Communist Party of Kampuchea - The Khmer Rouge in Power

The Khmer Rouge in Power

The leadership of the Khmer Rouge was largely unchanged between the 1960s and the mid-1990s. The Khmer Rouge leaders were mostly from middle-class families and had been educated at French universities.

The Standing Committee of the Khmer Rouge's Central Committee ("Party Center") during its period of power consisted of:

• Brother number 1 Pol Pot (Saloth Sar)—General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, 1963–81; Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea, 1976–79

• Brother number 2 Nuon Chea (Long Bunruot)—Deputy General Secretary of the Communist Party, President of the Kampuchean People's Representative Assembly

• Brother number 3 Ieng Sary—Deputy Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea; Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1975–79

• Brother number 4 Khieu Samphan—President of the State Presidium (head of state) of Democratic Kampuchea

• Brother number 5 Ta Mok (Chhit Chhoeun)— Leader of the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea; Last Khmer Rouge leader, Southwest Regional Secretary (died in custody awaiting trial for genocide, July 21, 2006)

• Brother number 13 Ke Pauk—Regional Secretary of the Northern Zone

• Son Sen—Minister of Defense

• Yun Yat—Minister of Education, 1975–77; Minister of Information (replaced Hu Nim in 1977)

In power, the Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from foreign influence, closing schools, hospitals and factories, abolishing banking, finance and currency, outlawing all religions, confiscating all private property and relocating people from urban areas to collective farms where forced labor was widespread. The purpose of this policy was to turn Cambodians into "Old People" through agricultural labor. These actions resulted in massive deaths through executions, work exhaustion, illness, and starvation.

In Phnom Penh and other cities, the Khmer Rouge told residents that they would be moved only about "two or three kilometers" outside the city and would return in "two or three days." Some witnesses say they were told that the evacuation was because of the "threat of American bombing" and that they did not have to lock their houses since the Khmer Rouge would "take care of everything" until they returned. These were not the first evacuations of civilian populations by the Khmer Rouge. Similar evacuations of populations without possessions had been occurring on a smaller scale since the early 1970s.

The Khmer Rouge attempted to turn Cambodia into a classless society by depopulating cities and forcing the urban population into agricultural communes through brutal totalitarian methods. The entire population was forced to become farmers in labour camps. During their four years in power, the Khmer Rouge overworked and starved the population, at the same time executing selected groups who had the potential to undermine the new state (including intellectuals) and killing many others for even minor breaches of rules.

Through the 1970s, and especially after mid-1975, the party was also shaken by factional struggles. There were even armed attempts to topple Pol Pot. The resultant purges reached a crest in 1977 and 1978 when thousands, including some important CPK leaders, were executed. The older generation of communists, suspected of having links with or sympathies for Vietnam, were targeted by the Pol Pot leadership.