblivion, has recently re-emerged on the political horizon as a force vying for power in this long-suffering country. Like all tyrants, he claims that his subordinates made mistakes, that he faced resistance on all fronts, and that those killed were “enemies of the state.” Returning to Cambodia in 1981, at a secret meeting among his old friends near the Thai border, he declared that he had been too trusting: “My policies were correct. Overzealous regional commanders and local leaders perverted my orders. Accusations massacres- a vile lie. If we really destroyed people in such numbers, the people would have ceased to exist long ago."

A "misunderstanding" at the cost of three million lives, almost a third of the country's population, is too innocent a word to describe what was done in the name of Pol Pot and on his orders. But, following the famous Nazi principle - the more monstrous the lie, the more people are able to believe it - Pol Pot was still eager for power and hoped to gather forces in the rural areas, which, in his opinion, were still loyal to him. He again became a major political figure and was waiting for an opportunity to reappear in the country as an angel of death, seeking revenge and completion of the work he had previously begun - his “great agrarian revolution.”

By the way, the United States then ensured that Pol Pot’s members retained their place in the UN. This is another example of American “democracy”. In 1982, Pol Pot regained power, holding it until 1985, when he suddenly announced his resignation. Soon, civil war breaks out again in the country, and the elderly dictator returns to political life, leading the pro-communist group “Khmer Rouge”. Now he is already ordering the execution of his own ministers, fearing treason on their part. The cold blood he showed in killing his closest supporters inspires horror in those around him. And it decides, in order to save its life, to remove Pol Pot from power, which they managed to do in June 1997. Over the next year, the dictator lived under house arrest until he died in 1998. According to beliefs, Pol Pot's body was burned in a ritual fire. By the way, before placing the body in the coffin, the nostrils of the dead man were plugged with cotton so that the spirit of the deceased would not escape the fire. Such was the fear of people before the man who “is rightly called the most terrible villain of the outgoing century.”

“You talk about me like I’m some kind of Pol Pot,” the heroine said offendedly Lyudmila Gurchenko in one popular Russian comedy.

“Pol Potism”, “Pol Pot regime” - these expressions firmly entered the vocabulary of Soviet international journalists in the second half of the 1970s. However, this name thundered throughout the world in those years.

In just a few years, the leader of the Khmer Rouge movement became one of the bloodiest dictators in human history, earning the title of “Asian Hitler.”

Little is known about the childhood of the Cambodian dictator, primarily because Pol Pot himself tried not to make this information public. Even about the date of his birth there is different information. According to one version, he was born on May 19, 1925 in the village of Prexbauw, into a peasant family. Eighth child peasant Pek Salota and his wife Nem Juice received a name at birth Salot Sar.

Village of Prexbauw. Birthplace of Pol Pot. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Albeiro Rodas

Although Pol Pot’s family was a peasant family, it was not poor. The future dictator's cousin served in the royal court and was even the crown prince's concubine. Pol Pot's elder brother served at the royal court, and his sister danced in the royal ballet.

Salot Sara himself, at the age of nine, was sent to live with relatives in Phnom Penh. After several months spent in a Buddhist monastery as an altar boy, the boy entered a Catholic primary school, after which he continued his studies at Norodom Sihanouk College and then at Phnom Penh Technical School.

The Marxists by royal grant

In 1949, Salot Sar received a government scholarship for higher education in France and went to Paris, where he began to study radio electronics.

Pol Pot. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

The post-war period was marked by a rapid growth in the popularity of left-wing parties and national liberation movements. In Paris, Cambodian students created a Marxist circle, of which Saloth Sar became a member.

In 1952, Saloth Sar, under the pseudonym Khmer Daom, published his first political article, “Monarchy or Democracy?” in a Cambodian student magazine in France. At the same time, the student joined the French Communist Party.

His passion for politics pushed his studies into the background, and in the same year Salot Sara was expelled from the university, after which he returned to his homeland.

In Cambodia, he settled with his older brother, began to look for connections with representatives of the Communist Party of Indochina and soon attracted the attention of one of its coordinators in Cambodia - Pham Van Ba. Salot Sara was recruited to party work.

