Who was Pol Pot

[ELComandante]

Maybe this question is asked many times before, but i just have seen a doc about Pol Pot (Red Masters on discovery channel). They said that he was an evil man, killed lots of his own people. Is that true? I can't trust it because everything about communism on discovery channel is "evil", if you understand what i mean.

[Anonymous]

Pol Pot was a pseudo-communist....
´
he was the leader of the khmer rouge, pseudo-communist barbarians that had the briliant idea of bringing socialism to CAmbodja by eleminating all other people that werent peasents, this including writers, professors, doctors, engeneirs..
this was ofcourse barbarism not socialism...

but for a bether understanding:

"Pol Pot (Born Saloth Sar 1925) was first exposed to communist ideals when he lived and studied in France which inspired him to draft a programme of economic and social equalities for the Cambodian peoples. In 1953 Pol Pot returned to Cambodia with his ambitions to establish 'an equal Cambodia'. He held a job as a teacher where he often spoke to his students of a better and more equally just future, motivating many of them for his cause. It was not hard for the common Cambodian peasant to recognized the widespread corruption and elitism by the Royal Sihanou regime which rules over Cambodia and the situation only became worse as the Vietnam war spilled over into Cambodia. Pol Pot spoke out against the Sihanou regime freaquent and effectively which eventually developed into a large and powerful grassroots movement. Cambodia, by 1975 was completely devistated, first by a corrupt and elitist royal regime, and then a war in which they didnt want any part in and now the peoples war of the Khmer Rouge seemed to be the only hope for salvation. The Khmer Rouge was the government of the people and by the people and would deliver to the people the fruits in which they have been deprived, so they thought.

The principles of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were based around the demand for a complete and immidiate classless society by displacing all classes and city dwellers into the rural peasantry. The Khmer Rouge defied Marxism in just about every aspect as they denied the people universal progress and instead enforced universal oppression. The Rouge declared that anyone and anything that was not a rural peasant was an enemy of the people; this included, doctors, teachers, technicians, journalists and even people who wore glasses and read books; these people became the focus of the ever famous 'killing fields'. Within a short period of 3 years the Khmer Rouge successfully crushed any potential threat within the confines of their territory.

The Khmer Rouge sealed its fate in 1977 however when they launched an attack on a Vietnamese village. The Vietnamese responded by establishing rebel armies within Cambodia in conjuction with vietnamese forces and by 1979 the Khmer Rouge was driven from Phnom Penh and confined to the northwest corner of Cambodia. The Vietnamese and the Cambodian civilian army remained in conflict with the Khmer Rouge until 1989 when Vietnam withdrew its forces from Cambodia.

The Vietnamese uncovered in their invasion of Cambodia the exact nature of the Khmer Rouge and publicized all the evidence and even though the atrocities became public knowledge, the Khmer Rouge retained most of its supporters. During the exile years of the Khmer Rouge they functioned mainly as a rebel army within sovereign Cambodia and even after the Vietnamese withdrew they had no position, none the less they held out until the death of Pol Pot in 1998.

The result of the Khmer Rouge is a direct result of opportunst distorted revisions that crippled an ideology into a self serving prostitution. In no instance did the Rouge apply Marxist principles to the communist bumper sticker in which they tagged onto their mission statement. The historical experiences of Cambodia demonstrate to us all the more reason why we must maintain ever so vigilant in obstructing the next 'Saloth Sar' to rising to power. "

http://www.sovietrevolution.com/asia.html

[Wolfie]

He wanted for Cambodia to become a soley agricultural nation, so ludicrously he sent EYERYBODY for the ciries to so called communal farms which were far from communaly run. These didnt create enough harvest and so he had to kill millions of inoccents so, as he thought, to decrease the famine. As my educated comrade said before me he was psuedo socialist and his regime is a large black spot on the red star and nearly everyone i have had a serios debate with about politics has brought it up!

(Edited by Wolfie at 2:00 am on Mar. 29, 2003)

[ELComandante]

Thanks for the info! So it was true, he was a monster...

[Uhuru na Umoja]

I think the fact that he was overthrown by the communist Vietnamese regime says it all. They would not have done so to any true communist or socialist.

