Word: samphan
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...perhaps as its representative abroad, though he has indicated that what he would really like is to be named lifetime head of state. Whatever the role, he said, he would advocate a Cambodia that would be nonaligned, progressive and nonCommunist. That would surely bring him into conflict with Khieu Samphan, who would surprise nobody by keeping Sihanouk in a figurehead role for a decent interval and then dumping...
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...
...Samphan's radicalism dates from his days on a government scholarship at the University of Paris. Then in his early 20s and earning a doctorate in economics, he joined a group of Cambodian leftists led by Hou Youn (who might also play a key role in the new regime...
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...
True. In 1963, Sihanouk blamed Samphan for the rising cost of consumer goods. Samphan resigned, but remained in the National Assembly for four more years and also taught at the new Faculty of Law. As his popularity soared, he became a hero to the young intellectuals opposing the corruption of the existing government. In early 1967, Sihanouk accused Samphan and two leftist colleagues of being Communist agents and starting peasant unrest. "There are those who want me to kill these three men," the Prince declared. "But I won't do it. I'll let them kill themselves...