"The Politics of the Possible"

Pham Van Ba ​​quite clearly described his new ally: “a young man of average abilities, but with ambitions and a thirst for power.” Salot Sara's ambitions and lust for power turned out to be much greater than his fellow fighters expected.

Salot Sar took a new pseudonym - Pol Pot, which is short for the French "politique potentielle" - "politics of the possible." Under this pseudonym he was destined to go down in world history.

Norodom Sihanouk. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

In 1953, Cambodia gained independence from France. Became the ruler of the kingdom Prince Norodom Sihanouk, which was very popular and focused on China. In the war that followed in Vietnam, Cambodia formally adhered to neutrality, but units of North Vietnam and South Vietnamese partisans quite actively used the territory of the kingdom to locate their bases and warehouses. The Cambodian authorities preferred to turn a blind eye to this.

During this period, Cambodian communists operated quite freely in the country, and by 1963 Saloth Sar had risen from novice to party general secretary.

By that time, a serious split had emerged in the communist movement in Asia, associated with a sharp deterioration in relations between the USSR and China. The Cambodian Communist Party bet on Beijing, focusing on politics Comrade Mao Zedong.

Leader of the Khmer Rouge

Prince Norodom Sihanouk saw the growing influence of the Cambodian communists as a threat to his own power and began to change policy, reorienting from China to the United States.

In 1967, a peasant uprising broke out in the Cambodian province of Battambang, which was brutally suppressed by government troops and mobilized citizens.

After this, the Cambodian communists launched a guerrilla war against the Sihanouk government. The detachments of the so-called “Khmer Rouge” were formed for the most part from illiterate and illiterate young peasants, whom Pol Pot made his main support.

Very quickly, Pol Pot’s ideology began to move away not only from Marxism-Leninism, but even from Maoism. Coming from a peasant family himself, the leader of the Khmer Rouge formulated a much simpler program for his illiterate supporters - the path to a happy life lies through the rejection of modern Western values, through the destruction of cities that are carriers of a pernicious infection, and the “re-education of their inhabitants.”

Even Pol Pot’s comrades had no idea where such a program would lead their leader...

Lon Nol. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

In 1970, the Americans contributed to strengthening the position of the Khmer Rouge. Considering that Prince Sihanouk, who had reoriented towards the United States, was not a reliable enough ally in the fight against the Vietnamese communists, Washington organized a coup, as a result of which he came to power. Prime Minister Lon Nol with strong pro-American views.

Lon Nol demanded that North Vietnam cease all military activities in Cambodia, threatening to use force otherwise. The North Vietnamese responded by striking first, so much so that they almost occupied Phnom Penh. To save your protege, US President Richard Nixon sent American troops to Cambodia. The Lon Nol regime ultimately survived, but an unprecedented wave of anti-Americanism arose in the country, and the ranks of the Khmer Rouge began to grow by leaps and bounds.

Victory of the partisan army

The civil war in Cambodia flared up with renewed vigor. The Lon Nol regime was not popular and was supported only by American bayonets, Prince Sihanouk was deprived of real power and was in exile, and Pol Pot continued to gain strength.

By 1973, when the United States, having decided to end the Vietnam War, refused to further provide military support to the Lon Nol regime, the Khmer Rouge already controlled most of the country. Pol Pot already managed without his comrades in the Communist Party, which was relegated to the background. It was much easier for him not with educated experts in Marxism, but with illiterate fighters who believed only in Pol Pot and the Kalashnikov assault rifle.

In January 1975, the Khmer Rouge launched a decisive offensive against Phnom Penh. The troops loyal to Lon Nol could not withstand the blow of the 70,000-strong partisan army. In early April, American Marines began evacuating US citizens from the country, as well as high-ranking representatives of the pro-American regime. On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh.

"The city is an abode of vice"

Cambodia was renamed Kampuchea, but this was the most harmless of Pol Pot's reforms. “The city is an abode of vice; You can change people, but not cities. Working hard to uproot the jungle and grow rice, a person will finally understand the true meaning of life,” this was the main thesis of the Khmer Rouge leader who came to power.

