Organization
Saloth Sar Pol Pot
(May 19th 1925- April 15th 1998
Saloth Sar Pol Pot was the leader in the Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who would lead the Khmer Roughe from 1963 till the day he died in 1998. When he gained power on April 17th 1975 he declared throughout Cambodia,”This is Year Zero." His dream was to have the country "purified." Capitalism, Western culture, city life, religion, and all foreign influences were to be tossed aside and a new order of peasant communism was to take form.
Every foreigner was expelled and any foreign economic of medical assistance was refused. Foreign language was also banned. News in any form such as television stations, newspapers, mail, radios, telephones and all forms of transportation were confiscated. Money was forbidden as well and businesses were forced to shut down. Religion banned education halted, health care eliminated, and parental authority revoked. Cambodia would be sealed off from the rest of the world. All of Cambodia's cities were then forcibly evacuated into the countryside by force.
After the Cambodian-Vietnamese war in 1979, Pol Pot was forced to flee into the jungles of southwest Cambodia. From there the Khmer Rouge government was forced to collapse. From 1979 to 1997 the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot clung to power on the borders of Cambodia and Thailand as the rightful government. Pol Pot would soon die in 1998 under house arrest.
Goal
The sides were organized based on your level in society and your level of intellect. The goal that was to be achieved was to bring back Cambodia to its primitive years in agriculture. Where farm life was the main source of life and work. By bringing it back to year Zero, they believed to form the "ideal" communist society. This divided the people into two different sides. Those in the Khmer Rouge wanted to destroy any hope or existence of western culture bringing about new renovation in Cambodia. This included educated people, Christians, monks, and all those with ethnicity outside of Cambodia. Everyone else associated with these or any western culture was to perish. The Khmer Rouge was a very paranoid group. They believed so highly of bringing back Agriculture to the Cambodians that they would even eliminate the supporters of their own group on suspicions of a revolt
(Genocides and Conflicts, Cambodia Genocide)
(Wikipedia, Pol Pot)
(Genocides and Conflicts, Cambodia Genocide)
(Wikipedia, Pol Pot)