2. The Man Behind The Killing Fields
Cambodian communist revolutionary Saloth Sar, better known as Pol Pot (1925 – 1998), was a monster concealed by a charismatic façade. When he seized power at the head of the Khmer Rouge in 1975, nothing hinted at the horrors he was about to unleash. He renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea, and transformed it into a nightmarish ideological tyranny, masterfully depicted in the 1984 movie, The Killing Fields. About a quarter of Cambodia’s population was killed in a horrific genocide carried out by Pol Pot and his followers, that was made even worse by its irrationality. In an attempt at social engineering, cities were evacuated, and the urban masses were forcibly converted into peasants toiling on poorly run collective farms. Roughly three million were murdered or starved to death before the nightmare ended when the Khmer Rouge were driven from power in 1979.
