Word: samphan
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...many of the Khmer rebels. But last week the past was officially forgotten-at least temporarily. After more than five years of exile in China, Sihanouk and his wife, Princess Monique, made a triumphal return to Phnom-Penh. Traveling from Peking with the royal family was Deputy Premier Khieu Samphan, who is believed to be the real power in the new Cambodian regime...
...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...
...Samphan also may have been referring to the problem of feeding an estimated 1.3 million refugees who were still believed to be crowding the capital. Asked an expert in Bangkok: "How can the 60,000 Khmer Rouge troops handle the 2 million people packed into Phnom-Penh...
...week's end the new leaders began a three-day victory celebration and a week of mourning for those killed in the war. But no solid clues were forthcoming about future plans or policies. About all that filtered through the curtain was a statement by Samphan in his radio address that "we will be neutral and nonaligned." Yet Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge's figurehead leader, said in Peking that within a year or two most of Southeast Asia would be Communist or proCommunist, and that one of the Khmer Rouge's first tasks must...