Nuon Chea

Nuon Chea
President of the Standing Committee of the Kampuchean People's Representative Assembly
In office
13 April 1976 – 7 January 1979
President Khieu Samphan
Deputy Nguon Kang
Leader Pol Pot
Preceded by Position established
Succeeded by Position abolished
Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea
In office
27 September 1976 – 25 October 1976
President Khieu Samphan
Preceded by Pol Pot
Succeeded by Pol Pot
Personal details
Born Lau Kim Lorn
(1926-07-07) 7 July 1926
Voat Kor, Battambang, French Indochina
Political party Communist Party
Spouse(s) Ly Kimseng[1]
Children Nuon Say,[2] 2 other children[1]
Alma mater Thammasat University
Religion Buddhism[3]

Nuon Chea (Khmer: នួន ជា; born 7 July 1926),[4] also known as Long Bunruot (Khmer: ឡុង ប៊ុនរត្ន) or Rungloet Laodi (Thai: รุ่งเลิศ เหล่าดี),[5] is a Cambodian former communist politician who was the chief ideologist of the Khmer Rouge.

He was commonly known as "Brother Number Two", as he was second-in-command to Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot during the Cambodian Genocide of 1975–1979. On 7 August 2014, Nuon Chea received a life sentence for crimes against humanity, alongside another top-tier Khmer Rouge leader, Khieu Samphan.[6] Nuon Chea is the oldest living former Prime Minister and the oldest of the last surviving Khmer Rouge leaders.

Early life

Nuon Chea was born as Lau Kim Lorn at Voat Kor, Battambang in 1926. Nuon's father, Lao Liv, worked as a trader as well as a corn farmer, while his mother, Dos Peanh, was a tailor. An interview by a Japanese researcher in 2003 with Nuon Chea quoted that Liv was of Chinese ethnicity while Peanh was the daughter of a Chinese immigrant from Shantou and his Khmer wife,[7] while Chea had separately quoted that Liv was half-Chinese and Peanh was of full Khmer extraction during a trial proceeding in December 2011.[8] As a child, Nuon Chea was raised in both Chinese and Khmer customs. The family prayed at a Theravada Buddhist temple, but observed Chinese religious customs during the Lunar New Year and Qingming festival. Nuon Chea started school at seven, and was educated in Thai, French and Khmer.[7]

In the 1940s, Nuon Chea studied at Thammasat University in Bangkok and worked part-time for the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He began his political activities in the Communist Party of Siam in Bangkok.[9] He was elected Deputy General Secretary of the Workers Party of Kampuchea (later renamed as the Communist Party of Kampuchea) in September 1960.[10] In Democratic Kampuchea, he was generally known as "Brother Number Two." Unlike most of the leaders of Khmer Rouge, Chea did not study in Paris.

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 Lon Nol's government: "In April–May 1970, many North Vietnamese forces entered Cambodia in response to the call for help addressed to Vietnam not by Pol Pot, but by his deputy Nuon Chea. Nguyen Co Thach recalls: "Nuon Chea has asked for help and we have liberated five provinces of Cambodia in ten days." In 1970, in fact, Vietnamese forces occupied almost a quarter of the territory of Cambodia, and the zone of communist control grew several times, as power in the so-called liberated regions was given to the CPK [Khmer Rouge]. At that time relations between Pol Pot and the North Vietnamese leaders were especially warm."[11] The North Vietnamese trusted Nuon Chea more than Pol Pot or Ieng Sary, although he "consistently and consciously deceived the Vietnamese principals concerning the real plans of the Khmer leadership." As a result, "Hanoi did not undertake any action to change the power pattern within the top ranks of the Communist Party to their own benefit."[11]

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.[12] 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"?"[11] 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.

In December 1998 Chea surrendered as part of the last remnants of Khmer Rouge resistance which was based in Pailin near the Thailand border.[13] The government under Prime Minister Hun Sen, himself a former member of the Khmer Rouge, agreed to forsake attempts to prosecute Chea, a decision that was condemned by the international community.[14]

Arrest and trial

Chea on trial at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, 5 December 2011

On 19 September 2007, Nuon 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.[15] He has since been held in detention.

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.[16]

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."[17]

On 7 August 2014, the court convicted Chea of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to imprisonment for the remainder of his life.[6] His lawyer immediately announced that Chea would appeal his conviction.[18] Chea faces a separate trial for the crime of genocide in the same court.[19]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 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.
  2. ↑ Top Khmer Rouge leader arrested in Cambodia
  3. ↑ "ជនជាប់ចោទ នួន ជា និង ខៀវ សំផន ក៏ទទួលទេវតាឆ្នាំថ្មីដែរ" (in Khmer). Radio France Internationale. 16 April 2014. Retrieved 17 April 2014.
  4. ↑ "NUON Chea". Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Retrieved 17 April 2014.
  5. ↑ รู้หรือไม่? "นวน เจีย" จำเลยฆ่าล้างเผ่าพันธุ์ชาวเขมร เคยเรียนมหาวิทยาลัยใดในเมืองไทย. Matichon (in Thai). 8 July 2014. Retrieved 2014-08-15.
  6. 1 2 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.
  7. 1 2 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, Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies (Waseda University) No. 12 (March 2009), retrieved 29 October 2013
  8. ↑ 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
  9. ↑ 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.
  10. ↑ 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.
  11. 1 2 3 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
  12. ↑ Susan E. Cook, Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda: new perspectives, Transaction Publishers, 2005, page 62
  13. ↑ "Khmer Rouge leaders surrender". BBC News. 26 December 1998. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
  14. ↑ Mydans, Seth (29 December 1998). "Cambodian leader resists punishing top Khmere Rouge". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 27 January 2011. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
  15. ↑ "Top former Khmer Rouge leader arrested in Cambodia". International Herald Tribune. Associated Press. 18 September 2007. Archived from the original on 1 October 2007.
  16. ↑ "Former Khmer Rouge foreign minister, detained for trial, taken to hospital". International New York Times/HighBeam Research. Associated Press. 4 February 2008. Archived from the original on 10 August 2014. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
  17. ↑ "Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea expresses 'remorse'". BBC News. 31 May 2013. Archived from the original on 27 April 2014.
  18. ↑ "Cambodian court sentences two former Khmer Rouge leaders to life term". BBC News Online (The Cambodia News.Net). Retrieved 8 August 2014.
  19. ↑ "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.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nuon Chea.
Political offices
Preceded by
Pol Pot		 Prime Minister of Cambodia
1976 		Succeeded by
Pol Pot
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, March 25, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.