Cambodian Dictator. Born Saloth Sâr in Cambodia, Pol Pot’s family was of mixed Chinese and ethnic Khmer heritage, and his father was a prosperous farmer. He was sent away to school as a boy, eventually traveling to France to study. He joined the French Communist Party and read the writings of Stalin and Mao about carrying out a revolution. After the Second World War, France allowed Cambodia to create a new constitution and to establish political parties, which led indirectly to unrest in the country, and strife between Democratic and Marxist-Leninist movements. He went back to Cambodia to determine which rebel group they should support, choosing the Khmer Việt Minh of the Việt Minh Eastern Zone and became part of the leadership there. In October 1953, the king declared Cambodia independent from France. Following the Geneva Conference held to end the First Indochina War, the Khmer Việt Minh units left Cambodia for North Vietnam. He decided to pursue his aims through electoral means, working to establish a socialist party through which they could compete in the 1955 election. The king’s party, however, won all 91 seats. After the king’s father died in 1960, he introduced a constitutional amendment allowing himself to become head of state for life. In February 1962, anti-government student protests turned into riots, at which the king dismissed the government, called new elections, and produced a list of left-leaning Cambodians, demanding that they meet him to establish a new administration. He was on that list but fled for a Viet Cong encampment. The party's Central Committee agreed that they should endorse armed struggle against the king. In April 1965, he went to Hanoi to meet North Vietnamese government figures, then flew to Beijing, to meet leaders of the Communist Party of China. In October 1966, the Cambodian party leaders commanded the start of preparations for an armed struggle. In January 1968, the war was launched; the government responded by bombarding areas where the rebels were active. As the uprising spread, more than 100,000 villagers joined the rebels. The National Assembly removed the king from office, so the North Vietnamese recruited the king into an alliance with the Khmer Rouge. The king then issued an appeal by radio to the people of Cambodia asking them to rise against the government and to support the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge continued their attacks, and by the middle of 1973, controlled almost two-thirds of the country and half the population. In late 1973, he decided to put the capital city under siege. He also ordered a series of general purges of former government officials, and anyone with an education. The Khmer Rouge began a policy of evacuating urban areas and forcibly relocating their residents to the countryside. The Khmer Rouge gained the recognition of 63 countries as the true government of Cambodia, and the UN gave the seat for Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge. In September 1974, he began a socialist transformation of the country, including evacuating the main cities to the countryside, taking money out of circulation, and purging enemies of the party. The Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975. As the leader of the Communist Party, he became the leader of the country. About this time, he changed his name to Pol Pot. In 1976, his régime reclassified Kampucheans into three groupings: those with full rights, those who were candidates for full rights, and those with no rights, also known as depositees. Depositees’ rations were reduced, leading to widespread starvation. The Khmer Rouge leadership determined that only one or two million people were needed to build the new socialist utopia; the rest were to be disposed of. Hundreds of thousands of the people were made to dig their own graves, and the Khmer Rouge soldiers buried them alive. Muslims, Christians, intellectuals, the disabled, Chinese, Laotians, Vietnamese, and politicians and bureaucrats accused of association with previous governments were executed. The death toll is estimated at about two million, with perhaps half of those deaths being due to executions, and the rest being attributable to starvation and disease. An additional 300,000 Cambodians starved to death between 1979 and 1980, largely due to Khmer Rouge policies. He aligned the country diplomatically with the People's Republic of China and adopted an anti-Soviet line. By 1977, relations with Vietnam began to fall apart. He tried to prevent border disputes, but the negotiations failed, which caused even more border disputes. In September, Cambodia launched division-scale raids over the border, which once again left a trail of murder and destruction in villages. In December, Vietnam sent 50,000 troops into Cambodia. He responded with a call to exterminate the Vietnamese but also to purify the population of Cambodia. About 100,000 people were exterminated in six months. On 25th December 1978 Vietnam attacked Cambodia. The Cambodian army was defeated, the regime was toppled, and he fled to the Thai border area. In January 1979, Vietnam installed a new government, composed of Khmer Rouge who had fled to Vietnam to avoid the purges. He regrouped with his core supporters and rebuilt a small military force in the west of the country with the help of the People's Republic of China. In December 1985, the Vietnamese launched a major offensive and overran most of the Khmer Rouge and other insurgent positions. In 1989, Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge established a new stronghold in the west near the Thai border and he returned to Cambodia. He refused to cooperate with the peace process, and he continued to fight against the new coalition government. The Khmer Rouge kept the government forces at bay until 1996, when troops and leaders began defecting. He ordered the execution of his lifelong right-hand man, Son Sen, on 10 June 1997 for attempting to make a settlement with the government. Eleven members of Son Sen's family were also killed, although he later denied that he had ordered this. He then fled his northern stronghold but was arrested on 19 June 1997. He was sentenced to death by a Phnom Penh court soon afterwards. On the night of 15 April 1998, the Voice of America, of which he was a devoted listener, announced that the Khmer Rouge had agreed to turn him over to an international tribunal. He reportedly died in his bed later that night while waiting to be moved to another location. His body was cremated a few days later, raising suspicions that he had committed suicide.