Word: samphan
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Undone by Popularity. Sihanouk's "Deputy Premier" and commander-in-chief of the Khmer Rouge fighting forces is Khieu Samphan, 43; he is the most prominent figure in the movement. Born in Cambodia's Svay Rieng province, Samphan studied from 1954-59 in France, where he earned a doctorate in economics at the University of Paris. In 1962, after Sihanouk brought him into the government as Secretary of State for Commerce, Samphan became a hero to young Cambodian intellectuals who opposed the corruption of the existing government. He drove to work on a motorbike and after long hours...
...been living in Peking since 1970, is the nominal head of the insurgents, although little is known about the rebels' real leaders. It is assumed that the heads of several factions (such as the nationalists and the doctrinaire Communists) are rivals for power. One leader is Khieu Samphan, a French-educated economist in his 40s, who is the deputy premier of the Khmer Rouge shadow government and commander in chief of its army...
Real power seems to lie in the hands of Khieu Samphan, Deputy Premier of the shadow government and commander in chief of the 60,000-man Khmer Rouge armed forces. Once a member of Sihanouk's government, he is one of the three former ministers-sometimes known as the "three ghosts"-whom Sihanouk was supposed to have ordered killed in 1970. As it happens, the two other "ghosts" are also active in the shadow cabinet, Hu Nim as Information Minister and Hou Youn as Minister of the Interior...
Since the Peking summit of 1972, Chinese leaders have notably muted their anti-American diatribes. But at a banquet last week for General Khieu Samphan, commander of the insurgent Communist forces in Cambodia, Premier Chou En-lai lashed out at the U.S. for having "brazenly made a massive invasion into Cambodia." In an oblique reference to Richard Nixon, Chou contemptuously dismissed the President's oft-stated goals for détente with the comment: "The revolutionary people do not all believe in a so-called lasting peace' or a 'generation of peace.' So long as imperialism...
Despite Hanoi's powerful military hand, Sihanouk is at least the titular political leader of the K.I. Also increasingly prominent in the movement is an elusive trio known as "the Three Phantoms": Hou Youn, Hu Nim and Khieu Samphan, all members of the Assembly, who dropped from sight in 1967 and were later reported to be ministers in Sihanouk's government-in-exile. Their names frequently appear on documents and in radio broadcasts; in a recent interview with TIME, Sihanouk said that Khieu Samphan is his Premier and head of government. There is some doubt among Western intelligence...