Word: khieu
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Cambodian people that he and other foreigners left behind is an agonizingly unanswerable question. The makeup of the new government is not yet clear, and the danger of factional fighting appears great. A fortnight ago, the Khmer Rouge leadership reportedly held a "national congress" in Phnom-Penh, with Khieu Samphan, the military commander and Deputy Premier, in attendance. Few Khmer Rouge leaders have publicly mentioned Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Though he remains the titular head of the new government, it is hard to imagine the temperamental but still popular prince fitting easily into the present company in Phnom-Penh...
...rare public statements by a Khmer Rouge leader came from Khieu Samphan, commander of the rebel army and one of the insurgents' top political leaders. In a broadcast carried by Phnom-Penh radio, Samphan warned that the country was "still facing a big menace." He did not elaborate, but an earlier broadcast indicated that troops loyal to the former government were holding out in remote provinces...
...next evening, after telling his family that he was going for a stroll, Khieu disappeared, fading into the jungle and joining the fledgling Khmer Rouge. Now, the head of a victorious army, Samphan can return to Phnom-Penh master of all Cambodia...
Cambodia's conquerors are as shrouded in mystery as the jungles in which they operated for so long. Western experts have not even been able to determine whether the movement is basically Cambodian nationalist, Cambodian Marxist or doctrinaire Communist. What is already clear, however, is that Khieu Samphan, 43, will probably wield the most power in the new regime. During the war he was Deputy Premier to Prince Norodom Sihanouk as well as Minister of Defense and commander in chief of the Khmer Rouge fighting forces. TIME'S Stephen Heder interviewed Samphan's younger brother Khieu Seng...
Three years after Samphan returned to Cambodia in 1959, Sihanouk appointed him Under Secretary of State for Commerce. Samphan's reason for accepting, according to younger brother Khieu Seng Kim: "From the Cabinet, he felt he could protect his leftist group." Samphan soon found himself courted by wealthy businessmen. The brother recalls: "One day a Sino-Khmer merchant came to our house with a package for him. It was full of money. Later at dinner, he said that 'if you take money from the capitalists, you have to work for them. Then you're a traitor...