Pol Pot

Pol Pot was the leader of the Khmer Rouge regime. Officially, he was prime minister from 1976-1979 and was de facto leader from 1975.  He began the relocation of Cambodians to collective farms or labor projects as part of the regime’s agrarian communism.  After the invasion by Vietnam in 1979, Pol Pot fled to jungles of northwest Cambodia.  He died in 1998 of apparently natural causes while under house arrest imposed by other Khmer Rouge leaders.

FOCUS Information Agency - Pol Pot Overthrown on This Day in 1979 - 7 January 2008