[Iepilei]

yes, the Cambodians - who for a while were backed by Washington - openly confronted the Vietnamese. Ultimately the Red Khmer's were crushed by the Vietnamese - thank god.

[lostsoul]

This may be pure bullshit, but a cambodian was telling me when vietnam fought Khmer Rouge, china got pissed and had a war with vietnam.

He was very pissed at china, because to him, they supported pol pot.

is there any truth to this??

[Aleksander Nordby]

yes its true

[damn the capitalism]

yes all these were true ,i think it's a big shame to consider pol pot as a communist ,he brings a very bad image of communism !he was the greatest butcher and for more information:
he killed up to 2 millions so between 25% and 35% of his own people along with vietnames who use to live incambodia ! in 1969 cambodia have been involved in war with vietnamese , the president richard nixon in attempt to destroy north vietnamese supply lines to the vietcong in south vietnam and in cambodia , he ordered to bomb cambodia which was declared by king Sihanouk as a neutral state before!
so this was the beginning of a civil war between supporters of american and anti-communist led by Lon Pol (a military man who have been used by king sihanouk before to neutralize all the people and the parties with the communist too) so he had been paid by americans to seize the power in cambodia !
king sihanouk 's govarnement have been banned ,so to get the power once again ,sihanouk unified different people and parties and gave them support ,it included the the khmer rouge led by pol pot .the khmer rouge wasn't big in number at all! but by the time they became bigger and they fought against lon pol and the other supporters of american and against the governement and they g0t the power in their hand ,they entered the main city phnom penh and they were welcomed by the the people ,but the khmer rouge got different plans and programs:
it consists of deeurbanization of cambodia and a complete removal of people from cities to the countryside ,they wanted to transform the society in an agriculture one!
the urban population and the refugees together with peasents wre forced to work in labour camps in the countryside !
The one who protests ,was killed along with his family !the victims included :
the supporters of americans, intellectuals, buisness and professional people , buddhist monks, together with a minority of vietnamese and chinese and thais!it was a big disease and a true Genocide!
Note:
To the one called Alexdar Nordby:
think 100 times before writing : Communism=Democracy!
maybe it was a democracy in the communist party but not a democracy by the peoples!

[Dhul Fiqar]

Don't forget the muslims, many estimates range around 500.000 Muslims massacred. Before the Khmer Rouge they
were more than 700.000, or 10% of the population. After the massacres there are believed to be about 200.000 left.

The Khmer Rouge also went around forcing people to eat pork to rat out Muslims. Anyone refusing was shot immediately.

Muslims were killed at a rate that was from double to triple the rate of execution for the general population.

http://www.dccam.org/oukoubah.htm

--- G.

[Kapitan Andrey]

All I know is:

1) He was a pseudo-communist!
2) He was as evil as sTalin!(mau be more evil!)
3) It was in Kambodja.
4) I hate him!

[Silent Eye]

"Kapitan Andrey", was there any purpose at all to your last post.

"He was a pseudo communist"

Ok, he was a firm believer in marxism, but he went, not only too far but his views on nationalism and racism were heavily distorted.

" He was as evil as sTalin!(mau be more evil!) "

What the hell does that in parenthesis mean? What is the relevance of comparing someone who was in control of a minute nation to someone who controlled the largest nation on earth. Stalin and Pot had totally different agendas, Stalin wanted more industrial/modernization while Pot wanted to have Cambodia return to a more agricultural society.

"I hate him"
"It was in Kambodja"

Am i the only one who thinks this guy should be banned?

[SwedishCommie]

Silent Eye
Maybe youre being a little harsh
but youre right it was a completly spamish post with no meaning!

[Kapitan Andrey]

Quote: from Silent Eye on 3:12 am on April 21, 2003
Am i the only one who thinks this guy should be banned?



Quote: from SwedishCommie on 6:03 pm on April 21, 2003

...it was a completly spamish post with no meaning!


Fuck both of you!!!
It was my opinion about him!!!

SC & SE, ha-ha! Don't try scare me!!! I'll be banned after you!!!

[lostsoul]

i don't mean to sound like an asshole, but this was about pol pot. If you guys want to attack each other individually why not do it threw PM's? or try to resolve it.

theirs nothing worst then socialist fighting with each other. focus your anger on the injustices of the world, not on each other.

