https://prole.wiki/w/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=98.244.71.125ProleWiki - User contributions [en]2026-10-24T09:43:10ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.43.11https://prole.wiki/w/index.php?title=Pol_Pot&diff=88719Pol Pot2025-12-07T03:23:11Z<p>98.244.71.125: Changed nationality from Cambodian to Khmer because the concept of a specifically Khmer nation was important to the writings of the CPK. Cambodia was to them a state imposed by the French, while the Khmer nation was an actual nation.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Infobox person|name=Pol Pot|native_name=ប៉ុល ពត|image=Pol Pot.png|birth_name=Saloth Sâr|birth_date=19 May 1925|birth_place=Prek Sbauv, Cambodia, [[French Indochina]]|death_date=15 April 1998|death_place=Anlong Veng, Oddar Meanchey, [[Kingdom of Cambodia|Cambodia]]|death_cause=Heart failure|nationality=Khmer}}<br />
<br />
'''Pol Pot''' was the leader of [[Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979)|Cambodia]] from 1975 to 1979. Although he was a member of the [[Communist Party of Kampuchea]], he was supported by the [[United States of America|United States]]<ref name=":0">{{Citation|author=John Pilger|title=The Long Secret Alliance: Uncle Sam and Pol Pot|pdf=https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/pol/pilgerpolpotnus.pdf}}</ref> and admitted he was not a [[Communism|communist]].<ref name=":1">{{News citation|newspaper=Challenge-Desafio|title=Pol Pot Was Not and Is Not A Communist|date=1986-02-19|url=https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/pol/khmerrouge.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220116094937/https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/pol/khmerrouge.html|archive-date=2022-01-16|retrieved=2022-06-05}}</ref><br />
<br />
== Early life ==<br />
Pol Pot, born Saloth Sâr, was educated in [[French Republic|France]] and returned to Cambodia in the 1950s. The Communist Party of Kampuchea was founded in 1960 by Khmer nationalists and former members of [[Indochinese Communist Party]]. After the party was repressed by Prince [[Norodom Sihanouk|Sihanouk]], most of the communists fled to [[Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1945–1975)|North Vietnam]] and only Pol Pot's nationalist group remained.<br />
<br />
Pol Pot participated in a peasant rebellion in 1967 near the border with [[Kingdom of Thailand|Thailand]]. He adopted a line that everyone in the cities, including teachers and [[Proletariat|workers]], were the enemies of the people. He also hated [[Socialist Republic of Vietnam|Vietnamese]] people, a belief normally associated with the Cambodian elite. In 1970, [[Lon Nol]], backed by the U.S., overthrew Sihanouk and took power.<ref name=":1" /><br />
<br />
== Rise to power ==<br />
In April 1975, the Communist Party of Kampuchea took power. It included two enemy factions, the pro-Vietnamese communists and anti-Vietnamese nationalists. The nationalists were more influential in the west and included Pol Pot. Pol Pot was suspicious of the communists and his supporters even killed some of them.<br />
<br />
After the CPK took power, people were evacuated from the cities, which ran out of feed because food imports from the U.S. ended after Lon Nol was overthrown.<ref name=":1" /><br />
<br />
== Cambodian Genocide ==<br />
In 1977, purges began against ethnic Vietnamese and pro-Vietnamese Cambodians. The communist faction of the CPK began a revolt in 1978, which was crushed. In January 1979, Pol Pot was overthrown in after Vietnam invaded Cambodia and established the [[People's Republic of Kampuchea (1979–1989)|People's Republic of Kampuchea]].<ref name=":1" /><br />
<br />
== U.S. support ==<br />
After he was overthrown, the United States continued to recognize Pol Pot as the legitimate leader of Cambodia at the [[United Nations]].<ref>{{News citation|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|title=Reagan Is Urged to End U.N. Support of Pol Pot|date=1981-12-10|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/10/world/reagan-is-urged-to-end-un-support-of-pol-pot.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220509215856/https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/10/world/reagan-is-urged-to-end-un-support-of-pol-pot.html|archive-date=2022-05-09|retrieved=2022-06-05}}</ref> Between 1980 and 1986, Pol Pot's exiled forces received $85 million in funding from the United States and their operations were run by 50 [[CIA]] agents in Thailand. U.S. national security advisor [[Zbigniew Brzezinski]] also encouraged [[China]] to support Pol Pot. In August 1990, a former member of the U.S. special forces disclosed that he had been ordered to destroy documents showing that the U.S. was supplying Pol Pot with munitions from Thailand.<ref name=":0" /><br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
[[Category:CIA plants]]<br />
[[Category:Genocide perpetrators]]<br />
[[Category:Dictators]]</div>98.244.71.125