General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea

The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (Khmer: អគ្គលេខាធិកាគណៈកម្មាធិការមជ្ឈិមបក្សកុម្មុយនិស្តកម្ពុជា) was the highest office in the Communist Party of Kampuchea.[1] The General Secretary was elected at plenary sessions of the Party's Central Committee, and chaired the Secretariat and Politburo. The office was abolished when the CPK dissolved in 1981, two years after being removed from power in a counterattack by Vietnamese forces.

General secretaries
No.
 Portrait Name
(Birth-Death)		 Tenure Length of tenure Notes
1 Tou Samouth
(1915–1962)		 September 21, 1951
–
July 20, 1962		 10 years, 302 days Inaugural officeholder; disappeared under disputed circumstances in July 1962.
2
Pol Pot
(1925–1998)		 February 22, 1963
–
December 6, 1981		 18 years, 287 days Elected in February 1963, maintained post until the dissolution of the Party in 1981. Under his leadership, the Party's guerrilla branch, Khmer Rouge, succeeding in overthrowing U.S.-backed military dictator Lon Nol, and on April 17, 1975, established Democratic Kampuchea, an agrarian socialist dictatorship.

Pol Pot poisons himself

On the evening of April 15 1998, just 2 days before anniversary of Khmer Rouge's brutal takeover of Cambodia on April 17, 1975, Pol Pot killed himself when he became aware of Ta Mok's plan to hand him over to the United States for war crimes trial. He ingested a lethal dose of a combination of Valium and Chloroquine which slowed down his breathing and thus his heart stopped.[2] He never admitted that he did anything wrong to Cambodian people. On his death face, there were signs of suffering consistent with suicide. One of his eyes was opened. Pol Pot was cremated without any ceremony or fanfare. On March 6, 1999, Khmer Rouge ceased to exist when its last leader Ta Mok aka 'The Butcher' was arrested.[3] He died in prison awaiting trial for genocide and war crimes.[4]

See also

References
  1. "A Delicate History". The Cambodia Daily. March 23–24, 2002. Archived from the original on August 13, 2010. Retrieved January 25, 2011.
  2. John Gittings; Mark Tran (January 21, 1999). "Pol Pot 'killed himself with drugs'". The Guardian.
  3. "Cambodia arrests last Khmer Rouge leader". CNN. Reuters. March 6, 1999.
  4. "Former Khmer Rouge commander Ta Mok dies". NBC News. Associated Press. July 20, 2006.


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