The Khmer Rouge: The Rise And Fall Of Pol Pot

On May 19, 1925, Pol Pot was born into a poor farming family (Pol Pot 1). Pol Pot got a scholarship to a college in Paris to study radio electronics. He later on got his scholarship revoked though, due to him absorbing Marxism (1). When he lost his scholarship he decided to move back to Cambodia and joined an underground communist movement. Cambodia’s government soon gained full independence from France and became a monarchy (1). In 1962, Pol Pot became the leader of the Cambodian communist party. He then fled into the jungle after becoming the leader to escape trouble from Prince Norodom Sihanouk (1). Pol Pot’s communist party, The Democratic of Kampuchea, contained half of a party with pro-Vietnamese and half with anti-Vietnamese (Morris 4). Pol Pot soon …show more content…
The United States killed up to 150,000 Cambodian farmers and peasants that lived in the rural area where the Vietcong were hiding. This forced the farmers and peasants to move to bigger cities to remain same from these bombings (1). In 1969, the Khmer Rouge had only 10,000 troops, but the bombings were bringing the peasants and farmers to the Khmer Rouge for help. By 1973, The Khmer Rouge had 200,000 troops (Morris 5). In January of 1973, the United States, the North Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese, And the South Vietnamese Communist party forces all signed a peace treaty in Paris to stop the war and bombings (6). From 1965-1973, the United States dropped more than 200,000 bombs in Cambodia (2). The United States continued to bomb in Cambodia, but instead of bombing for the North Vietnamese troops, they were bombing the Khmer Rouge to try to protect the government from attacks (6). In 1975, the United States finally pulled all of their troops out of Cambodia. The government in Cambodia then lost all of the United States military support (Pol Pot 1). Pol Pot then took advantage of the government not having the military