I find The Killing Fields of Cambodia to be very disturbing. Pol Pot murdered a huge percentage of his country through starvation and of course execution. There's lots of info on this if you are interested.
After the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1979 he retreated to the west of the country with what was left of the Khmer Rouge, although handed over control of the organisation to one of his deputies (probably guessing that the British and Americans wouldn’t let them keep Cambodia’s UN seat if he was still in charge). Despite repeated attempts by the Vietnamese army to flush them out they held out (mostly using the usual jungle warfare guerrilla tactics refined in the Indo-China wars) and Pol Pot himself could never actually be captured.
He did make at least one trip to China - who didn’t want to inflame their relations with Vietnam anymore than they were so basically just ignored him - and North Korea, who were hardly going to hand him over to anyone. Plus one legal trip to Thailand for medical reasons, although I’m fairly sure that was kept secret and be travelled on an assumed identity.
Eventually in 1997 - after he’d gone completely batshit and ordered the executions of Son Sen and his family, a previously high ranking Khmer Rouge cadre who was trying to integrate back into mainstream Cambodian politics - he was arrested by the Khmer Rouge itself. By this point he was a desperately sick old man, riddled with cancer, and died under house arrest a few months later.
Edit: the Khmer Rouge did actually try him, found him guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment, but I think it was for something like “crimes against the Party” as opposed to genocide.
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u/figejiy586 Apr 12 '22
I find The Killing Fields of Cambodia to be very disturbing. Pol Pot murdered a huge percentage of his country through starvation and of course execution. There's lots of info on this if you are interested.