By Ratan Lal Basu

Editor's Note: The author is a prolific writer of books and articles in economics. His articles, published in various journals, cover all conceivable branches of economics. He is one of the few scholars who have done their doctorate degree on the Arthasastra of Kautilya, a treatise on Economics, Statecraft and Espionage Mechanism written in India around 300 B. C. Dr. Basu is an Indologist and an authority on the economic ideas embedded in the Ancient Indian Sanskrit texts and his well-known Book ‘Ancient Indian Economic Thought: Relevance for Today’ has obtained wide acclaim all over the world. Dr. Basu may be contacted at rlbasu@rediffmail.com

The glory of Cambodia was besmirched by Pol Pot Horror during the late 20th century. The honest and educated communist turned lunatic and with the instigation of China and brutally killed more than three million Cambodians.

At last Vietnam invaded and captured Cambodia to rescue the innocent Cambodians. In reprisal China attempted to invade Vietnam but failed to break through the resistance of the heroic Vietnamese.

The vast body of several hundred thousand Chinese soldiers was utterly humiliated and harassed by the Vietcong Guerrillas. China was compelled to withdraw.

Coming out of the hellish killing field of Pol Pot, I dropped down numb on a bench beneath a Longan tree. Lucrative fruits were dangling within easy reach, but I ignored them. Grave silence around me was occasionally interrupted by suppressed weeping of female visitors.

I pondered over horror stories of Changez Khan, Taimur Lang, Nadir Shah, Ahmad Shah Abdali, Attila the Hun and Alaric the Visigoth read in history books. Pol Pot paled all of them into insignificance. After a long interval, the soft voice of Swap Soth, my guide, bought me back to the present, ‘Sir, I hope you’ve recovered. We are to visit the king’s palace now.’

POL POT JAIL AND MUSEUM

A School turned into Jail. He was against all sorts of formal education. Anyone declining to go to the agricultural fields to produce crops to be sent to China, was brutally killed, not by bullets but by blunt instruments. Children were smashed on tree trunks. Females were raped and killed brutally.

ENTRANCE

CELLS FOR LEADERS AND UPPER CLASS PRISONERS

CELLS FOR ORDINARY VICTIMS

PICTURES OF INNOCENT VICTIMS

POLPOT ANF HIS EXECUTIONER

KILLING INSTRUMENTS

THE POL POT KILLING FIELD AND GRAVEYARD OF VICTIMS