Khieu Samphan
Khieu Samphan | |
---|---|
ខៀវ សំផន | |
Chairman of the State Presidium | |
In office 11 April 1976 – 7 January 1979 | |
Prime Minister | Pol Pot |
Deputy | So Phim Nhim Ros[1] |
Leader | Pol Pot (General Secretary) |
Preceded by | Norodom Sihanouk as President of the State Presidium |
Succeeded by | Heng Samrin as Chairman of the People's Revolutionary Council |
Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea | |
Acting 4 April 1976 – 14 April 1976 | |
President | Norodom Sihanouk |
Leader | Pol Pot (General Secretary) |
Preceded by | Penn Nouth |
Succeeded by | Pol Pot |
Personal details | |
Born | Svay Rieng, Cambodia, French Indochina | 28 July 1931
Political party |
|
Spouse | So Socheat[2] |
Alma mater | University of Montpellier (B.Ec) University of Paris (PhD in Econ.) |
Conviction(s) | Crimes against humanity and Genocide |
Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment (2014) |
Khieu Samphan (
Prior to joining the Khmer Rouge, he was a member of Norodom Sihanouk's Sangkum government. After the 1967 leftist rebellion, Sihanouk ordered the arrest of leftists including Samphan, who fled into hiding until the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975. On 7 August 2014, along with other members of the regime, he was convicted and received a life sentence for crimes against humanity during the Cambodian genocide, and a further trial found him guilty of genocide in 2018. He is the oldest living former prime minister and the last surviving senior member of the Khmer Rouge following the deaths of Nuon Chea in August 2019[4] and Kang Kek Iew (Duch) in September 2020.[5]
Biography
Samphan was born in
Samphan became a member of the circle of leftist Khmer intellectuals studying at the Sorbonne, Paris, in the 1950s. His 1959 doctoral thesis Cambodia's Economy and Industrial Development[11] advocated national self-reliance and generally sided with dependency theorists in blaming the wealthy, industrialized states for the poverty of the Third World.[12] He was one of the founders of the Khmer Students' Association (KSA), out of which grew the left-wing revolutionary movements that would so alter Cambodian history in the 1970s, most notably the Khmer Rouge. Once the KSA was shuttered by French authorities in 1956, he founded yet another student organization, the Khmer Students' Union.[13]
Returning from Paris with his doctorate in 1959, Samphan held a law faculty position at the
In the
During the years of Communist Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979), Samphan remained near the top of the movement, assuming the post of president of the central presidium in 1976. His faithfulness to Pol Pot meant that he survived the purges in the later years of the Khmer Rouge rule. His roles within the party suggest he was well entrenched in the upper echelons of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, and a leading figure in the ruling elite.[17]
In 1985, he officially succeeded Pol Pot as leader of the Khmer Rouge, and served in this position until 1998.[10] In December 1998, Samphan and former Pol Pot deputy Nuon Chea surrendered to the Royal Cambodian Government.[18] Prime Minister Hun Sen, however, defied international pressure and Samphan was not arrested or prosecuted at the time of his surrender.[19]
Arrest and trial
On 13 November 2007, the 76-year-old Samphan reportedly suffered a stroke. This occurred one day after the former Khmer Rouge Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his wife were arrested for war crimes committed while they were in power.[20] At about the same time, a book by Samphan, Reflection on Cambodian History Up to the Era of Democratic Kampuchea, was published; in the book, he wrote that he had worked for social justice and the defence of national sovereignty, while attributing responsibility for all of the group's policies to Pol Pot.[21]
According to Samphan, under the Khmer Rouge, "there was no policy of starving people. Nor was there any direction set out for carrying out mass killings", and "there was always close consideration of the people's well-being". He acknowledged the use of coercion to produce food due to shortages. Samphan also strongly criticized the current government in the book, blaming it for corruption and social ills.[21]
Historian
After he left a Phnom Penh hospital where he was treated following his stroke, Samphan was arrested
In April 2008, Samphan made his first appearance at Cambodia's genocide tribunal. His lawyers, Jacques Vergès and Say Bory, used the defence that while Samphan has never denied that many people in Cambodia were killed, as head of state, he was never directly responsible for any crimes.[25] On 7 August 2014, he and Nuon Chea received life sentences for crimes against humanity.[26] His lawyer immediately announced the conviction would be appealed.[27] The tribunal continued with a trial on his genocide charges as a separate process.[28] The tribunal found him guilty on 16 November 2018 of the crime of genocide against the Vietnamese people, but he was cleared of involvement in the genocidal extermination of the Chams. The judgment also emphasised that Samphan "encouraged, incited and legitimised" the criminal policies that led to the deaths of civilians "on a massive scale" including the millions forced into labour camps to build dams and bridges and the mass extermination of Vietnamese.[29]
On 16 August 2021, Samphan appeared before a court in Phnom Penh to appeal against his conviction, in an attempt to overturn it.[30] The appeal was rejected on 22 September 2022, with the guilty verdicts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and grave breaches of the Geneva Convention affirmed.[31]
Notes
- .
