But they suffered under the Khmer Rouge like every other Cambodian.Īfter Vietnam ousted Pol Pot’s regime, he led his men into the jungle. Pol Pot’s relatives, who have not seen him in decades, remember him as a quiet, polite boy. I didn’t tell anybody, not my brother, not my sister, because I didn’t want to worry them.″ I don’t want to tell people that I’m a leader. ``Since my boyhood, I have never talked about myself,″ Pol Pot said. The secrecy that made the Khmer Rouge so effective was second nature to Pol Pot, who was not even known to lead the regime until after it had been in power a couple of years. Pol Pot became involved with the French Communist Party but said he made a trip to communist Yugoslavia _ where historians have speculated his revolutionary zeal was forged _ simply because it was a cheap vacation. His favorite books then included accounts of the French Revolution and the peaceful politics of Mohandas Gandhi, whom he described as an influence. He said he lied in documents that became the basis of dispute to keep a scholarship to study in France from 1949 to 1952. Pol Pot, whose real name is Saloth Sar, told Thayer he was born in January 1925, ending years of debate over his birthday and age. He described an apparent stroke in 1995 that left his left side partly paralyzed and left eye blind. He complained that he is confined to a mosquito-ridden hut with his second wife and 12-year-old daughter, where he is largely bedridden and sometimes on oxygen. Pol Pot needed help to walk the 25 yards to the outdoor pavilion where he was interviewed. ``You don’t know what I have suffered,″ Pol Pot told Thayer, speaking at a Khmer Rouge base in northern Cambodia where ex-comrades have him under house arrest. Instead, he seemed more concerned with talking about his personal suffering, and detailing his medical problems. Pol Pot showed no remorse and shed little light on the Khmer Rouge government. ``They said when you look closely at the skulls, they are smaller than the skull of the Khmer people.″ ``There are documents talking about someone who did research on the skeletons of the people,″ Pol Pot told Thayer. For example, he said, the mountains of skulls that have come to symbolize the brutality of his regime may actually have been planted by Vietnam _ Cambodia’s historic enemy, which invaded and toppled the Khmer Rouge in 1979. Pol Pot acknowledged ``mistakes″ but suggested he had been the target of a plot to discredit him.
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