Cambodia's terrible leader who killed people for wearing glasses: Who is Pol Pot?

Born in 1925, Pol Pot was born into a farming family in the city of Kompong Thom. In 1949 he won a radio engineering scholarship in Paris. He returned to Cambodia in 1953 and began teaching. He founded the Khmer Rouge organization in 1963. He collaborated with the deposed king Norodom Sihanouk and overthrew the military rule in 1975 and became prime minister. That's how his real story began.

Although Pol Pot was prime minister, he held all the power. He wanted to make Cambodia a country of agriculture and forced all the people out of the city to work in the villages and fields. He didn't just force him to work in the fields.

Pol Pot (born 19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was a Cambodian revolutionary, dictator, and politician who ruled Cambodia as Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea between 1976 and 1979. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and a Khmer nationalist.

The main purpose of Pol Pot, who put forward an inward-looking economic plan to end his country's foreign dependency, was very different. Pol Pot, a staunch Marxist, was "dedicated" to eradicating the traces of capitalism in his country. That's why he started the massacres.

He was such a crazed murderer that Pol Pot was obsessed with capitalism. He was obsessed with the education system because, according to him, there was a 'capitalist education system' in schools. That's why he had the teachers rounded up and shot. If you had glasses and a watch, not just the teachers, you were in trouble too.

Why were those who had glasses and watches killed? The reason is very tragic. According to Pol Pot, those who wore glasses and watches were slaves of the capitalist system, instilling capitalism in people. They didn't value labor, they just exploited people. Their killing was necessary. He killed people with cutting tools so that lead would not be wasted.

Pol Pot even reached out to the babies of the people he killed. The reason for killing was because they would rise up in the future and cause trouble. He added another savagery to this brutality, and had them killed by hitting their heads against trees so that lead would not be wasted.

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge continued their massacres. But what would he do with the people he killed? They found a solution, they would bury them in the fields. Millions of people were buried in places called the Killing Fields. Nowadays, there are museums describing these massacres in the place of those fields. In addition, in the movie called Death Fields, the events were transferred to the big screen.

Pol Pot entered the blood of millions of people with excuses such as glasses, watches, pens, whistles and calluses. He killed about 1.5 million people for these reasons and caused terror in the country.

The place, which used to be a high school and teaching building, was turned into a torture chamber under the direction of Pol Pot. People were tortured and killed in this building. The most famous torture was to open a deep wound on the back of the body and put salt on that wound. 12 thousand people were killed by similar methods.

Having won the Vietnam War, Vietnam also entered Cambodia. That's why Pol Pot had to flee. The dictator, who was under house arrest in Thailand, died on April 15, 1998. There are also rumors that he committed suicide, although the Khmer Rouge said he died of a heart attack. His ashes can now be visited for $2.

The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Communist Party of Kampuchea general secretary Pol Pot, who radically pushed Cambodia towards an entirely self-sufficient agrarian socialist society. It resulted in the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population in 1975 (c. 7.8 million).

Justification for the Massacres

Pol Pot's massacres were actually made to fulfill the order that this person wanted to establish in his mind. According to Pol Pot, people were actually born equal and good, what spoiled them was living in a corrupt society. Money, religion, technology, market economy, division of labor were elements that corrupted society. Only by their destruction could a new society be created.

Good people, according to Pol Pot, were farmers. All non-farmers were corrupt people of modern society. Pol Pot believed that with the empowerment of the farmers, Cambodia would prosper, and for this all elements of capitalism had to be destroyed.

Pol Pot evacuated the cities, forcing people to migrate to the villages.

Money was not needed in the newly established order and money was abolished. The central bank and all banks were closed. Cut off from the outside world, Pol Pot was hostile to anyone with money and education.

Soldiers, bureaucrats, diplomats, doctors, professors, scientists, clergymen, journalists, writers, foreign language speakers working in state institutions were subjected to heavy torture and murdered. Everyone thought to be intellectual was killed.