The name Pol Pot or ប៉ុលពត

It was along the Laos border that we all took aliases. We all had used aliases by now. Mine was Pol. The name was taken from a group of aborigine type people captured and enslaved by the Ancient Khmer Kings. I hated kings, so naming myself after the kings slaves made was a great irony. My main enemy in life had always been the monarchy in Phnom Penh, which was dominated by Sihanouk.

We all wore the same clothes as the poor, sandles made of tires, plain black clothes and a Krama, red checkered for our army and our cadre. We decided that all members of our party would not drink beer or smoke the store bought cigarettes from the city. We could drink Palm wine and roll our own cigarettes which was all that was the poorest peasants had to drink and smoke. We would also eat the same food as them. We would not live better than the poorest of the peasants.

As time went on I continued to use my alias. It stuck and I was rarely referred to as Sâr any longer. I eventually added Pot to the name, which came from an old Khmer tradition of people without a second name simply taking a one syllable name that sounded similar to the first name, for example, someone named Vet might add V at. It is that name that I became known throughout the world as Pol Pot or as they say in Khmer, ប៉ុលពត.