- ^ "Mrs. SO Socheat". eccc.gov.kh. Retrieved 21 March 2014.
- ^ "KHIEU Samphan". Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Retrieved 17 April 2014.
- ^ "Nuon Chea, ideologue of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, dies at 93". Bangkok Post. 4 August 2019. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
- ^ "Comrade Duch, Khmer Rouge chief executioner, dies in Cambodia". The Guardian. 2 September 2020. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
- ^ Bora, Touch (February 2005). "Debating Genocide". The Phnom Penh Post. Archived from the original on 25 November 2007. Retrieved 19 November 2007.
- ^ Bora, Touch. "Jurisdictional and Definitional Issues". Khmer Institute. Archived from the original on 6 November 2018. Retrieved 19 November 2007.
- ^ Esterline (1990), p. 94
- ^ Barron, Paul (1977), p. 46
- ^ ISBN 978-0313386794.
- ^ "Indochina Chronicle 51-52; Sept.- Nov. 1976 "Underdevelopment in Cambodia" : Khieu Samphan 1931- : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive". Berkeley, Calif.; Indochina Resource Center. 10 March 2001. Retrieved 26 July 2012.
- ISBN 9780786725861.
- ISBN 978-0816073108.
- ^ Shawcross, William, Sideshow, Isaacs, Hardy, & Brown, pgs. 92–100, 106–112.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 1 September 2022.
- ^ "From the archive, 18 April 1975: Khmer Rouge take over Cambodia". The Guardian. 18 April 1975.
- ^ "Top Khmer Rouge leader charged". BBC News. 19 November 2007.
- ^ "Khmer Rouge leaders surrender". BBC News. 26 December 1998. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
- ^ "CAMBODIAN LEADER RESISTS PUNISHING TOP KHMER ROUGE". The New York Times. 29 December 1998. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
- ^ Cheang, Sopheng (13 November 2007). "Khmer Rouge Ex-Head of State Has Stroke". [[Associated Press[]]. Archived from the original on 24 November 2007. Retrieved 13 November 2007.
- ^ a b "Former Khmer Rouge head of state praises Pol Pot in his new book". The International Herald Tribune (The Associated Press). 18 November 2007. Archived from the original on 13 June 2008. Retrieved 19 November 2007.
- ^ Kiernan, B., "Don't Blame Me, It Was my Prime Minister", in The Long Term View, VI, 4, p.36
- ^ Cheang, Sopheng (19 November 2007). "Ex-Khmer Rouge Head of State Arrested". Associated Press. Archived from the original on 24 November 2007. Retrieved 19 November 2007.
- ^ a b Ker, Munthit (19 November 2007). "Ex-Khmer Rouge Head of State Charged". Associated Press. Archived from the original on 23 November 2007. Retrieved 19 November 2007.
- ^ "Khmer Rouge leader seeks release". BBC News. 23 April 2008. Retrieved 23 April 2008.
- ^ McKirdy, Euan (7 August 2014). "Top Khmer Rouge leaders found guilty of crimes against humanity, sentenced to life in prison". CNN. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
- ^ "Cambodian court sentences two former Khmer Rouge leaders to life term". The Cambodia News.Net. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
- ^ "Top Khmer Rouge leaders guilty of crimes against humanity". BBC News. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
- ^ "Khmer Rouge leaders found guilty of Cambodia genocide". BBC News. 16 November 2018.
- ^ "Cambodia: Khmer Rouge official appeals genocide conviction". Deutsche Welle. 16 August 2021. Retrieved 16 August 2021.
- ^ "Khmer Rouge head of state's genocide conviction appeal rejected by Cambodia's UN-backed tribunal". The_Independent. 22 September 2022. Retrieved 22 September 2022.
References
- Barron, John and Paul, Anthony; Murder of a gentle land: the untold story of a Communist genocide in Cambodia, ISBN 088349129X
- Esterline, John H. and Mae H., "How the dominoes fell": Southeast Asia in perspective, University Press of America, 1990, ISBN 081917971X