Khmer Rouge's Education in Paris

Category: Genocide`

KO, LM, CBJ

In the 1950s, most Khmer Rouge leaders studied at universities in Paris, France. There they studied the idealogies of the French Communist Party (PFC) and the writings of Karl Marx. In an effort to combined these teachings and a desire to champion the rights of the proletariat farming people of Cambodia, Khmer Rouge leaders Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, and Hou Youn (and others) planned to return to Cambodia to overthrow the US-backed Lon Nol regime. These leaders wanted to return Cambodia to the glory of the pre-French colonial era.