Nuon Chea
Nuon Chea | |
---|---|
នួន ជា | |
President of the Standing Committee of the Kampuchean People's Representative Assembly | |
In office 13 April 1976 – 7 January 1979 | |
President | Khieu Samphan |
Deputy | Chhit Choeun |
Leader | Pol Pot (General Secretary) |
Preceded by | Tol Sat |
Succeeded by | Position abolished |
Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea | |
Acting 27 September 1976 – 25 October 1976 | |
President | Khieu Samphan |
Leader | Pol Pot (General Secretary) |
Preceded by | Pol Pot |
Succeeded by | Pol Pot |
Deputy Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea | |
In office 30 September 1960 – 6 December 1981 | |
General Secretary | Tou Samouth Pol Pot |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | None, party dissolved |
Personal details | |
Born | Lao Kim Lorn 7 July 1926 Communist Party of Siam[1] |
Spouse | Ly Kimseng[2] |
Children | 4[3] |
Alma mater | Thammasat University |
Conviction(s) | Crimes against humanity and genocide |
Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment (2014) |
Nuon Chea (Khmer: នួន ជា; born Lao Kim Lorn;[1] 7 July 1926 – 4 August 2019), also known as Long Bunruot (Khmer: ឡុង ប៊ុនរត្ន) or Rungloet Laodi (រុងឡឺត ឡាវឌី Thai: รุ่งเลิศ เหล่าดี),[4] was a Cambodian communist politician and revolutionary who was the chief ideologist of the Khmer Rouge. He also briefly served as acting Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea. He was commonly known as "Brother Number Two" (Khmer: បងធំទី២), as he was second-in-command to Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, General Secretary of the Party, during the Cambodian genocide of 1975–1979. In 2014, Nuon Chea received a life sentence for crimes against humanity, alongside another top-tier Khmer Rouge leader, Khieu Samphan, and a further trial convicted him of genocide in 2018. These life sentences were merged into a single life sentence by the Trial Chamber on 16 November 2018.[5] He died while serving his sentence in 2019.
Early life
Nuon Chea was born as Lao Kim Lorn at
In the 1940s, Nuon Chea studied at Wat Benchamabophit School and
As documented in the Soviet archives, Nuon Chea played a major role in negotiating the North Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1970, with the intent of forcing the collapse of
Career
As the recently proclaimed state legislature, the Kampuchean People's Representative Assembly held its first plenary session during 11–13 April 1976, Chea was elected president of its Standing Committee. He briefly held office as acting prime minister when Pol Pot resigned for one month, citing health reasons.[13] According to Dmitry Mosyakov, "In October 1978, Hanoi still believed that 'there were two prominent party figures in Phnom Penh who sympathized with Vietnam—Nuon Chea and the former first secretary of the Eastern Zone, So Phim. Vietnamese hopes that these figures would head an uprising against Pol Pot turned out to be groundless: So Phim perished during the revolt in June 1978, while Nuon Chea, as it is known, turned out to be one of the most devoted followers of Pol Pot—he did not defect to the Vietnamese side....It is difficult to understand why until the end of 1978 it was believed in Hanoi that Nuon Chea was 'their man' in spite of the fact that all previous experience should have proved quite the contrary. Was Hanoi unaware of his permanent siding with Pol Pot, his demands that 'the Vietnamese minority should not be allowed to reside in Kampuchea', his extreme cruelty, as well as of the fact that, 'in comparison with Nuon Chea, people considered Pol Pot a paragon of kindness'?"[12] Nuon Chea was forced to abandon his position as president of the Assembly, along with all others as the Vietnamese captured Phnom Penh in January 1979.[14][15] According to prison commander Kaing Khek Iev (more commonly known as Duch), who described Chea as "the principal man for the killings," Chea "ordered me to kill all the remaining prisoners" at Tuol Sleng shortly before the regime's ouster; Chea was reportedly "furious" that Duch failed to destroy Tuol Sleng's extensive archives documenting torture and mass murder at the prison before the Vietnamese took the site.[14][15]
In December 1998, Chea surrendered as part of the last remnants of Khmer Rouge resistance which was based in
Arrest and trial
On 19 September 2007, 81 year old Chea was arrested at his home in Pailin and flown to the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Phnom Penh, which charged him with war crimes and crimes against humanity.[19] He was held continuously in detention after his arrest. In February 2008, Chea told the court that his case should be handled according to international standards. He argued that the court should delay proceedings because his Dutch lawyer, Michiel Pestman, had not yet arrived.[20]
In May 2013, Chea told the court and the victims' families, "I feel remorseful for the crimes that were committed intentionally or unintentionally, whether or not I had known about it or not known about it."[21] On 7 August 2014, the court convicted Chea of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to imprisonment for the remainder of his life.[22] His lawyer immediately announced that Chea would appeal against his conviction.[23] Chea faced a separate trial for the crime of genocide in the same court.[24][25] The court found him and Khieu Samphan guilty of genocide against the Vietnamese people and the Chams on 16 November 2018.[26] These life sentences were merged into a single life sentence by the Trial Chamber on 16 November 2018.[5]
In his closing brief before the court, numbering some 500 pages, Chea "blamed Vietnamese agents for virtually everything that went wrong during Khmer Rouge rule." He also denied responsibility for mass killings, but this was contradicted by detailed documentation left behind by the Khmer Rouge regime itself, including bizarre "confessions" extracted under torture at Tuol Sleng and photographs of purge victims, as well as a recording made by a Cambodian journalist prior to Chea's 2007 arrest in which Chea admitted: "Believe me, if these traitors were alive, the Khmers as a people would have been finished. ... If we had shown mercy to these people, the nation would have been lost."[14][15]
Death
Nuon Chea died on 4 August 2019 at the
See also
References
- ^ a b c "NUON Chea". Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Retrieved 17 April 2014.
