Party of Democratic Kampuchea #CR0000800 (Also... Some alternate names are aliases, other are names for specific subgroups or cells). PDK Khmer Rouge Communist Party of Kampuchea Khmer Communist Party CPK National Army of Democratic Kampuchea Source: CIA, MI-6 Type: Political terrorist organization/Guerrilla insurgency Scope: Frequent ambushes, assassinations and other acts of insurgency throughout Cambodia and Vietnam. Affiliations: Khmer Rouge members have received training and equipment from the Chinese military. Also receive sanctuary with the borders of Thailand. Personnel: Approximately 8,000 guerrillas. Operating Since: 1971 Structure: Military hierarchy, units numbering between ten and one thousand depending on the operation. Leaders: The Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the CPK has consisted of the same core group for some 25 years. Often called the "Party Center," this group is comprised of Solath Sar [#LL4109565], (alias Pol Pot), former leader surrendered in 1997, Nuon Chea [#LL4635856], Chhit Chhuon [#LL4861352], (alias Mok), Khieu Samphan [#LL4756251], leader, Ieng Sary [#LL4854621], Son Sen [#LL4765235], Yun Yat [#LL4985426], Ieng Thirith [#LL4756528], and Ke Pauk [#LL4851386]. Legitimate Connections: None. Resources: Smallarms, explosives and military weapons supplied by China. Support and Intelligence supplied by China and Thailand. Suspected Criminal Activity: In an exercise of state terror scarcely matched in its scope and brazenness, the Khmer Rouge initiated a reign of terror and state repression in order to destroy totally pre- Kampuchean Cambodia and to create their ideal agricultural state. The Khmer Rouge depopulated the cities of Cambodia, which they renamed Kampuchea, forcing the urban population into agricultural communes where they were enslaved and brutalized. From 1975 to 1978, the Khmer Rouge systematically overworked and starved the subject population, selectively executing the educated and killing others even for minor breaches of rules. Approximately 1 million people perished under Khmer rule. The Khmer Rouge now is engaged in a low-level insurgency against the Cambodian Government. Although its victims are mainly Cambodian villagers, the Khmer Rouge has occasionally kidnapped and killed foreigners traveling in remote rural areas. Additional Commentary: "Khmer Rouge" means Red Khmers, and is the name given to the left wing in Cambodian politics by King Norodom Sihanouk in the 1950s. Since then, the name has come to be identified with a particular faction of the Cambodian left, formally known during the 1970s as the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and during the 1980s and 90s as the Party of Democratic Kampuchea. Originally founded under Vietnamese sponsorship in 1951, the Khmer Communist Party is a revolutionary group that sought to create a socialist state in Cambodia following the Maoist model of guerrilla warfare and cultural revolution. The Prince Sihanouk himself, alternatively fought and allied himself with the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot. On April 17, 1975, a bitter five year civil war was concluded with the Party Center leading the Khmer Rouge to victory over the US-backed Khmer Republic of General Lon Nol. Thus arose the Khmer Rouge regime. The Khmer Rogue took the capital of Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975 and under Pol Pot's leadership, conducted a campaign of genocide in which more than 1 million people were killed during its four years in power in the late 1970s.The official tally published by the successor regime to the Khmer Rouge sets the number of dead at 3.1 million. Several demographic analyses (by the CIA, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and the U.N. Population Bureau) have estimated the death toll to be between 1 million and 2 million. The most competent empirical analyses by Western scholars of Cambodia place the estimate at between 1.5 and 1.7 million dead from execution, disease, starvation and overwork. The Khmer Rouge subsequently established the State of Democratic Kampuchea, and instituted what was arguably the most radical experiment in social engineering of the twentieth century. In an effort to "purify" the "Khmer race" and create an absolutely classless utopian society, the Khmer Rouge began by emptying all Cambodian urban centers of their population, abolishing banking, finance and currency, outlawing all religions, reorganizing traditional kinship systems into a communal order, and eliminating private property so completely that even personal hygiene supplies were communal. The North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge remained tactical allies until the fall of the pro-U.S. Lon Nol regime in 1975. By 1978 bitter warfare erupted between the Chinese- backed Khmer Rouge and the Soviet-backed Vietnamese. On 25 December 1978 Vietnamese forces entered Cambodian and within two weeks, on January 7, 1979, Vietnamese armed forces entered the Cambodian capitol at Phnom Penh and proclaimed the end of the Khmer Rouge State of Democratic Kampuchea. The actual conflict between the two armies lasted until 1989, the Khmer Rouge reverted once again to being a guerrilla army, continuing to terrorize and repress Cambodians in the regions it controlled. In 1980, Khieu Samphan replaced Pol Pot as leader and the Khmer Rouge began to receive tacit Thai aid in the form of sanctuary within border areas of Thailand while China supplied weapons, munitions, radios, and medical equipment. The Khmer Rouge fielded about 35,000 combatants and often exerted de facto rule within Cambodian refugee camps within Thailand. Despite the appalling human rights record of the Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and many of its members, including the United States, continued to recognize the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government of "Democratic Kampuchea" in preference to the puppet regime established there by Vietnam. Following withdrawal of Vietnamese forces in 1989, a coalition government was established in which the Khmer Rouge was invited to participate as the price to be paid to avert the continuation of civil war. Under the United Nations-sponsored settlement concluded on 23 October 1991, the Khmer Rouge agreed to formally dissolve their Khmer Communist Party in December 1991 and to become coalition partners in a civilian government. Many Cambodians continued to fear that these concessions were merely short-term tactical accommodations by an unreconstructed Khmer Rouge not unlike their alliance of convenience with their former enemy Prince Sihanouk. The National Army of Democratic Kampuchea, as the Khmer Rouge military is known, continues to wage warfare from jungle redouts in an attempt to regain control of Cambodia and resume their utopian experiment. In fact throughout 1992 and 1993 the Khmer Rouge has not ceased its activities as an armed, revolutionary party and has attacked the militias belonging to other coalition partners as well as firing upon members of the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia.
RETURN TO MY TERRORIST PAGES
