The Khmer Rouge (1975–1979)

The Darkest Four Years

The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot established one of the most brutal regimes in human history between April 1975 and January 1979. In just four years, an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people died — a quarter of the entire population.

What Happened

On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh. Within 48 hours, the entire city population (2 million people) was driven into the countryside — the elderly, the sick, children, pregnant women. The city became a ghost town.

The goal: a radical agrarian communist utopia — the "Year Zero". All city dwellers were made into farmers, the population forced into labor camps. What followed:

• Systematic murder of intellectuals, teachers, doctors, monks, ethnic minorities, and anyone with education (wearing glasses marked one as an "intellectual").
• Abolition of money, schools, religion, private clothing, family structures. The country was turned into a massive labor colony.
• Forced labor: 12–16 hours a day in the rice fields, with minimal food. Those who did not work were killed.
• S-21 and the Killing Fields: Over 300 execution sites across the country. In S-21 (Tuol Sleng) in Phnom Penh, over 17,000 people were interrogated, tortured, and taken to Choeung Ek (Killing Fields) to be murdered.

The End

On January 7, 1979, Vietnamese troops liberated Phnom Penh. What they found shocked the world: a country systematically destroyed. There were practically no doctors, teachers, or skilled workers left. The infrastructure was destroyed, the population traumatized.

Pol Pot fled into the jungle and continued fighting as a guerrilla. He died in 1998, never having been tried for his crimes. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) convicted some leaders starting in 2006 — including Duch (head of S-21, died in 2020 in custody) and Nuon Chea (Pol Pot's right-hand man, died in 2019 in custody, convicted of genocide).