To: Pogeu Mahone who wrote (223452 ) 10/3/2009 8:02:23 PM From: patron_anejo_por_favor Read Replies (3) | Respond to Pol Pot was an atheist....like most good commies. en.wikipedia.org The Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. As the leader of the Communist Party, Saloth Sar was the designated leader of the new regime. He took the name "brother number one" and declared his nom de guerre Pol Pot, from Politique potentielle, the French equivalent of a phrase supposedly coined for him by the Chinese leadership.[citation needed] The new constitution was adapted on January 5, 1976, effectively abolishing the monarchy and placing prince Sihanouk under detention.The Khmer Rouge tried to impose the concept of "Year Zero" and targeted Buddhist monks, Muslims, Western-educated intellectuals, educated people in general, people who had contact with Western countries or with Vietnam, disabled people, and the ethnic Chinese, Laotians and Vietnamese. Some were put in the S-21 camp for interrogation involving torture in cases where a confession was useful to the government. Many others were summarily executed. Confessions forced at S-21 were extracted from prisoners through such methods as raising prisoners by their arms tied behind and dislocating shoulders, removing toenails with pliers, suffocating a prisoner repeatedly, and skinning a person while alive.Pol Pot admired Cambodian farmers' way of life, one that didn't utilize money, education, or the tenets of capitalism. It was also "untainted by Buddhism" [3]. When the party came to power, it quickly set in applying these aspects of Cambodian farming life on the entire population. To do this, they felt that they had to move everyone out of the cities and industrialized areas. Determined to create this agrarian utopia, Pol Pot and his forces began the deportation of people from the cities.
