The Revolution of 1975-1979

"As we stood in the hot sun, shuffling forward with one foot and then the other, the Khmer Rouge fired shots over our heads to get us to hurry, and loudspeakers played radio broadcasts of the government station, which was now under the guerrillas' control:

'Long live the independent, peaceful, neutral, nonaligned, sovereign, democratic and prosperous Cambodia with genuine territorial integrity!"

'Long live the line of absolute struggle, independence, self-reliance, and overcoming all obstacles of the correct and clear-sighted Cambodian Revolutionary Organization!'"

"The red flag of the revolution is flying high over Phnom Penh, the land of Angkor...The country's destiny is in the hands of the workers and farmers. This is the reward won by millions of drops of blood shed in the struggle for victory."
Angkor Wat
Evacuation of Phnom Penh
Emaciated workers toiling in the rice paddies

1. Evacuate people from all towns.

2. Abolish all markets.

3. Abolish Lon Nol regime currency, and withhold the revolutionary currency that had been printed.

4. Defrock all Buddhist monks, and put them to work growing rice.

5. Execute all leaders of the Lon Nol regime beginning with the top leaders.

6. Establish high-level cooperatives throughout the country, with communal eating.

7. Expel the entire Vietnamese minority population.

8. Dispatch troops to the borders, particularly the Vietnamese border.

-Pol Pot
"They appealed to people to fight to liberate their class. We believed Pol Pot and followed him, trusted him." -anonymous Khmer Rouge soldier
"I kept my eyes closed. The pain on my forehead grew as great as the pain in my temples. Then the pain in my forehead and temples connected. When the drops landed, the whole interior of my skull throbbed together. Each time the drops struck I saw white. My feet and legs twitched to contain the shock."

-Haing Ngor, describing his water torture under the KR

Most of those incarcerated at Tuol Sleng were Khmer Rouge cadres who had fallen under suspicion during a series of purges. Many were women, and about 2,000 were children who had been taken to the prison along with their parents. Records from the prison indicate that at least 14,000 persons had been imprisoned there by January 1979.

Of those 14,000, there were seven known survivors.