2nd Secretary General Communist Party Kampuchea Pol Pot. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

It was decided to evict the city of Phnom Penh, with a population of two and a half million people, within three days. All its inhabitants, young and old, were sent to become peasants. No complaints about health conditions, lack of skills, etc. were accepted. Following Phnom Penh, other cities in Kampuchea suffered the same fate.

Only about 20 thousand people remained in the capital - the military, the administrative apparatus, as well as representatives of the punitive authorities who took up the task of identifying and eliminating the dissatisfied.

It was supposed to re-educate not only the inhabitants of the cities, but also those peasants who had been under the rule of Lon Nol for too long. It was decided to simply get rid of those who served the previous regime in the army and other government agencies.

Pol Pot launched a policy of isolating the country, and Moscow, Washington, and even Beijing, which was Pol Pot’s closest ally, had a very vague idea of ​​what was actually happening in it. They simply refused to believe the information leaking out about hundreds of thousands of people who were executed, who died during relocation from cities and from backbreaking forced labor.

At the pinnacle of power

During this period, an extremely complicated political situation developed in Southeast Asia. The United States, having ended the Vietnam War, set a course for improving relations with China, taking advantage of the extremely strained relations between Beijing and Moscow. China, which supported the communists of North and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, began to treat them extremely hostilely, because they were oriented toward Moscow. Pol Pot, who was focused on China, took up arms against Vietnam, despite the fact that until recently the Khmer Rouge viewed the Vietnamese as allies in a common struggle.

Pol Pot, abandoning internationalism, relied on nationalism, which was widespread among the Cambodian peasantry. Brutal persecution of ethnic minorities, primarily the Vietnamese, resulted in an armed conflict with a neighboring country.

Pol Pot on a Laos postage stamp. 1977 Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

In 1977, the Khmer Rouge began to penetrate into neighboring areas of Vietnam, carrying out bloody massacres against the local population. In April 1978, the Khmer Rouge occupied the Vietnamese village of Batyuk, destroying all its inhabitants, young and old. The massacre killed 3,000 people.

Pol Pot went wild. Feeling the support of Beijing behind him, he not only threatened to defeat Vietnam, but also threatened the entire “Warsaw Pact,” that is, the Warsaw Pact Organization led by the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, his policy forced former comrades and previously loyal military units to rebel, considering what was happening to be unjustified bloody madness. The riots were suppressed ruthlessly, the rebels were executed in the most brutal ways, but their numbers continued to grow.

Three million victims in less than four years

In December 1978, Vietnam decided it had enough. Units of the Vietnamese army invaded Kampuchea with the aim of overthrowing the Pol Pot regime. The offensive developed rapidly, and already on January 7, 1979, Phnom Penh fell. Power was transferred to the United Front for the National Salvation of Kampuchea, created in December 1978.

China tried to save its ally by invading Vietnam in February 1979. The fierce but short war ended in March with a tactical victory for Vietnam - the Chinese failed to return Pol Pot to power.

The Khmer Rouge, having suffered a serious defeat, retreated to the west of the country, to the Kampuchean-Thai border. They were saved from complete defeat by the support of China, Thailand and the United States. Each of these countries pursued its own interests - the Americans, for example, tried to prevent pro-Soviet Vietnam from strengthening its position in the region, for the sake of this they preferred to turn a blind eye to the results of the activities of the Pol Pot regime.

Democratic Republic of Kampuchea (Cambodia). Official visit of the Chinese Party and Government delegation (November 5-9, 1978). Meeting of Pol Pot and Wang Dongxing. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

And the results were truly impressive. In 3 years, 8 months and 20 days, the Khmer Rouge plunged the country into a medieval state. The protocol of the Commission for the Investigation of Crimes of the Pol Pot regime dated July 25, 1983 stated that between 1975 and 1978, 2,746,105 people died, of which 1,927,061 were peasants, 305,417 workers, employees and representatives of other professions, 48,359 representatives national minorities, 25,168 monks, about 100 writers and journalists, as well as several foreigners. Another 568,663 people were missing and either died in the jungle or were buried in mass graves. The total number of victims is estimated at 3,374,768.

In July 1979, the People's Revolutionary Tribunal was organized in Phnom Penh, which tried the leaders of the Khmer Rouge in absentia. On August 19, 1979, the tribunal recognized Pol Pot and his closest associate Ieng Sari guilty of genocide and sentenced them to death in absentia with confiscation of all property.

