The Communist Party of Kampuchea, also known as the Khmer Rouge, took control of Cambodia on April 17, 1975, until January 1979. During its three Years, During eight months and twenty-one days of rule over Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge committed some of the most heinous crimes in current history. The main leader who orchestrated these crimes was a man named Pol Pot. In 1962, Pol Pot became the coordinator of the Cambodian Communist Party. The prince of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk, did not approve of the Party and forced Pol Pot to go into exile in the jungle. There, Pol formed a fortified resistance movement, known as the Khmer Rouge, and waged a guerrilla war against Sihanouk's government. As Pol Pot began to accumulate power, he ruthlessly imposed an extremist system to restructure Cambodia. People in central Cambodia were evacuated from their homes and forced to go to rural areas to work. All intellectuals and educated people were eradicated, along with all non-communist aspects of traditional Cambodian society. The remaining citizens were forced to work as laborers in various concentration camps consisting of collective farms. On these farms, people harvested crops to feed their camps. For every man, woman and child it was obligatory to work in the fields twelve to fifteen hours a day. An estimated two million people, or twenty-one percent of Cambodia's population, lost their lives and many of these victims were brutally executed. Countless numbers died of malnutrition, fatigue and disease. Ethnic groups such as Vietnamese, Chinese and Cham Muslims were attacked, along with twenty other smaller groups. Fifty percent of the 425,000 Chinese living in Cambodia...... middle of paper ....... December 19, 2011. .Brunner, Borgna. "The Khmer Rouge - Infoplease.com." Infoplease: Encyclopedia, Almanac, Atlas, Biographies, Dictionary, Thesaurus. Free online reference, research and homework help. —Infoplease.com. Pearson Education, Inc., 2007. Web. December 19, 2011. .Marks, Stephen P. “Justice Elusive for Khmer Rouge Victims.” Journal of International Affairs 52.2 (1999): 691. MasterFILE Premier. Internet. December 19, 2011. Scheffer, David J. “Response to Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity.” United States Department of State Dispatch 9.4 (1998): 20. MasterFILE Premier. Internet. December 19. 2011. .