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Pol Pot And The Cambodian Genocide

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"I see ... a pile of skulls and bones. For the first time since my arrival, what I see before me is too painful, and I break down completely. These are my relatives, friends, and neighbors, I keep thinking ... It is a long time before I am calm again. And then I am able, with my bare hands, to rearrange the skulls and bones so that they are not scattered about." In this quote, Cambodian genocide survivor, Dith Pran, illustrates the pure horror the Cambodian people endured during the rule of Pol Pot - mass killing, starvation, executions, and brutal torture, perpetrated by their own ruler. Pot’s rule was not simply a totalitarian dictatorship. It was a totalitarian dictatorship that perpetrated one of the worst genocides in history, known to the world as the Cambodian Genocide. To begin, in 1962, a little-known politician named Pol Pot became the leader of the Cambodian Communist Party. However, the ruling Prince of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk, did not approve of Pot’s policies and exiled him to the Cambodian jungle. There, Pot formed a militarized resistance movement, known as the Khmer Rouge. Some of its primary policies included opposition to U.S. intervention in the Vietnam War and the Sihanouk government, as the fighting in neighboring Vietnam had spilled over into Cambodia and had led to the death of over 75,000 Cambodians. This devastation had a significant impact on the morale of the Khmer people and would later lead to the development of the Cambodian genocide. Pol

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