Passport of Ieng Sary, one of the most influential figures of the Khmer Rouge regime. During the Pol Pot dictatorship (1975-1979), he served as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Democratic Kampuchea. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

The Leader's Last Secrets

For Pol Pot himself, this verdict, however, meant nothing. He continued his guerrilla war against the new government of Kampuchea, hiding in the jungle. Little was known about the leader of the Khmer Rouge, and many believed that the man whose name had become a household name had long since died.

When processes of national reconciliation began in Kampuchea-Cambodia aimed at ending the long-term civil war, a new generation of Khmer Rouge leaders tried to relegate their odious “guru” to the background. There was a split in the movement, and Pol Pot, trying to maintain leadership, again decided to use terror to suppress disloyal elements.

In July 1997, on the orders of Pol Pot, his long-time ally, former Minister of Defense of Kampuchea Son Sen, was killed. Along with him, 13 members of his family were killed, including young children.

However, this time Pol Pot overestimated his influence. His comrades declared him a traitor and held his own trial, sentencing him to life imprisonment.

The Khmer Rouge's trial of its own leader sparked a final surge of interest in Pol Pot. In 1998, prominent leaders of the movement agreed to lay down their arms and surrender to the new Cambodian authorities.

Pol Pot's grave. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

But Pol Pot was not among them. He died on April 15, 1998. Representatives of the Khmer Rouge said that the former leader's heart failed him. There is, however, a version that he was poisoned.

The Cambodian authorities sought from the Khmer Rouge to hand over the body in order to make sure that Pol Pot was really dead and to establish all the circumstances of his death, but the corpse was hastily cremated.

The leader of the Khmer Rouge took his last secrets with him...

The Cambodian genocide arose from Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's violent attempt to nationalize and centralize Cambodian peasant farms according to the agricultural model of Communist China. This led to the extermination of more than 25% of the country's population within three years.

Pol Pot regime: genocide in Cambodia

Cambodia is a small country (half the size of the state of California) in Southeast Asia, its capital is Phnom Penh. The country is bordered to the west and northwest by Thailand, to the northeast by Laos and to the southeast by Vietnam. Southern borders Cambodia pass along the beaches of the Gulf of Thailand.

In 1953, after 100 years of French colonial rule, Cambodia gained independence.

The elected Prime Minister of Cambodia, Prince N. Sihanouk, adopted a policy of neutrality, refused American assistance and broke off diplomatic relations with the United States. In the years preceding the genocide, the population of Cambodia was more than 7 million, mostly Khmers who professed Buddhism.

What preceded the genocide?

Prince Sihanouk and his loyal followers joined forces with the communist organization partisan movement known as the Khmer Rouge. Soon after this, civil war began in Cambodia.

At the same time, Vietnam's southeastern neighbor fought for independence against the French. In 1954, it split into communist North Vietnam and pro-Western South Vietnam, which continued to fight each other.

In 1964, the United States became involved in civil war in Vietnam, which ultimately led to the death of more than three million American and Vietnamese residents.

Prince Sihanouk remained neutral during the Vietnam War and provided support to both sides. In 1970, the new Prime Minister, General Lon Nol, with the support of the United States, carried out a military coup d'état and became president of the new Khmer Republic.

In 1975, North Vietnamese troops captured the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon, and in Cambodia, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot and his army entered Phnom Penh. After the overthrow of the Lon Nol government in 1975 by the Khmer Rouge and the seizure of power by Pol Pot, the genocide began and continued until 1978, when the Khmer Rouge was overthrown by the Vietnamese.

Rule of the Khmer Rouge

The Khmer Rouge, who came to power, intended to instantly revolutionize Cambodian society. They were a violent revolutionary group with radical views.

On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge army entered Phnom Penh, the modern capital of Cambodia. Uneducated youth from the peasant provinces burst into the city, they began to force all city residents to leave the city, abandon all their belongings and head to the villages. Crying children were driven away from their parents.

After heavy bombing by the US and the cooperation of the Lon Nol government with the US, many Cambodians hoped that Pol Pot's communism would bring a new peaceful life.

