BY HILDA CUZCO
Pol Pot, the longtime leader of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, died April 15 in a village near the Thai-Cambodian border at the age of 73. He headed a regime that in 1975-79 was responsible for the deaths of some 2 million people from famine and repression, out of a population of 8 million. Since the liberation of Cambodia (at that time called Kampuchea) and ousting of Pol Pot with the aid of Vietnamese forces in 1979, the Khmer Rouge has carried out a murderous guerrilla war in northern Cambodia.

A week before Pol Pot's death, the New York Times reported that Washington, which supported Pol Pot's "government-in-exile" into the 1990s, was planning to intervene in Cambodia in the name of arresting and trying the Khmer Rouge leader. U.S. officials now complain that there was no autopsy before Pol Pot's body was cremated, and say they still plan to pursue the arrest of other Khmer Rouge leaders for "war crimes."

Born in central Cambodia's Kompong Thom province as Saloth Sar, Pol Pot was involved with the Stalinist Communist Party of France as a student in Paris in the early 1950s. He returned to Cambodia in 1953 and became a leader of the underground movement against the regime of Prince Norom Sihanouk and later the Khmer Rouge forces.

A U. S.-backed military regime headed by Lon Nol seized power in 1970, at the height of Washington's war in Vietnam and the rest of southeast Asia. Over the next five years, U.S. forces carried out massive carpet bombing of Kampuchea, killing tens of thousands of people, destroying crops, and demolishing factories. In April 1975 the Khmer Rouge captured the capital city of Phnom Penh, the same month the Vietnamese liberation forces took Saigon.

Although the party called itself communist, within hours after taking power the dominant wing of the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, ordered a forced evacuation of the population from all the cities. They established forced labor camps in the countryside, instituted the seven-day workweek and child labor, and virtually eliminated all education and medical care. A mass extermination campaign was directed against those who opposed and were labeled "enemies" of the government - often meaning anyone who could read.

Taking the so-called Cultural Revolution of Mao Zedong in China as a model, Pol Pot imposed his own "Great Leap Forward," to establish his agrarian program. His regime said it aimed to create a rapid development in export, particularly with revenues from the rice crop, by limiting domestic consumption to starvation levels. Far from leading toward socialism, his regime turned against the workers to destroy them as a class, carrying out a hate campaign against "city people," and their "decadence."

The most open supporter of the Khmer Rouge regime was the Chinese government, which was at the same time forging closer ties with Washington and preparing a military campaign against Vietnam in 1978. Faced with this, as well as increased border incursions by Khmer Rouge forces, 100,000 Vietnamese troops and 20,000 Kampuchean opponents of the Pol Pot regime crossed over into Kampuchea on Dec. 19, 1978, and took Phnom Penh in less than a month. Throughout the country they were welcomed as liberators by the overwhelming majority.

After the overthrow of Pol Pot, Cambodia had to rebuild agriculture, fishing, and industry practically from scratch. There were severe energy and food shortages; the first year the government had to deal primarily with famine. In addition, unexploded bombs and land mines left by Washington's war during 1970-75 continue to kill or maim farmers and villagers to this day at a rate of more than 200 a month.

Contrary to Washington's professed concern today over bringing the Khmer Rouge leaders to "justice," the U.S. government immediately recognized the Pol Pot regime-in- exile as the "official" government of Kampuchea in January 1979, and gave economic and military backing to the guerrillas battling the new government. Under the pretext that Pol Pot was overthrown by a Vietnamese invasion, the UN General Assembly voted to recognize the Pol Pot forces as representatives of Kampuchea at the urging of the U.S. government.

The decision jeopardized the call for international aid to famine-stricken Kampuchea in 1979-80. Challenging U.S. and British allegations that Vietnam was putting obstacles for aid to relieve the famine, John Pilger, a reporter for the London Daily Mirror wrote on Sept. 13, 1979, "Any relief plane can come, without conditions." In fact most aid was delivered to the "official" forces of Pol Pot, who were joined in a loose alliance with rightist supporters of the former monarchy.

The royalist forces and the Hun Sen government signed accords in 1991 that led to the formation of a coalition government in 1993. Prince Norodom Ranariddh of FUNCINPEC, the son of King Sihanouk, served as "first" prime minister, and Hun Sen, of the Cambodian People's Party, as "second" prime minister. Forces supporting Hun Sen forced Ranariddh out of the government last July, after the prince allegedly made moves to link up with the Khmer Rouge rebels, who opposed the UN-brokered "peace" agreement. After spending nine months in Thailand, Ranariddh returned to Cambodia for a brief visit the end of March accompanied by a former U.S. congressman in preparation for July national elections. Over the last year, the Khmer Rouge has shown increasing signs of disintegration. In July 1997, Pol Pot was reportedly sentenced to "life imprisonment" by another faction of the organization.

William Richardson, U.S. chief delegate to the United Nations proclaimed Washington's intent to more actively intervene in Cambodian affairs during an April 19 visit to Thailand. "We're all going to make major efforts to find these individuals and bring them to justice," he said, referring to the leaders of the Khmer Rouge.

The financial institutions that represent big capitalist interests in the United States and elsewhere have sought to put a squeeze on the Hun Sen government. Since the ouster of Prince Ranariddh last year, the International Monetary Fund has withdrawn its representative and cut its $120 million three-year "aid" package.

The Cambodian economy had reached an economic growth rate of 6.5 percent last year, from near zero at the beginning of the 1990s. Annual inflation, which ran at 152 percent in 1990, subsided to about 7 percent last year. Now a $1.3 billion airport renovation and $82 million power projects have been put on hold.  
 
 
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