- ^ Provisional Detention Order (Ordonnance de placement en détention provisoire), Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, retrieved 7 August 2009 Archived 15 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b Voun, Dara (6 August 2019). "Brother No 2 Nuon Chea's body taken to Pailin". The Phnom Penh Post. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
- ^ รู้หรือไม่? "นวน เจีย" จำเลยฆ่าล้างเผ่าพันธุ์ชาวเขมร เคยเรียนมหาวิทยาลัยใดในเมืองไทย. Matichon (in Thai). 8 July 2014. Archived from the original on 19 August 2014. Retrieved 15 August 2014.
- ^ a b c Khuon, Narim; Khy, Sovuthy (5 August 2019). "Brother Number 2 Nuon Chea dies at 93". Khmer Times. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
- ^ Profile of Nuon Chea
- ^ a b Eiji Murashima, The Young Nuon Chea in Bangkok (1942 1950)and the Communist Party of Thailand: The Life in Bangkok of the Man Who Became “Brother No. 2” in the Khmer Rouge Archived 15 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies (Waseda University) No. 12 (March 2009), retrieved 29 October 2013
- ^ Sann Rada, Transcript of Trial Proceedings–Case File Nº 002/19-09-2007-ECCC/TC, Day 4–5 December 2011, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, retrieved 29 October 2013
- ^ Frings, K. Viviane. Rewriting Cambodian History to 'Adapt' It to a New Political Context: The Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party's Historiography (1979–1991) in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4. (Oct. 1997), pp. 807–846.
- ^ Chandler, David P., Revising the Past in Democratic Kampuchea: When Was the Birthday of the Party?: Notes and Comments, in Pacific Affairs, Vol. 56, No. 2 (Summer, 1983), pp. 288–300.
- ^ a b Thul, Prak Chan (4 August 2019). "Cambodian Khmer Rouge's chief ideologist, 'Brother Number Two', dead at 93". Reuters. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
- ^ a b c Dmitry Mosyakov, "The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists: A History of Their Relations as Told in the Soviet Archives," in Susan E. Cook, ed., Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda Yale Genocide Studies Program Monograph Series No. 1, 2004, p54ff. Available online at: www.yale.edu/gsp/publications/Mosyakov.doc
- ^ Susan E. Cook, Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda: new perspectives, Transaction Publishers, 2005, page 62
- ^ a b c Branigin, William (4 August 2019). "Nuon Chea, Khmer Rouge's infamous 'Brother Number Two,' dies at 93". The Washington Post. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
- ^ a b c Mydans, Seth (4 August 2019). "Nuon Chea, Khmer Rouge's Chief Ideologist, Dies at 93". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
- ^ "Khmer Rouge leaders surrender". BBC News. 26 December 1998. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
- ^ Mydans, Seth (29 December 1998). "Cambodian leader resists punishing top Khmer Rouge". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 27 January 2011. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
- Public Broadcasting Service.
- ^ "Top former Khmer Rouge leader arrested in Cambodia". International Herald Tribune. Associated Press. 18 September 2007. Archived from the original on 1 October 2007.
- International New York Times/HighBeam Research. Associated Press. 4 February 2008. Archived from the originalon 27 January 2011. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
- ^ "Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea expresses 'remorse'". BBC News. 31 May 2013. Archived from the original on 27 April 2014.
- ^ McKirdy, Euan (7 August 2014). "Top Khmer Rouge leaders found guilty of crimes against humanity, sentenced to life in prison". CNN. Archived from the original on 11 August 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
- ^ "Cambodian court sentences two former Khmer Rouge leaders to life term". BBC News Online. The Cambodia News.Net. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
- ^ "Top Khmer Rouge leaders guilty of crimes against humanity". BBC News. 7 August 2014. Archived from the original on 7 August 2014. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
- ^ "Khmer Rouge leaders found guilty of Cambodia genocide". BBC News. 16 November 2018. Archived from the original on 8 June 2023.
- ^ "Khmer Rouge leaders found guilty of Cambodia genocide". BBC News. 16 November 2018.
- ^ "Nuon Chea, ideologue of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, dies at 93". Bangkok Post. 4 August 2019. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
- ^ Top Khmer leader Nuon Chea dies Manila Times