DATE: Friday, June 27, 1997                 TAG: 9706270598

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Focus 

SOURCE: BY ULI SCHMETZER, CHICAGO TRIBUNE 

DATELINE: PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA              LENGTH:   47 lines

FOCUS: POL POT'S LEGACY AS HIS NATION WONDERS WHETHER THE MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GENOCIDE OF 2 MILLION CAMBODIANS WILL EVER SURFACE ALIVE AND FACE TRIAL, PRECIOUS FEW KNOW THE TALE OF WHAT FUELED HIS RAGING HATRED OF THE RULING CLASS.SALOT SOUN WAS BURIED QUIETLY A MONTH AGO, WRACKED IN HIS LAST YEARS BY GUILT THAT HEINADVERTENTLY CONTRIBUTED TO THE GENOCIDE CARRIED OUT BY HIS INFAMOUS BROTHER, POL POT, AGAINST 2 MILLION OF THEIR COMPATRIOTS.

this date.] ILLUSTRATION: HONORING THE DEAD

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Former Cambodian soldier Hang Dul places incense on a memorial at

``the killing fields'' outside Phnom Penh.

TIME LINE

1928: Born Salot Sar to a wealthy landowning family in French

Indochina.

1963: Becomes head of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia's communist

party, after allegedly ordering his predecessor's assassination.

1971: Leads a civil war against Gen. Lon Nol, who is backed by

the U.S. and South Vietnam.

1975: Leads his rebels into Phnom Penh, toppling Lon Nol. Orders

the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie sent to labor gulags later

immortalized as the ``killing fields.''

1978: Purges enemies, empties the cities and works urbanites to

death in the countryside as Khmer Rouge violence peaks. Launches

border raids against Vietnam.

1979: Driven into the jungle by Vietnamese forces. Vows to fight

``for eternity if necessary.'' The Vietnam-backed government

sentences him to death in absentia for ``genocidal crimes.''

1989: Still eluding capture as Vietnam pulls out its troops in

the face of rising Cambodian nationalism. The Khmer Rouge boycotts

U.N.-sponsored elections, opting to stay in the jungle.

1996: Rumored to be dead as defectors abandon the Khmer Rouge.

1997: Reportedly captured alive by Khmer Rouge defectors.

SOURCES: Newsweek, Chicago Tribune

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