[Kapitan Andrey]

"PM"!? What do you mean? What is it!?

Don't worry, you didn't sound like an asshole!
They are not a socialists!

[lostsoul]

Quote: from Kapitan Andrey on 3:44 am on April 23, 2003
"PM"!? What do you mean? What is it!?

Don't worry, you didn't sound like an asshole!
They are not a socialists!

pm means private messages, you can send other board members messages to so its private and direct.

[Kapitan Andrey]

...I knew it...it is hard to understans some...short names of objects...

[InnocentCivilian]

yep pol pot was truly evil....i read that he killed people because they looked intelligent and when he first took charge he burnt al the cities and resources to the ground. he also banned money too. he turned cambodia into one big labor camp.....at the height of this terror people predict that he killed up to 35% of the population for virtually no justified reason at all

[lostsoul]

i was just wondering why did he have the backing of usa, and china dispite what he was doing.

i'm sure they knew, and instead of trying to stop them, they supported him. why?

[Dhul Fiqar]

Well, why did the U.S. use agent orange and napalm in Vietnam? Why did China brutally annex Tibet and kill millions in the cultural revolution?

Sometimes governments aren't concerned with morality...

But suffice to say, everyone that ever supported Pol Pot turned their backs on him once the true scale of the disasters in Cambodia were revealed.

The U.S. is even partially responsible for what happened because of the brutal campaign they waged against the Khmer Rouge before pulling out, many claim it was the campaign against the yanks in the jungles that truly brutalized their movement.


--- G.

[Spartacus2002]

you notice how the capi's always refer to polpot when they talk about the evils of communism, but never mention how it was the viet namese commies that removed pol pot from power not the americans?

[nz revolution]

I went to a market looking for a shirt of Ho Chi Minh, this guy said he can get me a Pol Pot shirt if I want, I screwed up my face and said "Yuck, Pol Pot, are you serious?" I don't know why I said yuck, usually I just swear.

He then went on to say how Mao was worse, cos I was looking for a Mao shirt for my comrade who is in Nepal for a holiday (vive la revolucion!)

I think he despises the Maoists in Nepal cos he went there to do some business but there was a general strike so he was outta luck.

[lostsoul]

[quote]Quote: from nz revolution on 10:44 pm on April 28, 2003
I went to a market looking for a shirt of Ho Chi Minh, this guy said he can get me a Pol Pot shirt if I want, I screwed up my face and said "Yuck, Pol Pot, are you serious?" I don't know why I said yuck, usually I just swear.
[quote]

hey if you don't mind me asking, where are you from?

i have thought anyone sold pol pot shirts, its very weird. I have seen some pictures of cuba(in the book "che: images of a revonulatary" ) and there's a girl with a shirt of hitler, its very odd. I never knew people actually still thought so highly of these people around the world.

[GCusack]

Pol Pot did kill many of his own people! I saw a doc on the Biography channel and it showed a man who had actually met the man and heard from his own mouth his opinion on the vietnahmise. However, the man said that Pol Pot was actually a nice man to the people who managed to get close to hime. It was the other 2 million or something, people who Pol Pot killed who proved otherwise.

[lostsoul]

Quote: from GCusack on 6:04 pm on May 8, 2003
Pol Pot did kill many of his own people! I saw a doc on the Biography channel and it showed a man who had actually met the man and heard from his own mouth his opinion on the vietnahmise. However, the man said that Pol Pot was actually a nice man to the people who managed to get close to hime. It was the other 2 million or something, people who Pol Pot killed who proved otherwise.

go look up stalin, mao, hilter, and anyone who has ever had someone killed. They are ususally very nice people, and easy to get along with. Its basically because of that their able to get people on their side to do those things.

If Mao was an asshole to me, i would not want to listen to his orders. But if he treated me nicely and made people feel important in the country then they'll most likely do anything their asked.

This is how i found out about pol pot..my friends were telling me they wanted to study him, because if he can get an group of people to kill like 25% of his country, then my freinds could try to use his tactics and get people to work better in their business, and learn how to maniplate the customers.