The Monster that Was Pol Pot

1335 Words3 Pages

Why does nobody know who this monstrous human being was? What did Pol Pot do to become such a terrible person? Pol Pot was a Cambodian dictator who led the country through hell. People say that Pol Pot killed almost as many people as Hitler did. People should become aware of what he did and how horrifying it really was. Pol Pot was the leader of Khmer Rouge, who led his communist party to kill twenty five percent of Cambodia resulting from starvation, overwork, and executions.
Pol Pot was born with the name Saloth Sar in 1925 in Cambodia. His family was big on farming and agriculture, and believed that you he must get good grades because Pol Pot’s family was wealthy. Pol Pot went to school in Paris when he was 20 years old on a scholarship for radio electronics. While he was in Paris he was so interested in learning about Marxism and dictatorship that he got too distracted from his studies. This led to him losing his scholarship, and traveling back to Cambodia. Something about authoritarianism was so interesting to Pol Pot. He thought that he could rule the country, or in other words, be in total control of the citizens of Cambodia; because of this, he became apart of an underground communist movement. Ironically, Cambodia gained independence from France, which led to an autocracy by a royal monarchy.
Pol Pot set his mind to becoming a Marxist, so he became the leader of the Cambodian communist party. They were required to go into a jungle to escape the leader of Cambodia who was Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Pol Pot then created his own communist party known as Khmer Rouge with him being the leader. Khmer Rouge translated to Red Cambodians, and Pol Pot engaged a guerrilla war against the government in behalf of them having more powe...

... middle of paper ...

...urred he lost his control of being the leader of Khmer Rouge in the 1990’s. Pol Pot then died of a heart attack in 1998. This was after his arrest, but before he could go on trial for the awful slave labor and commands that resulted in many deaths that he was involved in. The people of Cambodia were relieved because “with the imminent end of Pol Pot, Cambodia can finally turn one of the darkest pages in its history” (Whitelaw 1).
Pol Pot was a frightful man that not many people know about or are aware of. We are lucky that we live in a country of such extraordinary freedom. He could have stayed in control and killed even half of the population. Pol Pot should have at least gotten punished for his wrongdoing. Pol Pot was the leader of Khmer Rouge who led his communist party to kill twenty five percent of Cambodia resulting from starvation, overwork, and executions.

More about The Monster that Was Pol Pot

Open Document