By 1975, Pol Pot's army had grown to 700,000 soldiers.

Collectivization in Cambodia

After seizing power, Pol Pot immediately began his collectivization policy. All property was confiscated, nationalized and taken under control, including schools, hospitals, and public institutions. Pol Pot studied in France, was a follower and passionate admirer of Mao Zedong, and intended to introduce Maoism (Chinese communism) and Stalinism.

He was going to create a new Cambodia based on the Maoist model. The Khmer Rouge's goal was to turn Cambodia into a primitive country in which all citizens would work in the agricultural sector and any Western innovations would be removed.

Militant communism

To achieve the "ideal" communist model, all Cambodians had to become collective farmers; those who were against this had to be eliminated. Under threat of death, people had to leave their hometowns and villages.

Disabled people, young and old, who could not go to collective farms, were killed on the spot. Those who refused to leave their homes were killed as opponents to the new regime. City residents were forcibly evacuated to villages; no one had any civil or political rights. Children were torn away from their parents and sent to various labor camps.

Cambodians were forced to live in public communes similar to military barracks, with constant food shortages. In conditions of slave labor, hunger and disease, many became unable to do hard work, after which they were killed.

The list of “potential oppositionists” included journalists, lawyers, doctors, intellectuals, students and professors. Factories, schools, universities, hospitals were closed.

Management and their employees were killed along with their families. Possession foreign language was a reason for execution. Reading, writing, and even wearing glasses was a feature of the West; for this you could be shot.

Militant communism instilled the belief that journalists and intellectuals were a threat to the state. The Khmer Rouge also persecuted a variety of religious beliefs: Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese, Thais and Cambodians.

Leading Buddhist monks and Christian missionaries were killed and temples and churches were burned. National minorities were forcibly resettled, and the use of minority languages ​​was also prohibited.

The Khmer Rouge welcomed denunciations of suspicion of treason and sabotage. People's survival depended on their ability to work. The elderly, disabled, sick and children in Cambodia suffered enormous losses as they were unable to perform daily hard physical labor.

While the Khmers were gaining strength, the United States showed no interest in events in Southeast Asia. The American embassy was not very concerned about the Pol Pot regime; for them, the most important thing was the influence of Cambodia on the Vietnam War.

Victims of the Pol Pot regime

Only according to rough calculations by the Genocide Research Committee of the Pol Pot regime, between one and a half to three million Cambodians died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. The report released by the committee included mortality data of approximately 3,314,768 people. This is 25% of the total population of Cambodia before the regime began. So many people died due to policies of forced relocation from cities to villages, torture, executions, malnutrition and forced labor.

The people of Cambodia continued to suffer after the fall of Pol Pot's regime. Thousands of people were forced to flee to Thailand, many of them starving and eating leaves and roots. Some died of starvation on the way, others were blown up in a minefield, as the Khmers mined the area along the western border. From the camps, refugees brought malaria, typhoid, cholera and many other diseases to Thailand. Experts estimate that after the fall of the regime, more than 650,000 more people died within a year.

Killing Fields

Most of the Khmer Rouge suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. In the 1990s, no one defined this or offered any treatment. The illness continued long years, sometimes progressed. Those who suffered from such a stress disorder periodically fell into panic, which could trigger a heart attack. In the early 1990s, mass graves were held throughout Cambodia. Each of them contained dozens and hundreds of remains. Even decades later, residents often find skulls on the surface.

International reaction

Bringing the perpetrators to justice has become quite a difficult task. Three decades after the expulsion of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh, the Cambodian government sought assistance from the United Nations in prosecuting crimes committed between 1975 and 1979.

The UN initially intended to create a court reminiscent of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, but the Cambodian government refused the UN proposal, fearing Western influence in prosecuting perpetrators of the Khmer Rouge regime. After lengthy negotiations through the UN General Assembly, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) were created. While these judicial bodies took so long to be created, many of the perpetrators had already died.

The fate of the top members of the Pol Pot regime

Among the dead were: Pol Pot, Song Shen (Minister of Defense responsible for the political police). Many ministers and suspects were killed in clashes with Vietnam.