Pol Pot: The Khmer Rouge

“In the new Kampuchea, one million is all we need to continue the revolution. We don’t need the rest. We prefer to kill ten friends rather than keep one enemy alive” was a common slogan from the Communist regime named ‘The Khmer Rouge’, run by Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot are commonly known around the world and especially in Cambodia for their attempt to nationalise & centralise the farming society of Cambodia, to turn the country into a complete communist state and to abolish any history that came before the ‘Khmer Rouge’ over an extremely short period of time. The Khmer Rouge was the name given to members of an extremely communist party of Kampuchea in Cambodia which was formed in 1968 and led by Pol Pot. The actions of the Khmer

Their violent tactics to do this included forcing every citizen from their home into labour camps in the countryside. All sources of education, hospitals and factories were closed down and families were separated and children put into separate labour camps. Pol Pot’s harsh terms didn’t stop with the labour camps; people could be executed for talking another language and even for smiling. Pol Pot used mass propaganda to create extreme fear among Cambodian citizens. One of the slogans that illustrates Pol Pot’s ideas of his communist state said “To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss”. The Khmer Rouge sealed off Cambodia so that the world would not look in. By sealing off Cambodia to the rest of the world, Pol Pot hoped that he could abolish all history involved with Cambodia before his ‘Khmer Rouge’ government. This was his idea of ‘Year Zero’ and the way in which he brought about these ideas proved him an idealistic and brutal

This was the main extreme idea throughout the Cambodian Genocide and it was one of the reasons that it started. On the 17th April 1975 Pol Pot declared Year Zero. All sorts of modern technology, medicine and education were outlawed. Religion was also banished and hundreds of thousands of Muslims were executed in order to restart Cambodia from ‘Year Zero’. Pol Pot wanted the country to be self-sufficient, hence why the whole population was put into labour camps. People were treated like machines and food was scarce. One school was turned into a concentration-camp-like prison and interrogation centre named S-21. S-21 was designed for detention, interrogation and inhumane torture, it included a torture chamber that was used if prisoners didn’t obey the rules. Some of the rules included “You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect” and “Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting”. Out in the yard stood a wooden pole which was used for interrogation and as a torture machine; the interrogator tied both hands of the prisoner behind their back and lifted the prisoner upside down until they lost consciousness, they would then proceed to dip the prisoners head in dirty water in order for them to regain consciousness to continue the