Pol Pot was a member of the Cambodian Democratic Party in the early 1950's, which drafted a constitution for Cambodia similar to the French constitution (Chandler 23). The date when Pol Pot took lead of the Khmer Rouge is not known but supposedly sometime around the 1970's. He oversaw all the Khmer Rouge operations and appointed the people who helped him carry them out.
Nuon Chea was one of the more well known of Pol Pots regime. He was the Prime Minister of the Khmer Rouge government. "Pol Pot's second-in-command and chief ideologue, Nuon Chea has been called Pol Pot's alter ego and his most trusted associate" (Brunner 2). Nuon Chea remained secretive and hidden from society much like Pol Pot. It is said that Nuon Chea recorded many of the mass murders in Cambodia. Nuon Chea brought the idea of the "purified Khmer race" to Pol Pot (Brunner 2).
Son Sen was called the Khmer Rouges minister of defense officially. Although his nickname came to be the "chief executioner" for the Khmer Rouge, as he was responsible for torturing and killing tens of thousands of Cambodians (Pilger 1). Son Sen's life was taken by Pol Pot for negotiating with Prime Minister Hun Sen and Pol Pot feared he was going to defect like two of his relatives. "Pol Pot had Son Sen, his powerful wife Yun Yat, and nine relatives killed, and then ran over their bodies with a truck" (Brunner 3).
Ta Mok, the current Khmer Rouge leader, was known as "The Butcher" because of some of the sanguinary killings he conducted to purify the Khmer race. Ta Mok is also supposedly responsible for the killings of several ethnic Vietnamese people. Ta Mok became the leader of the Khmer Rouge in 1997. This was right after Pol Pot's resurfacing from the jungles and murdering Son Sen. Ta Mok created a trial against Pol Pot to try and distance himself from Pol Pot's very bloody history and all the negativity that it brought to peoples minds (Pilger 2).
