Landmines in Cambodia: Past, Present, and Future By Wade C. Rober ...

––Kundera

The Khmer Rouge officially governed Cambodia from April 17, 1975, until being ousted by Vietnamese forces in December 1979. The leader of the Khmer Rouge was Saloth Sar, more commonly known by his alias, Pol Pot.²¹ Saloth Sar was born in Prek Sbauv, in the Kampong Thom province, in 1925. At the age of 10, Saloth left his home village to attend a Catholic school in Phnom Penh named École Miche. Because his older sister, Roeung, was serving as a concubine of the then-king of Cambodia, Saloth was afforded access to the royal palace. Many of Saloth’s motives to alter government date back to his experience in the royal palace. Saloth qualified for a scholarship at a technical school in France at the age of 24. During his studies in Paris, Saloth became more interested in Communist political meetings than in school, and his grades subsequently suffered. He joined a French Communist Party named Cercle Marxiste in 1951. Saloth eventually was forced to return to Cambodia in 1954 when his grades failed for three consecutive years, making the renewal of his scholarship impossible.

Upon returning to Cambodia, Saloth immersed himself in the study of radically altering government forms by methods of political upheaval, psychological warfare, and coups. During this time, Saloth studied a specific strategic measure of psychological warfare involving the placement of a small patch of landmines near the outskirts of a desired territory, announcing an inflated landmine barrier supposedly surrounding the territory, and intentionally making an example of one of the villagers by forcing him or her to attempt escape through the heavily laid patch of landmines. Saloth made note of this practice, later implementing it on a massive scale. Villages subject to this practice quickly acquiesced to the demands of the Khmer Rouge.

Saloth was the first member of Cercle Marxiste to return to Cambodia and became the leader of the party for Cambodia. In 1962, Tou Samouth, the leader of the Communist movement in Cambodia, was arrested and murdered. Following Tou’s murder, Saloth became the next leftist leader