Pol Pot
Pol Pot (born Saloth Sar) was the leader of the Khmer Rouge and the architect of one of the most catastrophic social experiments in history. Educated in Paris in the 1950s, where he was drawn to Stalinist communism and anti-colonial nationalism, he returned to Cambodia and built a clandestine revolutionary movement over two decades. When the Khmer Rouge seized power on April 17, 1975, Pol Pot — known to his followers only as 'Brother Number One' — implemented a radical agrarian utopia he called 'Year Zero': cities were emptied, currency abolished, schools and hospitals closed, Buddhism suppressed, and the population forced into agricultural labour camps. His regime killed an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians — approximately a quarter of the population — through execution, starvation, forced labour, and disease between 1975 and 1979. The primary targets were intellectuals, ethnic minorities (Vietnamese, Chinese, Cham Muslims), Buddhist monks, and anyone associated with the previous government. The Tuol Sleng security prison (S-21) processed thousands of victims, including Pol Pot's own senior cadres as his paranoia intensified. Vietnamese forces invaded in December 1978 and captured Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979. Pol Pot fled to the Thai border jungle and continued guerrilla operations for nearly two decades. He was never tried internationally. In 1997 his own movement turned on him; he was sentenced to house arrest by a Khmer Rouge tribunal and died on April 15, 1998, before facing justice at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.
- Lived: 1925 CE – 1998 CE
- Nationality: Cambodian
- Roles: dictator, revolutionary_leader, head_of_state
